The unforgettable life lesson basketball player Shaquille O’Neal learned from his father

With a nostalgic air, the former player of NBA , Shaquille O’Neal shared one of the most personal anecdotes of his life . I was chatting with Upsomedia when the interviewer asked him a question that touched him.

“You have a weakness for the homeless… How did that happen?” I ask him.

That’s when the former basketball player decided to tell his story the day when your father his adoptive, Phillip A. Harrison, gave him an unforgettable life lesson.

He had a “terrible” game against the New York Knicks and it made him feel absolute pressure. His father called him, told him to go home and when he arrived, a conversation was waiting for him that changed him forever.

“I went home. We landed late,” the former player began to say. When he arrived home, his father greeted him and told him he had to wake up at 5 a.m.

Shaquille didn’t understand why he wanted to leave so soon. Anyway, He woke up at the appointed time and got into the car with his father.

“If my dad doesn’t talk, you don’t talk to him. You never talk to him until he does. I said something and he was like, ‘What?’ He got mad and he told me that? Couldn’t you handle the pressure?’

In the car, They arrived under a bridge where a homeless family was sleeping. “They were sleeping in a small tent. We sat down to wait. 5am… 5:30am… 6am. At 6:30 p.m., a guy comes out and my dad says to me, ‘that’s pressure’.”

The image they both saw was devastating. Shortly after, a woman came out with two babies and the basketball player’s father broke the silence again.

“It’s pressure. Not knowing where and when your next meal is coming from. You rich athletes think you understand pressure, but you have no idea. Even on a bad day at work, they still get paid. “It’s pressure.”

After finishing telling the anecdote, the basketball player looked at the interviewer again and said: “The pressure is not about failing in a match. The pressure is to fight to survive day after day.