CHICAGO–Just how “All In” are you and your credit union? One man who has gone “All In” himself challenged a CU audience here with that question—and it was a challenge he can make now only because of what one credit union did a long time ago.
Gian Paul Gonzalez, who gave up a potential NBA career in order to work with at-risk kids and become a school teacher, told a general session of the combined annual meeting of the CUNA Operations & Members Experience Council and CUNA Technology Council about being “all in” in whatever you do.
Gonzalez teaches in Union City, N.J., which has earned some fame for building its football field on top of the high school due to a lack of space, as can be seen here.
Gonzalez rose to fame after he gave his “all in” remarks to the New York Giants when the team was struggling. The Giants went on to win the rest of their games and the 2012 Super Bowl.
Gonzalez grew up poor even though his father had played cornerback for the Oakland Raiders, left the game after injuries and switched to basketball. At 6’6”, and after winning a national high school basketball championship with his teammates headed to Division I schools, he was offered one college scholarship, to small Division III Montclair State in New Jersey, and went on to score 1,400 points over three seasons with the Red Hawks and was named a first team All-American. In 2007, he was drafted by the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers and assigned to its summer league team with a potential pro career ahead of him.
And then he gave it all up—with everything changing in 2012 when the Giants called and he gave his inspirational remarks. “If you had asked me then how I thought I did, I would have said I failed,” Gonzalez told the meeting.
“When I spoke to (the Giants) I asked just one question: what does it mean to be committed? I said let’s use a poker analogy where you push all your chips in. What does that mean? It means you're All In. If you would never do it in the game of poker, why do we do I in our lives? I had them take that chip and sign it and when they saw it ask themselves if they were really doing their best.”
Today, Gonzalez keeps his chip on the desk in his classroom.
Gonzalez has since gone on to speak to numerous organizations, teams, the military and others, and is a frequent speaker, including having previously spoken to CUNA’s GAC.
“All In is a personal choice that each one of us makes every single day,” he said. “Nobody can do it for us. It’s committing and giving everything. But we know that kind of commitment is a scary proposition. It provokes fear. I see the same fear in the eyes of my students every day. I would ask them, ‘What’s going on?’ And one explained something to me that struck a chord. He said, ‘Mr. Gonzalez if I stay up all night studying and don’t do well, I’m a failure. But if I don’t try, it’s not an indictment.’”
Teacher Makes a Difference
Gonzalez said it was a high school teacher named Mr. Phillips who made a great difference in his life. “He waited for me after school one day. He told me I was doing fine in class. But he said, ‘I noticed you skip school after you lose a game. I think you’re so scared to lose you might never win.'”
“The test of being All In isn’t whether you win,” Gonzalez explained. “You only know if you’re All In after a loss, or a down month, or quarter or year. Do people still show up early and stay late? It’s a true test of commitment. Most people will be committed as long as it’s convenient. But will you be committed when it’s inconvenient? Only one thing keeps you down when doing a push up and that’s your own body weight. Yes, regulations can make things difficult, but at the end of the day our biggest enemy can be what we see in the mirror. We are the biggest reason we don’t go All In.”
The Role of One Credit Union
All of his accomplishments, Gonzalez said, would not have occurred were it not for a credit union.
“My mom was a youth leader at our church. She made just $75 a week,” he said. “We had a homicide happen right in front of us and she wanted to get us out of out of that area. No other financial institution would give us a shot. But there was one financial institution that did. It was a credit union that said we can work that out. I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for you.”
A fuller version of Gonzalez’s remarks can be found here.