The Art Of Connectedness: Lessons In Leadership And Relationships With Herb “Flight Time” Lang

Herb Lang, a former Harlem Globetrotter and motivational speaker, joins Juliet Clark to dive into the Art of Connectedness and why kindness is the key to creating meaningful relationships. From inspiring stories of his travels around the world to practical tips on building genuine connections, “Flight Time” shares his journey of turning life experiences into lessons on compassion and growth. He underlines the huge power of small acts of kindness and how they create a lasting impact in today’s fast-paced world. Whether you are a business leader, athlete, or someone seeking a deeper sense of purpose, this episode offers valuable insights that will certainly motivate and empower.

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The Art Of Connectedness: Lessons In Leadership And Relationships With Herb “Flight Time” Lang

We have a special guest, one of the Globetrotters, who I will introduce in a minute. For all of you out there, we all remember the Globetrotters growing up. Everybody went to a game. I probably saw 4 or 5 games at my high school back in the day. That tells you how old I am, too. Before we get started, I want to remind you about our monthly trainings. The one for March 7th is Level Up Your LinkedIn: Build a Magnetic Personal Brand That Attracts Clients in 2025.

It’s going to be hosted by Anthony Jones, who is an amazing expert when it comes to LinkedIn and one of our magazine contributors. You can sign up for that at BAMagTraining.com. Get yourself signed up. It’s a free training just like we offer every month. Our guest is an active speaker, entrepreneur, motivator, and author. Herb “Flight Time” Lang is an eighteen-year former player and coach with the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters.

He is originally from Brinkley, Arkansas, where as a former all-state standout athlete, he graduated at the top of his class while serving as senior class president. Herb later obtained a degree in health and physical education from Centenary College in Louisiana, in Shreveport. During his tenure there, he led the Trans-America Athletic Conference in scoring and won the National Association of Basketball Coaches Slam Dunk Contest.

Throughout his travels to nearly 90 countries while entertaining as Flight Time, some of Herb’s most memorable moments include meeting Pope Francis, President Obama, and appearing on several national television, commercials, and reality shows. Most notably, CBS’s the Amazing Race. He resides in Sacramento, California, where he is the proud father of two, Nicholas and Raya Lang. He continues to make a difference through kindness and life experiences, which he believes are the keys to maximizing what we get out of living. He is a true believer that we are all rich with love and kindness.

For more information, you can reach him at HerbLang.com, and he’ll share a couple of other ways to reach him as well. I’m excited to have him here, even though his book is a little bit older and we didn’t publish it. Typically, we talk to people who we publish. His message of kindness is big. Stay tuned as we talk to Herb Lang.

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Herb, welcome. It’s nice to have you.

Thank you so much, Juliet, for allowing me to be in your space and sharing on your podcast. I’m grateful for the opportunity.

You’re welcome. You’ve been to so many places. Tell us a little bit about your story, where you’ve been, and how that’s impacted where you are.

For those who don’t know me, which is probably many people here that are reading, my name is Herb “Flight Time” Lang. The nickname Flight Time comes from my eighteen years of traveling around the world with the Harlem Globetrotters. I’m from a small town in Arkansas called Brinkley. I came from humble beginnings, but through the art of kindness, connecting, and trying to be the best version of myself, I’ve been lucky to have some tremendous opportunities.

As I mentioned, I was a Harlem Globetrotter. I had a chance to be on numerous television shows in the Price is Right a couple of times and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. Only to name a few. Most notably, many people probably remember me from CBS’s the Amazing Race, which I had an opportunity to be a part of for three seasons. I often joke with people telling them that I lost three times but America loved me that’s why they kept on bringing myself and my partner Big Easy back. It’s been a blessing. It’s been quite the journey. As I tell a lot of people even now, I’m only getting started. I’m just warming up.

I hope I won’t embarrass you, but were you smarter than a fifth grader?

Surprisingly. During the course of that week, we had five of my teammates who are participating in the show. We were raising money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. For me, I raised more money than all of my teammates put together. Four of them raised $20,000, and I was able to raise $25,000. I made it all the way to the end of the show. I decided not to go for the bonus question because I didn’t want to risk losing that $25,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. It was a lot of fun. You can believe that my elementary school and middle school teachers were proud of how well I did on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader.

That’s so cool. I think I’m a little older than you. We just learned such different things when we were in school compared to now. They’re so sophisticated at fifth grade.

Even the way they do math is different. My daughter is in high school now but I remember her being in elementary school and some of the math that they would bring home. I’m thinking, “That’s not the way I learned math. I may need to hire a tutor.” That’s strange coming from a person who graduated high school with honors and thought he was pretty smart and prepared but things change in time. If we’re not able to adapt and advance with the times, we’ll get left behind. I’m big on advancing with the times, innovating, and being open to new ideas.

I remember in third grade. My daughter’s class taught them some new way with their fingers to do multiplication tables. I got out the cards. I was like, “I am not going to have my daughter in a boardroom using her fingers to calculate something.” We circumvented that. I thought it was silly. I could just imagine sitting there, not being able to do it in my head and pulling out my fingers, and looking like an idiot. They do. They learn much differently now than they used to. You have on your T-shirt, “Kindness is for Free.” One of the things you’ve done since leaving basketball is going around and talking about kindness. Can you expand on that? I think the world needs a lot of it.

The Impact Of Kindness Throughout Herb’s Life

For me, kindness has been a pivotal role in my life, adolescence to middle school, to high school, to college, and on to the professional level. When I talk about kindness, it’s very special to me because a lot of the most impactful things that have happened in my life have been because of kindness and people believing in me.

That kindness started with me intentionally trying to be the best version of myself even as a young high school kid. The way that I was able to get a basketball scholarship to my school, Centenary College of Shreveport, Louisiana, was through the kindness of a young man in my hometown and his father. Centenary College had never seen me play basketball before but they knew about my stats.

They knew that I was All-State. They knew that I made the grades and I had qualified to play my first year as a freshman due to my grades. They told the school about me. I was being under-recruited. Without ever seeing me play basketball, I was able to get a basketball scholarship to one of the most prestigious colleges in Louisiana. That was the start of it.

As we progressed even through my college career, I had a pretty good college career. I ended up winning the College Slam Dunk Contest back in 1998 at the Final Four in San Antonio, Texas. There were people that were on the radar who knew me from doing that. During that time, there was something that happened. I’m big on education, and I had one more semester of school left. I decided to go back to school instead of taking offers to go overseas and play professionally in order to complete my degree.

I finished up my degree, which is in Health and Physical Education. I ended up working as a personal trainer for about eight months. During that time, again, kindness showed its face. My friend, a former soccer player at my college, was my roommate at the time. He ended up going to a Harlem Globetrotters game. He came back with such excitement. He had this program with an 800 number in it. He said to me, “I went up to one of the coaches of the Globetrotters.” I asked him, “What do you have to do to become a Globetrotter?”

You can imagine my friend, Alan, he’s a 5’8″ Asian kid. There weren’t many Asians who had played for the Harlem Globetrotters at that time. He quickly let them know about me. When he mentioned my name, they did know who I was from winning the Slam Dunk Contest. I ended up sending some videos in and from what they already knew about me. I got invited to the training camp.

It turned into eighteen years of traveling all around the world. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. During those eighteen years, whenever we would have photo day or press day for the Globetrotters, which would happen once a year, I just remember, in all of the programs, when they would ask me things. I would always mention in the book the importance of kindness. It’s been a pivotal role in my life. It’s about branding, too. That’s something I also learned with the Globetrotters. I’ll wear it on my chest. I traded them a Harlem Globetrotters uniform for a Kindness is Free uniform.

Difference Between The NBA And Harlem Globetrotters

What’s the difference between going into the NBA and the Globetrotters? I’ve been to NBA games, and I’m not a huge basketball fan, I have to admit it. I’ve been to them. They’re okay. I remember the Globetrotters coming to my high school and it was just fun. What is the difference there with training and all of those things?

I’d say the first difference is the salary. They make millions of dollars. We made a decent living. We make a decent salary. To be able to go out, do something that you enjoy, and be able to travel the world is a blessing. I’d say the main difference is some of the places that we get to travel. We get to travel all over the world. The Globetrotters are ambassadors of goodwill. Many of the players that you see early on, probably like in the ’80s and ’90s, the first international basketball that some of these places saw from America. Places like France, Spain, and even South America, were the Harlem Globetrotters.

We have a different form of basketball. Not to say that one is better than the other because once you retire, there’s an association called the National Basketball Retired Players Association. That point, we all become one, NBA, WNBA, Harlem Globetrotters, and ABA. I’d say the main difference is, for me, the ability that I gained to get in front of a group of people and entertain them alone. On the court, there’s a team, which if you’ve been to a Harlem Globetrotters game, there’s a lot of fun things that happen. A lot of slam dunks and a lot of crowd interaction.

I’d say the main thing that stood out to me was being able to travel the world, see how people lived in different parts of the world, and form my own opinions. To be that ambassador of goodwill and come to spread kindness to promote peace. I’d say it’s something that no amount of money could replace. Even since I retired, I still feel so comfortable getting in front of a group of people now that I’m a motivational speaker. I’ve become an author. I’m not sure if these things would have happened if I had just played in the NBA for 5 or 10 years. I was able to play for many years and travel to almost 90 different countries around the world.

That’s what I talk about to young people now. If you have a dream or if you have a vision, if it’s soccer or basketball or it’s becoming a motivational speaker, you have to put the time in. Even as a professional athlete. Maybe you won’t become a professional athlete, but maybe you can find something within that sport as a coach, manager, or an agent. There’s always a way that you can be involved in something that you’re passionate about.

I agree. Do you watch the WNBA?

I’m a sports fan. I watch WNBA, NBA and baseball. A lot of people probably would be surprised that basketball is not my favorite sport. My first love is football. I love football. That was the first sport that I played and an organized. As I got a little bit older into high school and a little bit taller, I decided that I wanted to take my talents into the gymnasium because down in Arkansas in the summer, those two-a-day practices were a little bit hot for me. Plus, I began to grow, and my leaping ability took off. I made a choice that was best for me. If you fast-forwarded, my son, who’s a Sophomore at Ithaca College. He just completed his second year of playing football up there. I get to watch him and live vicariously through him as a college football player.

I used to live vicariously through my kid’s athletics and be like, “You’re so good. It seems weird that you would because I wasn’t that good.” What do you think of the rivalry between Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark? Everybody makes Angel Reese out to be the bad guy. She is this beautiful Black badass. I don’t know if there’s other way to put it, but they make it out like she’s this mean girl. I look at her and I’m like, she’s got some stuff going on. What do you think of that rivalry?

Growth Of Women’s Sports And The Impact Of Angel Reese And Caitlin Clark

First of all, for me, it’s amazing the way that women’s sports have taken off in the past couple of years. A lot of that certainly has to do with those players and women who came before. Even going back to Billie Jean King way back in the day, to see where women’s sports are now. I think Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reese have had an amazing impact. They are a big reason why the needle has been pushed so far now to where you see a lot of people investing in women’s sports.

When you look at some of these WNBA franchises, the value of these things has improved tremendously, even just over the past couple of years with the arrival of Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reese. There are so many people now who are watching and seeing the value that these women bring not only to sports but to the world.

Their value is now being appreciated. For me, it’s something that means a lot. I’m the oldest of nine kids. I have five sisters. They didn’t particularly play sports but, as a Globetrotter, during my career, I had an opportunity to play with a couple of females. The Globetrotters were one of the first organizations to incorporate women into the team.

To see them have an opportunity to earn a living and not have to particularly go overseas after playing in the WNBA, it’s a blessing. It’s something that the late great Kobe Bryant would be proud of. I’m excited for it. A lot of people that I’ve talked to and I work with in different brands and different partnerships that I have, I always tell them, “Let’s not drop the ball on women’s sports. Let’s give them their due diligence. Let’s give them the attention and the opportunities that they deserve. Let’s try to invest and figure out a way to get them involved in the things that we’re doing as well.”

What I loved about this, though, was we got to see the growing pains. When these franchises came out, we never get to see the growing pains they go through. I liked that we got to see the growth and people getting excited about the game. There was some rivalry and some people didn’t want to move off power structures, but it was still fun to watch that growth. I know how catty girls can get. That was fun, too.

It’s all about evolution. For me, as a retired athlete, it’s about evolution. I mentioned to you that I won the college dunk contest at the Final Four in San Antonio back in 1998. I can remember watching that same slam dunk contest about four years later and seeing how much the athletes had improved. This was something that I also saw during my course of eighteen years with the Globetrotters. I felt like every three to four years, just like 3 to 4 years of college, there was a different type of athlete that came in.

For me, that impacted me because it made me look at things a different way and allowed me to understand the importance of being able to relate, listen, and see where the new generation was coming from. I think that’s a gift that I have and that’s something that makes me relative, relatable, and allows me to be able to go into so many different things. Whether it’s a school, a sports team, a college, or professional. I’m able to go in and relate because I’ve been around so many different groups of athletes over such a long period of time.

It’s a blessing. I tell people, if we don’t evolve and don’t adapt to the things that are happening now, we will become extinct. I’m not trying to become extinct anytime soon. I’m trying to be around as long as I can and bring as much value to as many people as I can with the experiences that I’ve had over my life while I have time to do it.

The Transfer Portal And Its Impact On College Sports

What do you think about the transfer portal? Do you think that’s been a good thing or a bad thing in college sports? I’m watching and I’m watching these people move around and that didn’t used to happen. Do you think it’s been a good thing?

It’s a great thing. The people who are raising all the hell about it are some of those people who haven’t had the chance to go through the process like I have. For me, I had the opportunity to get a full scholarship. I graduated college with zero debt as far as student loans but, at the same time, did that school make money off me? Absolutely. When I talk about no debt, I had a couple of credit cards that I had accumulated during college, but that’s nothing compared to some of the debt that people face when they go out and get student loans.

For me, to be able to see athletes have a good foundation and some of these guys are making a million dollars a year. Some of them are making a couple of thousand dollars a year. If I would have come out of college after four years of school and had $400,000 or $500,000 in my bank account, my life would be a lot different than what it is now. Not to say that my life is bad. My life is good but it would have helped me advance a little bit further and faster. I would have had a little more gratitude and enthusiasm when going to those practices.

It’s great because when you look at it, coaches can leave at the drop of a dime. They recruit these kids and get them to come to their schools. Once that next job comes open, they’re like, peace out. Why not give these kids the same opportunity? We can call it amateur sports as much as we want to but, when you look at some of these top football programs or top basketball programs, that was frowned upon for so many years. “We can’t pay the athletes.” Where’s all the money going? The money has been there. It’s just a matter of sharing it.

I think it’s a great thing and hoping that they can get a little bit of regulation on it. I feel like it’s a great thing for the sport. There’s not going backward now. It’s only going to continue to evolve. As a former athlete, I’m excited for it, for the young men and the young women. I even feel like there should be an opportunity for some of these high school kids to earn a little bit of money because some of these kids may not get scholarships. Some of these kids may be good in high school but maybe there can be something set aside so they can go to college on some of the money that they earn during high school if they don’t turn out to be that top athlete that goes to the professional level or whatnot.

I think so, too. I remember when I was in college, there were some mostly inner-city athletes that got there, and everything was expensive around them. They didn’t have that extra money that some of the other kids had, too. As far as spending money, they’ve got their housing and eat at the cafeteria. As far as getting into some of that college life, they don’t have the funds to do it. It’s got to be tough for them because people don’t think about it when you go to school. It’s not just what you have in front of you. You’re going to different events, meeting new people, and new contacts.

Anyway, you have a new program that you’re working on called the Art of Connectedness. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I’m very much about building relationships. Not just to sell things but I’m from a generation where we didn’t have a cell phone. Mom stood at the top of the hill in our front yard and yelled down the street when we were supposed to come home at night. It’s such a different world with social media. Tell us about your program.

Importance Of Building Relationships And Connectedness

When I go out and speak at different events, I feel like it’s important that you do more than just show up. That’s something that I learned in my years as a Globetrotter. When I go to an event, I want to love on people. I want to make sure that they remember that I was there. I want them to look at me and say, “I would love to introduce him to a friend of mine. I’d love to have him in my network.”

Back in 2019, two years after I retired from the Globetrotters, I remember going down to Southern California to pitch a television show idea to the creator of the Amazing Race. The CFO there knew me from the Amazing Race. I mentioned to him how I wanted to get into public and motivational speaking. He mentioned TED Talks. For me, it was something that I had never heard of before. Once I left that pitch meeting, I began to investigate and listen to these different TED Talks.

That following year, in 2020, I put it on my vision board that I wanted to do a TEDx Talk. As a result of that, in 2022, I connected with a friend who is now a friend. It was a person that I didn’t know at the time. Her name was Amanda Banks. She was getting ready to do a TEDx Talk in Wilmington, Delaware., After a conversation on LinkedIn of about 30 minutes, she connected me with the organizer of that event.

We had a conversation for about fifteen minutes. Within fifteen minutes, he offered me a spot at TEDx Wilmington that had just become open because somebody had backed out of it. As you fast-forward that, Amanda Banks and I ended up doing our TEDx Talk on the same day in Wilmington. She’s big on joy and I am big on kindness. If we fast-forward this into 2024, she is now a TEDx Organizer. I was able to emcee her TEDx event.

I brought twelve new TEDx speakers to the stage at TEDx Old Hickory outside of Nashville. Also, during that same couple of weeks, I was able to go to an event and speak at an event where she was the emcee. Our connection has been something that has grown over the past couple of years and has turned into something to now where we want to do a joint venture. What we’re offering is joint emcee opportunities.

We want to offer the Art of Connectedness to businesses, corporations, and teacher workshops because with her background as a former gymnast and as an organizer, she’s done many of these workshops. We want to combine the sports aspect, tell stories, and go into detail and let some of these corporations and leaders know the importance of connection, the importance of going above and beyond what you’re typically willing to do for the people that are working for you. Also, we want to develop leaders.

We want to develop stars within businesses. We want to inspire people and let them understand that there’s more to life than just going to your job and showing up. We want to be people that are pleasant. We want to be people that are a joy to work with. We even look at people like Gary Vee. Gary Vee talks about how kindness is underestimated in the workplace. For me, I feel like kindness is underestimated not only in the workplace but around the world.

As a person who has traveled around the world, I do understand the importance of it. Everything that I’m involved in to this day is about uniting. It’s about bringing people together. That’s what we’re looking to put together. We’re going to do one-day workshops and half-day workshops on the Art of Connectedness. We’re going to sit down, dig in, and get down to the core of connecting with people.

I love that because people who read my episodes or they’re trying to sell books, products, and services. My personal opinion is when you offer something where people can come and speak to you, you have communication there and you start to trust people. I feel like between social media and some of these other things, you talked about AI earlier, the connectedness is not there.

How am I supposed to trust you if I can’t see that smile on your face? If I don’t feel like you’re making eye contact There’s so much validity in that. I think the people who strive for that are getting much further in this world than those who aren’t. I don’t know if you knew this, you probably do through what you do, but most of the female CEOs in the Fortune 500 companies were former athletes.

I’m not surprised because the thing about athletes is that we’ve proven that we have discipline. We’ve proven that we’re able to work hard and we’re able to work as a team. For myself, I’ve always started at the bottom and worked my way to the top. I started from the back of the room and worked my way to the front of the room.

The reason why I do that is because I want to observe. I want to pay attention to what’s going on around me. I always tell people, “Pay attention. It’s free. It’s like kindness.” Pay attention. It’s free. It doesn’t cost you anything to be observant and look around. For me, being able to see things from that perspective has allowed me to be the person that I am and has allowed me to get in some of those rooms and open up some doors that I otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to.

It’s looking at yourself as a key. This is something that I’ve talk about with different corporations, schools, and colleges that I speak to. You are a KEY. That KEY is an acronym, you get to keep excitement for your success. The way that you evolve over time is when you put those little notches in that KEY. I tell people that I’m that skeleton key. I can get in any door based on my personality, my relationships, and based on the way I’ve shown up for other people.

Look at yourself as a key, the skeleton key, and continue to evolve and try to figure out, what’s it going to take for me to make the biggest impact in this world? I feel like, again, there’s more to life than just showing up. All the experiences that I’ve had in my life, I know that they’re for a reason. Most of those reasons are for me to get on stage, get in front of people and show them that anything is possible. If I was able to do it, a little-bitty kid from small-town Brinkley, Arkansas, whose mother had me at seventeen years old and had six kids by the time she was 25. If I can do it, you can do it.

How To Connect With Herb And Learn More About His Programs

This is crazy. If somebody wanted to get a hold of you because they were interested in that program you mentioned, how would they do that?

My website is IamHerbLang.com. That’s something I’m excited about. People can go on there. They can find my social media links, my Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. Also, if you want some of this merchandise that I have on, I also have a merch store, which if you scroll down to the bottom of my website, you can click on the Swagball link and you can order some Kindness is Free merchandise.

Again, when we talk about the Art of Connectedness and Kindness, the way that I was able to get my eCommerce store, which is by LaunchCard, an up-and-coming eCommerce platform. We like to call it America’s eCommerce store. It’s a brand partnership that I was able to get with them. They believed in me and my mission. What I do is I speak on their behalf and they promote my Kindness is Fee brand. We’re looking to evolve and give more people an opportunity to get their eCommerce stuff up without having to pay high dollars like some of these other eCommerce platforms that are up.

People who want to find out more about me, again, it’s IamHerbLang.com. On that page, you’ll find out a lot. You can also buy some Kindness is Free merchandise. Also, remember, I love getting in front of a group of people. I host basketball clinics and workshops. I speak to groups. I like to consider myself a jack of all trades. I like to consider myself like a Swiss army knife. I can be anything that you need me to be. Talk to me about it and tell me what you need and I can make it happen.

That’s amazing. Herb, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you taking the time out to speak to my audience. I love what you’re doing because, you probably noticed, kindness is not at the top of most people’s lists.

That’s something that we get to change. Before I go, I always like to tell people, “Kindness is free and Herb loves you.”

Thank you.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Herbert Lang on LinkedIn
• Herbert Lang on Facebook
• Herbert Lang on Instagram
• Herbert Lang on YouTube
• BA Mag Training
• I Am Herb Lang
• Harlem Globetrotters
• Anthony Jones on LinkedIn
• Nathaniel “Big Easy” Lofton on LinkedIn
• Make-A-Wish Foundation
• National Basketball Retired Players Association
• Angel Reese on Instagram
• Caitlin Clark on Instagram
• Amanda Banks on LinkedIn
• Gary Vee’s Website

About Herb Lang

An active speaker, entrepreneur, motivator, and author, Herb “Flight Time” Lang is an 18-year former player and coach with the World-Famous Harlem Globetrotters. He is originally from Brinkley, Arkansas, where, as a former All-State Standout athlete, he graduated at the top of his class while serving as senior class president. Herb later obtained a degree in Health and Physical Education from Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport. During his tenure there, he led the Trans-America Athletic Conference in scoring and won the National Association of Basketball Coaches Slam Dunk Contest.

Throughout his travels, to nearly 90 countries while entertaining as “Flight Time,” some of Herb’s most memorable moments include meeting Pope Francis, President Obama, and appearing on numerous national television commercials and reality TV shows—most notably CBS’s “The Amazing Race.” He currently resides in Sacramento, California, where he is the proud father of two, Nicholas and Reya Lang, and continues to make a difference through kindness and his life experiences, which he believes are the keys to maximizing what we get out of living. He is a true believer that we are all rich with love and kindness. For more information, contact Herb at www.herblang.com, LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/themotivationalspeaker), Facebook (www.facebook.com/datrotter4) and Twitter (@datrotter4).