New 36-year-old Dallas Mavericks GM Mike Schmitz says that he’s living out his goals right now and has even bigger ones for the future (previously served as the assistant GM of the Portland Trail Blazers).

(via Mavericks General Manager Mike Schmitz Interview with Dana Larson and Mark Followill):

“Honestly, this is something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s been on my mind, on my radar. You write out goals for yourself sometimes. Actually, I wrote out that I wanted to be an assistant GM by age 30 and a GM by age 35. I don’t know when that was. It’s probably in a notebook somewhere. You set those goals, but then you try to develop a process that’ll get you there. And so, I’m very much just a head down just continue to work, trust your work, trust your relationships, treat people well, be elite at what you do, and everything’s gonna work out.

“And so, every once in a while you kinda look around and maybe give a sigh of relief, give yourself a little pat on the back, but I’m pretty focused on the task at hand. And I think that’s been part of what’s allowed me to get to this point, but very much not satisfied with just being here. I want to be one of the best executives in sports. I’m thankful to be able to learn from someone like Masai [Ujiri] and be here with this organization. So yeah, it was on my purview, but the path to get here was maybe a little windier than you would traditionally speak of.”