![\"Yao](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/bd77710d-11db-46c0-ad09-39cef2c9b616_71369795.jpg\" "\\"Yao")
Yao Ming (right) speaks at HSBC Life\u2019s Legacy Continuum Summit 2026. Photo: Handout<\/p>\nSince retiring from the NBA in 2011, Yao Ming has spent the past decade building a life beyond basketball. In 2008, the former Houston Rockets star founded the Yao Foundation, a non-profit focused on expanding access to education and improving health outcomes for young people across China. Nearly two decades on, its reach continues to grow \u2013 most recently through a 2025 partnership with the Hong Kong Jockey Club aimed at developing youth basketball and grassroots sport.<\/p>\n
Yao\u2019s most recent appearance in Hong Kong was as a guest speaker at HSBC Life\u2019s Legacy Continuum Summit, held at the Rosewood Hong Kong on June 23. The invite-only gathering brought together global wealth leaders and industry insiders, with four panels fostering discussions on wealth preservation, health resilience and legacy planning,<\/p>\n
Yao Ming (right) speaks at HSBC Life\u2019s Legacy Continuum Summit 2026. Photo: Handout<\/p>\n
Style caught up with Yao Ming on the day of the event to discuss legacy, life lessons and learning from younger generations.<\/p>\n
From basketball to business and philanthropy, you\u2019ve made huge career shifts. How has your thinking around \u201clegacy\u201d changed along the way?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s too early to call this a legacy. I think I\u2019m still young for that; I don\u2019t have the experience or the qualifications to use that word yet. But looking at what I\u2019ve done, I feel very fortunate. I\u2019ve had the chance to experience many different countries and cultures through basketball and business. I\u2019ve travelled the world. Not many people get to see so much change in such a short time. I\u2019ve been very lucky.<\/p>\n
This summit is all about passing things on to the next generation. What\u2019s one lesson from your time in sport that you think really stands the test of time?<\/p>\n
Sport is everywhere \u2013 not only on the basketball court or football field. Life is like sport. You are always competing with others or collaborating with colleagues. It\u2019s very similar. So I would say: appreciate what you have today, and learn from every experience and every person you meet. If you can do that, over time you will become much better. Don\u2019t waste any day.<\/p>\n
Appreciate what you have today, and learn from every experience and every person you meet<\/p>\n
A lot of the conversation at this event revolves around wealth and long-term planning. Do you see parallels between managing finances and the discipline of being an athlete?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since retiring from the NBA in 2011, Yao Ming has spent the past decade building a life beyond…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,512,18864,364008,10340,72355,364010,364007,364011,590,364012,65393,588,85,364009,66243,54232],"class_list":["post-763161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-china","tag-discipline","tag-health-resilience","tag-hong-kong","tag-hong-kong-jockey-club","tag-hsbc-life","tag-legacy-continuum-summit","tag-legacy-planning","tag-nba","tag-rosewood-hong-kong","tag-social-impact","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-wealth-preservation","tag-yao-foundation","tag-yao-ming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}