"They create rules that they've crafted for themselves."
Ask better questions of ourselves. After games, work, and trading sessions, I'm asking four questions:
-What went well?
-What went badly?
-How can I change for the better?
-What are the enduring lessons from this activity?
Model excellence.
There is always potential for improvement. How do we find it?
Emphasis and priorities can sometimes conflict. Offensively, I preach SPACING, CUTTING, SCREENING, and PASSING. We play more four on four half court for emphasis. That's better, but our containment of the dribbler has worsened. Have I robbed Peter to pay Paul?
Consider your total game. Scoring more while being beaten off the dribble, by front cuts, and on the boards means your assets fall short of your liabilities.
Do you have a mental picture of what you want to become as a person, a student, and a player? You should. And then ask, "what must I do to become closer to that image?"
What is 'the paradox' of dreams? Those we experience while sleeping aren't under our control. But we edit our waking dreams, our hopes and aspirations, by our actions. If our habits don't synchronize with our goals, we cannot succeed.
What's on your book queue? Forty percent of Americans never read a book. How can we sell our players about learning and store learning on the shelf? One priority for today is finishing The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis' (Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, Liar's Poker) best work, the story of the friendship and contributions of Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky. These Israeli psychologists changed the world.
Self-control and self-indulgence go hand in glove. Last night Eric Rowe got a personal foul in the Patriots-Texans game that turned into three points for Houston. Physical mistakes will always happen. We can erase mental mistakes by CARE - concentration, anticipation, reaction, and execution.
Because eighty percent of the game is mental, serious players have to study the game. We get what we accept.
I teach players "if you can't do it in two dribbles, don't do it." You've heard the adage, "good players need two dribbles, excellent players need one, and elite players don't have to dribble."
Bill Belichick gets a lot of ink as 'the best coach' in history. I can think of some others in the conversation - Geno Auriemma, Anson Dorrance, Jack Clark.