*More Is More: The Power of Repetition and Training

"More is more." Academic excellence, athleticism, and skill improve with deliberate practice.

I congratulated a former player on her all-scholastic selection. Her reply? "Thank you Coach! I’m so glad I have the opportunity to play and get better!"

You want success? Outwork the competition.

Warren Buffett invests half his workday reading. Kevin Eastman reads two hours a day. 

How good is Buffett? If we scale down to the past 25 years, Buffett has outperformed the S&P500 "only" two-and-one-half times. Over the life of his company, it's multiples higher. "$100 invested in Berkshire stock at the end of 1968 would have grown to more than $850k by the end of 2018, while a similar investment in the S&P 500 would have grown to just under $11k." 

When Chuck Daly said, "I'm a salesman," he means that we coaches sell WORK. John Wooden had his EDIR5 - explanation, demonstration, imitation, and repetition times 5. Kobe Bryant took a thousand shots a summer for a hundred days, 100,000 shots. Larry Bird took five hundred free throws before school. Do 5 more. Outwork the competition. 

You may know the Marshmallow Challenge. Build the tallest structure from eighteen pieces of spaghetti and marshmallows in eighteen minutes with a marshmallow on top. Kindergartners outperform MBAs. Why? They focus on prototypes not power struggles. Teams can't lecture our way to outperformance. 

Unleash the power of iteration. Embed the story of the pottery students graded on the quantity of work. "Focusing on creating as many pots as possible without fixating on perfection, the students in the second group were no longer handicapped by the fear of failure. Instead they had the freedom to experiment, make mistakes, iterate, and develop their creativity and intuition — a concept so foreign in our education system." 

Unpack a consistent workout to believe in. 

Or steal one from Steve Nash. 

Summary: 

• More is more.
• Outworking the competition pays.
• We sell WORK. 
• Unleash the power of iteration. 
• Unfold or STEAL a workout. 

Lagniappe. Player development minute...read the defender. "Shoulders game."