A Dozen Pillars of Winning Basketball and Life Advice

What marks leave enduring value? Five plus decades of basketball leave scars - crooked fingers, knee surgeries, and painful losses. 

What specific lessons translate? 

1. The basketball court informs who we are. How we prepare, communicate, and play speaks to others. Selfishness, sloth, and softness or teamwork, energy, and toughness shine. Our basketball DNA reflects how we live. 

2. "Mentoring is the only shortcut to excellence." John Donne's poem informs:

No Man is an Island'

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

Don't fall into the trap of the 'self-made man'. Coaches are wired to help. Many basketball sites share practical, thoughtful advice. We become the aggregate of lessons learned. 

Team sport is the collective battle for space, time, and winning the scoring chance.

3. "Be here now." Win this possession. Make this play. Play present. We never know which play will decide outcomes. Two missed free throws five seconds into a game count the same toward the score as two at the end, although we see them differently. Mindfulness training helps develop focus.  

4. "Speak up." Ask better questions. Put space and time between hearing and responding. Listen and ask, "why, what's next, and does this make sense?" 

5. Share credit. People are not stupid. Big achievements in life are collaborative; distrust Night at the Opera (me-me-me) attitudes. Failure to share credit hurts public perception of our honesty and achievement. Jonas Salk suffered from not sharing credit for the polio vaccine. "Jonas Salk’s moment of taking sole credit haunted him for the rest of his career. He launched the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where hundreds of researchers continue to push the envelope of humanitarian science today. But Salk’s own productivity waned—later in his career, he tried unsuccessfully to develop an AIDS vaccine—and he was shunned by his colleagues. He never won a Nobel Prize, and he was never elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences."

Give credit to teammates, coaches, and supporters. 

6. Live gratitude not grievance. Joy and gratitude populate the same neighborhood. Take advantage of 'ripple effects' of thankfulness and selflessness. 

7. Be positive. Believe. Inspiration leads to perspiration. "You can do this." Remember the people and coaches who changed us. Science favors positivity. 

Make the whole exceed the sum of the parts. 

8. "Speak greatness." Tone and words matter. "You did well BUT" and "You did well AND" are light years apart.

9. "Read, read, read." The differences between who we are today and whom we become in five years are the people we meet and the books we read. Become a learn-it-all. Read critically. Better to reread one great book than to read ten poor ones. I'm rereading Dr. Fergus Connolly's Game Changer: The Art of Sports Science. Read and reread James Kerr's Legacy. 

“Champions do extra. They sweep the sheds. They follow the spearhead. They keep a blue head. They are good ancestors. In Legacy, best-selling author James Kerr goes deep into the heart of the world’s most successful sporting team, the legendary All Blacks of New Zealand, to reveal 15 powerful and practical lessons for leadership and business. Legacy is a unique, inspiring handbook for leaders in all fields, and asks: What are the secrets of success – sustained success? How do you achieve world-class standards, day after day, week after week, year after year? How do you handle pressure? How do you train to win at the highest level? What do you leave behind you after you’re gone? What will be your legacy?”

10. Build physical and mental skills. "Every day is player development day." That doesn't dismiss psychology or tactical excellence. All the tactics in the world fail without skill. As Coach Gregg Popovich preaches, "technique beats tactics." As coaches and players, what are we doing today to improve? Remember the Chinese proverb, "talk doesn't cook rice."

11. Results blend skill and luck. Belief in destiny fails every day. Get the odds in our favor. Better decisions and better shots get better results. 

12. "I believe in you." Pat Riley says, "catch people in the act of doing something right." Find reasons to share authentic praise. Coach used to talk of "running through walls" because self-motivation leads to achievement. We can never be better than our belief in ourselves. 

Lagniappe. Find more ways to score with cutting and passing. It doesn't mean our current approach is obsolete, but shows that other ways work, too.