Saturday, August 27, 2022

"Win the Morning, Win the Day" with a Better Routine

Have a "Go to" routine to get going in the morning. Find what works for you. Make your list and then refine. As our job is player development, share winning habits with players. How am I going to be better today? 

Select great habits. PICK, STICK, and CHECK. As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits writes, "don't miss twice." 

Here are considerations; mine are highlighted. We can't do everything. 

Wordle, a wake up free game on the New York Times site. It activates the mind, gets you off to a mental fast start and only takes a couple of minutes. 

MasterClass, educational video, subscription. Currently, I'm working through Richard Branson's class on Entrepreneurship and the Madeleine Albright/Condi Rice class on Diplomacy. There are over 150 classes including sports-related classes from Steph Curry, Geno Auriemma, Wayne Gretzky, Serena Williams, Simone Biles, Tony Hawk, Lewis Hamilton, and more. Professors take us 'under the hood' and include former Presidents Bush and Clinton, a Nobel Laureate, and celebrated directors and authors like Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Malcolm Gladwell, James Patterson, and Bob Woodward. 

Gretzky shares that even he didn't always have success. As a six year-old, he only scored ONE goal that season. But his teammates were eleven...

Cardio, weights, and/or stretching 

Reading. Currently I'm reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me with David Baldacci's The Target in the queue. Reading 30 minutes daily is not a big ask. Here's a sample of Coates:

"I came to see the streets and the schools as arms of the same beast. One enjoyed the official power of the state while the other enjoyed its implicit sanction. But fear and violence were the weaponry of both. Fail in the streets and the crews would catch you slipping and take your body. Fail in the schools and you would be suspended and sent back to those same streets, where they would take your body." 

Writing/Journaling. I'm approaching 3150 basketball blog posts. The focus centers on applying technical, tactical, physical, and psychological training. Today's piece belongs in the latter.  

General study. Playwright/author David Mamet reminds us to "do one thing for your business and one for your craft every day." 

Video study. As part of my blog posts, I review basketball video every day and usually include video as something extra. 


The best I've seen? Watch the Pitino Clinic. 

Mindfulness/meditation (the UCLA free site is excellent) in over a dozen languages and American Sign Language. Mindfulness improves focus, grades, standardized test scores, lowers blood pressure, and improves mood and sleep. In Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss writes that among highly successful people, about eighty percent have a meditation practice. I should do better. 

Musical instrument practice. Music activates the entire brain. 

Language study. Training may decrease progressive memory loss. 

Gratitude practice. Practicing gratitude increases happiness. It only takes a few moments to identify a few items to be thankful for daily. Gratitude applies and alters a mindset of abundance.

Lagniappe. Trae Young featured in shooting off the dribble. 


Lagniappe 2. BOB STS (Screen-the-screener) Lob. 

Lagniappe 3. REPOST Play with purpose. Don't go through the motions.

   


 

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