Made to Stick: The Power of Stories

Leaders have great stories. We value and admire leaders as leadership drives both the performance and perception of organizations. While managers organize and execute in complex situations, leaders are both problem solvers and agents for change.  

Stories change history. The origin of today's NBA "Superteams" doesn't begin with LeBron James bringing his talents to South Beach. Baseball all-star Curt Flood challenged its "reserve clause" that restricted player movement and ultimately constrained player salaries. Flood's rejection of a trade to Philadelphia and subsequent January 1970 lawsuit set the stage for elimination of the reserve clause and the labor movement within both Major League Baseball and subsequently all major sports. 

How do we direct and refine our storytelling, to move beyond "making our point" to changing hearts and minds? 

Jim Collins' Good to Great examined corporate greatness, including Level 5 leadership as one his five core dimensions. The leaders' stories blended humility and ambition, which he initially called "fierce resolve." In the NBA, leaders depend heavily on player and team "buy in," the story that requires ability (teaching, system development, and motivation) and the humility to understand that the players drive the bus and are the product. 

We articulate our message using techniques shared in the Heath Brothers classic Made to Stick. Chip and Dan Heath cite the acronym SUCCESs (simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, story). Memorable stories rivet our attention and capture our imaginations. The best teams, coaches, and players write the best narratives. 

Vince Lombardi was the hard-nosed Italian-American underdog who believed the system prevented him from getting coaching opportunity. He seized it when it came with the Green Bay Packers and built a dynasty, selecting players for their toughness, ability, and 'chip on their shoulder' attitude. 

He never had a losing season in the NFL, winning five championships in a program built on simplicity and execution. He rejected the NFL's racism and called players "Packer green." One of his themes was "Nothing But Acceptance," setting a standard that players who mistreated teammates would be off the team. That applied to racism, interracial relationships, and harassing gay players or front office personnel. He informed local businesses that any that refused one of his players was off limits to his team. 

Trustworthiness of the storyteller also matters. A non-credible person seldom can represent an authentic story. We know from the TED Talk experience that additional key components include the "wow factor" and humor, especially self-effacing comments. 

Isiah Thomas became a perennial all-star in the NBA. In addition to a pair of NBA titles, he was also misunderstood for a brief perceptual feud with Larry Bird. Some had suggested that Bird was a self-made superstar and somehow that Thomas had a gifted experience. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thomas grew up in hardscrabble poverty, in a single-parent family. He often went hungry, with an itinerant childhood looking for change or scraps of food on Chicago streets. His early dreams were not of stardom but a full refrigerator. In The Fundamentals: Eight Plays for Winning the Games of Business and Life, he wrote, "My earliest dreams were not-as you might imagine-fantasies of playing professional basketball…. My boyhood dreams were mostly about well-stocked refrigerators: huge refrigerators that were bursting at the hinges with mouth-watering roast chickens, heaping plates of spaghetti, and thick juicy steaks." 

Conversely, Bill Bradley was the rare 'rich kid' who flourished at the highest levels. He recognized that he had limited innate athleticism, and developed a program of training at age 12, three hours daily on weekdays and eight hours on Saturday, honing his vision, decision-making, ball-handling, and shooting skills. He helped lead Princeton, the Ivy League champion, to the Final Four (setting a scoring record in the consolation game), and became a champion on the Knicks. He earned a Rhodes Scholarship, became a US Senator from New Jersey, and ran for President, ultimately knocked out of the race by a bitter defeat in New Hampshire. 

Each or our narratives will likely never reach the heights of Lombardi, Thomas, or Bradley, but we can still impact our players and community. Communicate better, inspire, and become an agent for change. 

Executive Book Summary of MADE TO STICK from Anjali Mehta

Good Biases

Google defines bias as "prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair." All bias is not bad. We have everyday biases about risk and safety, work versus recreation, saving and spending, and potential relative to past performance. 

What "good bias" informs our better versions? 

Solution Bias 

Leaders find solutions not problems. Why would someone dwell on problems, if they found solutions? If we don't get the promotion, the position, or the opportunity we want, how do we respond? Successful individuals and teams "figure it out." 

Accountability Bias 

Accountability means to adhere to a high standard. The opposite is often 'attribution bias,' blaming outcomes on external factors - weather, officiating, administrative issues, unfair conditions. We can improve our accountability (and results) through better planning, preparation, and training. 

Optimism Bias 

Weisinger and Pawliw-Fry discuss the value of optimism in Performing Under Pressure. Their four tenets to immunize ourselves against pressure are their "COTE of arms," CONFIDENCE, OPTIMISM, TENACITY, and ENTHUSIASM. 



President Reagan told the story of a child who goes out to the back yard on Christmas and finds a pile of horse manure. She grabs a shovel and starts digging furiously, "I know there's a pony in there somewhere." 

Optimism correlates with better health outcomes. Optimism reduces anxiety and depression. Optimism may slow atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and prolong survival with cancer. Optimism improves quality of life. Oprah's quote, "you don't always get what you want, you get what you believe," has substantive truth. 

Abraham Lincoln described an optimist as "finding opportunity in every difficulty." Martin Seligman has represented the 'optimism' school in psychology. Studies have shown optimistic teams win more. Seligman reported more underachievement and feelings of helplessness in pessimists. Seligman emphasized factors of personalization (individual control of results), permanence (resilience after adversity), and pervasiveness (consistency of belief, as in personal fortitude) across life events and disciplines. We create our belief systems. 

Our internal voices tell us "I can recover from this" and "setbacks happen to everyone" or we accept defeat. I say, "we choose whether to be upbeat or beat up." 

The Genius of Steve Kerr

We can learn from the best. This article on Steve Kerr shares pure genius. Here are some annotated excerpts: 

Good guys can get great results.

When I ask his peers if they’ve ever met someone who doesn’t like Kerr, they profess to be stumped, though Ron Adams, the Warriors’ philosophically-inclined assistant, says, “But wouldn’t it be interesting to find someone who did?”

The players are the show. 

The moment the players see you making it about you, not the team—when the coach gets the endorsements and poses for magazine covers and hosts a radio show—you lose them.

It's not what you know but how you treat people.

"The people to me who are the most powerful leaders are the ones who have great talent in whatever their field is, great conviction in their ability to teach it and act it, but an awareness and a humility and compassion for others.”

Value your people.

‘Does he really care or is he just making sure I feel valued?” In the end, U’Ren has decided, maybe it’s irrelevant.

Everyone is different (a mantra from Ray Dalio's "Principles")

"He has this feel for exactly what each player needs."

He gets it.

Take his commencement speech at the University of Arizona, in 2004. The terms that figure most prominently include team, family, coach, cultural differences, opportunity, kids, and understanding.

Be yourself if it's good enough.

Your approach has to reflect your identity. “Give me one of your core values," Carroll said to Kerr.

Kerr thought for a moment. “Joy.”


"OK, joy,” said Carroll. “That has to be reflected in your practices every day.”

Ticker shock. What makes Kerr tick?

By the way, the four core values Kerr came up with in 2014, the ones he still writes on the whiteboard occasionally? Joy, Competition, Compassion, and Mindfulness.

Beating makes a dead horse.

“The older you get the more you realize you can be great technically—but people have to be ...cultivated mentally, emotionally, because things have got to be enjoyable, especially in sports, because you’re criticized all the time.”

Culture wins..."Fight for your culture every day."  

"So he built a culture to where, one man down, the next man has to step up. And it’s not just on him, it’s on everybody to come together and empower that next man..."

Simple not easy. 

You want to lead like Kerr? It’s easy. Just be humble and grateful, curious and self-aware. Communicate, value family, and empower others.

543.7 A Story of Persistence

A true story about persistence, cross-posted from my local volleyball site. 

Fast Five: Druckerisms - Coaches as Executives

Peter Drucker shares legendary advice on leadership. We ignore this at our peril. His article is a gold mine. Coaches are leaders, teachers, mentors, models, energizers, judges. 

Here are five annotated nuggets:

1. "To be effective, executives need to follow eight practices: 

 They continually ask: “What needs to get done?” 
 They always ask: “What is right for the enterprise?” 
 They develop action plans 
 They take responsibility for decisions 
 They take responsibility for communicating 
 They focus on opportunities rather than problems 
 They run productive meetings 
 They think and say “we” rather than “I”"

What do we need? How can we communicate and own it? Focus on implementation. Drucker argues for finding key opportunities and matching your best people to them. 

2. "The essence of systematic time management is finding the unproductive, time-wasting activities and getting rid of them. First one must identify and eliminate the things that need not be done at all. To find these time-wasters, one must ask of all activities: “What would happen if this were not done at all?” And if the answer is, “Nothing would happen,” then obviously the conclusion is to stop doing it. The next question is: “Which of the activities could be done by somebody else just as well, if not if not better?”"

Coach Nick Saban says, "clear the clutter." Stop wasting time and delegate better.

3. "Every organization needs performance in three major areas: It needs direct results; building of values and their reaffirmation; and building and developing people for tomorrow. All three areas have to be built into the contribution of every executive."

Culture determines current and future results. 

4. "If there is any one “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives concentrate on one thing at a time. They do the first things first."

Establish priorities. "Plan. Do. Check. Act." We can't know what players know unless we get and give feedback. Details matter. 

5. "The two basic mistakes are to treat a generic situation as if it were a series of unique events and to treat a new event as if it were just another example of the old problem to which, the old rules can be applied."

Over thirty years after the introduction of the 3-Point shot, we see tectonic shifts in its implementation, analysis, offensive reconstruction, and defense. The "old rules" no longer apply. 

ATO Scoring Plays

After time out (ATO) winners provide excitement for fans and marquis opportunity for players. Here are three: Portland, GSW 'Rip' (cross screen/backscreen), and Celtics DHO backscreen. 

The Portland concept emerged from a simple staggered screen. 

Golden State uses a cross screen to set up a backscreen to score. 

Coach Daniel shares some Brad Stevens ATO sets. 

Dribble handoff into backscreen.

Fast Five: Best Advice

What "sticks" in your head? What do you want players to embrace? 

1. "How you play is how you live your life." Disengaged, inattentive, noncompetitive players aren't going to achieve in the marketplace, the classroom, or raising a family. Your play defines you. "Figure it out." Coach Gregg Popovich says, "pound the rock." You have to hit the rock a hundred times to break it. You can't skip steps. 

2. "Do more of what is working and less of what isn't." I've heard or read this from multiple sources, but I'm thinking Michael Mauboussin left the impression. 

Here's a figure from his book More Than You Know. It restates that your process informs a difference. A good outcome from a bad process reflects luck not skill. Improve our process. Don't think you hit a triple because you were born on third base. 

3. "Basketball is a game of mistakes." - Bob Knight    So is life. In basketball and other sports, we want to reduce avoidable mistakes, like turnovers, poor quality shots, bad fouls, mental errors (failing to understand time, situation, and score), and missed assignments. "The ball is gold." Life may not give you a second chance for distracted driving (substance use, texting), failure to study, being ill-prepared for an interview, not dressing for success. "Flip flops are not shoes." 

4. Be here now. The best way to earn respect is to give it. Master eye contact, make an impression. Cultivate your presence, your posture, your being. This isn't a new concept. Carpe diem dates to 23 BC and Horace. "Today is the most important day in your life." Right now. I had a player who wasn't a terrific player, but left an impression. She made better eye contact as a seventh grader than almost every adult whom I have ever met. 

5. Add value to the team. Play for the girls next to you, not your family, school, community, or especially the coach. "Are we building a program or a statue?" Maslow's hierarchy of needs shows that belonging comes before self-fulfillment. 

Define yourself. How you run the pick-and-roll won't determine your life. How you make your choices and roll with adversity will. 

Mind Body Interactions (Slide Presentation)

Mind-body interaction 

Fast Five: Opportunity Off the Bench, the Broken Shoelace

"You can observe a lot by just watching." - Yogi Berra

We can only play five. What responsibilities do "bench players" own? Who notices? Some coaches film the bench to monitor the attitude and engagement. 

First above all, the "bench" should be "in the game." Concentrate to understand the game flow, what both teams are trying to accomplish (e.g. offensive and defensive strategies), what your role could be, study individual matchups, and how the game is being officiated. I was at a volleyball game in 2005, when our local high school was playing Andover, the second rated team in Division 1. Our all-league setter broke a shoelace and the reserve setter entered with no warmup. The team won six of seven points, the set, and ultimately the match, vital points in a 3-2 win.  

Reserve players should support and encourage the players on the court. Bring energy to the game, regardless of your station. 

Substitute players can make or break a team through willing teamwork and challenging the starters for minutes. Coaches see everything - attitude, choices, and effort. When the UCONN women began their practice with a few laps, nobody cut ONE corner. Champions don't cut corners. 

Great attitude begins with elite preparation. Successful players are stretched out, "fired up and ready to go" when practice begins. "Don't cheat the drill." Every rep matters in practice, just as every possession matters during games. 

Be ready. You never know when injury or illness inserts you into a more prominent role. We still remember the story of Lou Gehrig supplanting Wally Pipp as Yankees first baseman in 1925 when Pipp had a headache (actually having been hit in the head). The term being "Wally Pipped" means being replaced by another player. When Steve Kerr was a player, he used to practice "coming off the bench," literally taking practice shots seconds after simulating insertion into the game. 

Even better, expand your role through practice. Every day is your opportunity to listen, learn, and outwork the competition. I remind players, "do more to become more; become more to do more." 


Coach yourself up. Dr. Brett Steenbarger wrote The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist. He shares great interdisciplinary advice, "When you are your own trading coach, you are trying to effect changes in your thoughts, your feelings, and your behavior." But changing habits is work. "The easy part is initiating a change process. The real challenge is sustaining change."

Find a way to add value every day. Become invaluable, not a distraction. Learn the game. Often the best coaches were not elite players. Gregg Popovich was an Air Force intelligence officer. Steve Kerr started thirty games during his NBA career. Lawrence Frank began as a manager under Bob Knight in Indiana. Translate knowledge into performance and performance into opportunity. 

"Nice to Have" or "Need to Have"

We choose between wants and needs. What is "nice to have" and what do we "need to have?" Coach Nick Saban preaches "eliminate the clutter." 

Empathy is not clutter, nor even lagniappe (bonus included). I define empathy as "genuine concern for the feelings of others." DeLores Pressley writes of empathy, "Empathy requires three things: listening, openness and understanding." 

Every NBA coach has extreme basketball knowledge, experience, and competitiveness. But the best, Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr, Brad Stevens have empathy, the capacity to change lives and behavior. 

Popovich discussed Australia's Eddie Mabo Day recognizing indigenous people, appreciating its meaning for Patty Mills. Danny Green explained how Popovich shares worldly wisdom and can put himself in players' shoes. In a global game, the Air Force Academy-educated Popovich encourages a worldview not just basketball. Part of Kerr's empathy means deflecting credit to players. “Everyone who gets into coaching in the NBA knows it’s all about the talent.” Consequently, the players understand that they are the show.

Leaders with both confidence and humility aren't conflicted by empathy. They embrace showing concern for others. Daniel Goleman writes in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership, "People seem to know intuitively that leaders need to manage relationships effectively; a leader's motivation will be useless if he cannot communicate his passion to the organization. Social skill allows leaders to put their emotional intelligence to work." 

The Harvard Business Review shares that becoming powerful often decreases empathy. "It’s more common to see leaders fail in the area of every day self-management — and the use power in a way that is motivated by ego and self-interest." How often do we see leaders "throw their weight around" or choose a dictatorial style, simply because they can? 

Any of us (as in this Fashion Week photo) can fail at empathy. Did Carmelo Anthony fail at empathy in how he viewed his Knick team? Perhaps LeBron James failed by diminishing Kyrie Irving on the Cavaliers. Some said Saban failed at empathy during his Dolphins tenure.  

"Enlightened companies are increasingly aware that delivering empathy for their customers, employees, and the public is a powerful tool for improving profits." But we've seen how United Airlines managed overbooking, governments failed at empathy during national disasters, and society approves empathy failure in health care policy. "It (empathy) is seen as a soft and frilly add-on rather than a core tool."

Impaired self-management means an impaired team, impaired coach, and impaired players.

Kevin Eastman discusses emotional intelligence below. We can't pick and choose among social skills to become our best. 

🎥 @KevinEastman on how winning teams are "clutter free" !

Watch now at https://t.co/YHzdjymIs3 📺 pic.twitter.com/tFRFnEXZM2

— Coaching U (@Coaching_U) August 14, 2017

Fast Five: Mindfulness. The Power of Now.

Fellow students, "tough guys don't meditate." Really? 

"Basketball is eighty percent mental." So why don't we practice working out the mind? 

"Meditation is not easy. It takes time and it takes energy. It also takes grit, determination, and discipline. It requires a host of personal qualities that we normally regard as unpleasant and like to avoid whenever possible. We can sum up all of these qualities in the American word gumption." - Bhante Gunaratana in Mindfulness in Plain English

"People have always doubted whether I was good enough to play this game at this level. I thought I was, and I thought I could be. What other people thought was always irrelevant to me." - Steve Nash

We know Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski for many achievements, but I value his emphasis on "next play." Be here now, in the moment. Your last game, your last shot, your last turnover are over. 

What is our now? Literally, now means being present, fully engaged. In Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why Laurence Gonzales writes, “The maddening thing for someone with a Western scientific turn of mind is that it’s not what’s in your pack that separates the quick from the dead. It’s not even what’s in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it’s what’s in your heart.” We need to be able to edit our thoughts, real-time. 

Meditation is a tool to simplify and clarify NOW. It dampens distractions. It feeds sustainable competitive advantage. The best of the best use it. Why not you?

Gandhi meditated daily. His power and effectiveness flowed from his lack of ego. He served the people, never having an official title, as his authenticity and courage drew others to him. 

This is the most important moment in our life. Today. Now. 

Bonus video:

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Emotional intelligence is how we handle ourselves and how we manage our emotions. Our emotional intelligence determines our effectiveness. "There is a direct correlation between the emotional intelligence of leadership...and how it performs." We all know leaders who are unrealistic about themselves and have unmet emotional needs. 

"Emotional intelligence has to do with self-mastery. It makes outstanding individual performers." 

"Leadership depends on everyone else. It requires empathy and requires skilled interaction (social intelligence)." 

It begins with willing listening.

Goleman discusses behavioral science. It shows that when we succumb to emotion it reduces our capacity to reason and solve problems. Strong emotions flowing from the amygdala can literally shut down our processing centers in the frontal cortex. Anger hijacks judgment. 

He discusses how Southwest Airlines' Herb Kelleher engaged those around him. "Social intelligence is being able to tune into other people...and using that to communicate effectively with them." Strong leaders can "read the room."

"We can change our habits at any point if we're motivated, if we know what to do, and if we have a little help." He describes five elements: 

1. Do you care?
2. Get some feedback. (We're our worst judge.) Anonymity of answers can help. 
3. Identify strengths and weaknesses. Where can I improve? 
4. Make an agreement with ourself to improve at every opportunity.
5. Follow through over months.  

How does this apply to us? 

Improving individual performance requires commitment and time. What is the comfort level of being with another person or group? 

Emotional intelligence needs are not unique to any group. The slide from Practicing Excellence discusses how physician coaches can help to improve underperforming physicians. 

Do we want to be thoughtful, self-correcting, empathetic, and trustworthy or autocratic and dictatorial? Basketball's Steve Kerr lies in the former camp and disgraced Sunbeam executive "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap in the latter. We choose. 

Bonus:

Gordon Hayward fakes action off the cross-screen and scores off the basket cut in last night's Celtics' exhibition. 

Find Your Anchors

Our anchors represent our values, concepts, principles, being. We choose them for personal meaning. They could include BEING, DOING, SHARING, BELONGING, or others. We express them through our actions and our words. We can anchor on love and kindness...learning... service...selfishness or hate. 

I've shared the morning routine, adapted from Tim Ferriss' Tools of Titans. Our routine contains anchors like exercise, mindfulness, reading, and journaling. 

Quotes can anchor us. "We make our habits and our habits make us."

Sommelier Richard Betts has a tattoo, the letter B. "Be kind, be thoughtful, don't be a jerk." 

Individuals use anchors to become their better version. Kevin Durant has an anchor when he awakes, "how do I get better today?" 

Groups use anchors. The All Blacks New Zealand rugby team anchors upon character, "Better people make better All Blacks." The New England Patriots preach, "Do your job." 

Teams use anchors like "know your NOS" or "play fast." 

My Navy Commander's cap had a pair of anchors. Tandem anchoring maximizes holding power.

As a coach, I anchor (not always successfully) on 'the player experience' and adding value. 

Find your anchors. 

Bonus:

We've all seen games won or lost because of the inability to inbound the ball. 

The Minnesota Lynx used a version of this action, a staggered screen becoming an elevator screen to inbound late against the LA Sparks in the WNBA finals. 

Reaching Out

Why write? Who reads? Whom do I want to read? What do readers want? What do I enjoy writing? 

Why write? The teacher learns the most by teaching. Learning accesses our better versions. The unbounded basketball universe offers broad arcs of individual and team development. Education demands critical thinking. Have a point of view and work to impact your audience. I enjoy great prose like The Boys in the Boat, In These Girls Hope Is a Muscle, Deep Survival, anything from David Halberstam. Good writing should please both the reader and the author. 

Whom do I want as readers? I want as broad an audience as the subject warrants. An article on pick-and-roll defense doesn't merit flowery prose or change the world. I want more young people reading (anything), because reading changes us, evolves us. Reading has profound and differing effects on our brains. 

Whom do I want to read? My favorite sports columnist is Christopher Gasper. He blends traditional with newer (analytics) journalism, and embraces controversy and the sport and society interplay. For example he writes about Harry Edwards, the prominent sociologist and Civil Rights leader, "few have done more than Harry Edwards, the renowned sociologist, civil rights activist, and inveterate advocate for the black athlete, to change the way athletes are viewed — not just as one-dimensional performers, but as three-dimensional people with beliefs." 

What do readers want? As a reader, I want truth, authenticity, and content that enlightens me, excites my curiosity. "Is it true" that Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee had a cordial relationship during the Civil War? If so, then why can't certain area colleges ever meet up? Knowing that Steve Kerr's father was an educator in the Middle East (and ultimately a terrorist victim), changes the prism of understanding Kerr. But because I'm not literally selling it's hard to know whether readers are "buying."

What do I enjoy writing? I want to see "both sides of the trade," to move beyond 'confirmation bias' and labels to insight. We know that Team A beat Team B because they scored more points. But why and how? How does the hero transcend ordinary or the villain descend into corruption? When is the rise or descent about values or principles instead of money? How can nice guys finish first and spread that ethos? 

As always, thanks for reading...and thinking. 

Mad Men

It feels appropriate to followup a recent mental health post with one about calculated madness, emotional fuel, and uncontrolled passion. 

We want competitive fury, but athletes need control as well. 




Al Hrabosky had a routine before storming onto the mound to face the hitter. He added long hair and a moustache to authenticate the "Mad Hungarian" routine. In 1975 he won the NL "Fireman of the Year" award, but is best remember for his preparatory antics. 




Jack Lambert played a violent game for the "Steel Curtain" Steelers. Lambert was known for his ferocity on the field although a cerebral bookworm off it.



Dennis Rodman played with an edge, on the edge, with elite rebounding and defensive skill. He was an airport custodian after high school but a growth spurt helped launch his career. But sometimes he went over the edge, like headbutting an official. Was it his personality, mental illness, or something else? We may never know.

Professional athletes suffer from the same spectrum of disorders as the general population. Their manifestations may be more public. 




Grayson Allen has earned a reputation for tripping. One might wonder the type of response or retribution this would receive at the professional level. Its unlikely to be pretty or earn petite suspension. 

Abrams describes anger in athletes in detail. Anger is a normal emotional response. But its consecrated endpoint, aggression, varies from minor to lethal. "It behooves athletes to learn to increase their self-awareness of their emotional state and adjust the volume of their emotions to match the emotional load that a given task requires. Without this, they are prone to mental mistakes that can sabotage peak performance." 

But a separate condition exists, "Hostility Bias" as "people who are frequently hostile tend to have a distorted cognitive set that leads them to be prone to perceiving neutral stimuli as provocative, have difficulty identifying non-hostile explanations for an event, difficulties generating non-violent responses on how to handle a situation, and a legitimization of violence as a manner in which problems should be solved." Think of hostility bias as inherent tendency to overreact to non-threatening stimuli, like someone accidentally bumping into us. 





Sam Walker describes Roy Keane, Manchester United captain as likely having hostility bias in The Captain Class. 




We might struggle to measure intent, but "the usual suspects" have a way of appearing in videos like these - Dwayne Wade, Rodman, Artest/World Peace, and Draymond Green for example. 

There is suggestion that self-control is 'fatigable' and amidst the variable "set point" of self-control, some individuals with and altered threshold for violence may "lose it" under stress.