3 Things That Elite Players Do (And How You Can Do Them As Well) - Podcast Episode 95

Foreign Bastard Training podcast. I appreciate you guys. Apple Podcast, Spotify, Pandora, everywhere else that you guys can listen to my podcast. I don't know all of them, but if you're listening, I appreciate you. And of course everybody who's watching right now on YouTube, drop a, like subscribe if you are new, drop something in the comments for me can be a question, can be just, I don't know, thought you have about the episode or a suggestion for a future episode, which by the way, always appreciate those. Again, I always say it's on my Instagram because I get so many DMs, I get so many comments, so many YouTube comments. I see everything. Like, I read every single thing that comes to me. So whether it's a dm, whether it's a comment on Instagram, whether it's a comment on YouTube, I see everything. And I may not respond to everything. I try to get to all my dms, but there's so much going on there that I'm just not very good at it. But I, I'm working on it, so. But know that I've seen it and a lot of times that can spark me to, to make, whether it be make a certain video, make a certain podcast. So if you ever have a suggestion for a podcast, I appreciate all of those and it's always good to just get as many of those as I can. And literally today, today and yesterday I was just going through my DMs, and a lot of times I'll. If I get like a suggestion I like, I'll take a screenshot of it and then I'll go to it when I want to make that episode. I was looking through that today just to see what I had. So I always appreciate that. So if you guys have a suggestion for what you want me to talk about, just drop that for me. Could be a comment, send me a dm, whatever. But I do appreciate that. And if you guys are listening, Apple podcasts, make sure you leave a review for me as well. We'll hop into it. So today I want to talk a little bit about just three things that I think come along with being an elite player. And there's way more than three things. But I want to talk about these three things today because I think that it's, it's areas that aren't talked about a lot, or not necessarily they aren't talked about, but they, they're. I don't think there's enough importance placed on those areas. And I think that when you really approach it from this perspective, I think really what it comes down to is looking at it from not just a, not just elite, from like a basketball perspective. And obviously that matters. And we'll talk about a couple of these points which will kind of play into that a little bit. Obviously, if you're elite skill wise athletically, that, that's, that's important. But I think that there's also areas that are important that are so much about how you approach things. And I think that that is actually what long term matters the most. Because when it comes to actually developing, and that's always my thing, and I think that sometimes I always, I always have such a long term view of things because that's how development is like, it's not a short term thing, it's always a marathon. So whenever you're, whenever you're going through, especially now we're in the off season, right, and you're working out every day, chances are you can, you can agree with this, you felt this, that you don't necessarily walk into the gym every day. And okay, Monday was Monday I shot 40%. Tuesday, I shot 45%. Wednesday, I shot 50%. Thursday, I shot 60%. Friday, I shot 75%. That's not, that's not how it works all the time. You're not just going to continue to get better every single day from a results perspective. Some days you're going to come in, you're going to shoot 60%. Maybe the next day you also shoot 60%. Maybe the next day YOU shoot 65%. And then the next day you only shoot 56%. Right? And then maybe the next day you shoot 50%. And that can raise the question of, oh, am I even improving? But that's how improvement happens, right? We're not robots, so unfortunately we don't just go in a straight line, a linear path forward. When it comes to progressing, there's going to be days where you kind of feel like you're going backwards or you have a really bad day, but that's all a part of it because eventually another jump is going to happen and you eventually will make progress. But the process is more like that where it's almost like a wavy line that's trending upward as opposed to just a straight line going up. Okay. And I say all that to say that these three points really play into the development side of things. Okay. And there's so much more that I can go into with that. For just the purpose of this episode, I won't. But the first point I want to talk about, and I think that this is an area that I. I don't really. I mean, I. You definitely hear it, but I don't think it gets talked about nearly as much when it comes to being an elite player. And that's fearlessness. Like when I see the elite players that I'm around and also just the ones that, you know, obviously my. My experiences aren't everything, right? So even when you hear about, you know, the. The elite players out there, whether it be like, you know, the NBA superstars or whatever, there's a certain level of fearlessness that they have, and you can see this from a bunch of different ways, but we can talk about it from just strictly a basketball perspective. So if you watch an elite player play, they're. They're going to do things on the court. They're going to try and make plays that other players just won't try to make. You know what I mean? And. And that, I think, is what separates a lot of players is just the willingness to do things that a lot of players won't do. And because as. As obviously somebody who's coaching, who's training like you see it, there's players who are pretty talented, who might physically be a little bit gifted, but they don't have. They have way too much hesitation or they're way too worried about what people think, or they're way too worried about making a mistake and what that would cause. Oh, if I make this mistake, then the coach is going to pull me. If I made this mistake, then this is this person. I think that about me. The person in the crowd's going to think that about me. They're going to think I'm bad. If I make this mistake, then the coaches are going to take away my minutes. I'm going to take my. They're going to take my starting spot. And they're so worried about all the things that could possibly go wrong and how it's going to be the end of the world if they try something and it doesn't work. So a lot of times they're going to stay in a box and they might never know what exactly they could be. I think I was just saying to one of the kids that, that I trained. This is a couple months ago, we were playing pickup, and it was pretty good pickup with some pretty good players in it in our area. And I remember talking to him after, I was like, hey, man, how many turnovers think you had today? And mind you, because the point guard has the ball in his hands a lot, and he was like, you know, maybe Two or three. And this is probably over an hour and a half of playing pickup. So. And I think he said that in a way that he thought I was going to be like, oh, yeah, you know, great job. That's Great job protecting the ball. But I was like, listen, man, you've got to. You've got to triple that next time. Like, you got to walk out of here with at least five or six turnovers. Because what that tells me is that this is pickup. Mind you, this is not a state championship game where we want to limit those turnovers. This is pickup. We're just trying to get better. So what I saw today was some incredible plays that you made. But the fact that you only turn the ball over once or twice means that there wasn't enough risk taking, okay? And because there was enough risk taking, we actually don't know what the ceiling was today. So you made some great plays, but you could have made double those had you tried to do more. And then eventually you get to a point where you'll know, okay, I'm turning the ball over a lot. Maybe I. Maybe this is my. Maybe this is my limit right here. And then we know, right? And then we can build from that, okay? This is what I'm capable of doing. Now we've got to work to get beyond that. But if we don't actually take the risk required to get to that point, then we don't know, right? We don't know where you're at. And this is a quote that I love. Your success is directly proportionate to the amount of risk you are willing to take. And this is. This is true in literally everything that you can do. I know it from. From training and doing all stuff I'm doing now whenever I get comfortable. And I don't want to step outside my comfort zone. I have to catch myself and force myself to do it, because nobody wants to, right? But that's when all the best things happen. When any sort of growth happens, it's because you took risk. And if you are unwilling to take that risk, then your opportunity to be successful is just going to be so much lower. So when I look at elite players who aren't just elite, but have elite results, right? They. They put up elite numbers. They. They. They pull the. The elite accolades. It's because they're willing to take those risks on the court. They're willing to go out and try to make things happen, because if they don't try and make things happen, then there's no opportunity for them to be elite. There's no opportunity for those elite results to happen. And I think that that's an area that is really, really important for players to understand, is that the more fearless you are, chances are the better you're going to be. Now, this is not a call to be reckless, right? But I think, especially when we talk about the off season, right, if you're playing in a game that doesn't matter, you should be fearless with what you're doing, right? So we're not talking about playing in a playoff game in February. We're talking about playing in a pickup game in May, right? We're talking about playing in an open gym in July. We're talking about the stuff that isn't super meaningful right now, building that habit of being fearless. And what you're going to start to see, especially if you have the ability, obviously you need that to go along with it, but if you have that ability going along with it and you start to develop that mindset, that habit of being fearless with how you play and going out and trying to make things happen and not being so worried about things going wrong or whatever, that'll start to translate to the games that do matter, where there actually is stuff on the line, where there actually is pressure. And you actually do have to play at a certain level, right? You're going to already be comfortable with being fearless. You're going to be much more natural at it. You'll be able to transfer that over to those sorts of games. But you have to start by just in everything that you do, especially the stuff that isn't super meaningful right now, building that, that ability, building that, that habit of being fearless. And I think that that's a super important thing. And one of the things that I see from the players who are elite and is a lot of times what I'm pushing my players to be more is like, listen, when you're in your games this week, like, especially if you have the ability, you can't be worried about making mistakes and, and trying stuff, especially if it's stuff that you've been working on, you're never going to be able to translate it if you don't try it. You know what I mean? So we can do all the drills we want to do here, but if you don't go out there and try it and try and make things happen, and that's the difficult part. And that's why I say if you want to be successful, it's going to require risk to be taken, right? It's going to require you to risk looking Bad, it's going to require you to risk feeling bad. And that's the other thing that I always say is like, listen, guys, I don't know how you feel right now. Specifically. Usually during a workout, the end of workouts when there's been a lot of struggling could be during some sort of maybe a one on one drill where like somebody's really struggling to score or whatever, or it could just be in a certain sort of finish you're trying to do or whatever. And if it's really a struggle, it doesn't feel good. But in order to get better, right with your brain, how it works is basically one of the most, one of the most difficult feelings, one of the most painful experiences your brain goes through is learning something new because it's so taxing. So when you really are throwing the fire and we're trying to learn something new and all, all that development is in basketball is just learning. It's just, it's just your brain learning how to do new things. So when that's, when that's really amplified, you're gonna feel probably really bad because your brain is, is tired and it just, there's so much going at you. And so if you just go with, okay, I feel bad, that means today was bad. That's not actually how it is. Usually it's okay, you feel bad, but in the right context, it's actually a good thing because it means that your brain was adapting, you were learning. So you're going to come back and be better at that even if you feel bad right now. Right? So a lot of times my sentiment is like, guys, do not let how you feel about how you just played or about the workout we just had. Don't want how you feel, feel emotionally right now cloud you and take you away from the fact that what happened was a good thing for you long term. And that's how it's going to be when you take risk and you try to be more fearless that you're going to have days, you're going to feel bad because you're going to try something new, maybe multiple times and not be great at it. And you're gonna be like, oh, today was bad, I felt bad. But you can't, you can't conflate those two things. Feeling bad and things actually being bad. A lot of times if you're feeling bad about something, people, there's a good chance that it actually was a productive day for you when it comes to just a straight up motor learning, development side of things. And again, that's always how I approach things. And I think that's how players should approach things, especially right now when we're in June and the games don't matter. The AAU games you're playing right now are basically meaningless until July. The, the summer league games. Obviously you want to win. I'm not saying you don't, but they don't really matter. Nobody really cares. And it's all about being better right now, getting better right now. And so when you have that approach in mind, you understand that being, getting better isn't always a feel good process. It sometimes feels really bad. Then you're going to be able to overcome those days that are, that are rough, those drills that are rough. And I think that's super important. And that that's going to play into the next two points, specifically the last point. But before we get to that, I'll talk about the second point that I want to talk about, which is the things that an area that elite players have or that you see with elite players is an obsession with the controllables. Now in life, in basketball and everything, there's a ton of stuff that you just don't have any sort of control over. And that can, you know, that includes like your height, right? You are what you are to a certain extent. You know, you might not have been born with a 40 inch vertical, right? You might not have had parents who were Olympic high jumpers. And so maybe genetically you weren't gifted and that's not something you necessarily control. But there's plenty of things out there you do control. And the elite players, the great players have an obsession with making sure that if I can control that thing, I control it. Okay? And obviously that, that, that comes down to like the obvious one. So making sure you're getting your work in. So I'm going and getting my workouts. When it comes to the weight room and getting that stuff done as well, that's the obvious stuff. And there's an obsession with that. It's like I go and I get that stuff done and I make sure that I do it at a high level because it matters a lot. And I might not be able to control what other people are doing or what I've been given to start with, but I can control how hard I work. I can control the, the level of focus that I have in my workouts and I can be great in all those areas and I can make sure that I get the most out of every single workout that I have. And that's what an elite player is going to approach their workouts like, okay, that's really the more obvious side of that. But I think that also when you look at the less obvious parts of the controllables, you look at nutrition right now. This doesn't mean that you have to be a nutritionist and that you have to know all about every single, you know, macronutrient, micronutrient, every single vitamin and mineral and all that sort of stuff. But what it does mean is that if there's a way, let's say that I'm trying to get stronger, okay? How do I make sure that I'm fueled for my day? If I know I'm going to go and I'm going to work out in the morning and. And then I'm going to lift later, I'm going to play tonight? Am I making sure that I'm eating enough food so that I'm not breaking my body down day after day after day? Am I getting enough protein every single day? Am I drinking enough water every single day? And it could really be just those basics, but that's a basic area that a lot of players don't even think about. So you're running around burning 2000 calories a day, and you're only eating 1200. And then you wonder why you can't gain weight, you're not getting stronger, you feel tired all day, every day. You're. You're not playing very well, you're getting hurt. Well, that can be an area. Why. So if you obsess over that and making sure, okay, Listen, I burned 1400 calories today, so I better be making sure that I'm eating a heck of a lot more than that if I want to make sure that I'm performing at my peak level and also getting better when it comes to building strength, putting on size, if that's what my goal is, and staying healthy at the end of the day. And then the other area that I think is really important with that is. Is film, okay? And just really studying the game. I think this is what separates a lot of great players, is, like, players. There are certain players that I know that I can have, like, detailed basketball conversations with because they watch, right? And they watch, obviously, they watch themselves play. So they watch their own games, and we can talk about that, and they know that, right? But there's also, like, they just watch basketball in general, so I can talk about, you know, hey, this action that, you know, hey, let's look at this action right here. And we're on the same page because they watch the stuff Too, Right. And they might not, they might not watch it as much as I do. Right. Not that I'm like, you know, I'm not like, I know like Drew Hanlon. Right. So the, the trainer that a lot of you guys probably know watched like every made bucket from eight straight NBA seasons, which is wild. I've never done anything close to that, so I'm not that level. But I, I watch a lot of basketball and I, I really am trying to pick apart details in that as well. And the, the players that I know who also are like that just tend to be the best. Because you have what's called mirror neurons in your brain, where when you watch somebody do something, your those mirror neurons actually fire and it allows you to almost get reps at doing that. Right. So when you actually go and you try to do that thing that you've been watching, you're actually gonna be better at it than somebody who hasn't watched it because they have not had those mirror neurons firing. In the same way that there is a lot of value actually in watching film, in studying the game and looking to pick apart those details. And that's another area I think really separates players. It's an area I try and get on like my high school kids early because in high school you don't have to do that. You don't have to watch film really. I mean, if you're good enough, you probably don't really have to. In college, obviously you've got to be really good to overcome that. You're going to be forced to, though. There's going to be film sessions. Like you're going to have to be a part of that. High school. There might be even still in high school, like your film sessions aren't that detailed and it's all just team concepts. In college, it's full breakdowns on this player does this, this player does that. And if you're going and you really want to have a leg up, are you able to yourself go and watch a player who you know you're going to be matched up with and say, hey, I see they like to do that. I see they aren't very good at doing that. I can exploit that. And you can build that habit by getting used to watching basketball, breaking things down, looking for details. And again, something that I think is a really important, just like fearlessness, I think it's important to build that habit right now, being able to watch and dissect things because you really are focused on those details and that's going to make things so Much easier for you. Again, you're going to be able to recognize things, pick things up way quicker. And it just, it's another area where, if I can control that, why not control it? That's the mindset that an elite player has. And I think that that's a super overlooked area, but a super, super important one. And the last area I want to talk about is a championship mindset. And I'm going to approach this a little bit differently than I think it's normally talked about. But this kind of goes back to, again, point number one we talked about with fearlessness, building that habit and being willing to take those risks and being able to play through and work through those days that are bad, that feel bad, might not actually be bad, but being able to deal with the ups and downs. And I think having a championship mindset is how you do that. And, and so the first thing is I want to talk about what that actually means. So we talk about championship mindset. A lot of times it's just a buzzword that gets thrown around like, oh, yeah, championship mindset guys are going to have a championship mindset today. But nobody really talks about what it actually means. To me, I think that it just means you prioritize winning over everything. Like, it is all about winning. It is all about what can I do to put myself in the best position to win. And that's all that matters if I have a championship mindset. So that encompasses a lot in the moment, in this moment, what does a champion do? What does a. How does a champion approach this situation that I'm in? And if my goal is to be a champion, then I need to be as good as possible, right? Because if I'm as good as possible, then I'm put in the best position to win, which winning is what's going to make me a champion ultimately. Okay, so when you ask yourself, okay, what do I need to do right now to be as good as possible? That's going to give you the answer to a lot of questions you might have. Okay. And it's going to give you the. The approach to have in a lot of different situations. So, for example, if I'm working with a player and they have that championship mindset, I can call them out on different things, right? I can call them out on something I saw them do in a game. I can call them out on something they did in a workout. I can call them out on basically anything. And where a player who doesn't have that approach might feel offended by that or they might feel Some sort of way about that. If I'm with a player who really is about winning, then that's what. They might not like it in the moment, but that's what they want ultimately, because they want to win. And they know, hey, the better that I am, the more likely I am to win. And if I win, that's how I be. That's how I win championships, right? My goal is to win a championship, okay? Or I'm using championship as kind of a microcosm of just winning anything in general or earning that spot, earning that spot on that team, earning that scholarship, whatever your goal might be. That's really what I'm using the word championship to represent. And when I'm with a player like that, you can raise the expectation and you can. You can demand a higher standard, and they're going to try and meet that as best they can, because, again, the goal is to be as good as possible so that they can win and they can achieve that goal that they have for themselves right there, okay? They're going to want me to do that, right? And that's the difference that you see between players who have it and players who don't is that they want to be pushed. And it's not even about somebody else pushing them. It's about them pushing themselves in those moments to be, okay, how good can I be, Right? And if there's somebody in my ear who has my best interest at mine and they can help me be better, then I'm going to press into what they're saying because that's going to push me towards my ultimate goal, right? And that ultimate is going to put me in the best position to be a champion. And that's what I think the championship mindset really means. And that's what I see with elite players. And I think that that's how you get to that elite level. So, again, talking about fearlessness and being willing to make mistakes and try and make things happen, I think that's the first part of being an elite player and having elite results and then having an obsession with those controllables, especially those areas that are overlooked by a lot of players but matter, right? You have a few things you can control. Make sure those things are under your control. And then the third thing is just having that championship mindset where you are all about winning. It's not about ego. It's not about, you know, being upset about this or feeling offended about that. It's about what can I do right now to put myself in the best position to win? That's my goal. That's all I care about. And that's the, the, the. Maybe the biggest part to being elite is having that mindset. So again, hopefully this gave you guys some, some things to think about. And, and again, I appreciate you guys who are listening. I have a podcast, Spotify, of course, Everybody's watching on YouTube. Like I said before, if you guys have anything for me, drop in the comments below, give me a follow on Instagram at Vision Driven Basketball. Send me a message if you have anything for me as well. I appreciate you guys. Talk to you guys soon. Peace.