Four Steps To Getting What You Want in Basketball and Life - Podcast Episode 1

Welcome to the Vision Driven Basketball Training podcast. Coach Ethan here, guys. And I'm really, really excited to get started with this. This has been something that has been in the works for a while and I've really wanted to do because I feel like there's a lot of value that I can bring to you guys and this is a great way for me to do it. You know, I love YouTube, I love Instagram and all that extra stuff, but I really do love kind of this long form sort of process. So really thankful you guys are here watching whether it's on YouTube, on your favorite podcast app. You know, if you are listening on podcasts, I really appreciate if you guys would subscribe and maybe leave a review too, if you can. If you guys enjoy this, you find any value in this. If you want me to keep going, doesn't matter. I'm gonna keep going anyway. But today I kind of want to give a little intro on who I am and sort of my vision, no pun intended, for this going forward. And then I want to leave you with something that I think is really going to help you going forward. It's going to kind of all tie into how we start this. So just the first thing. Who am I? Well, my name is Ethan koza and I'm 20 years old. Basketball for me is something that has been like the number one thing. Like every day I wake up and it's basketball in my mind. It's the first thing since I was probably 12 years old and, you know, so obviously played growing up, put, you know, all my time energy into that. Played in high school, had the opportunity to play at the D3 level and the juco level as well. Ended up not doing that though, for kind of a myriad of reasons. And now this is what I do, you know, I try and help players who I kind of see. I see a lot of similarities with players now compared to where I was a few years ago. So my goal now is help those players who don't have anybody to teach them the things that I know now. And it's funny because I tell people, you know, when they ask me, like, oh, do you miss playing? And I like, I'll tell them, like, yeah, I definitely miss playing. But the funny thing is, whenever I was playing, my favorite part of the year was when the season would end because I got to design my offseason training program. So I just, that that was what I love to do. And now it's just that that's all I focus on, actually. So I do this, I do some in person training as well. And then I coach a high school team as well, so that, that kind of occupies my winner. But ultimately this sort of training is, is what I love to do. So I'm really happy I'm able to kind of affect so many people all over the world with, you know, the information that I've learned over the years. Because, you know, I look at players now and, and for me, I didn't really, really, I didn't know the necessary things I needed to know until I was probably a junior in high school. So my goal is like, if I can help somebody who's a little younger than that, you know, 8th, 9th, 10th grade, learn what I that learn something that took me until I was a junior or senior to learn, then that's, that's me doing my job right there. So that's kind of my entire goal with this. And so that's, that's kind of, you know, what I'm looking forward to doing and, and kind of the silver lining in all of this. So again, I'm thankful that you guys are here listening to me. I kind of want to talk a little bit about what my vision for this podcast is going forward because, you know, obviously you guys want to know what you're getting into by listening. A lot of it is going to be me just being able to communicate with you guys about different topics. There's a lot of things that I talk about on YouTube that I would like to go more in depth on, but it's hard to be able to do that in a YouTube video, you know, because obviously you have, you know, I got to edit it down. I want it to be something that can be consumed fairly quickly so that kind of everybody can get into it. But with this sort of long form podcast sort of format, I'm able to elaborate more on things, go into more detail. Details are super important in everything that, that, that I preach to my players is that, you know, it's the details that matter, right? If you're doing a move and the first part is a pump fake and then you go into a crossover or you go into a jab step, whatever, if you don't do the pump fake right, the second part won't even happen. It's all about the details. So if we just skip over the first part and don't pay attention to the details there, how can we expect to have the rest of it? Right? And I relate that to everything. And basketball training is absolutely, that is how it works. You have to be focused on the details. So Me being able to be here with you guys is going to allow me to be a person who can, who can help you with the details, explain the details more thoroughly to you. That's really what I'm excited about, is being able to do this. I think there's a lot of things that I'm going to be able to just sort of give to you guys and I think it'll really help you. I also want to get some guests on as well. So that's going to kind of grow as we move forward, as I really start to put content out because I really want. There's a lot of stuff I want to talk about that I'm going to get, I'm going to get out of the way. But I do want to get some guests on some players, coaches, guys that are going to help you guys as well, add more value to you guys. So this is going to be a weekly thing. So every week, YouTube podcast app, drop a podcast on whatever topic. And another thing that I really want to do with this is I want to be able to answer your guys questions because I get a lot of DMs that are very, very specific questions that it's hard for me to type back in my DMs about. And also because it's so specific, it's hard for me to make a YouTube video on it because it's like, well, how many people is this going to affect? And also again, it's hard for me to put all of that into a YouTube video. Right? So what I want to do with this as well is I want you guys to DM me. Leave a comment with your questions, a specific situation, a specific request. I want you guys to give that to me and I'm gonna do my best to answer it on here because now this is more of a format where I can kind of just like I was talking to you in person, right? Just kind of give you my response to it. And that's something that I really, really am looking forward to with this is being able to do that because I get a lot of DMs from guys and I try and type back as best I can, but a lot of times like you have to leave stuff out and stuff can get lost in translation too. So if you're listening, you have questions, anything like that, send me a DM on Instagram. VisionDrivenBasketballTraining OrginDrivenBasketball. Leave a comment on YouTube, send me a Facebook message. If you're in my private Facebook group, leave a question there or send me a message, whatever, but reach out to me, communicate with me. This is something that I think is really, really gonna be helpful for you guys, because I feel like there's a lack of this out there, just being able to kind of communicate, have a format to be able to kind of discuss these sort of topics. So that's something that I'm really looking forward to also, I guess kind of the other thing too is I feel like, and this was me when I was younger, I spent a ton of time listening to all sorts of stuff, whether it was kind of random podcasts or music, obviously, or, you know, watching Netflix or watching whatever. And I feel like I didn't spend enough time listening or watching things that really were beneficial to me in the long run that really helped me to improve in some sort of aspect. So I want this to be something for you guys that can sort of be the thing, because now I understand the importance of that. And back then I did too, to an extent, but I feel like I could have done it more. And so hopefully this kind of will help you guys with that as well. So that's my vision going forward. And, and the other thing is, again, I want this to be very interactive. Like, I don't want this to be just me talking at you guys. I want you guys to be sending me questions. If you have suggestions for the, for the podcast, you know, something you want to hear, if you have, you want to hear me talk about anything basketball related, let me know and I'll do it. Because again, I want this to be something that we can connect through. You guys can get to know me a little bit more, and I can help you guys with whatever you need to. So that's sort of my look going forward. So the last thing I want to get into for this episode just kind of ended out. But keep it in the same realm of why am I doing this? Who am I? Like, that's. That's what I want this to kind of be an answer to. But also I want to leave you guys something that is kind of a challenge for you going forward. So the, you know, I asked myself this question yesterday, and it was. Or I didn't ask myself, but I thought about it because I was like, okay, what am I gonna talk about? For the first episode, I knew I was gonna kind of do myself talk about what the podcast was gonna be all about, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do in terms of, like, what I wanted to give you guys in terms of value. Because every Podcast is gonna have something you can take that's going to make you better. That that's what I'm gonna guarantee to you. I'm not just gonna put something out that's not gonna help you. I'm not just gonna put something out just to take up your time. I'm going to add value to whatever it is, whatever it is you're listening to. And for me, I thought about the name Vision Driven Basketball. You know, you guys all know that. You guys have all seen me on YouTube or Instagram, whatever, that's the name. And you know, people like it. It's like, oh, it's cool name. Vision Driven Basketball, whatever. And. But I want. There's meaning behind it and I kind of want to explain what it is because I think it's very, very important. And it kind of goes back to what I was saying with the whole details thing at the beginning. So vision Driven Basketball. Let's break it down. Vision. Why is that the first word, Vision driven basketball? Well, for me, a vision is. To me, vision is seeing where you're going. So having a sort of. So having the ability to see the row, you're going down to know where your destination is, what your destination is. I feel like today this is in basketball and in life, but I'll use basketball. A lot of players go out and they do random work, right? They don't have a plan, they don't know where they want to go. They just, they just say to themselves, I want to get better. They don't tell themselves how much better they want to get. They don't tell themselves, they don't. They don't have goals. They don't say, I want to get. Do this next season. I want to be this next season. They just say, I want to get better. So they're going to go and they're going to do their little random work and they're going to think that they're really getting better. They're really putting in the necessary time, but they aren't. Because you need to have a vision. The reason you need to have a vision is because we'll get into the next part. But the vision is what motivates you every day. I got a question, actually. I get this all the time asking people or people ask me, how do I stay motivated? Coach, I don't really have any motivation to do anything. And to me, I don't like the word motivation. Like, I don't. I don't. I think it's a very, very surface level word. Being motivated is not something that you're always like. Motivation is not something you're always gonna have. There's gonna be times where you are not motivated. Like there's days I get up, I don't wanna make a video, I don't wanna, I don't wanna post on Instagram, I don't wanna do all the stuff I have to do. But I have to understand that you can't be just driven by your motivation. This isn't motivation driven basketball. If it was motivation driven basketball, there'd be times where I would be giving you guys a ton of stuff, really helping you guys out. Because I'm feeling good, I'm feeling motivated. But then there'd be times where I don't feel like doing it. I don't feel like getting up, making a video, I don't feel like answering YouTube comments, I don't feel like answering DMs. And then you guys wouldn't be able to trust me. So I lose trust from you guys. Also, I wouldn't see any growth, I wouldn't get better, I wouldn't gain any more, you know, viewers, people I could help. I wouldn't be able to affect people the same way because I'm not consistent. If you want to be consistent, you need to have a vision. You need to know where you want to go, what your goals are. Because now you're not just doing it to do it. Every day you get up and go to the gym, you're saying, I want to be an All State player next year. I want to be first team All State next year. That's my goal. So now there's going to be days where you're going to get up and you're going to be like, oh, yeah, I'm feeling it. Let's go to the gym. You're going to get up and you're going to go. Then there's going to be days where you're going to get up. You're going to say to yourself, man, I really don't feel like going to the gym. My leg hurts. I just want to play Xbox all day and I don't want to do it. I don't feel motivated. There's going to be days like that and you're going to have to decide is, am I just going to go based on my motivation. But if you have that vision, you say, I want to be first team All State next year. Either you're going to ask yourself, what do I need to do to be first team All State? Well, let me think about in my State. In Pennsylvania, there's over 500 schools. There's six classes, right? So you can be in any of those six classes. You could be all state. That first team is usually going to have six players on it. So I have to be one of the, I have to be one of the top six players in those. So I have to be one of the top 30 players. Depending on the class you're in, I have to be one of the top 30 players in the state next year if I want to be first team, all state. And there's 500 plus schools. Okay, so 500. And we'll say there's, you know, we'll say there's 10 guys who play, okay, there's 500 schools, 10 guys. What's that going to tell you? How many players is that? And you got to be top 30. I don't know what that percentage is, but it's low, right? That's very, very low. So you have to decide for yourself. Now all of a sudden my vision is I want to be this. Okay, I can't skip the gym. Like, I might not want to do it, but this is my vision. My vision supersedes my motivation. Okay, forget the motivation. If you have it, that's great. But my vision is the number one thing. And when you start to have that mindset, you're going to be unstoppable with what you do. You're going to become the best at what you do. Because most people are motivation driven. When they feel like doing something, they do it. When they don't feel like doing something, they do. They don't do it or they half heartedly do it. A person who's motivated by their vision, person who's inspired by their vision is always at that high level, right? Not to say that they never have off days, but they always are chasing after the vision that they have. Okay? And then that's the driven part, right? I'm driven by the vision that I have, by the goals that I have. Like I said, this is not motivation driven basketball. This is vision driven basketball. So the most important thing I would say to you right now is make sure you have a vision. If you have. If you feel like you want, if you feel like you have big goals but you don't know what they are, that's a problem. Okay? You need to write down exactly what they are. What are those goals? What is going to keep you going when you don't feel like doing it? Okay. That's the biggest thing with players. That's why they fail is because they don't, they aren't consistent enough. They don't understand what it takes. Players will have these. They will, they'll say, like, I want to be an all state player. I want to play in college. But they don't understand how many people are out there. There are so many people out there. So when you take a day off because you don't feel like it, like you're not going to. You're not going to win, you're not. You're not going to succeed. There's just too many other people who aren't taking days off. Right. So if you want to put yourself in the best position to win, have a vision. Okay, so let's talk about this real quick. How do you have a vision? Because I want to give you guys something actionable that you can follow that is going to help you to develop that, that vision. Because I'm telling you, it's super important to have and that's what my entire training is based off of. So that should give you some sort of mark that is very, very valuable. You need to do it. But I'm going to tell you exactly what I want you to do right now if you want to develop that vision. So number one, here's what you're going to do. You're going to write down the three things you want most. The three things you want most. This might be actual things you might want, like possessions, or it could be the goals you want to hit. Okay? So I'm going to let you. Like, I don't want to. I'm not going to. So I'll get into why I'm not telling you mine in a minute. That's going to be a step later. But for now, I want you to think about three things you want most. Okay? If you have to pause this right now to write it down, do that. Pause it. Get in your notes app, write it down. At least have it in mind. Okay, three things that you want most. Number two, you're going to think about those things as often as possible. Actually, we'll take it back one step. Step two is going to be every single day when you wake up, you're going to look at those three things. You don't have to do anything with it every single day. Wherever you write them down in your notes app, you can make it your lock screen. I actually would really recommend you do that. You take, you write them down on your notes app or on some other app and then you screenshot it, make it your background on your phone. So Every time you pick up your phone, you see that when you wake up in the morning, you're going to look at those three things that you want. Okay? Then after that, cool. Like, go on with your day. Take 20 seconds and just look over those three things. The next step, step three, you're going to think about those things as often as possible. That's why I said maybe make it your phone screen. You don't have to do that, but that's a good thing to do. Think about those three things as often as possible. Whatever those three things are, those should be on your mind constantly. Maybe that means that you're gonna decide, you're gonna look at that, where you have it written down three or four times a day, have it on your mind. And the last step, step four is do not tell anybody what those three things are. The only person that you can tell that to is God. That's it. You don't tell me what it is. Don't tell your mom what it is. Don't tell your coach, don't tell your teammates. Don't tell anybody. The reason for this is because when you start to tell people what your goals are, you lose ownership of it. Meaning you tell people like, oh, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. And a small part of you is like, well, I just told them what I'm going to do. Like, do I really have to do it? What you need to understand is that words, words don't mean anything. Like, your actions are what mean something. So by you saying it, you're going to get that same sort of reaction in your mind, like, oh, I did it. But you didn't actually do it. You just told somebody that you were going to do it. Okay? They might say, wow, like, he just did that. Now you're going to think to yourself, yeah, you know, I have big goals. Like, you see me, right? But when you are only focused on showing people instead of telling people, you're going to actually put yourself in a position to get what you want. Okay? So those are the four steps. Write down the three things that you want most. Number two, every day, when you wake up in the morning, look at those three things. Number three, think about those three things as often as possible. And number four, do not tell anybody except God what those things are. All right? And if you're somebody who believes in God, ask him for those things, okay? Try it. See what happens. Now you might think to yourself, like, coach, like, this is like, why, why, why, why? Would I do this? Like, I'm really writing down what I want that's gonna help me. Like, really, like, why do I need to do that? Just, I want you guys to try this. And all of a sudden, I'll give you two different reasons why. Number one, when you start to do this, you're gonna automatically start to make decisions that are gonna put you in a position to achieve those things, to get those things that you want. It's gonna be subconscious. You might not even understand, like, that you're doing it. But when you have a goal and every day you're thinking about it, you think about it multiple times, you're gonna subconsciously start to do things. Put yourself in a position to get to that level you want to get to. Okay? That's point number one. That's the reason, number one, why you should do it, because it. It will tangibly, like, physically help you to achieve those goals. Okay. And number two is kind of. It's kind of hard to explain. You can't really explain it. Once you start to do those things, though, you just. You start to move closer. And it's very closely related with number one, but it's even deeper than that. Right? But that you don't. You won't understand that until you start to do it consistently. And I will tell you, this is something that I started doing, this method that I'm telling you guys about, something I started doing back in probably October, and for my own goals. And again, that's why I haven't told you any of my goals, because, like I said, I don't tell anybody those except God. So. But when I started to do those things, I just started to knock out these goals I had. And it was funny because at first I was like, no. Like, this is. This is dumb. Why would I do this? But I tried it anyway because I saw a lot of people saying, like, oh, yeah, no, this works. Do it. So I tried it. I started hitting goals. I'm not saying that I hit every single goal, but there are goals that I hit. And I was like. I would look back, and I was like, yeah, like, that happened. And that was something that I was super focused on getting. And every day when I woke up, this is what I want. Three, four times a day, this is what I want. And every day I'd ask God for it. So all of a sudden, I see that this starts to work. That's why I'm telling you guys. This is what develops your vision. And when you have a vision, like I said, you're going to do things that are going to drive you towards that vision, hence vision driven basketball. That's what it all stems from. That's the importance of it. And this is my challenge for you guys. You guys go through this because I want you guys to achieve all of the goals that you have. I want you to get to the level you want to get to, okay? And I'm going to give you guys tangible advice you can take to get there. Right? But if you. This is going to be a reoccurring theme in this, in this show. If you want to be different than most people, you have to be different than most people. A lot of players, a lot of people in general, they want something that's extraordinary. They want, we'll use the Allstate example, they want to be first team all state, but they think that they can just go to practice and work like the rest of their teammates do and they're going to be special. That doesn't make any sense. If you do the same exact work as your teammate does, how are you going to be any better than he is? You won't be. You have to be the kid who's going to put in the extra work, who's going to be going 100% the whole time when your teammates are getting bored or getting tired, and they're only going 75%. Okay? There's a difference between the people who are great and the ones who aren't. So these little things, writing these goals down, that is something that most people don't do, which is why most people don't get great results with what they do. Okay? So you got to make that choice on what type of person you're going to be. That's what I wanted to give to you guys today. So hopefully you guys take that. Like I said, guys, I want this to be an interactive thing. So send me DMs, send me questions. I'll probably put up a question, one of those question stories on Instagram. So if you don't follow me on Instagram, follow me. Vision Driven basketball. I'm probably gonna put up one of those stories and I'll kind of let you guys ask me whatever questions you want. But again, I want this to be something that I can do where I can answer your questions and really help you guys a lot. Because like I said, this is something that I wish I would have had when I was younger. So whatever you guys need from me, I'll do my best to deliver. Again, suggestions, anything like that. You know, hit my, hit me up my DMs, Facebook, YouTube, whatever it is and obviously plug everything. Most of you probably subscribe to me in YouTube visionary basketball. If not, go do that. Like I said, if you guys could go to podcasts and subscribe to me too, would really help me, boost me a little bit, would really appreciate it. Instagram all that extra stuff and that's it guys. So I will talk to you guys next week. Thanks for watching or listening.