How To Become A Leader On Your Team

Foreign welcome to the Vision Bounce training podcast. Appreciate every single one of you guys for tuning in. Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube. Shout out to all of you guys today. I'm going to answer a question that actually I got a while ago and I had meant to make a podcast on it then, but a bunch of stuff came up. There's a couple other topics that I put ahead of it. And then I got this question again a couple days ago and I was like, yeah, I definitely have to make episode on this because this is a subject that I'm really, really passionate about and that I think isn't really ever talked about. Like, I don't really hear anybody ever mention it or really go in depth on it or talk about how important it is, but I think it really, really is. So before I read you guys a question, I just want to let you guys know, for those of you guys who follow me on Instagram, you guys would have seen this already. But what I'm doing is I'm doing zoom film breakdowns. So, you know, we'll hop on zoom, we can break down film of yourself, even your own game film we can go through or we can break down film of, you know, a player that you want to break down. So like, for example, last night I was on a zoom breakdown with one of my guys and we're breaking down Tyler Hero's 37 point game against the Celtics. A lot of really good stuff, a lot of gems in there. So spent a little bit of time on there looking at that sort of stuff. But at the same time, you know, if you guys, if you guys don't even want to break down, Feel me, you have questions for me. You want me to take a look at your workouts? You know, you. Questions about your workouts, whatever it might be, that's another option for you as well at those zoom calls. So if you guys are interested in doing that, go ahead. You can send me a DM on Instagram, visiondrivenbasketball. Or you can go to my Instagram and click the link in my bio. And then it's click the top link, which is, I think it says book a call. And then you can scroll through the calendars there and you'll be able to kind of see all the available times that you can, you can pay whatever time works best for you and we'll be able to go from there. So I'll probably also put a link to it in the description of this YouTube video. If you guys are watching this on YouTube or if you guys are Watching this on podcast, so check it there. But if you don't see it, go on Instagram and you'll have all the stuff there. If you guys are interested in doing that, I think it's a great opportunity for you guys to be able to kind of have someone go through film with you. And I think having those. That eyes can really be helpful. At the same time you guys have other questions for me, then we can do that as well. So that's there. Wanna let you guys know about that. So anyway, the question that I got that sparks today's podcast says, hey, coach, I've been loving your podcast and it's taught me a lot about the things that most coaches overlook in a game. I had a question that I thought you might have a good answer to. How do you become a leader of a team? How do you become a Draymond Green, Rajon Rondo, Chris Paul type of player that inspires teams to do better or. Or to not be upset with themselves without sounding dumb or condescending? Thanks. So this is one of my favorite topics because I think having great leaders on your team, like, that's really the difference between a winning team and a losing team. Like, really, it can be one of the most important elements. Like having guys who are great teammates and great leaders can make up for a lot of skill that you might lack. And you might think that, well, how does that make any sense? We're going to get into why it does make sense and why that actually is the case. But as a coach, like, you want to have guys who are great teammates, great leaders on your team, and you as a player should strive to be that. That great leader on your team, okay? But there's a lot that goes into it, and there's a lot of benefits that you gain from being a leader on your team, okay? You're going to get more opportunities. People are going to look to you more. You're going to just have a lot more fun. Playing basketball is way more fun to be that guy for your team. And ultimately, like, that's why we want to get there. You know, here's the thing. Basketball, it's ultimately about winning, right? Like, it's. That's what it's about. It's about winning games because coaches, right when you're at tryouts, they're going to cut players who they don't think are going to help them win, okay? And at the same time, when the season gets here, they're going to play guys who help them win. Also, coaches are going to recruit Players at the college level who they think are going to help them win, and they're not going to recruit players who they don't think will help them win. So that's. That's off the bat. We have to understand that every decision that coaches go through has to do with winning. Okay, now I get questions sometimes talking about, hey, coach, my coach hates me, my coach, this, this, that. The, like, ultimately, at the end of the day, and we're going to get into this more, this mindset, but if you were better and you could really help your team win and you were the best option, you get all the playing time in the world. That's really what it comes down to. Okay. There's an element of personal responsibility that we're going to get into during this episode. And so why is winning important, though? Teams that make the playoffs, right, they get to play more games. They get to play more games. Teams that don't make the playoffs have short seasons. So you get to play more basketball. You get to go out and have more games. If you win, more people get to see you play. If you win. Teams that win get to hang banners in their gym. You win your conference, you win your state, you win your whatever, your. Your region, your district. You get to put a banner in your gym that has your team on it. Teams that lose are forgotten. They. No one cares. No one cares that you are on that team because you weren't good. You didn't win games. That's what it comes down to. And it all starts about, you know, all. All starts with whether you win or lose. There's a certain level of pride that you should have as a player when it comes to how people think about the teams you played on, right? You should want people to say, like, oh, yeah, that was a good team. You shouldn't be like, oh, you know, you guys weren't that good. You know, you were pretty good, but your team was pretty. Like, you should have a level of pride that says, like, I don't. I don't. I want people to. When they talk about the team I was on, I want to say, like, that was a good team. Okay? That. That's the level of pride that you should have as a player. And it's crazy because a lot of players really don't prioritize that level of winning. And. But I'm telling you that all. So many good things come out of winning. So we really need to put that as priority number one. If you can help your team win, you're going to be more valuable to your team, meaning you're going to get more opportunities on your team. Okay? So your mindset needs to be like, how can I make, how can I make myself the best I can meet? How can I make the team the best that I can make it? And then all the, all the personal stuff is going to take care of itself. And usually what happens is that, you know, personal things like playing time, how much they score, what, you know, what your role is, like that, that comes in the way of being able to put the team first. And if that's you, if you prioritize those things over your team winning, then you can't be a leader. That's, that's, that's point number one. You can't be a leader. If those are what you prioritize. If you care that your teammate score more points than you, you can't be a leader. If you care that you're halfway through the season and you're the fourth leading scorer on your team, but you guys are winning games you can't like, and you, you're upset about that, then you can't, you can't be a leader because it's going to be disingenuous and no one's really going to respect you if they can tell, like, oh, yeah, he's upset because there's a couple guys who are better than him, right? If someone else gets to take the last shot in a game and your coaches to draw the play up for you, even though that player might be better than you or maybe better in that situation, and you care about that, you're upset about that, you can't be a leader on the team, okay? You can't be a leader on the team if you don't play as much as you think you should play. But the guys who play ahead of you are better than you, objectively, they're better than you. And that ups like that upsets to the point where you think it's unfair. You can't be a leader. I'm not saying that you should just accept, you know, not playing. You should obviously work towards playing more. But if you're upset that guys might be better than you and they're getting more playing time, then that's an issue. Okay? That, that, that will prevent you from being able to be a leader. So really what it comes down to is selfishness. If you are selfish, you cannot be a leader. You cannot be an effective leader because people will see through it right away. They'll see that you're only out for you. You don't care if the team wins. You don't care about how they do. You care about how you do. You care about if your name is in the newspaper. You care about if you get to be on the news. You care about if people are writing articles about you. That's all you care about, okay? You don't care about what the team record is. You don't care about how many points your teammate scores. You don't care about any of that sort of stuff. You just care about what you do, okay? If you. If that's you, you can't be a leader. You. You will not be able to. You need to be able to change that, okay? Players like that are known as toxic teammates. And I played on teams that have been ruined by guys like that, where we had talented teams and we had guys who just straight up ruined team, ruined the team because they weren't able to put the team first. They were upset about playing time. I feel like they should have played more. Even though there's guys ahead of them that were better than them, that deserve to play more than them, but it's still something that spreads, right? You have one or two guys who are upset. That spreads throughout the locker room, and that can. That will ruin. I've seen it. Will ruin teams, will ruin seasons, and then you lose. We lose those guys, and all of a sudden, we are way better. Way, way, way better the next year. Okay? That's the difference. We lost talent, but at the same time, we lost guys who were not good teammates. And because of that, we became way better as a team. So there's the power of having good teammates, you win more games. Having good leaders, you win more games. So point number one is to be a leader, you have to be selfless. This is not to say you can't have pride in your individual abilities. You can have pride in your individual talent, but it has to be about team success first and then individual success, okay? It has to be winning above everything. That. That has to be your mindset if you want to be a leader on your team. Because I. Again, I promise you, Draymond Green. Draymond Green, I promise you, he does not care one bit if he scores three points. People love to make fun of Draymond Green for the triple single, right? Oh, Draymond Green had a triple single tonight. He had three points, eight rebounds, and four assists, and the warriors won by 30 points. Draymond Green doesn't care. He's like, yeah, you know, I got. I got my three rings. I got my. You know, My two Defensive Player of the Year awards. I don't care if I don't, I don't care if I don't score points. In my opinion, I think Draymond Green is going to be a Hall of Famer, and a lot of people will come be like, oh, but he only averages 11 points. But, but guys, it's not about the points that he's averaged. He's won Defensive Player of the Year two times. He's known as that guy, the, the, the defender on their team. And oh, by the way, he hasn't scored that many points because he played behind three first ballot hall of Famers. Kevin Durant, who might be the best scorer to ever play basketball, and Steph Curry, who's the best shooter of all time. And of course, Klay Thompson, who might be the second best of all time. So he's playing behind those three guys. He doesn't care about his offense. He doesn't care that people make memes about him. He's like, yeah, you know what? I have three rings. I won three championships. Like, who cares? Winning cures everything. It cures everything. And at the end of the day, those three titles, two Defensive Player of the Year awards, we'll see if he gets any more of either of those things. I think he's going to be a Hall of Famer, assuming he plays for a while longer. Okay, maybe you disagree. Whatever. There's a conversation there. If he doesn't have those three rings, there's probably not a conversation about it. Winning cures everything. So we need to understand that being a leader is, is less about what you say and it's more about what you do, because anybody can talk about doing this, doing that. And I see all the time, like, all the guys who always, always talk about, like, oh, you know, they, they talk like they want to be a leader, right? They talk about how they want to. They, they, they give on the, the impression that they care about the team, right? But then you go out and you watch them, you watch their actions, and it's really all about themselves. But they're going to tell you that they care about the team so that you're like, oh, yeah, you know, he's a real good team guy. So they can have a longer leash. At the end of the day, it's like, no, they're not, they're not really about that. You can tell through people's actions whether or not they're really about, about the team or not. You know, if. Here's the thing, it's impossible to be a leader, if your teammates do not respect you, they need to like you and respect you. And if. If they don't, then you can't be a good leader. Now, a lot of people love to bring up, like, whoa, Michael Jordan this, Michael Jordan that. Michael Jordan, first of all, is like, we. Let's not bring up the. The small number of exceptions to. To rules, okay? Michael Jordan is not the rule. He's the exception, okay? You. Today, you can't punch your teammate in the face in practice. You can't do it. That would make you a bad teammate, okay? You can't do it. You can't do it in the NBA. You can't do it in college. Sure. Can't do it in high school. And I mean, I'm trying to think of if there was a guy in the NBA today, right, who punched their teammate in the face in practice, they would be crucified as being an awful teammate. Michael Jordan is. Is raised up on a pedestal because of it, which. That's. Whatever. But I. Again, Michael Jordan is the exception to that rule, okay? At the end of the day, your teammates. And here's the thing. They did respect him. There are probably a lot of guys. There were a lot of guys who didn't like him, okay? But they respected him a lot, okay? So even if you can get to that point where they just respect you because they know how much you want to win, Michael Jordan, they know how much he. He prepared to win. They know how much he cared about winning and how driven he was to win. That elevates everybody else because they have that much respect for him, okay? If you're a guy who's always getting on your team, it's about giving effort. But then the next play, you don't box out your guy and he gets an offensive rebound and scores, like, how does that make you look? How are your team supposed to respect you when you tell them, hey, you guys got to do a better job rebounding, and then you don't do it. So being a leader has to raise your standards, because now you're telling guys like, hey, we got to do this better. You better do it now. Like, you better. You better be the one who's doing it. Okay? What do you think your teams will think if that's the case? If they think, okay, you know, he's gonna tell me this, but he doesn't actually do it himself, right? It all starts with your actions. They're not gonna be more inclined to listen to you if they don't see your Actions back up what you tell them. If you get on your teammates about playing defense and then you go out there and you work as hard as you can on defense, you're really, you're the hardest worker on your team. You're really doing a great job locking up your guy. Now they're gonna see, they're gonna say, you know what, he's going out there, he's backing it up. Like, I respect that. They're gonna follow that. Okay? Now you have a, you have actual solid ground to stand on. You say, guys, we gotta play better defense because you're doing it already, okay? That's gonna elevate everybody else. But if you're not doing it, if you're not really giving that much effort on defense, you tell other guys to do, it makes you look bad, it makes them lose respect for you. And if they don't respect you, you can't be a leader. If you're getting on them about finishing possessions and getting rebounds and you're out there fighting for boards, boxing out, doing all the things correctly, they're going to follow what you're doing. It all starts with your actions, okay? You, you cannot be a hypocrite. If your team, if you get on your teammates for not knowing the plays and then you go out and you mess up a play, how does that make you look? It makes you look like, not trustworthy and they're going to lose respect. Respect for you. So if you get on them about not knowing the plays, you better know everything. You better know every cut, you better know every screen, you better know every single position that you could be in and you better know how to do it correctly. That's really what comes down to if you want to be a leader, okay? Because otherwise they're not going to respect you and they're going to tune you out because you know, oh, here he goes talking again. Here he goes. Tell me what to do again. Here we go again. So that's something that we need to be able to consider, okay? Being a leader requires a certain level of self awareness. And this is a whole other topic I'm going to make an episode on because it's so important. But in this case, what I mean by self awareness is that you need to know where you stand talent wise. Because at the end of the day, if you, you have to understand that you can't be the worst player on the team and be able to, you know, tell everybody in the team what to do. It's just, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. You know, here's the deal, right? If you play on JV and you try and get on a varsity starter in practice about giving more effort, you. You straight up call them out during practice, you give them more effort, they're gonna look at you like, listen, they're probably gonna resent you more, and that's probably gonna hurt your relationship with them. They're gonna be like, you know, like, who are you? Right? Because here's the thing. You're playing JV for a reason, right? If you are good enough to be on their level, then you would be, but you're not. So. So you're playing JV again. Coaches are trying to win games. If you were going to help them win as much as that varsity kid was going to help them win, you would be playing as much as they were playing, but you're not, okay? So there's a certain level that you have to earn before you're able to really communicate with guys. So I see guys too, who like, try and tell, you know, guys who have been around, guys who are experienced, guys who know what they're doing, they're going to try and get on them for stuff. And again, unless you're that perfect guy who does everything correctly, you just can't do that. You have to understand where you stand talent wise, okay? So you can't approach that varsity starter the same way you approach another JV kid. You just, you just can't do it. It doesn't work that way. And you have to earn the right to be a leader. When we think about guys in the NBA who are leaders, right? We think about, you know, obviously they've all earned it in some sort of way. First of all, all those guys are in the NBA, all of like there. So there's 450 million basketball players in the world. They're the top 450 of them. So.00001% of basketballs in the world, they. So you've already earned that, right? That already is pretty good. And then on top of that, you're going to have some players who've been around, guys who are veterans, and those guys are going to, they've, they've stayed in the NBA. They've done the work to maintain their spot. They're going to have a level of respect. Obviously, some guys are the superstars, so they're going to have that level of respect because they're so great. And that's how they earn it, okay? A guy like you, Donnis Haslam, Right. You see him in the Heat lineup. He's not playing anymore, but he's been around for like 20 years. So guys like, yeah, I respect him because he's been around. He knows what. He's seen a lot of stuff before. Okay? Donna, Haslam's probably been playing for longer than some of his teammates have been alive, right? I don't. I tell you, heroes 20, like, I, you know, Hassell, I think's been playing for like 20 years, okay? So he, like, he might, he might have been playing before Talihiro was born, right? Talihiro and I are the same age. He might, he might have been in the NBA before I was born. I don't know. But that's what I'm saying. Like, guys are going to respect him because he's been around, okay? He's earned that respect. You have to earn the respect of your teammates. You have to earn the right to be a leader. You can't walk in there as a JV guy and try and tell the varsity guys to do this better and that better and this better because again, if you were as good as them and you could do that, you would go out there and you'd be on their level, but you're not. So self awareness, understand where you're at, understand what influence you have on your team, okay? That's a very, very important thing for you to understand. And the other thing to understand is, you know, when we talk about what you're doing, like, go back to your situation. Most of you guys probably in high school, middle school, like, you have to ask yourself, have I earned the right to be a leader on the team that I'm on? Have I earned that right? Maybe you have. Maybe you're a jvk. You've only earned the right to really be that guy for your, your grade or the grade. But like, you only earn that right for guys who are on your level right now. But if you're a varsity starter, maybe you've earned that right to be a leader for your entire program, for everybody. 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th grade. Maybe you've earned that right, okay? You have to be. You have to have some self awareness. There's not a one size fits all. You have to understand, where do I stand? Okay? And this could be. I'll give you a few of them. For example, if you're one of the better players on your team, that gives you a right to be a leader. If you have a big role on the team, a bigger role in the team, that gives you a right to Be a leader. If you hold yourself to a very high standard and you work extremely hard, that gives you a right to be a leader. If you are mentally checked in, you know the plays and you understand the system, that gives you a right to be a leader. And if you're older than everybody else and you're more familiar with the system that you're in, that also gives you a right to be a leader. Okay? Now, I would say you don't have to have all these things, but ideally you're going to have at least three of them. And I mean, ideally four or five, but at least three of them. And if you do, then you have the platform and hopefully the respect of your teammates to be able to be a leader. And then we can talk about what you can actually do to actually be a leader. Like, what does that actually mean? So here's some things that we can talk about. Doing some actionable steps. The first thing is really, you got to approach every day with a great attitude, okay? You have to approach every day with pride. Pride in the way that you approach things and pride the way that you prepare. Ultimately, you can't come into practice and just not care. You can't come to practice like, oh, whatever, just another day practice. Get through it. Guys see that and be like, okay, you know what? He can never tell me to work harder because he comes to practice some days and just doesn't care. Right? That can't be you. Okay? Point number two. You have to be able to lead by example. This is really where it starts. And like I had mentioned before, it all starts with the actions that you take. You need to. You need to make sure that you are doing everything correct. You are doing everything correct. Your effort is in the right spot every single time before you get on your teammates about doing things right. This is not to say you can't mess up ever. This is just to say that again, like I gave you before, you can't get on your teammates for not. For not knowing the plays, and then you go out there and don't know the plays. That. That can't be something that ever happens. You have to be a guy who. You know everything. You know all the plays. Now you can get on your guys for not doing things correctly. Okay? You need to bring the effort every single day at 100%. And if you. And if you do that now, you can get on guys for not bringing effort into practice. Okay? That's. That's how it works. Positivity is so massive. Above all, you need to look for Opportunities to encourage your teammates. Okay? A lot of guys think being a leader means, oh, how can I hold guys accountable? How can I. Like, how can I tell guys to do better? Like, no, it. It doesn't even start with that, because, again, if all you ever do is criticize your teammates, they're going to tune you out because they already have coaches who are doing that. You already have coaches, probably multiple, who are getting on those guys, but doing things better. So you can't be the same as the coach. Don't try and be a coach, okay? Be a. Be a teammate. So that starts with your ability to encourage guys. If your guy. In this question that I was asked, it was like, he was asking, like, hey, you know, if my guys are. If. If you know they're down on themselves, right? Like, how do I get. Like, that's where it starts. If you. If you have a teammate who's a great shooter and he misses a shot, you got to be in his ear like, hey, that's a great shot. Take the next one, okay? Every single time that that happens, like, that's how you be. That's where it starts. Okay? Defensively, are you the loudest? Do you talk the most on defense? That's really where you earn your ability to be a leader. Are you willing to talk? Are you willing to communicate with your teammates? Do you. Do you congratulate guys when they hit big shots? Are you the first guy over when it's time out to go and gap up your team and say, hey, man, great shot, or, hey, great defense, Right? When we talk about during practice, okay, Are you telling guys who do a great job? Are you saying, hey, man, great job, or, hey, you know, you did a really good job over there. Hey, that was a great shot. Or, hey, let's do that again. That was really good. Or, you know, are you getting on after the game, for example, like, are you going up to guys, hey, man, you did a great job. Rebound tonight, good work. Are you going up to guys saying, hey, man, that was. You did a really great job defensively. Are you going up to your bench guys and say, hey, man, you guys did a great. Like, appreciate you guys for bringing the energy tonight, right? You guys were. You guys were awesome. Like, that is really where it starts being a leader with encouraging your teammates. Forget about the holding people accountable, forget about all that other stuff. It starts with, are you able to positively encourage your teammates as much as possible? That's going to put them in a position to play their best, and it's going to put Your team in a position to really gel the best that it can. It's going to really help your team chemistry to go up. And again, when that chemistry goes up, you will play better, your team will be better, and you'll win more games. And like I said, it's all about winning, okay? So remember that you're playing a team sport. Don't be the guy who's happy that you scored 20 points even when your team loses. That. That's. That is the quickest way to lose all respect from your teammates if they see, hey, you know, he's celebrating the locker room, right? He called his parents at the game, say, you know, I played really like, I played a great game. Like, you know, I was. It was awesome. You guys lost by 20 points, but, oh, you had a great game. Don't be that guy. Don't be that guy who doesn't care about the team winning because you had a good game. You can't be that again. You have to be 100% bought into team success then my own success. The other thing, how do you react when things get difficult? If you guys lose five straight games, how do you. How do you respond to that? How do you react? Do you all of a sudden, does your effort diminish in practice? Does you know, do you become somebody who all of a sudden isn't as vocal, you're not as encouraging to your teammates? You have to be able to maintain a high level of leadership even when things don't go well. If you're having a bad practice, right, you're having a bad game where you just can't seem to make any shots, you can't seem to whatever. Are you still being positive, encouraging? Are you still being that leader for your team? Okay, again, we're talking about respect. You want guys to respect you, then be a leader when it's easy and when it's difficult. Right? That's an important part as well. So here's really a big part that I want to talk about, because I think this is really the biggest part of all this. And it's. Do you take responsibility when you lose? This is one of the biggest keys to being a leader, because like I just said, you can't be a leader just when things are going well. Can you accept blame? Can you accept responsibility when you lose games, when you lose in practice, when you lose, when you do poorly, when you don't do as well as you should, do you recognize and acknowledge the fact that you could have done more, or do you blame your teammates, your coaches, the refs, the other team. Is that what you do? Okay, this is not to say that things are always your fault in reality, but you have to have that mindset that there's always something more that you can do. So, quick story I want to tell you guys about Geno Auriemma and Sue Bird. So two legends in basketball. Gino Auriemma, obviously the head coach of UConn women's basketball, probably the. I mean, maybe the best college basketball coach ever. I mean, in that conversation, for sure, just has built an absolute monopoly on women's college basketball. It's really remarkable, the program that he's built there and the players that have come from UConn. So Sue Bird, obviously, also an incredible, incredible player. NCAA champion, FIBA champion, WNBA champion. Like, a lot of things that she's. That she has accomplished in her life. And this is a conversation that they had when she was a freshman at UConn. And this is over 20 years ago. Gino called Sue Bird into his office, and they set a quick meeting, and he was like, listen, anything that happens, anything bad that happens on the court is your fault. And she was like, what do you mean by that? And he was like, listen, if you turn the ball over, that's your fault. If your teammate turns the ball over, that's your fault. And she was like, what does that mean? And he was like, listen, you need to take responsibility for every single thing that happens to this team. Doesn't matter whether it's your fault or not. It's your fault. Your turnover, your fault. Her turnover, also your fault. And after that meeting, that helped her to understand that she had to take personal responsibility for everything that happens to her team. Every single thing that happens. So let's talk about responsibility real quick. Okay? Responsibility is done by you, right? You take responsibility. That's an action that you can take. Okay? Accountability is done to you by somebody else. Your coach is going to hold you accountable to do your job on the court. Your teammates are going to hold you accountable for doing your job. Responsibility is something that you have control over. You don't have control over accountability. You control over responsibility. Okay? Everybody loves to hold other people accountable. And that's what I talked about. Like, people love saying, hey, you know, I'm going to hold this guy accountable for doing this and doing that. People love to do that, but they do not like to hold themselves responsible for things that maybe they should hold themselves responsible for. Okay? You need to hold yourself responsible first before you start to hold people accountable. That's really the distinction we need to make right here. When you take responsibility, you have the power to respond to that, okay? You're taking a situation and you're taking ownership of it. You're saying, you know what? This is happening. I'm going to find a way to fix it. When you hold other people accountable or you push away responsibility, you blame other people. The opposite of responsibility is blame, okay? Instead of taking responsibility, you blame other people. You're giving away any power you have to change that situation. Okay? So you're saying, you know what? Not my problem. If we lose games, their fault, not my fault, nothing I can do about it, then you're gonna go along. And if, if you're cool with that, if you're cool just saying, you know what? I don't care if I can't change anything. I don't care if I don't have any, any say in what happens in my life. Cool. That's, that's fine. That's fine. Probably not the video for you then, but if you think to yourself, hey, like, you know, I want to be able to have control. I want to be able to affect my team. I want to be able to, to be a person who helps my team win, then the number one step is you need to be able to take responsibility for things that aren't your fault. So when we exclude ourselves from the problem, then we also exclude ourselves in the situation. We say, I'm not part of the problem. That also is inferring we can't help fix it. So again, we're gonna have to sit back and let what happens happen. And that's not a great way to live. It's not a great way to approach the game of basketball either. It's just not a fun way to be able to do that, okay? Responsibility leads to action, and blame never leads to action. Blame is a cop out answer. It's very, very mentally weak responsibility that's going to look in the mirror and is going to say, what can I do better? How can I fix this? Because responsibility is your ability to respond to that situation, okay? Blame says it's not my fault and there's nothing I can do. So let's say one of your teammates is a bad passer, right? They just can't make good passes. They always are throwing the ball high, low, whatever. And the average player is going to say, like, hey, you know what? That's his fault. Nothing I can do about it. If I miss shots, it's because it was a bad pass. Like, coach, like, I'm missing a Lot of shots, but I'm getting a bad pass every time. Nothing I can do about it, right? A great player, an above average player, a leader is going to say, you know what? How can I take responsibility for this to make sure that even if I get a bad pass, I'm still going to hit the shot. There's a video I'll play right now of Trae Young working on his ability to hit shots off of bad passes. So his trainer's rolling the ball, throwing high passes, and trainers catching it and shooting it. That's a great example of taking responsibility where he could say, you know what? It was a bad pass. Not my fault, I missed it. Now he's saying, you know what? No, I'm going to work on shooting off of bad passes. That if I do get a bad pass, I can still make the shot. That goes from blaming and not having any action to saying responsibility. Okay, what is my next action now? What can I do to make this situation better? There's an example where he's saying, you know what? It's my fault if I miss a shot. If I miss this shot now, it's my fault. It's my fault because I got to work harder on making shots off of bad passes. That's ultimately what it comes down to. So that's really responsibility embodied right there. If you want to be a leader on your team, then you need to internalize this mindset that everything that happens is your fault. Everything that happens because other players love having a leader who takes responsibility because they know that they're never going to get thrown under the bus. There's never going to be a situation where their teammate is going to come off the floor and say, hey, you know what? You were terrible tonight. This is your fault. That's not going to happen. They're going to get in the locker room, they're going to say, hey, you know what? I could have done that better. Like, there's a couple of shots I missed. I should have made those shots. And here's what I mean by that. If you. Let's say you score 24 points, right? You have a. You score 24 points, your team loses by six. Maybe your next closest teammate only scores eight points, right? So you didn't really have much help offensively, but you scored 24 points, right? It'd be easy for you to go in the locker room, say, hey, you know what? Someone else want to show up on offense for me, but you lost by six points. Maybe you missed four threes. So if you would hit all four threes. There's 12 points right there, and you would have won the game. There's responsibility right there. Okay, well, next time, I got to make every shot. Like, I got to get in the gym and work and get some more shots up, because clearly I'm not shooting the ball well enough because we still lost. That's taking responsibility for something that a lot of players say, you know, I had 24 points. Not my fault we lost. No, you can say, you know, what? If I should have had 36, I missed those shots that were open, and that's on me. That's my fault. Okay, Your. Your ability to take responsibility is going to take you from being an average player to being a great player, to being a player who people respect and want to follow. They want you to be the leader if you're willing to take responsibility for things that go wrong. Okay, so Steve Kerr was talking about Tim Duncan, and he basically, you know, described him the same way where he'd say, you know, Tim Duncan would come to the locker room and after a loss, and he'd say, you know, guys, this is my fault. And you look at the stats, and he'd have 38 points and 24 rebounds, and. And. But he's still coming to the locker room saying, hey, you know, guys, this is. I could have done better. This is my fault. Right? There's a leader right there. And what were the spurs, one of the best dynasties in. In NBA history. Okay, and there's another clip I'll show you guys right now of. Of LeBron, where he is talking about. This is back in 2017 where the Cavs had. The Cavs lost to the Pacers, and this is kind of in November, early season, and. And they had turned the ball over a bunch of times, like, I think 20 times. His team and LeBron turned the ball over eight times. So I want you guys to listen to how he responds to the reporter bringing up this question to him.

Some of my turnovers are trying to make the right play and just not just not working out. And obviously, you know, eight for myself. That's. That's way too many, you know, in the 3 or 4 range. But, you know, when you double that, that's not a. It's not good ingredients for your team to be successful. So, you know, I take that for sure, you know, and I have the ball in my hands a lot, so I have to be very careful, you know, with my decision making. So I take full responsibility for all our turnovers tonight, because it starts with me.

So Notice what he said at the end right there. He said, I take responsibility for all of our turnovers tonight because it starts with me. This is despite him having 33 points and 11 rebounds that night and his team not at full strength. No one else really did great offensively for him. He's still saying, you know what? Today it's my fault today, okay? I'm the. I'm the player that these guys look to. I did a poor job. It starts with me. That's taking responsibility for something, okay? And then there's another clip that I'll play of LeBron talking about Game 2, 2016 NBA Finals, when they got blown up by the Warriors. LeBron didn't play well. And another situation where you got to take responsibility as the best player on your team.

I just had a lot of turn. I had a lot of uncharacteristic, unforced turnovers, which resulted in Those guys getting 26 points off turnovers. So always, you know, I'm one of the guys who kind of always want to shoulder the blame and take the blame when we don't play as well as we should. It's just who I am, and I got to be better.

And so, obviously, we know what happened that series. The Cavs came back and they won it, right? First ever team to come back from a three one right there. Taking responsibility is such an important part to your teammates believing in you and believing in themselves. So we think about the series, right? He could have said, oh, you know what? Like, we're down three one. This team's. This team's 73. Nine. Like, what are we supposed to do? They're the best team ever. Like, what are we supposed to do? And I also believe the warriors are the best defensive team in the NBA that year, too. So he could say, you know, they're great defense. Like, what are we supposed to do? They're the best team ever. But instead of that, it's taking responsibility. What can we control? What can we do better? And his teammates rallied behind that, and they ultimately came back and ended up winning. Winning the. Winning the series. So if your teammate doesn't know the play, if your teammate is out of position on defense, if your team as a whole has a bad practice where the effort's not there, the intensity is not there, it's a bad practice overall. If someone keeps turning the ball over, if your teammate gets scored on every possession, if the ref makes a bad call, no matter what the situation is, that happens. It's your fault. It's 100% on you. You need to take responsibility and make the situation better as best as you can, okay? Choose to make it your responsibility to fix. And if you aren't willing to take responsibility for everything that happens to your team, that you. You aren't a true leader. You can't be a true leader because true leaders take responsibility for the good things and the bad things, okay? They're willing to do both. They want to say, you know what? We turn the ball over a lot. We, like, I got to do better, okay? I turned the ball over four times tonight. That's. That's not good enough. Okay. You know, we lost by three points tonight. Yeah, I might had 27, but I missed four threes. I got to hit those and we win the game. That's on me, right? My teammate was out of position on defense. I got to make sure that I look around the court next time and I tell him where to go, okay? My teammate messed a play up. I got to make sure I get him to the right spot next time. I got to be better. My teammate threw a bad pass to me. I got to make sure I'm more ready to get the ball next time so that I can catch it and then go into my shot. So there's some situations where you need to spin it, say, what can I do to make this better? What can I do as a leader to take responsibility and fix this? That's really where true leadership starts, okay? And not only will this help you and your team be better, but it's going to make the game a lot more fun as well. No longer are there things that are out of your control. No longer is it just, you know where you're going to go along with the wind. Now you won't feel helpless, because there's always something more that you understand you can do. You can always do something more. There's always something you can do to help your team be better, okay? Every loss is your fault. Doesn't matter how well you play. Every loss is your fault. You've got to find a way to win next time. So the question becomes, ultimately, do you. Do you really want to be a leader? Right. Are you willing to do that? Because if you are, it's your fault. And you have to take responsibility for everything that happens to your team. If your team doesn't measure up, it's your fault. If your team is out of position, it's your fault. So ask yourself, listen, is that worth it to me? Okay? Because like I'm telling you guys, trust me, the game becomes A lot more fun when you're willing to do that, right? It might sound like, oh, I don't want everything to be my fault, but if you're that guy, we want those characteristics of guys who can be leaders, right? That's going to make your team a lot better, okay? And winning again all goes back to it. It's all about winning, right? Winning makes it more fun. It's fun to win games, it's fun to go far in the playoffs. It's fun to do all. It's fun to have a banner hung up in your gym. And that starts with, are you willing to be a leader? Okay, so question you got to ask yourself. And if you really think about it, all these characteristics go back to being a great teammate. And that's really where it starts. If you aren't a good teammate, then you can't be a good leader. And if you're neither of those things, then you better be a phenomenal player on the court. Because if you are not, then you're a detriment to your team. It's as simple as that. And again, if you aren't all those things, those characteristics, then you can always be a good teammate and earn your way up to that leadership spot, okay? A team that's full of good teammates is going to be a good team, I'll tell you that now. So that's all I have. Again, great question. I really do appreciate it. Shout out to all you guys listening again, talk about the Zoom call. So again, if you guys are interested in that, make sure you guys go ahead and check it out. Send me a DM on Instagram about it or again to click the top link. Also post it in the description below. Really appreciate all of you guys for listening. You guys have any questions for me, send me a DM and I'll talk to you guys soon. Peace.