How To Develop The "It" Factor As A Basketball Player

When you think of some of the best players to ever play the game, guys like MJ, LeBron, Kobe, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, or any other great player, these guys all have something different about them. They're seemingly unfazed by anything that the defense might do to them. They have the ability to absolutely take over a game when they want to. And these are the guys who many of the NBA's greatest trash talkers have said that they would never dare to talk trash to because these guys are just built different. And many people refer to this as having the it factor. You've probably played with or against players who have this it factor as well. They have a supreme level of confidence, they perform well, very consistently, and they're likely some of the best players that you know chances are. If you've ever had a teammate with this IT factor, you probably felt really good about your chances of winning. If you want to develop a zip factor yourself, you've come to the right place. In this video, I'm going to go through exactly how you can develop as IT factors that you play with unshakable confidence, perform at a high level consistently, and no longer feel restricted by or afraid of the big moments. Reasons let's get into it. The first thing that every player who has the if factor has something that is absolutely necessary if you want to develop it yourself, is that players with the if factor value winning above everything else and will do whatever it takes to win. So not only do these players want to win, but they're willing to do what it takes to win. And this is not the same. These are not the same things, right? Everybody wants to win. Nobody goes out and wants to lose. Like no one wants to lose a game. Nobody wants to lose a rep. Nobody wants to. Everybody wants to win, but not everybody's willing to do what it takes to actually win. They're not willing to do what's actually necessary to achieve winning. And for example, many players avoid working on their weaknesses because it's uncomfortable, it's not fun to do. It's much easier to go and work on your strengths, things you're already good at. A lot of players won't work on things that they aren't good at. And if that's the case, if you're unwilling to actually work on the things that you're weak at and improve on those things, then you, you can't have the factor because you don't truly care about winning above everything else. You care about how you look or how you feel more than you actually care about winning. And so I would say that players who are like that don't truly want to win because they aren't actually willing to do whatever it takes to put themselves in the best position to win. Right? And that's what one example. But there are many, there are many times where players don't truly prioritize doing what it takes to win. Instead settle for something else that in the moment might be easier. And if that's how you are, you're not going to be able to develop that if factor. You have to decide that winning is above everything else for you and you're going to do whatever it takes to, to do that thing. Nothing else matters to these players except for winning. And this means that first of all, they're willing to endure difficulty and failure. They're willing to go through uncomfortable situations. And the second part of that is they're willing to do that for longer than everybody else is willing to do it because they know that if I stick to this, if I'm willing to work on my weaknesses and I'm willing to go and put myself in challenging situations, it's going to make me better, which is going to be winning more and they'll do whatever it takes to win more. Right? That's what a player is. The if factor that's like their entire mindset is I will do whatever it takes to win. And a lot of times that's going to require you to work through difficulty and failure. So the very first thing that's required if you want to have this if factor is that your desire to win has to be above everything else for you. And if it's not, you're going to, you're not going to be able to develop this it factor. So the second thing that is a huge key, maybe the biggest key to developing this it factor is having an unwavering belief in your ability to get the job done. And this is, this is basically the definition of confidence, right? Confidence is just having the belief that you are prepared to be successful in the situation that you're in. And players that have the it factor have a deep rooted belief in themselves, in their own abilities to be successful. And the question then is, how do you develop this self belief? There's two groups of players who lack this type of self belief and the first group lacks it because they truly haven't put the work in yet. They just aren't very good. And because of that, they're not going to be successful because they don't have the ability to actually be successful. So they're not going to have the self belief to go along with that. Right. For this group, the answer is to get better and improve until you have the ability and therefore the self belief that you have what it takes to be successful. Right. That's the first group. The other group lacks self belief because they deep down believe that they are not good enough. They have this just intrinsic belief that they aren't good enough. And it might be because someone told them or maybe a lot of people told them that they aren't good enough or they don't have what it takes. Maybe it's because they've failed before and they took that as oh, I guess I'm just not good enough to do this. And they kind of just internalize that and it stuck with them. Or you know, maybe they just naturally don't have this, don't have a ton of confidence. And for this group, you have to continue to speak the actual truth over yourself. And what I mean by that is that you have to, if you're, if you're watching this or listening to this, you need to write down all of the reasons that you have to be confident in your, in yourself as a basketball player. And you need to be specific. Like they shouldn't be things like, well, because I'm a good shooter, because that's not specific. Right. And it's not measurable. So we don't know what that actually means. This needs to be specific like things that you've accomplished. So for example, maybe a reason that you have for being confident because you've had multiple games in double figure scoring, or I had five games last season where I scored 20 or more points or I led my team in scoring last season or, or I led my team to scoring last game or I had four games last year where I led my team to scoring there, there. You know, whatever the case may be for that, maybe you say, hey, I had a game where I made five threes, I should feel pretty confident about my ability to shoot. You know, I have spent a lot of time working on my three point shot. I spent a lot of time and effort and I should feel confident because of that. You should, you know, maybe you made 20 threes in a practice one time. I should feel confident in my ability to make shots as I've done this and I've accomplished that. And that's something that I can go back to. You know, I've been doing the perimeter score system or the elite shooter system or elite ball hand 2.0 for two, three months and whatever the case may be with that, right, Give yourself specifics. Why should you feel confident? Now? The first thing is that if you're really having trouble coming up with one reason or you know, multiple reasons why you should be confident, then you probably fall into the first group and you probably haven't done anything that warrants you being confident. So you need to go improve and get better. And then as you do that, you're going to start to accomplish more things and then that self belief is going to come along with that. If you start to go through this list though, you start to look at it and say, oh, wow, I actually do have some reasons to be confident in myself. Well, if this is something that you have just naturally, that you naturally believe when you're in games, oh, you know, I lose this self belief. What you need to do is speak this over yourself every day. Like you need to review these things every day. This needs to be something that you are consistently reminding yourself of. And whenever you have more reasons, right, Maybe you play another game next week and you, you play really well or something happens like, you know, I had 12 points in the paint, so I should feel pretty confident about my ability to finish or I hit six threes. I feel pretty good about my ability to hit outside shots, whatever the case may be. I had, you know, four assists coming off of a ball screen, so I feel pretty good about my ability to play in a ball screen. Once you add to that, like add that to your list, go back and write and write those things down too. And that way you're going to have more and more reasons that you can look at and remind yourself of, of, hey, this is why I deserve to play with this self belief, because I've proven that I can do these things and I'm capable of being successful in these situations right there. Eventually this is going to start to become a part of the way that you view yourself. And what that's going to do is give you that rock solid confidence that isn't shaken by a bad play or a bad game or a bad stretch of games even. Because you're going to know that you're capable of being successful and that when you aren't, it's just because you're human and sometimes you know, you, you don't play well or you miss a shot or you make you turn the ball over, whatever the case may be that's going to happen. But you know that you have the capabilities of getting the job done and so you let the law of averages work for you all the law of averages is, is you take the idea of what an average is, which is what something is the majority of the time, right? When you take away all of the outliers, the. It averages out to be something, right? If you are a good player on average, what that means is that you're going to have, some days you play bad, you're going to play bad some days, but you're a good player. So that means it's going to average out, meaning for every bad day you have, means you're going to have a great day because you're, you're a good player. So it's going to all average out to good. So you have to start to have that belief that, hey, if I don't play well, that means that a really, really good day is coming because I'm a good player and I know it's going to average out. Being good doesn't mean that you're going to play good. Every single day means that some days you will play good, but some days you're going to play pretty bad. And then other days you're going to play really, really, really good and it's all going to average out. So when you have that belief that, hey, I'm a good player because I've done these things, it's going to allow you to play with a certain level of freedom. Because, you know, even if a bad thing happens, that means that a really good thing is going to come to even it out. And ultimately you are what you are, right? The saying in baseball is, if you're a.280 hitter, you're a.280 hitter. You might bat.400 for a month. But what that means is that a real bad month is coming up too, because you're a.280 hitter. And it's the same thing in basketball. If you're a good player, you're a good player, and eventually it all averages out to be that, Right? And that should give you a lot of confidence. Again, if you have these reasons to back up and say, hey, I should believe in myself because I've done these things, I have these accomplishments, I'm capable of doing this. So that's an important thing to understand if you really want to develop that if factor. And then the third thing that comes along with having this it factor and that all these players who have the if factor have is the ability to inspire confidence in others. And I think this is an area that doesn't get talked about at all. At least that I've seen. And, you know, it Becomes like when you have this if factor, you, you become so much bigger than just yourself, right? You have the ability to, to change an entire team and your teammates for the better. So let's talk about just the habits that you need to have if you want to be that type of player. The first thing is do you pick up for others where they might lack? So can you look and pinpoint, Say, hey, you know, I know this teammate has a tendency to forget to rotate and help. So I got to make sure I know that, hey, if, that if my teammates at help over there, I might need to be able to bail early to go help them out because they might forget or I need to know that if they're in, in this spot and I know they're about to need to rotate, I need to remind them to do it in the context of a game like at, at that speed. Can I be thinking that way as well? Do I know what my teammates strengths and weaknesses are and how to help them or play to their strengths? That's something that somebody who has the if factor is able to do. The second thing is, do you do more than what is asked of you? Right? There's a certain level of expectation for you. Do you go above and beyond that? Maybe you are, you know, you're on. We'll go back to the help example. You're on defense, you do your job, you're in help when you're supposed to be all that sort of stuff. Do you again, do more than what you're asked to do and take it upon yourself to make sure you're calling things out to your teammates early? If you know, a teammate struggles with rotating, are you helping them by talking to them, talking them through things, getting places, maybe switching with them if they need it? Are you going above and beyond to help your teammates and are you doing more than what's asked of you? Are you taking a bigger load on your shoulders than other people might be? Right? Because that's what somebody who has the factor is going to do. They're going to hold themselves to a higher standard, which leads to me, to my next thing. Do you hold yourself to a higher standard than you know what you hold your teammates to? Your teammates you may expect to do something, but can you say to yourself like, hey, this is what's expected of everybody else, but I need to hold myself to an even higher standard. So if Practice starts at 3 o' clock and most of your teammates, you know, have to be your coach, say, hey, be on the court by 255, right? That's the standard. But do you hold yourself to a higher standard? Say, I got to be on the court by 245, right? Like, that's. That's what I mean by. Do you hold yourself to a higher standard than what you would hold your teammates to? And, you know, do your teammates truly believe that you care about winning over everything? Because there's a lot of really talented players out there who, who don't actually care about winning. They care about how they look, they care about how many points they score, but they don't really care about how their team does. And their teammates know that. Everybody knows it. Anybody who, like their coaches all know it, anybody who was watching who knows basketball is going to know it. Like, there's a very clear difference between somebody who is talented and cares about winning and somebody who's talented and doesn't care about winning. So which one are you? Do you care more about how many points you score? Do you care more about actually winning the game? Because that's a big difference right there. And again, if we go back to the first one, if you don't care about winning above everything else, it's gonna be very difficult for you to do what is necessary to really have this it factor. And then the number, the last thing that comes along with this ability to inspire confidence in others is can you be counted on to show up every single night and compete at a high level, or does that vary? Now, this doesn't mean, again, like what I said, this doesn't mean that you're going to show up and play great every night, but is your effort consistent every night? Are you doing the little things every night? Are you, like we already talked about, are you helping your teammates? Are you picking up for your teammates every single night? Are you putting more on your shoulders than everybody else's shoulders every single night? That's the difference. And that's what I mean by consistency. That doesn't mean that you're going to show up and drop 40 every night. You probably won't. But are you still, is your mentality and your approach, is that the same every single time? Could people count on you to be that guy, be that girl every single time you're on the floor? And then if they can, that's going to inspire a lot of confidence in them. And again, I. What I'd imagine is that if you play with somebody that you can look at and say, hey, they have that if actor, you probably have a lot of confidence in yourself, probably more confident than you normally would. Because they're on your team. I know I play with players like that. I've seen a ton of players like that who they make everybody better just because everybody believes that they're going to win because they have this player on their team and so this player is super valuable. And again, going through just the things that are important is number one, your desire for winning has to be above everything else. That's the number one thing that you have to be able to have, is that you will win and you will do whatever it takes to win. It's not just that you want to win, everybody wants to win, but not everybody's willing to do what it takes to actually win. So you got to determine which one of those you are. Number two is do you have an unwavering belief in your ability to get the job done? Do you have confidence? Do you have self belief? If not, you need to work on developing that by either A getting better or B understanding what you've accomplished and reminding yourself of that until you can truly look at yourself and say, hey, like I've done these, these certain things, I know that I'm good, that I have the ability to do this and eventually it becomes a part of you. And then number three is do you have the ability to inspire confidence in others not just based on how you play, but based on how you approach things and the level of consistency that they can expect from you on a day to day basis. When you do these things consistently, you become somebody who has it factor, who people look at differently and this is truly how you transcend into that top tier of basketball players out there. So again, make sure you commit to these things and if you guys want something that's going to help you, if you're listening to this and say, okay, well you know, I get this but I want to get better. I wanted to start to develop that self belief, that confidence. I want you to click the top link in my description down below, get my free Elite Perimeter Score workout. Get my free Elite Perimeter score program and this program is going to help you develop those abilities, take your confidence to that next level. Just because you're a better player and already heard back from a lot of people who have gone through it and it's been amazing to see. So like I said, top link down below, completely free. And if you guys are new, make sure you drop a, like subscribe, drop a comment too, let me know what you got out of this. I appreciate you for watching. I'll talk to you soon. Peace.