Ethan Khoza argues that as basketball competition rises globally, players waste energy on things they can't control like opponent size or shot outcomes. Focus instead on what you can control: mechanics, consistency, and preparation. Steph Curry still misses over half his threes.
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Welcome to the Vision Driven Basel training podcast. I appreciate every single one of you guys for tuning in. Right now, all of you in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever it might be that you're listening or watching. Thank you guys for tuning in. This week we're gonna talk about how to gain an advantage for yourself, okay? And specifically how you can do this by controlling things that you can control. Because this is a major topic that will really help out a lot of players, and it's kind of a switch that, that you'll have to flip for a lot of you, and then once you do, you're gonna find that you're gonna be able to be much more consistent in how you play, how you approach the game, and in the results that you see, all by coming from dedicating yourself to controlling the things that you have the ability to control. Okay? And the reason that I make that distinction right there is because, you know, in basketball and really in life in general, there's a lot of things that you can't control, you don't have any control over. You know, basketball, as an example, is more competitive today than it has ever been, okay? And next week it's going to be even more competitive than it is this week. You know, the popularity of basketball is continuing to grow at a rapid rate and more and more players are starting to play. More and more players are starting to take it seriously from not just the United States, where I know a lot of you guys are from, where I'm from, but, but all around the world. You know, you have guys in the NBA now like Luka Doncic, like Giannis, guys who are mega stars from outside of the United States, which never used to be the case, you know, or maybe you'd have, maybe you'd have, you know, a few guys who might have been all star caliber, but you didn't have guys who you were talking about as being potential, you know, MVP guys every year, and in some instances the MVP like Giannis was last year. So. And that's only going to continue to get more and more common as, as, as basketball continues to progress forward. So the competitive, the, the competition level is at an all time high and it continues to go upward. So, you know, there are, because of that factor, you know, there's a lot of things in the games itself you can't, you don't have any control over. You know, you, you, you don't control how many people out there play basketball. You don't control how many people are out there competing for the same spot that you are. You don't control if someone's bigger than you or more athletic than you or, you know, even if you're a great shooter or a great ball handler, you don't control if somebody is a better shooter than you or a better ball handler than you. That, that's not something you have control over, and that's something you have to come to grips with. And, and, and you have to start shifting your focus away from those things, okay? Because focusing on things you can't control is just a waste of your time, of your energy. And that energy that, that, that thought is much better off being put in, in. Into something else. And we're going to talk about exactly what that means today. You know, to, to get even more detailed, though, with that. You, you don't control how many points you score. Like, you don't control whether or not the ball goes in the basket. Like, you really don't. You might, you can work on your shooting all that you want, but as soon as the ball leaves your hands, you don't, you don't control if it goes in or not. You know, Steph Curry, they're the greatest shooter of all time, still misses over half of his threes, okay? And so if Steph Curry can't even, can't even control the ball going to the basket, nobody else can. So that's something that you don't even control. Right? You can control having great mechanics working a ton of your jump shots to give yourself the highest likelihood of it happening. But at the end of the day, you don't, you don't control that ball going into that basketball really, at any time. Okay? And, you know, I'm sure you guys have all experienced, you know, the feeling where you might shoot the basketball, and it just feels so perfect, like, oh, man, that's nothing but net and, you know, goes in and out or hits the back rim. It feels like it's so perfect and you feel like you did everything right when you shot the ball, but yet it's still missed. That lets you know you don't have, like, you don't control that whether or not the ball goes in the basket. Of course you can become better at something. You become better at shooting. Like I said, you can work on your mechanics, you can work on extending your range, you can work on becoming more consistent in practice. You can work on taking different shots. You can work on adding defense in to make it more difficult, and you can just get reps up, and that's going to make you better, and that's going to increase the likelihood of you making it. But at the end of the day, if the air conditioning in the gym blows the ball 1/100th of an inch to the left when you shoot it, you might miss it. Because of that, you don't have control over that. Right. So you need to understand that's an exaggeration, but it illustrates the point that I'm trying to make. You might be, you know, an extremely strong player. You know, you're really committed in the weight room, and, you know, physically, you're really, really strong, but you don't control whether or not you might face somebody who's even stronger than you are. Right. They. They might be even more dedicated than you, or they might just be naturally bigger. That. That can also be how it is. You know, like I said, with the increased level of competition, this becomes more and more evident every single day. And, you know, it's the same way in life. You can work extremely hard to get a job, and maybe you do everything right. You know, you go to a good school and you get good grades, but maybe in the day somebody went to a better school, gets the job that you wanted, right? And. And that's not something that you control. So there is literally that correlation in every area you can think of. And basketball, of course, is. Is no different. And, you know, you can. Another example, you can take perfect care of your car, right? You can. You can take it to get washed and detailed every single week. You know, you can be.
