Serious Players Only: The 15-Day Challenge That Changes Everything

There's a superpower that most players don't have that I'm going to tell you how to develop right now. This is by far one of the most important videos that I've ever made. The state of basketball now is that it's never been more skilled and more athletic. The players today at younger and younger levels are so talented and there's so much ability. But the mental side of things is also trending the opposite direction of that, meaning we're going the wrong way. Players are less mentally tough, players have a lower basketball iq. And so that gives you an opportunity kind of to paint this picture. I've been watching the show the Wire on HBO Max recently, just started season four, by the way. It's like definitely my favorite show of all time and I'm not even done with the show yet, so it's been incredible. The show came out in the early 2000s, and one of the big things that jumps out to me every time I watch it is just how far technology has advanced in the last 20, 25 years. I mean, they went from back then. You were using payphones, you were using burner phones. If you were lucky, you might have a flip phone. You compare that to today and we all have these little supercomputers in our hands, in our pockets at all times, right? It's, it is a million fold difference just 20 years ago now, that ability for us to be so much more connected to everybody else and everything else that's going on in the world, which is what the change in the advancements of technology with phones have allowed us to do. What that has done though, is that conversely, our ability to focus and be connected with ourselves is diminishing at an astonishing rate. And going back to my example of the Wire with how much things have changed, I just think about how much more things are going to change in 20 years from now. In a basketball sense, we're going to look back as competitive as it is now, and it's at an all time high, it's going to continue to get even more talented, even more athletic, even more competitive as time goes on. And, and that might seem discouraging to you if you want to be successful as a player, but the important thing to do is to look at what that is going to open for you in terms of opportunity. And there's a big one. You have to look at what everybody else is doing and you have to find something that they're missing. A lot of times that means doing the opposite. Like I said, players today, people today have an inability to focus on something for long stretches of time and going with that. Players today, people today have an inability to be in the present moment. Like I said, people will just get up their phone, open TikTok and Doom, scroll for 2, 3, 4, 6 hours, as opposed to. Because when you do that, you're literally detaching away from yourself. You don't have to think about what's going on, what you're experiencing, your circumstances. You can just kind of get away from all of it by doing that. And that is the perpetual state that other players today are putting themselves in. Now, that might seem like it doesn't relate to basketball, but it absolutely does. As a. As a coach, as a trainer, there's two things that I know are true. Number one is that the best players are the ones who are able to be in the present moment as close to 100 of the time as possible. That means they're not thinking about mistakes that they made two plays ago. They're not thinking about what could happen if they mess up the next possession. They're not thinking about what their coach is thinking about. They're not thinking about what someone in the stands thinking about. They're not thinking about whether or not people are judging them. They're only focused on being in the present moment and what is happening right now. And the second thing going with that is that most players struggle to do that. They struggle to stay in the present moment. They struggle with being stuck in the past and focusing on past mistakes, focusing on something that somebody said or they get stuck on things that they don't control. What people are thinking about them, where their coach thinks about them, what could happen if they mess up the next possession, they miss another shot or whatever. Players usually fall into those two types of thinking. And what that does is it takes away from your ability to actually impact the moment. If you are present, you. You're going to be able to make a bigger impact and you're going to be more successful. So if you become that player who can be as close to 100% in the present moment as possible, you're going to give yourself a massive competitive advantage over so many players who are literally getting their phones out and training themselves every single day to do the opposite of this. And that right there is your opportunity that you can take advantage of so that the next five, 10 years, while everybody else is struggling with this, you are setting yourself apart and you are finding a competitive advantage because you're able to focus and you're able to keep yourself in the present moment and focus all of your attention on impacting right now. And obviously from an actual on court perspective, it makes sense why being present matters a lot because you're going to be more equipped to make shots and make the right play and do the right things to be successful. But this whole concept also goes into the idea of having self awareness, which just means being able to look at yourself and know how you feel about something, your thoughts on something, being able to assess that and then learn from it and move forward. And again, a lot of players, a lot of people don't have the ability to be self aware because instead of looking introspectively, they just pull out their phone and ignore it and get on TikTok. So if you want to become a player who is consistently able to be in the present moment so that you can make a bigger impact, you're not weighed down by all these external things that you don't control. And so that you have a high level of self awareness that you're able to get better at a way faster rate than everybody else. I'm going to give you a really simple thing that you can do that's going to completely set you apart. Now, this might seem too simple, but I want you to stick with me, bear with me. Let me kind of explain what I mean by this and then I'm going to give you a challenge that you can take that you'll be able to see just how big of an impact this will make for you. What you need to start doing is journaling for five to ten minutes every day. And when I say journal, I mean with like a physical notebook or a physical journal. And not like getting your phone out and using your phone notes like something that you're actually, you're actually writing with a pencil or with a pen. Now, at its base level, journaling can be as simple as you just writing down your thoughts, writing down how you felt that day, writing down different circumstances, different situations, whatever is on your mind. But I want to take it a step further. I'm going to give you 15 prompts and with that I'm going to give you the 15 day journaling challenge. So each day you're going to, at some point during the day, take one of these prompts and spend five to ten minutes just journaling about it, whatever comes to mind. Give yourself, maybe you set a timer on your phone for five minutes. And the rule is you have to write for five minutes. You can't close that notebook until that five minutes up, even if it means you only Write two sentences. You've at least got to be focused on doing that for five minutes at least. And if you want to end up doing more than that, you can. But every day, tackling one of these prompts is going to teach you a ton about yourself. First of all, it's going to increase your self awareness by 1000% and it's going to help you to become more present because you, you're slowing yourself down and you're collecting your thoughts onto paper and you go from being in a world where you wake up and you know you have all these responsibilities that you have to do and then you go to practice and then you, you know, this happens and that happens and all these different things are going on and you being able to slow yourself down, be present and just write and just answer that prompt and just think about the different prompts that you're going to get. So day one through five of these prompts are very much focused on presence and your ability to focus. Number one is what did I notice about my thoughts during today's workout or game? Number two is when was I most locked in today and what helped me get there? Number three is what distracted me today and how did I respond? Number four is was I focused on the moment or how I look to others? Number five is what's one thing I could do tomorrow to be more present on the court? Day six through 10 is really focused on self awareness. So number one, what emotions did I feel during practice or during the game? What triggered those emotions? Number seven is what's one moment today where I could have responded better mentally? Number eight is what habits or patterns do I notice and how I react to mistakes? Number nine is when do I feel most confident and when do I feel doubt creeping in? Why? Number 10 is am I being honest with myself of my effort, my attitude and focus? And then the last five prompts are really focused on growth and building a process oriented mindset. So the first one is, did I embrace challenge today or did I try to avoid it? Why? Number two is what's one uncomfortable thing I did today that helped me grow? Number three is what would getting 1% better look like for me tomorrow? Number four, am I focused more on improvement or outcome? How can I shift that? And number five is what does the best version of me do daily, on and off the court? So 15 prompts, 15 days. My challenge to you is every day go through one of these prompts. Five minutes at least set a timer. You have to write for five minutes. You have to at Least think about it for five minutes and then you're done. That's your time of self reflection, being in the present moment. This is a habit that you're going to build and the hope is that you get enough out of it that this becomes something that you do past the 15 day mark. And so it becomes something that you make a habit so that you're able to put yourself in the present moment and be able to reflect and develop that level of self awareness that's going to set you apart. After this 15 days, you, you're going to feel like a completely different person. You're going to think differently, you're going to know yourself differently and you're going to be able to find some things that are probably roadblocks for you, that you're going to be able to identify and change so that you become way more successful on the court. When you learn to be present and self aware, everything starts to shift for you. You stop getting in your own way, you make better decisions, you respond better to adversity and you improve way faster. You'll stop chasing external validation from everybody else around you. You'll stop being so concerned about the things you don't control and, and you'll be much more focused on the things that you control and the things that are truly important. Like I said, this is a world that is built to distract you. And every single day these giant companies, Meta X TikTok, become better and better at draining you of your ability to be in the present moment, taking away your focus and taking away your ability to be self. Aware. So when you decide that you are going to swing the other way and develop these abilities and it's going to immediately set you apart from so many other players out there who don't have this ability. And like I said, if you start to build this habit and build that ability to be self aware and to stay in the present moment as much as possible, you are going to completely separate yourself over the next five to 10 years and it's going to be one of the biggest reasons why you're successful. So give the 15 day challenge a try and then drop a comment and let me know how it's going for you, how it's benefiting you, what you're learning from it, going along with the mental side of things. If you want to completely transform your basketball iq, I have a free basketball IQ masterclass link down below. It's going to help you to be able to score more consistently, create more for yourself, for your teammates, play with way more confidence and see the game the way that an elite player would see the game. We also dive into more stuff like this. Building the mindset, becoming the person that you need to be. That's been my big focus as somebody who's around so many players. Everybody spends their time focusing on their skills and getting better, and a lot of players have that, and they still aren't that successful. And the reason being is that they're not the person that they need to be in order to actually be successful and allow those tools to be applied correctly on the court. So the stuff that we're talking about with this, but also the Basketball Q Masterclass is going to help you to become that person. So completely free. Top link down in the description below. Make sure you check that out. Talk soon. Peace.