The Mindset That The MOST CONFIDENT Basketball Players Have

So there's a common saying in baseball, and maybe people use different numbers from time to time, but how I've always heard it is that a.280 hitter is a.280 hitter. So this means that if you have a hitter in baseball who their batting average is always.280, if they're batting.450 for a month, chances are there's going to be a month where they're going to be batting well below that because they are what they are. Like they're a.280 hitter, they're not a.450 hitter. So there's going to be a month that, that's going to bring them back down to what their average actually is. Likewise, if you have a batter who's a.280 hitter, but they're only batting.150 for a month, they're due, they're due to have a really, really, really good month because that average is going to go up. You know that they're a decent hitter, they're a.280 hitter, they're not a bad hitter. So what that means is that you've, they're due for some hits here, they're due for a hot streak. This is called the law of averages. And it's something that I, I've found, found myself saying to my players all the time, especially those who struggle with confidence is the first point that I want to make here. Understanding the law of averages can completely transform your confidence and your self belief as a player. So the law of averages just means that everything's going to average out to what it is, right? We talk about what an average is. You take an individual event and you repeat it enough times, you're going to get the average of what happens. The key phrase right here is repeated enough times. So a lot of times what I'll see players do, and it'll be good players too, is they'll have a bad game or they'll have a bad quarter or a bad half. And I look at their body language, I look at their demeanor, and it looks like someone ran their dog over with a car. It's like the whole world is ending because they had a bad game or a bad quarter or a bad week. And again, this might be a good player. So my reminder to them is you're a good player. That means that good things are going to happen to you on average. So if bad things are happening to you, it means that you're due for good things. If you're a bad player, then yeah, I get it like this Is this is kind of what you are, but you're not. So you have to have that, that belief that, hey, if bad things are happening to me, if things that are out of the ordinary are happening to me from a negative perspective, that means that there's going to have to be something that on the opposite end that balances it out. Meaning that there's going to be good things that happen to me that maybe are a little bit out of the ordinary. So if I had a horrible game, that means I'm going to have a tremendous game coming up here because it's going to average out for me. And that's what the law of averages really gives you when it comes to the game of basketball is understanding, hey, this is what I am as a player. You know, if I shoot 40% from three, this is an example I use a lot, right? I work with a lot of really good shooters. And so there'll be times where they'll start off a season and they'll be shooting at 28%, right? I know they know they're not a 28% three point shooter. We know that they're closer to 40. That gives me a lot of, a lot of beliefs. I'm like, hey man, listen, we know you're not this, we know that this is going to go up. So that means that you've got a game coming up here where you're probably going to go like 6 of 7, 7 for 8 from 3, because this is going to average out. You've had some bad games that are out of character for you. That means you're going to have some good games on the opposite end of things that people are going to look at and say, wow, that's probably a little bit better than you actually are. Well, it's because everything's going to average out. So having this understanding of the law of averages can give you a lot of confidence. You feel like you're in a drought, you're in a slump, you're playing below what you actually are capable of doing, then understand that you've got the exact opposite coming up. And going back to my point here, when we talk about an average, we have the individual events that are repeated enough times to gain an average. You have to continue to do those things and put yourselves in those positions, take those shots, try to capitalize on those opportunities in order to, for you to have a chance for that law of averages to work out in your favor. If you have a bad game and all of a sudden you stop shooting the ball, you stop Making attempts to, to make an impact. Well, yeah, you probably won't give yourself an opportunity to see the other side of that law of averages work in your favor. Okay? So it's important for you to continue to do what you're supposed to do, do the things you know you're supposed to do, regardless of the outcome. It's eventually going to work out in your favor because that's what the law of averages says. The second point I want to make is that Everybody is at 70%. I first started to think about this and really view the game this way when my brother who plays college basketball was telling me a couple of years ago, I think it was his freshman year, maybe it might have been a sophomore year. He was telling me about one of his teammates who's one of their better players. He was really, really sick. And they had a game that night and this kid was so sick he didn't get out of his bed until he had to get up and go to the arena in the evening to get ready to play. And so that's how bad it was. And this kid gets to the game they play and he has a career high, like sets a new career high in terms of points scored and threes made in a game. And this is a kid who couldn't even get out of his bed the whole day and he shows up and he plays that way. And it really started to make me think over the course of a season, right? We take it from a big picture perspective. No team is at 100% the whole time. No player really is at 100% the entire time for a full season. And I mean that for a bunch of different perspectives. So obviously from a health perspective or injuries, very rarely are you going to have a team or a player that's never going to feel a little sick, never going to roll an ankle, whatever the case may be. But even from a performance perspective, like you're never going to have a great game every single game. Again, we talked about the law of averages. A 40% 3 point shooter doesn't shoot 4 for 10 every game, right? Some games they only shoot 10% from 3, right? But then you know that a game's going to come up that going to be well above 40 because it's all going to balance out. It's the same thing in the context of a season for a team. You're never going to play your best game every single game. You're going to have bad games, great games, games in between right there. But very rarely is that performance going to be 100%. Very rarely for a team or for a player is your confidence level going to be at 100%. Every single game, every single quarter, every single half that you play, it's not going to be like that. It's going to ebb and flow. But momentum, sometimes as a team, you're going to have a ton of momentum. In the. In the course of a season, you've won five straight as a player, you played three great games, you've got great momentum. On the flip side of that, you've just lost five straight games, or you haven't made a shot in two games, and you don't have a lot of momentum coming in. So rarely is anybody at 100%. And players want things to be perfect, right? They think that things should just work out. If I train and I practice and I feel like I'm capable of doing this, I should do that every single time. And it should never be imperfect. In reality, nothing is perfect. Rarely will it be right. You'll have. You'll have a game like that once in a while, but the majority of time, it's not going to be like that. Great players can accept that fact. They can accept the fact that they are not going to be perfect. They're not going to feel perfect, they're not going to perform perfectly almost ever. That's also. They almost will never do it. And so they have to focus on being the best. They can be at about 70%. And this is kind of. This is kind of the number that I've settled on. For the majority of a season, a team is going to be at about 70%. When you average out the games where they play incredible games, they play awful, people being hurt, people being healthy, you average it out. A team is going to be at about 70% for the majority of the season right there. And for players, it's going to be the same way, whether it's you being hurt, you being sick, you. You not performing well, your confidence not being there, the momentum you have game to game, not being there, you're going to be at about 70% the majority of the time. And that might even be in the context of a game. You might start off a game and miss a couple shots, and maybe you're only playing a 70%, right? And maybe that changes throughout the course of the game, but you're going to have moments where you're not going to be playing at close to your 100% level, and that's going to be probably the majority of the time. So great players first of all can accept that. They understand that that's how life works. That's how basketball works. They're not going to be perfect. They're not going to feel great all the time, and they're able to focus on being the best they can be at 70%. If you can focus on being the best you can be at 70%, you're going to be so much more successful over the long run than a lot of players. Because when a lot of players, when they. When they recognize that fact that they aren't playing well, they don't feel great, they freak out because, oh, why am I, Why do I not feel great? Why am I not playing my best like that? That becomes their response. And then when they realize that they're unable to keep focused on what they're doing and on being successful and they're not able to stay with it because things aren't perfect for them. And that is a vast majority of players who, if things aren't perfect, they get so distracted. But the players who can accept the fact that it won't be and who can continue to just lock in and do what they're supposed to do and continue to try their best, think back to what I said about law of averages. Continuing to put themselves out there, understanding that eventually it's going to work out well for them. That is, those are the players who are going to ultimately be successful, right? You not being at your best all the time, maybe even ever, isn't necessarily about you. It doesn't mean you're necessarily doing anything wrong. It's just you being a human. That's. That's what life is. That's what life is like, is it's a collection of imperfections, right? And so you need to have the mental toughness to accept the imperfection that is the game of basketball and succeed and do your best in spite of it. That is going to put you ahead of so many players who are going to be unable to last for the long haul because they don't play up to perfection all the time, right? You probably intuitively know what you're capable of. You might know like, hey, if I had a great game, I could probably do this. Well, you have to understand that that's probably a perfect scenario that's not going to happen very often, if ever. So when you look at 70% of that, then what? Then what's your mindset? Then what does your confidence look like? Then what is your approach like? So understanding, first of all, the law of averages. Hey, if I'm a good player. When bad things happen to me, I just need to keep going, keep, keep sticking with it because law of averages is going to balance everything out. So for every bad game I have, there's a great game coming. For every bad quarter I have, there's a great quarter coming. Whenever I go over 5, it means that there's a 5 for 5 stretch coming here too, because it's all going to balance out. So understand the law of averages and making that work for you is important. And then understanding the fact that you're going to be at about 70%, sometimes 50%, sometimes 30%, sometimes 90%, accepting where you are and how you feel and how you're performing and, and doing your best to work through that is going to give you a leg up over so many players who can't handle the fact that imperfection is going to happen. So making those two mindset shifts will do wonders for you if you can adopt them. There's two more mindset shifts that I think are really important as well that I talk about inside of my basketball IQ master class and it's going to help you to view the game differently and play with just a different level of confidence when you understand these things. On top of that, this, this masterclass, which is an hour long, goes into way more we talk about basketball IQ and confidence. So if you're interested in that, highly recommend it. That will be the top link in the description down below. So check that out like it's a completely free an hour long top link down below. I appreciate you for watching. Drop a like subscribe, leave a comment if you got something from this. If you have a question for me, any sort of input on this, I always appreciate that. Thank you for watching. Talk to you soon. Peace.