Why The Best Players Think Differently Than You

Right now I want to talk about the two traits that the best players that I've been around have. Now. These are the two traits that I think are a requirement if you want to be considered an elite player. I was a high school varsity coach for five seasons, and in that span, we had the best stretch in school history. We had our best regular season of all time, won back to back district championships, the first time Sweet 16, state playoff appearance for the first time. Obviously, when you have that sort of success, you normally have some pretty good players and, and then, you know, now I'm a varsity basketball coach and you know, obviously with training, I've worked with Division 1 players, Division 2, Division 3 high school, middle school players. So I've been around a bunch of different levels of basketball, different players at different spots, and the best ones always seem to have these two traits that kind of overlap. And I see it in all of them. And so I want to dive into those things, things that you can look to develop and work on, and it's going to translate to you having way more successful at the level that you're at here. So the first trait that the best players that I'm around, that the most elite players that I'm around have is they have the ability to detach themselves from their emotions. And this maybe seems a little complex, but it's very simple. I say to my team now, how close to 100% of the time can I be in the present moment? Meaning how much can I avoid being in the past and thinking about where I messed up, you know, what I looked like last game or five minutes ago, or the mistake that I made or, or the shot that I missed? Can we avoid that? And can we avoid the future and worrying about, well, man, what am I going to do the next time I touch the ball? You know, what if I catch it and turn it over again? What are we going to do next game? Because the team we're playing is really good. How can we avoid that? How can you be as close to 100% of the time in the present moment, where your feet are, the only impact that you can make is in the present moment, what you're doing right now. The player that you're currently in, the game that you're currently in, is the only thing that you have any sort of control over, any sort of impact over. And a lot of players, like, yeah, I say that and it sounds obvious, but a lot of players actually take that power away from themselves because they spend all their time worrying about mistakes that they made and stuff that's happened and. Or they worry about what's going to happen. And so they can't actually bring the best version of themselves to the present moment. So they're never as good as they could actually be. And this is where you have players who are big time overthinkers or super inconsistent. You know, I've been around a lot of players who would have a great game and then the next game they'd miss their first two shots and then they would do nothing for the next four games. Like they would be that they would ebb and flow that much and they would be that far separated from the present moment that a couple mistakes and they ruin the present moment for themselves, for games at a time. And I know for myself as a player, like that was the biggest struggle for me is worrying about how do I stop myself from being so concerned about the things that have happened or the things that could happen and being afraid of failure or making mistakes or whatever the case may be. The best players that I'm around don't allow themselves to get caught up in the past, get caught up in the present, whether good or bad. They had a great game, they're right back to being in the present moment and they had a terrible game. They're right back to being in the present moment, and it's like you almost can't even tell what's happened to them. So the saying that I like to say is just be where your feet are. How often can you be right where your feet are? Whether it's in a game, how quickly can you get yourself out of. You know, you get. You start to get caught up on a mistake you made or shots that you've missed. How quickly can you get yourself out of that and back to focusing? Okay, this possession right here, how do I bring my best right now? How do I do the best that I can on this offensive possession, on this defensive possession? And the more often you can do that, the better you're going to be, the more consistent you're going to be. As simple as that might sound. You commit to doing that. It's hard. It's harder than it sounds. If it was easy, everybody would do it. But like I said, the best players I'm around are able to do that for themselves. And the second trait that the best players that I'm around consistently display is irrational confidence. Now, I want to be clear about this. This isn't arrogance. This isn't them walking around. I'm so much better than everybody else. I'm Untouchable, I can do no wrong. I, I, you know, I'm always right, I'm always the best. I don't have to work that hard because I'm better than everybody. That's arrogance right there. And that, that, as I've said before, I'll probably make a full video on it at some point. Arrogant players are really just very, very unconfident players who are masking that lack of confidence with arrogance or fake confidence. Okay, so I'm not talking about players who are arrogant. What I mean when I say irrational confidence is you look at a guy like Steph Curry and it's something that, that, you know, his teammates have talked about, the front office people, the Cody's around him have talked about just the irrational confidence that he's had in himself even since he was back at Davidson, where the things that he was doing back then were very much out of the norm. The shots that he was shooting. And you know, that was before basketball became what it is in 2025, which is everybody shoots threes and everybody shoots a lot of threes. And a lot of people shoot tough threes. Teams create their entire offensive identity around shooting threes. That wasn't the case back when Steph Curry was a freshman at Davidson, but because of the irrational confidence that he had in himself and his abilities, he had the belief that he was going to be successful doing what he did and playing the way that he played. And obviously he went to Davidson and had success because of it. Had success really early on because his irrational confidence allowed him to not just play early but, but get opportunities where, if he hadn't had that confidence, and he said, you know what? I'm not going to play that way. I'm not going to play to my full capabilities because I don't know if the coach is going to like it. I don't know if my teammates are going to like it. If he wouldn't have done that, not only would he not have played as much because he wouldn't have made as much of an impact, but his team wouldn't have won. They wouldn't have been able to make their March Madness run with Steph Curry at Davidson because he didn't have the irrational level of confidence that it takes to be do something great like he did. I think CJ McCollum's on the great example he talked about on JJ Redick's podcast a couple of years ago that he was 5 foot 2 as a, as a freshman in high school. And so JJ asked him, he was like, you know, did you actually think at that moment that you were going to be in the NBA? And he was like, the one thing that I always had was just an irrational confidence in myself where like anything that I was working towards or that I wanted, I believed I was going to have. Even when I was 5 foot 2, there was no question that I was going to the NBA because that's just the irrational confidence that I had. And so, you know, for him, he attributes a lot of that to doing that. Where, you know, if you want to achieve something great, there has to be like an unwavering confidence, unwavering belief in yourself. And you know, if you have that, then it, it's possible to achieve what you want to achieve. If he had been that 5 foot 2 freshman who had said, ah, yeah, I am kind of short, I probably won't make it in basketball, probably won't make it to the NBA, probably won't be able to go and, and play college basketball, or be that great of a high school player, then all of a sudden he probably wouldn't be here today. But because of that irrational belief in himself, you know, here he is and the rest is history right there. So having just an unwavering belief that no matter what other people say, no matter what the outside circumstances might dictate to you, an irrational belief that you're going to, that you can accomplish what you want to accomplish. And I think where we, we see the difference between arrogance and irrational confidence is that an arrogant player isn't going to back up those beliefs with their actions. They're going to say these things, they're going to, they're going to walk around like that's what they are, but the way that they act doesn't actually align with that. Meanwhile, a player who has a very high level of confidence in themselves is going to have these beliefs about themselves the way that C.J. mcCollum did, the way that Steph Curry did. But they're also going to back up what they do with their actions. So CJ was talking about how, yeah, I had this irrational level of self confidence, but that made me believe that hey, if I work and I do the right things, I can accomplish this. So that belief was followed up with action, which is, okay, I'm going to make sure that I work on my handle, I'm going to work on my ability to create space. And then, you know, if I end up growing, if I had a growth spurt, all of a sudden I'm going to be right there, you know, with Steph Curry. It was okay. I'm going to play this way, but I'm also going to get in the weight room and get really strong so I can handle the physicality that comes with it. You know, I'm going to obviously spend a ton of time working on my shooting so that I'm prepared to execute in these moments. So you have to ask yourself, does your level of work match your level of confidence? And if it does, you're probably going to be able to accomplish some great things. And if not, then you got to ask yourself, well, what am I missing here? And what do I need to adjust in order to achieve those things that are important for me? So, like I said, you can be a pretty good player and not have these two beliefs. But. But the best players that I'm around at every level, whether it be kids who are, you know, playing Division 1 basketball, going to play in Division 1 basketball on scholarship, whether it's really good, Division 2, Division 3 players, really good high school players, all of them have, first of all, the ability to attach or, sorry, detach themselves from their emotions, negative or positive. They're able to be super steady. They're never too frustrated. Um, they're never, you know, too, you know, down on themselves. Whether things are good or bad, they're able to keep themselves in the present moment. And again, the question you gotta ask yourself is, how close to 100% of the time can I spend in the present moment? I'm on the basketball court, and can I avoid being in the past and worrying about a mistake? I made a turnover, I had a shot, I missed. And can I avoid being in the future and being worried about what's gonna happen if I missed my next shot, what's gonna happen if I turn the ball, or what's gonna happen if we don't play well? Avoid those things and be where your feet are, and that's going to make you as good as you can possibly be on the most consistent basis possible. And the second thing that the most elite players I'm around have in common is that they have an irrational level of confidence. Again, not arrogance, where they don't believe they're just better than everybody else. And they don't have to back anything up. They believe that, hey, if I put my mind to this and I work at it and I actually back up what I believe with my actions, then I can accomplish whatever it is that I want to accomplish. It doesn't matter what anybody else says about me. It doesn't matter what the current circumstances might look like and what might be stacked against me if I back up the things I believe with my work, with what I'm willing to give to this, I can accomplish it. And that's what the best players have to have right there. This is something that we dive deep into inside of the Basketball EQ Academy, which is a bonus program that comes with Basketball IQ Academy, which is my full basketball IQ confidence course that is going to teach you the details of how to play the game at a high level, how to read the defense, how to make the correct decisions on offense, everything that goes into being a successful player on the court. But also we dive into Basketball eq, which is the emotional intelligence aspect of basketball. So understanding how to deal with adversity, how to be a great teammate, how to get the most out of your coaches, how to be coachable, all those things that a lot of times derail players. And you know, the players who don't fit into these two categories we talked about here, lot of times they struggle with that and no one really talks about it. So it's an area that as a coach I see so many players struggle with and find themselves held back not because they struggle physically, they might put the work in, but they don't understand how to actually translate that. And then on top of that, we also have a full basketball confidence program in that as well, that dives even deeper into some of the things that we talked about. Developing the right mindsets that you have to have to be a highly successful basketball player on a consistent basis. All that stuff in there is going to help you completely transform who you are as a player and therefore transform your results on the court. So that full program Basketball IQ Academy, which includes both those bonus programs, top link down below in the description, highly recommend you check that out. Appreciate you for watching. Talk soon. Peace.