My name is Laken James and I am a former Division 1 Women’s basketball player from the University of Wisconsin Green Bay.

 

 

 

Growing up, I was your definition of a gym rat. To me, there wasn’t a better feeling than walking into an empty gym and working on my game. I wanted to be the best that I could possibly be. I worked on all the skills; shooting, ball handling as well as strength and agility. It was a dream come true when I received my offer to play at Green Bay. My experience there was amazing even though my playing time was spotty early in my career. It wasn’t until my senior season that I discovered the one area I had neglected to train – my mind. Without even realizing it, I had built a barrier around myself. I simply didn’t have the confidence to perform at my best and the problem was in my head.

 

College sports are challenging and the mental piece might be the hardest part. Questions like Why am I not playing? Am I good enough? Or do I belong here? started running through my head. These thoughts and a focus on playing time, a goal outside of my control, resulted in a loss of confidence. However, everything changed my senior year. That year I began interning for The 3rd Element (3E) and I realized the one thing that had been missing from my training. It was the mental side of the game. I continued to physically train hard but shifted my focus onto rebuilding my confidence. It turned out to be the difference-maker.

 

I had always been a role player at Green Bay but my senior year I earned the starting PG spot. I went from averaging 2 points a game my junior year to a 2nd team all-conference player my senior year. The difference was that I trained the mental side of my game. The 3E program helped me so much, I decided to join the team. In this role, I get the opportunity to help athletes and teams all over the country train their minds on things like leadership and emotional intelligence while helping coaches create championship cultures.

I’ve learned firsthand how 3E training can make a difference in a player. At the end of the day, sports are more than wins and losses or becoming the most skilled player. It is about growing as a person and learning the skills that will help you succeed in the world. This is our goal here at 3E.

 

I would love to share more of my story with you and show you first hand how the 3E program can help you develop leaders and drive team chemistry resulting in a championship culture. Just reply to this email or click to book a time on my calendar.

 

Schedule Time With Me

 

“The team found the content to be important to their success and the videos helped reinforce the main points of the lesson. Hearing these lessons from someone in addition to their coaches is incredibly valuable in my opinion.”
– Coach after using the 3E program

Article by Guest author and content contributor – Julie Fournier – Founder & CEO of Basketball is Psychology

 

Introduction

Steve Kerr had one of the most pressure-filled roles in basketball. In his 15 years in the NBA, Steve Kerr started only 30 games. Some games, he wouldn’t play at all. Most nights, his job was to come off the bench and knock down shots. If he did so efficiently, the night was a success, if he didn’t, the night was considered a failure.

 

Kerr, who describes himself as, “athletically challenged” was a pure shooter. However, he spent the first few years of his career passing the ball, especially when the game was on the line. He wasn’t being unselfish, he was afraid of failure and it filled him with anxiety.

 

He listened to the outside voices telling him he wasn’t good enough to play in the NBA. Steve said, “I knew I wasn’t good enough to afford to make any mistakes, so I passed up the big shots.”

 

Turning Point

In game 6 of the 1997 NBA Finals, Kerr and Michael Jordan’s Bulls were up against the Jazz. With only one more win needed to secure an NBA Championship, the Bulls had the ball with the game tied and 6 seconds left. Everyone expected Michael Jordan to take the shot, but after drawing the double-team, Michael Jordan kicked the ball out to Steve Kerr.

 

During the timeout, Steve recalls, “I remember thinking if I get the ball I’m going to shoot it. I don’t care.” When Steve Kerr caught the ball, he shot it without thinking twice. He made it, which won the bulls the game and the 1997 NBA Championship. “That was the turning point in my career,” he recalls.

 

Steve Kerr now leads the Golden State Warriors, who seem to play with no fear. In fact, it’s quite the opposite; one of the Warriors’ core values is joy. Their demeanor is playful with an evident love of the game. It’s been over 22 years since Steve Kerr hit that shot, but what he learned has heavily influenced how he leads his team. He never wants them to be afraid of taking risks. Steve Kerr wants his team to be free of the anxiety he had as a player.

 

The Inner Game

So how did he get there? How did Steve Kerr go from a player who was too scared to shoot, to someone who is willing to take the big shots? He was always a great shooter, he just had to get out of his own way.

 

As a player, Steve Kerr read a book called The Inner Game of Tennis. He still reads the book again every off-season, and keeps extra copies with him to give away. The book is about getting the mind to work with the body instead of against. It’s about overcoming anxiety, lapses in focus, nervousness, self-doubt, and self-condemnation.

 

There are 3 mental skills Steve Kerr used to help him overcome his anxiety and fear of failure.

 

1. Remind Yourself of Past Successes

“Before every game, I would watch a tape of me playing well, being in the groove, to give myself that positive feeling, I wanted to fill my memory with good things so I could draw upon it. In Houston early one season, I shot an absolutely perfect free throw. After that, every free throw I took that year, I would say, ‘Houston,’ before I shot it. I wanted to put that picture in my head, that feeling.”

 

Once you are competing, it’s too late to work on your game, but you can focus on getting the clearest picture of the desired outcome in your mind. Feeding your mind with an image of what you want to happen gives your body the message without instruction so you don’t overthink it. When you ask someone who’s experienced being in the zone what they were thinking about, the answer is usually “nothing” or “I wasn’t thinking”. They are often described as “playing out of their mind” or being”unconscious”.

 

Evidently, some part of the mind is not active. Why? Someone in the zone is said to be “feeling it” not thinking it or remembering instructions- because images are more powerful than words and showing is better than telling. Their mind is focused on the mental image of the desired outcome.

 

It’s the art of relaxed concentration through visualization.

 

2. Quiet The Mind

“Why give yourself one other thing to overcome out there? You have to overcome your own clutter in your own mind, and not add to it. Once the game starts, you have to put fear of failure totally out of your mind.” — Steve Kerr

 

The way to quiet your mind is to let go of judgments. As the author of The Inner Game of Tennis puts it, “Judgment results in tightness, and tightness interferes with the fluidity required for accurate and quick movement.” You play best when you let go of judgments.

 

The first step is to see your shot as it is: “miss” or “make” instead of “good” or “bad”. When you think of it as a “good” or “bad” shot, your brain will start to generalize. Instead of it just being one bad shot, it becomes, “My shot is bad,” then “I’m a terrible shooter’. When you label a shot as bad, you attach your emotions to it, which leads to an emotional reaction. Judgments can escalate from a missed shot to believing that you are a bad basketball player.

 

First the inner critic judges the event, then it groups them all together and makes a conclusion about yourself. This judgment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you allow the inner critic to conclude you are a bad basketball player, you’ll start playing like it’s true. You can’t play to your full-potential as long as the inner critic is doing all the talking. During your best performances, your mind was likely calm and quiet. This is why you have to learn to quiet that critic by letting go of judgements.

 

Being relaxed allows you to play with fluidity. The only way to relax is to be accepting. Quieting the inner critic does not mean you ignore errors, it means you see plays and shots as they are without attaching emotions to them. This way, you don’t have emotional reactions (anger, frustration, and discouragement), tightness, and the inner critic interfering with your performance.

 

3. Understand Failure is a Part of the Process

If you’re not failing, you’re probably not pushing yourself enough. If you never mess up in ball-handling drills, you’re probably only going at a comfortable speed. To get better you have to get out of that comfortable speed. If you never fail when you’re maxing out in the weightroom, you can’t find out the edge of your capabilities. If you’re not failing, you are limiting yourself. If you want to be a great basketball player, compete in everything; you will fail and that’s more than okay, it’s a sign you’re going beyond your perceived limits- that’s how you get better.

 

You make things better and improve faster when you fail.

 

A ceramics teacher proved this when he had his class mold clay into pots. He asked half of his class to focus on making the best possible pot and he asked the other half of the class to make as many pots as possible. They were both given equal amounts of time to work.

 

The group that was focused on producing a high quantity of pots, had much higher quality pots.

 

The group that was focused on perfecting a high quality pot, had assembled a useless pile of clay.

 

Why? Everytime the group who was focused on making a lot of pots finished one, they could identify their mistakes, then quickly correct it in the next one.

The group focused on quality had no failures to learn from. Failure is a great teacher.

 

We tend to think of quality and quantity as an ‘either-or’ deal (you either have good quality work or a high quantity of work). In reality, good quality work is the byproduct of a high quantity of work.

 

Shooting is a great example of this. During the season, Steph Curry shoots 300 shots after practice, and in the offseason he increases it to 500. Do some digging on the greatest shooters in the game and you’ll find they simply put up a higher quantity than anyone else. As a result, their shot has higher quality. They learn through trial and error. They see misses and failures as part of the process of getting better.

 

Steve Kerr worked hard to develop the mental strength to overcome his anxiety and fear of failure. Mental strength is not something you’re born with, it’s a skill that you can develop.

 

3E is delighted to welcome Guest author and content contributor – Julie Fournier – Founder & CEO of Basketball is Psychology – to learn more visit https://www.basketballispsychology.com

This past weekend I took my son back to college for the start his sophomore year.  I had the opportunity to spend a few hours 1 on 1 with him in the car. As is always the case with him, the conversation topics were varied and all over the map.

 

The one topic that stuck with me was when he started to talk about his high school sports career.  He was a pretty good athlete and competed at the state competition 4 separate times in 2 different sports.  He talked about some of the expected stuff – things like how he missed playing in general, having the opportunity to compete and being with his friends as part of a team.  But he also talked about a few things I was not expecting.

 

The topic that surprised me the most was his perspective on his junior soccer season.  That year he knew his team was going to be really good. They were returning 9 starters and opportunities to start were going to be limited.  He worked really hard in the offseason and showed up in shape and ready for tryouts expecting to compete for one of the remaining spots. I remember that day well because he came home from the first tryout and said he did not want to go back.  It took several weeks for me to sort through things, but it turns out that a senior (and starter) on the team had been at the same college camp my son attended over winter break. My son made the all-star team for the camp ahead of the senior and had the attention of the college coaches working the camp.  When the time came for tryouts for his high school team in fall, this senior decided that bullying would ensure he got the starting spot ahead of our son. The senior spent the entire season leading a group of kids that targeted my son both physically and emotionally. This experience took the joy out of the game for our son and he talked about quitting soccer entirely.  It was heartbreaking to watch as a parent and unfortunately, the coach did not offer any support or help.

 

After the season ended, my wife and I talked to our son about what had happened. On his own, he decided that he was going to come back and play his senior year, become a captain and make sure that he changed the culture of the program.  Seniors would no longer rule, and everyone would be equal. That fall he stepped up as a leader and worked to make sure that everyone on the team had a good experience – especially the freshmen. Parents actually called to thank us for the job our son was doing.  He became a captain and at the end of the season, the team voted him to receive the leadership award.

 

When our son talked about that bullying experience, he surprised me and said in a way, he was glad that it happened.  He went on to explain that through that struggle, sticking with the program and committing to making it better he learned so much.  He learned about himself, understood that his role as an athlete was bigger than just himself and leadership was about helping others be their best.  He actually said that while it was hard to go through, looking back he would not trade the experience. It shaped him, made him more compassionate and taught him to compete in a new way.

 

This is what sports are about.  It is more than wins and losses, minutes played, and points scored.  It is also about learning to be part of a team, learning to lead and picking yourself up when you get knocked down.  While our house will certainly feel emptier this coming week, I feel good in knowing that he has learned lessons that go way beyond the athletic field and will last him the rest of his life.  I guess all of those road trips to watch him compete were worth it after all.

 

Over the weekend, I overheard a conversation between a dad and his middle school aged son regarding football advice. “If you want to keep play football, you need to stop holding up people when you tackle them. You are bigger than half the kids out there. You need to start hurting people, breaking their bones, and sh!t. If you want to play football for the rest of your life, you gotta hurt people.” 

This is certainly not the best advice for a career in football, and cringe worthy for fellow players. This poor kid is going to walk into practice armed with advice from his dad telling him to hurt people vs. advice from his coach, which I am sure supports safer methods. I am not doubting that this father wants the best for his son, but this advice is surely not even close to being sound for a young athlete who wants to succeed in football.

 

Coaches, you probably face these types of counterproductive messages constantly. Parents who want the best for their children but may not give the best tips or provide advice that goes against your team goals. Coaching has changed over the years and parents who were athletes may have a different recollection of sports from their “glory days”. That is why it is important to get them on board with your vision (your why), values (your what), and standards (your how) to turn them into advocates rather than obstacles (check out our free roadmap for help developing your why, what, and how). Here are some tips on how to make that happen:

1. Reach out to parents: Send out an email and if possible, have a parent/caregiver meeting. This would be a great opportunity to explain your vision and the standards that the team has created. Getting them on board early in the session will lead to less hassle later in the season. 

 

1. Create an opportunity for parents to understand your message: You can set have regular in-person touch points or a weekly email. Giving parents and caregivers tools and information about your program may help squash issues.

 

1. Realize you can’t please everyone: You are human, and you are not going to please everyone. If player safety is an issue, use school resources to help address this behavior.

 

As you begin your season, remember to spread your message out to caregivers to ensure your players are following your visions instead of breaking bones.  ~ Dr. Deirdre R.

Rob Mendez was named the coach of the year at the 2019 Epsy’s Awards.

Ron encapsulates the spirit of determination and perseverance as he was born without arms or legs but with a strong love for football. Rob learned how to play football by using Madden video games as his gateway to the field according to USA Today. During his Freshman year, he started his coaching career as the Team Manager and then proceeded to work as an assistant coach for the next 12 years. Ron was then offered the head coaching position for Prospect High School in Saratoga, California for their JV team, leading them to an 8-2 season in his first year. During his stirring speech, Ron stated; “When you dedicate yourself to something and open your mind to different possibilities and focus on what you can do instead of what you can’t do, you really can go places in this world,” he said.  Finding your why and developing a positive mindset provide the guiding values to overcome any obstacle. Ron is the perfect of example of how developing a positive mindset, and following your passion can bring you closer to your goals. One of the most powerful tools for any game is getting your mind in the right place. Here are a few steps on how to develop a positive mindset:

1. Check-in with yourself. What’s getting in your way? As children, we dream big. You can be anything you want, but as you get older, we start narrowing down our possibilities. It is good to be realistic, but sometimes we become our worst naysayers and will squash passions and possibilities before even trying to take a risk. So, check-in with yourself or your athletes, what thoughts are holding you back?

2. Challenge! Once you have figured out what thoughts are getting in the way, ask yourself some questions about it. This is the first step to developing a Teflon mind, letting the negative thoughts stream into consciousness but do not allow these thoughts to camp out there holding you back from your goals. Use failures as teaching points by problem-solving solutions rather than dwelling on what went wrong. Encourage athletes to keep a journal of their goals, make weekly reflections on their progress, and identify what thoughts are holding them back.

3. Befriend Fear. Players often hold back due to fear. Fear of taking risks, fear of making mistakes, fear of negative judgment. To push your team further, create an environment of risk-taking, by ensuring that there is an acceptance of failure is a crucial step to making a championship culture. You can’t move forward, if you are constantly looking back, afraid of what might happen, you have a hard time moving forward. Make team goals and praise athletes that take risks. Knowing that someone is there to support you, will help athletes get past the fear hurdle.

4. Make goals and check-in with progress with your team: think about times when you are in the thick of it. It can be hard to think of positive thoughts when you are in a negative spot. Write down inspirational thoughts, success stories, and review how far you have come. Goal setting takes place over days, weeks, months, and years. Making small steps to help others achieve potential is a marathon and takes time rather than making a sprint to the finish line. Developing these goals and mindset will help athletes on and off the field.
Ron’s coaching philosophy is evident by his passion and ability to help his athletes realize their potential.

“Let me tell you, the best part of coaching for me is seeing someone’s potential and making them realize what’s possible,” he said. “So, for anyone out there not sure if they can do something, it can be in sports, it can be in your job, it can be in your life, whatever it is, I’m here to tell you that you can do it.”
By developing a positive mindset as an athlete or coach, the possibilities are endless. Thank you, Ron, for being an inspiration to us all!