Expectations Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Building a Winning Mindset

W.I.N. – What’s Important Now?

It is a simple question… “What’s Important Now?” It is also a powerful tool for shaping / programming / improving your thinking to achieve your highest priority goals.

The W.I.N. approach has been used by legendary coaches such as football’s Lou Holtz and the NBA’s Pat Riley. Lou Holtz asked his players to ask themselves the W.I.N. question 25-35 times per day so they would keep themselves on track with the most important goals or activities they had as college football players and students.

Why does W.I.N. work?

“What’s Important Now?” forces your mind to consider your priorities and TAKE Action on them. Once you decide something is important, each time you ask yourself the W.I.N. question, you are reminded that NOW is the time to take action and move in the direction of your goal!

The other reason it works is the fact that “What we focus on increases”. If we focus on the negative things happening in our lives, we see more negatives. By focusing on the positives, we see that there are more good things going on than we may have thought. When you focus on your priorities and goals, you begin to see opportunities and new ways to achieve them. So why don’t we focus on the positives?

Left to itself, the mind runs whatever programs it has accumulated over the years. Unfortunately for many of us, there are plenty of self-defeating programs running around in our heads telling us things such as “you aren’t good enough”, “I’m not ready” or “Tomorrow would be a better time to start”. The “What’s Important Now” question short circuits that thinking and makes us focus on ONE thing… the most important thing. In many ways it simply bypasses our negative programming.

“What’s important now”
also tricks your mind

The other way that the W.I.N. question tricks your mind is that it automatically breaks down your biggest goals into smaller bite-sized actions or steps that you can take NOW. It is about doing something in the present rather than trying to make the huge jump into an ideal future. The “mind trick” occurs when, before you know it, you have either achieved your highest priority (and need to set a new one) or you look up and find that you are about to achieve it. By asking “What’s Important Now” on a regular basis, many times per day, you are training your brain to move toward achieving your highest priority. You are also putting blinders on so that you are not distracted by lower priority activities.

The REAL question is …

Now that you have learned about it, are you going to W.I.N.? Do you know “What’s Important Now”… for you? How are you going to put this idea to work for your life?

Please leave a comment below and tell us your plan or, better yet, tell us how the “What’s Important Now?” question has worked for you! Isn’t your life important enough to apply this powerful tool?

Arnold on Making it Happen

Below is a excellent video for anyone who wants to accomplish something great. Whether you want to become an all-state basketball player, a 1000 point scorer for your school or even get an academic scholarship to college, the ideas that Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about in this video can be applied to your life.

The concepts are not difficult to understand… it is all in how they are applied that counts. Are you going to be the winner who takes control of their life or are you going to let life “happen to you”? Watch this video and decide how you are going to make your life outstanding!

Want someone to talk to about your plans for greatness?

Coach Wheeler can be hired via Coachup.com for one hour sessions either in person or via telephone or Skype (sign up for an in-person session and we will set up the telephone/skype option).

Or you can ask one of your team mates or friends to watch the video and then have a conversation with them about what each of you are going to do differently.

Don’t let someone else talk you out of implementing Arnold’s words of wisdom. The time you spent watching the video will have been wasted if you do nothing with it. Make it worthwhile. Make something happen!

Pure Sweat podcast interview with Coach Burt

I rarely endorse or encourage my readers to listen to a podcast interview … unless it includes valuable information for basketball coaches or players. The link below to a recent Pure Sweat podcast interview with “Super Coach” Michael Burt definitely falls into the category of good information. Coach Burt has some excellent ideas that will help you build a winning mindset within your program.

Pure Sweat: Coach Michael Burt (Part 1)

Check it out and see if you don’t agree that Coach Burt brings some great ideas for ways to build a winning mindset both in athletics and for life. (Also available on iTunes.)

Time Out Huddle

How a coach organizes and gets his team to execute a “Time Out Huddle” probably falls under the category of “How you do anything is how you do everything” because it is one aspect of a basketball game that is sometimes overlooked (and is allowed to be done in a “less than perfect” manner).

I came across the idea for this post as I was reading the book by legendary football coach Lou Holtz called “Wins, Losses and Lessons: An Autobiography”. The book is basically about Coach Holtz’s life growing up and becoming a football coach. While I was hoping there would be more blatant “secrets of winning”, I was able to discover a bunch of good ideas for coaches and players.

In the book, (page 191 if you are interested), Coach Holtz says the following,

“Execution is about paying attention to the details. If a team looks sloppy in the huddle, it will look sloppy during the play. If players are unruly on the sidelines, they will be undisciplined on the field. We set standards in that spring practice that many of those athletes had never seen before.”

Coach Holtz goes on to tell the story about how he coached his team to “properly execute a huddle” and how it helped his football team become better. What follows is my take on a basketball version of that.

What is a properly executed Time Out Huddle in basketball?

The ideas below can be applied to a Full time out or a 30 second timeout. The only difference is that the 30 second timeout would be done with the players standing up (on the court).

Perception is Reality

I should probably start by answering the question, “Why do we care how the team executes a time out huddle?” There are probably many reasons but, for me, the biggest reason is the psychological impact on the other team. If they see us RUN to our timeout, it tells them that we have more energy than they do, especially late in the game, and are probably less tired than they are. This is one small way to demoralize the competition. Aside from that, it can also impress the parents and fans in the stands since if they are rooting for us to win, they like to think that we are in better shape than the competition.

Rule 1 for a proper Time Out Huddle: We RUN to the huddle.

Everything and Everyone has a place.

The 5 chairs next to the head coach are where the players who are IN the game will be sitting. If someone is being substituted, they tell the person they are going in for and then take a seat with the other active players.

The coach will move his chair so that it faces the 5 Active Players. In case the chairs are not moveable, the coach will simply stand or squat in front of the active players.

The next 5 players on the bench will stand BEHIND the active players and hand them their drinks and towels. Right hand = drink, Left hand = towel. This assumes you have 15 players total (the max for varsity in NH) so there are another 5 players who stand behind the head coach. Assistant coaches are on the left and right ends of the active players so they can hear the head coach and offer suggestions if called upon.

Speaking of suggestions, and this may be something particular to a head coach’s style, this formation lends itself to a 5-10 second window of time when the players are getting to the bench and getting something to drink where the assistant coaches can feed the head coach their ideas/thoughts/suggestions. I know that is not much time but if a head coach wants the input, it is important for assistant coaches to be concise with their communication. Remember, timeouts are not long and it is important to get the right information to the active players so that they can head back out on the court and compete effectively.

Rule # 2 for a proper Time Out Huddle: Fill The Formation

Listen up !

The final focus of an effective Time out huddle is ATTENTION. All players should be listening to what the head coach is saying so they are prepared to go out on the floor and execute the strategy. All it takes is one person not paying attention to miss a key point of the conversation which could translate into a critical mistake at a key point later in the game.

Rule # 3 for a proper Time Out Huddle: Pay Attention!

As I said in the beginning, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” That means that they way that you execute your Time Out Huddle reflects how you execute any other part of your game. If you are serious about winning a basketball game, you need to be serious about each component that goes into that game, whether it is making foul shots or playing tough defense or something as simple as how you set up and perform your Time Out Huddle. For my teams, I like to say “We run our timeouts like champions.” and it also shows the competition that we are not a “typical” team. We are special. We care about doing the things that are required to win.

What does your Time Out Huddle say about your commitment to winning basketball games?

3 Levels of Winning Basketball

3 Levels of Winning - NH Basketball 2016-17 — Click the image above to see full size listing. Source: MaxPrep.com

It started with a simple observation… I was looking at the season records for all high school basketball teams in New Hampshire (where I live and coach) and noticed that there seemed to be three distinct “Levels of Winning” based on each team’s record.

The image to the right shows the 3 Levels in the NH example. (Sourced at MaxPrep.com.) The order of the listing is based on MaxPrep.com’s rating system.

Below are the characteristics of each level of winning highlighted in the image to the right.

TYPE 1 = THE ELITE

These teams win twice as many as they lose (or better). They are considered “Hard to Beat” by their opponents. Their basketball programs are designed to consistently perform at a high level at all times. Winning is part of their tradition. They hate to lose and they expect to win every game. They are constantly looking for new ideas and what is working for other teams that might be able to be incorporated into their systems.

These teams don’t settle for just making the post season playoffs. They are disappointed if they don’t make it the championship game and, even then, it will haunt their offseason if they get there and didn’t win.

These teams are often very well organized and their strategies are set up to make the most of their competitive advantages, skills and talents.

Type 2 = “Mediocre is OK”

These basketball programs usually accept one or two games above 500 as “good enough”. They often think that they are “doing well”, i.e. they are “average” or maybe “slightly above average”. They may work very hard but they don’t have a tradition of excellence so it can be hard to make the leap to the next level. In NH, many of these teams make the state playoffs which adds to their perception that they still “have a shot”.

Type 3 = “Participation Awards”

These teams lose twice as often as they win. They are just happy to put on the uniform and ANY win is a cause for celebration. They rarely make the playoffs or if they do, they are typically beaten handily in the 1st round by a Type 1 team. If they are left alone, they create a tradition of being relatively easy to beat. This expectation on the part of opponents allows for an occasional surprise win due to an underestimation of their potential.

What does “Level of Winning” mean?

Physically, all 3 types of teams are often very similar. Some might have a slight height advantage while others might be faster, quicker, smarter or better in any number of parameters that would allow them to be competitive. The teams that win figure out how to take what they have and find a way to win.

Winning starts with a mindset. This is typically built into the basketball program by the head coach but there may be components that have become traditions after many years of winning across multiple coaches.

What type of team do you want to have next season?

This time of year (off season) includes many coaching changes. Some schools want to improve their team and a new coach is probably a good place to start. (Of course I’m not just saying that since I am in the market for a varsity coaching position.) It is common sense that the head coach sets the standards for the varsity and all the teams leading up to varsity. There is also much more that goes into a winning basketball program at the high school level… and I look forward to your comments.

Comments Welcomed and encouraged

I expect that there will be many comments like “Are you calling [insert my team’s name here] a bunch of losers?” No, their record of wins and losses just put them into one of three relatively arbitrary “Levels of Winning” categories so we could think about what goes into consistently winning basketball games at the high school level. The commentary that I added are strictly based my own observations. It is very possible that a program will have a “down year”, perhaps due to injuries, transfers or any number of other variables. On the other hand, occasionally a team will have an “up year” where they overachieve beyond what their history would predict.

Isn’t it much more complicated than 3 Levels of winning?

Of course it is. There are hundreds or even thousands of key attributes that go into the development of a winning basketball program (some of which are discussed in other articles on this blog). The 3 Levels of Winning is simply a framework to help us figure out where to look for some of those attributes or components that will take our programs “up a notch or two”. I look forward to the insightful comments from my fellow coaches, parents, players and athletic directors.