Kobe Bryant coined the phrase, “Mamba Mentality” to describe his approach… to basketball, to competition, to life.
As a life-long Celtics fan, it was hard for me to root for a Lakers player but you have to respect Kobe Bryant and his approach to the game of basketball. With his untimely passing, the time was right to take a look at how his mind worked and hopefully discover some of the secrets to his success.
I recently found the video below and it provides some of the best insights into how Kobe approached the game and his life. I’m not sure what else I can say except that it is well worth watching. If you want to be one of the best at something, this video will give you ideas that you can implement today. If you feel like you didn’t really know Kobe Bryant aside from his basketball career, this video provides glimpses into many other dimensions of the man.
I encourage you to watch this video and if you like it, please leave a comment below.
What did you think?
What can you learn from the Mamba Mentality?
Are you putting in the effort that is required to get what you SAY you want? Does your daily process and habits support your goals?
Do you have the Mamba Mentality? Are you serious about your game? Your life?
This blog article is dedicated to Eddie Siebert. Coach Wheeler, back when he was Player Wheeler, played with (and won championships) with him. Eddie taught me about the importance of “game face”. His famous quote, before every game, was “Get Your Game Face On!”
The video below from BasketballBrain.com is a great overview of the 3 types of approaches used by basketball players and it is worth watching. Check it out…
The 3 types of basketball game face from the video are 1) Joyous, 2) No Expression and 3) Mean, Fierce or Angry. The video has some excellent NBA examples of each one so you can learn more about each one. The key to all of them is that they bring a focus to your game and just like you can improve your mood by physically smiling, the way you move your face can impact the way you feel and how you play the game.
Which one are you?
First, let me say that you NEED a Game Face. It is a sign to your team mates, your coach and even your opponents that you are serious about winning the game. The question is… Which game face works for you? I should also add that you may tap into different ones depending on the game situation and how you or your team is playing. Sometimes they need a “kick in the pants” and a Fierce Game Face might be needed. Or you might be getting shut down by the other team’s defense so you could break through and show some Joy (and your confidence) when you school them.
It is contagious!
Your attitude, demonstrated through your game face and how you play, is contagious and is an important way you can influence your team. Michael Jordan set a very high standard for the Bulls and they rose to the challenge. (The Washington Wizards… not so much.) What attitude are you bringing to your team? Are you making the practices more effective? Or just walking through them and not getting better? Your attitude & how you express it should help your team, not slow them down or give them reasons to doubt your commitment to winning.
Want to learn more about Attitude?
Visit the “Attitude” page with all the articles about Attitude from the Building a Winning Mindset Blog ! It is important and there are lots of ways to look at it.
Think about it…
What kind of attitude do you want to bring to the game? How are you going to step up so you can defeat the competition? The choice is yours. Now, GO GET YOUR GAME FACE ON !
Here is another excerpt from Coach John Calipari’s book, “Players First, Coaching from the inside out” that talks about what it means when a coach is “pushing players” to improve…
None of my players are as ready as they think they are for how we play at Kentucky – let alone ready for the pros – because they have rarely if ever been really pushed. They have gotten accustomed to dominating even while putting out three-quarters effort. In fact, they probably don’t even know they play at three-quarters speed. That’s one of the things I have to show them.
How do you push the players on your team? Are they challenged to reach their full potential?
Coach Cal’s book provides some stories about how he recruits star players by being radically truthful with them. He feels that by telling the truth, even when it might be uncomfortable, he is able to inspire trust.
Below is an excerpt from a book that I just finished reading. The book is by Coach John Calipari and Michael Sololove and it is titled “Players First, Coaching from the Inside Out.” The excerpt explains Coach Cal’s “Players First” philosophy…
… There was a time I coached partly for myself – for status, respect, money, wins. I’m not immune to any of these things, but they’re not really the point anymore, either. … I coach for the names on the back of the jerseys – not just the front. My players. They are sent to me by their fathers, their mothers, their grandmothers and their aunts – whoever in this world raised them and loves them. Others look at their NBA bodies and consider them lucky. Future millionaires, just stopping through before they cash in. That’s not what I see. They’re kids, some of them as young as seventeen years old. They all need me in a different way. Some want my affection, others my approval. It’s a burden to be responsible for other people’s children, sometimes a heavy burden.
“Players First” sounds like a great way to think about coaching, even if you are not the head coach of the Kentucky Men’s Division 1 basketball program. Even if your players are not future NBA draft picks, it is good to think about the responsibility you, as a coach, have to them and the people who raised them.
Other Book Reviews
If you are looking for other books to help you build a winning mindset, check out these book reviews on the blog… 12 Rules For Life and The Undoing Project.
There are loads of great ideas in Coach Cal’s book and you can look forward to seeing a few more excerpts from the book on this blog. Please leave a comment below and tell us how this idea of “Players First” compares to your own coaching philosophy. I know there must be some coaches out there that coach their team to put the name on the front before the name on the back. That’s a Team-First focus and it is a good thing, right?
Every player wants to improve the ball handling skills, right? But how? The video below has some excellent examples of “Loose” versus “Tight” handles and the advantages of each. Every player probably has a preference and if you are very good at either one, you can probably overcome most of the drawbacks listed in the video.
Check out the video and let us know what you think in the comments… and look for an added “Handles Tip” from Coach Wheeler under the video.
What did you think? Which type of player are you?
The 3 S’s – COACH WHEELER‘s
Keys to Improved Handles
Coach Wheeler teaches that the 3 Keys to developing your ball handling, a.k.a. “handles” to the point that they are above average are Strength, Speed and Style.
Strength includes, but is not limited to hand strength, arm strength and overall core strength. Lower body strength is important as well but it is largely covered by the second key, Speed.
Speed is important because while dribbling can be impressive, if you don’t score it doesn’t matter. If you can’t move past defenders then all you are doing is wasting time with the ball. This time that could be put to better use for your team.
There are many ways to evaluate speed – long distance (full court), short distances (1/4 court) and even micro distances of one or two steps (enough to get by your defender). The last one is often referred to as “explosiveness”. There are times when you may appear more agile than you really are because you have developed moves that throw off your defenders. Which brings us to “Style”…
Style is sort of a catch-all for the skills you develop and what you can do with the basketball while moving. Most players have a small array of moves that they feel confident enough to use in games. I call these “game-capable moves” and can be almost anything. Examples are a crossover, spin, behind the back, hesitation, inside-out, pull-back and many more.
It is important to put in the practice in the off-season so that you develop all aspects of your handles… Strength, Speed & Style.
This past week, I witnessed an interesting example of how “Intensity wins basketball games”. Before I tell you that story, let me explain what I mean by “Intensity” as it relates to athletic competition.
Focus + Energy = Intensity
I know you have seen it in games. One team or maybe just a few players on a team want to win more than the other team. They are more “dialed in” on what they need to do as well as what the other team is giving them. These teams have more energy and they get to the loose ball more often than the other team. They are focused. Nothing distracts them when their opponent applies pressure. They execute their game plan and adjust to situations as they come up. They are intent on winning. I have yet to see a team lose that maintains their level of concentration and engages with energy.
Are some times when teams overmatched and have little chance to win? Yes … but they are usually overmatched in how intense they are playing as well.
Where does Intensity come from?
As a coach, how can you improve the intensity that your team brings to the floor? It’s a deep subject but let me say this, “The ability to play with intensity is a skill that is built in the unseen hours of practice and the off-season.” Intensity, while a skill that can be improved, is also a form of character. Players with intensity have enough ego to believe they can win and the will or determination to make it happen. It is rarely something that happens by accident.
I hope you have a sense of what I mean. I may write more about it in the future because I feel it is a topic that is often overlooked yet is critical to a winning mindset. If you want to discuss it further, send me a note via the Coach Wheeler Contact Page or leave a comment below this post.
Back to this week’s game…
The teams were evenly matched with similar records. Physically they were very similar as well. The difference in the intensity that one team brought to the contest showed up early in the first half. They raced out to a good lead. Double digits at times.
The other team mustered a bit of competitive energy and fought back to within 6 points or so. The first team did not lose their intensity and rebuilt their lead. As the game winded down, with less and less time remaining, something interesting happened.
Intense Patience
The team with the lead applied their intensity toward being patient and getting the best shot they could. In this state there is no shot clock so they were able to extend their possession time which reduced the chances for a comeback by the other team.
There were a few sparks of intense effort from a couple players on the other team but there were other players who had clearly given up. In a team sport like basketball, if someone gives up it is very difficult for a team to function at a high level.
It was such a clear demonstration of how intensity wins basketball games that I had to pass along the story to you. Do you have examples of how your team’s intensity helped you win? Or the opposite? How do you channel your teams energy into an intense focus on the game and not on distractions? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
A cross country coach brought this video to my attention and I think it has some good ideas that relate to “building a winning mindset”! Let me know what you think in the comments!
Are your food choices and eating habits similar to this guy?
Have you ever thought about how Food affects your Mindset? When you think about it, if you aren’t fueling your body with the right foods it is nearly impossible to perform at your best, either physically or mentally. Your food can also impact your mood… we have all been “Hangry” at one time or another (to quote a Snickers commercial). But is a candy bar really the right long term solution? This article will address what goes into developing and implementing a successful Food Mindset. In other words, we will cover what you need to do to improve your body & mind through the food you eat.
3W’s for developing a successful Food Mindset
(1) Why do you eat? Are you eating for Health or for Fun? Are you usually eating to create your Best Body? Or is taste more important than nutrition for you? Does your food support a lean, low-fat body so that you are not carrying excess weight that will slow you down on the court? Or do you rely on food as a “drug” to manage your mood?
A clear idea of your motivation(s) when it comes to food will help you make better choices and stick to a plan that supports you reaching your potential on the court and in the classroom.
(2) What to eat. Do you have the knowledge you need so you know WHAT foods are the best to eat? Are you aware of what NOT to eat as well? There are many competing ideas when it comes to nutrition… from fad diets to traditional approaches to the latest research, so it can be nearly impossible to know everything.
I like to keep things simple. The first thing you need to know are the basic food groups… Fats, Proteins, Carbs. Within these groups there are good foods and bad foods. For example, there are “slow carbs” like veggies that boost your blood glucose level over a longer time versus “fast carbs” like pasta, sugary foods or soda which causes your blood glucose to spike to high levels quickly and then crash back down leaving you craving more food.
By converting food into blood glucose your body fuels your brain and muscles. This is how what you eat can have a huge impact on how you feel and how you will be able to perform.
As important as knowing WHAT to eat is knowing what NOT to eat (or at least limit as much as possible). There are three things (the 3 S’s) that are at the top of the list of foods to avoid… Sugar, Soda and Syrup.
Sugar is the ultimate “fast carb” and it shows up in more foods than you might imagine. It is not just candy. Sugar is included in things like bread, pasta and many other “fast carbs”. Quick note: veggies are ‘slow carbs’. Fruits are ‘fast carbs” but not quite in the category of sugars since fresh fruit often has fiber that helps your digestion system.
The second ‘S’ is Soda. Soda drinking is often just a habit, especially for young athletes. If you can change your “default drink” to water, your taste buds will adapt and eventually you won’t even want the sicky-sweet taste of sodas. Note: Diet Sodas are not the same as water, even if they claim ‘zero calories’. They are loaded with chemicals that are not doing your body any favors. Learn to drink water 1st !
The third ‘S’ is Syrup, in particular High Fructose Corn Syrup or HFCS. Don’t be tricked by the fact that it has “fructose” in the name and that is the sugar typically found in fruit. Plus it comes from corn, so how bad can it be? Plenty bad. It is even sweeter than sugar and is in almost every prepared food you find in the supermarket. Check food labels and work to remove it from your diet. Note: It won’t be easy… but with work it is possible.
A good book on the subject of food for athletes is Bill Phillips’ “Eating for Life”(Amazon link). This book was a follow up to his successful book, “Body for Life“, (Amazon link ) which also has some great ideas to help you improve your Food Mindset .
(3) When do you eat? Your body is designed to handle time periods where you have plenty to eat as well as time when there is nothing to eat. In today’s society, we usually have plenty of food and, putting aside the quality of the food we choose to eat, the quantity of food nowadays is probably the largest contributor to the obesity epidemic.
Athletes are not exempt from obesity. As the saying goes, “You can’t out run a bad diet.” so no matter how hard you work out, you still need to dial in your diet. On top of that, few people today are choosing to ‘not eat’ and activate the “Fasting Protocol” portion of their metabolism.
The good news is that you don’t need to go without food for days and days to get the benefits of Fasting. Intermittent Fasting is when you limit WHEN you eat to a certain part of the day, usually 8 – 12 hours. This gives your body a chance to ‘fast’ for 12-16 hours every day and the result is that many of the ‘weak cells’ in your body don’t survive the fasting process. This leaves you with a higher percentage of healthy cells and since we are always making new cells we won’t miss the weak ones who get eliminated.
Side note: It has been shown that fasting for 3-5 days prior to chemo treatment makes the treatment more effective and reduces the side effects. Did you know that while cancer cells replicate faster than normal cells, they are also dependent on the availability of sugar (blood glucose) and are also weaker than healthy cells.
Implementing a successful Food Mindset
Once you know the 3W’s: Why you are eating, What you need to eat and When to eat, there are three key concepts that will turn your knowledge and motivation into a successful Food Mindset. They are Mental Discipline, Hydration and Personal Identity.
Mental Discipline
Mental Discipline is a skill that can be developed but it is much easier to build habits that allow you to conserve your mental willpower for other challenges you will face throughout the day.
One way to cultivate mental discipline / food habits is to build a “cheat day” into your diet. Just knowing that you have one ‘cheat day’ per week can give you discipline to eat better for the other 6 days. You will probably find that even on your cheat day, you will eat better because “eating right” has become a habit as part of those other six days per week.
In short, Plan thinking is having a goal and figuring out the steps you need to achieve that goal. Process thinking is geared toward “winning each moment”. It is setting up processes that will lead “in the direction” of what you want. Process thinking is built on the idea that you might not be able to control the outcome of every step in your plan. But you can control how you approach everything you do on a day-by-day, moment-by-moment basis. When Plan & Process thinking are combined (with a clear Vision and Focused action… mentioned in Coach Wheeler’s video), your chances for success are greatly increased.
Translating this into your Food Mindset means that you have a Plan for the food you are going to eat. Plus you can execute that plan by implementing the Processes that produce success. Some process examples might include how you do the shopping, cooking and eliminating sources of bad choices. If you “win the shopping”, you are much more likely to have good food. Can you “win the cooking” and you set yourself up to eat better? By eliminating bad foods from your environment, you are making it easier to follow your plan.
Hydration
Hydration is one of the easiest things to overlook when it comes to your Food Mindset. As mentioned earlier, making water your default beverage is a good start. It offsets other (bad) alternatives such as soda but there is more to the story when it comes to water. Your body needs water. In fact, we are MOSTLY WATER and when our body is low on water, we often interpret it as “hunger”. It is always a good idea to drink some water when you first feel hungry. This way you aren’t taking in extra calories when you are really just thirsty.
Hydration is critically important for athletes. It is good to imagine that “sweat is weakness leaving your body”. You also have to replenish the water in your body to operate at your best. Keep in mind… we are losing water through evaporation even when we are not soaked in sweat. Every breath leaves with a bit of water. (That’s what you see in the winter when you can see your breath.) Every time you go to the bathroom, your body is using water to eliminate waste from your system. That’s why you need to be aware of your hydration level.
A good way to look at hydration is to monitor the color of your pee. If it is dark yellow, you are dehydrated. If it is almost colorless, you are probably in good shape. Note: This is a guideline and does not address illnesses that might affect the color of your urine. I don’t pay a doctor online … or in real life, so get medical attention if something seems out of line.
Identity
Finally, the last part of your Food Mindset is your Identity. This is how you see yourself.
Are you an athlete (so you eat good foods that allow you to perform at your best)? Or are you a generally lazy person who eats whatever is offered or “tastes good”? Y0ur identity shapes all of your decisions in life, not just food. If you want to learn more about how you can shape your identity so it supports your Food Mindset, check out Coach Wheeler’s book, “Fat is all in your Head“. It starts out with the story of how Coach Wheeler lost over 50 pounds by changing his thinking.
Bottom Line…
Your Food Mindset is up to you. It can impact all areas of your life. The sooner you take control of the food you put in your mouth, the sooner you will start to achieve your potential. On the other hand, you could continue to let it slide. And your goals will continue to slide away from you as well. The choice is yours. Please leave a comment below and tell us what you decide!
click the image above to purchase “The Undoing Project” on Amazon!
Michael Lewis’s book “The Undoing Project” is a story about the relationship between two people who studied how the mind works and, in particular, why we sometimes do unexpected things. I am big fan of “counter-intuitive” thinking and this book provided some clues to when we think well and when we trick ourselves into believing things that might not be in our best interest.
What is “Undoing”?
Undoing, as mentioned in the project, is the human nature to think of ways that some event might be “undone”. For example, if someone gets into an accident on the way to work it is common to think that if “they left just a few minutes earlier or later”, they would have avoided being at the location of the accident all together.
People often look for the smallest deviation that might create a new reality, and especially if they were wounded (either directly or indirectly) by the event it can make us feel better to think about how the past could be different. Making the past different” might be the simplest way to think of “Undoing” and the book discusses a number of parameters that we use.
For example, we look for small changes vs. large, maybe unlikely, changes. In the car accident example, we don’t usually say “If only they took the #2 bus to the A-train and then a cab from the station to work.” Simplicity is our friend when we are “Undoing”.
Quick side note… The last part of the book talks about how the relationship between the two psychologists, which had been highly productive for many years, begins to break down as they move in different directions. In a way, this is an “Undoing” too.
Here are some notes / observations from the book…
[starting on p.197] The ideas below will give you a sampling of the ideas presented in the book. Keep in mind that these ideas, while interesting by themselves, don’t really give you a taste for the stories that are an important part of the book.
People predict by making up stories.
People predict very little and explain everything.
People live under uncertainty whether they like it or not.
People believe they can tell the future if they work hard enough.
People accept any explanation as long as it fits the facts.
[This seems to be related to the concept of Correlation vs. Causation. It is easy to think when something [consistently?] happens in sequence (i.e. correlated) that the first event causes the second when, in fact, there could be a completely different mechanism at work. – Coach Wheeler]
The handwriting was on the wall, it was just the ink was invisible.
People often work hard to obtain information they already have and avoid new knowledge.
Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic universe. In this match, surprises are expected.
Everything that has already happened must have been inevitable.
We are exposed to a lifetime schedule in which we are most often rewarded for punishing others, and punished for rewarding.
“Peak-end Rule” says that “Last impressions can be lasting impressions.” [p.236]
[p.206-7] The “Hindsight Bias” is explained/discussed.
Bottom Line… Is The Undoing Project worth reading?
Short answer… Yes. Longer answer… If you like Michael Lewis’s style of writing and story-telling (e.g. The Blind Side, Moneyball or The Big Short), you will probably enjoy this book as well. In terms of things to learn about how the mind works, there are some good ideas (see notes above) but many of them are not common knowledge. I enjoyed the book and recommend “The Undoing Project” to anyone who has even a passing interest in psychology and how the mind works.
As a life-long Celtics fan, it was hard for me to root for a Lakers player but you have to respect Kobe Bryant and his approach to the game of basketball. With his untimely passing, the time was right to take a look at how his mind worked and hopefully discover some of the secrets to his success.
Want to learn more about Attitude?
