Be one of the few...

I went bowling with my soon-to-be in-laws down in San Antonio, and the father came over and asked me a simple question. His son is a baller on the basketball court, and he wanted to see his son continue growing and succeeding. High school basketball is coming into the picture.

“Can you give him a list of tips?”

So now, here’s the 5 tips that I wanted to share.

Be one of the few.

Strive towards becoming an outlier. Be that weird dude who stays and does extra running or extra shooting on the court long after the game’s over and everyone’s out getting ice cream. That is where separation happens.

Separation comes from preparation. As you continue preparing, you separate yourself from normalcy.

There is always going to be someone…

That’s bigger than you. Stronger than you. Better than you. More athletic than you. But the edge you can have is your decision-making abilities. The minute your opponent gets lazy, that’s when you PUSH HARD. When he decides to sleep in, you get up earlier and get more shots in before you head out to school. When he skips a set in the weight room, you set a personal record. Before you know it, you are going to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

There is only one brick on the top of the pyramid

My friend, JM Blakely, said that to me during a podcast.

Stick to the basics. It might be boring. Not cool. It sucks sometimes, but when you build a massive foundation, you can go higher. If you have small foundation, you can’t build much on it. The more foundation you have in your physical strength, conditioning, basketball skills, and your overall mindset…you can withstand more pressure, perform higher, and do it for longer than anyone.

Set your goals. Measure them.

You need to have a plan. You can’t just go on the court and ball out without knowing what you need to accomplish. This could mean certain amount of shots, lay ups, three’s, etc…but I would focus more on the PROCESS. How much more weight can I lift today compared to last week? If I was doing 100 squats last week, let’s do 105 this week. How many times can I get assists and help us win? Focus on the little things you can improve on TODAY for a better TOMORROW.

My good friend, Brian Cain, made a brief video with the goal setting formula. Hope this helps!

Surround yourself with winners.

Find the best players in the area. Chase them down. Spend time with them. Study them. Try to outperform them. Because if you hang out with the winners, you become one. If you hang out with losers who scroll on their phones instead of working out…you’ll become a loser. Choose your crowd.

You’ve got your work cut out. It’s up to you to be +1 today… or -1 today.

Your choice.