Episode XIII: Power of Atomic Habits, Coaching the Decisions, Understanding Crypto and more. . .
"Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become"
Every week, I share a couple of things that I’m reading, learning or actively doing in my personal and professional life. This week, we dive into:
Current Book: Atomic Habits
Practice Idea: Coach the Decision
X’s & O’s: Sideline Out of Bounds - Zipper
Leadership Thought: Vision
Recommended Article: Beginners guide to Crypto
Reflective Question: Trajectory
Current Book: Atomic Habits
This was one of the most powerful books that I read in 2019. As I’ve found myself slipping up with some of my established routines, I decided to dive into it again.
Some quick hitters so far:
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person that you wish to become.
Habits are the comound interest for self-improvement.
1% improvement every day over 365 days is a huge improvement (check out the reflective section below)
Most goals fail because we attempt to change them at the outcome or process level. However changing our identity is usually the bigger bottleneck in the process.
For anyone who is interested in their self-improvement and getting better, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of this book.
Practice Idea: Coach the Decision
Executing technical skills is all about making the correct decision, meaning the decision to pass comes first before the decision about what pass to make and then the technical skills of that pass can be executed.
This is a very simplistic view of the process. However, it is worth noting that when we coach, including in practices, we tend to focus on the outcomes.
“First to six baskets” or something to that effect. Even more recently in my own coaching, I’ve added constraints to emphasise certain actions, such as a corner three is worth four points and an offensive rebound is worth 1 extra point. These are still outcomes.
In moving away from the outcomes and going to the decisions, we can begin to paint a picture for our athletes about whether or not something was the right thing to do regardless of the outcome.
After all, “you manage what you measure!”
This concept, originally from PGC basketball, and expanded upon here by Luke Gromer looks at shot selection and assignign a value based on where the shot was taken from to further coach the signal in the midst of all the noise.
X’s and O’s: Sideline Out of Bounds - Zipper
One of the things that we tend to do is run the same set with multiple wrinkles out of it. This allows us to save time when first teaching the set, as it is a short quick hitter.
With time, we begin to add variation. In addition, this means in games, we can call an adjustment when needed and the players don’t need to remember a long sequence or multiple plays. The adjustment we call is based on what action we’re looking for, so our players know to focus there.
In addition, with our out of bounds plays, we like to run the same stuff as our half court actions, which also helps as our guys don’t need to remember out of bound plays and half court plays. It’s the same set and actions in both.
Check out the full article here
Leadership Thought: Vision
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into action”
In an Antartic expedition in 1915, Ernest Shackleton advertised for the position as follows:
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long hours of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in the event of success.”
The advertisement is bleak to say the least. However, he was inundated with people willing to apply for the position. Regardless of how he did it, he was able to outline a vision.
This vision gave clarity to the men that he wanted. As such, any person willing to endure such an expeditition signed up.
The ability to be clear with our vision helps align everyone. It tells people where you are going and what they can expect. If they don’t agree with it, they don’t have to come on the journey with you. Still, that’s where you are going.
This is something that I still struggle with. I would like to be to share and express my vision in a way that is clear and direct.
Recommended Article: Curious Beginner's Guide to Crypto
Crypto, NFTs, DAOs, Blockchain, Metaverse, Web3 . . .
Everywhere I look now, there is a tonne of chatter on things that I don’t understand and seem to complex for to grasp. Perhaps I am slow and others have picked it up quicker.
Either way, Peter Yang attempts to simplify these compex topics and explains them in a way that most people would be able to understand.
Reflective Question: Trajectory
If you keep doing what you’re doing today, where do you end up in 5 years?
That’s all for this week. If you found this interesting, I would appreciate you sharing it on your social media accounts.
Until next week.
Nabil Murad