Bosh, Chris

Letters to a Young Athlete

Foreword

p.xv – “In winner-take-all scenarios like the NBA Finals, some players deal with loss stoically, some depressively, some angrily. Some seem to treat it matter-of-factly, as if it is just another loss, while others fall apart and let the tears flow. The incredible swing in emotions is hard to describe, especially if you really care. In any case, losing makes for a really bad summer. A lot of players just go down the rabbit hole and don’t come out for weeks. These failures really never leave you until the ball starts to bounce again in the fall.”
p.xvii – “You are smart as hell and very sensible, pragmatic individual. More than that, you have a remarkable character that is an unusual compassion and mental toughness. That combination helped us to build a truly great team.”
pp.xix-xx – “There will be no player like you to ever run this floor again, ever– you were a unique person and performer. One of a kind. You were part of a great, great team from 2010-2014: Four consecutive trips to the Finals and two world championships still stand as the greatest run in the history of the franchise. What a time of great basketball, great spirit, and rabid support from our fans and media. It was pure joy, made possible by a lot of togetherness.”
p.xxi – “In my fifty-three years of being involved with the NBA, this moment, of not knowing what your future would bring, was a true low point for me. There were many medical diagnoses of your condition, ranging from scary to terrifying. In this game, there are always basketball decisions and then there’s the point where basketball becomes secondary to a player’s health. Period.”

Introduction

p.2 – “There can also be recruiters, reporters, haters, and on and on. And then there’s the toughest voice of all: the voice inside your own head. Nothing can intimidate you like that voice. Nothing can mislead you, shame you, puff you up, lead you astray, or keep you down quite like the running monologue between your own two ears.”
p.5 – “Looking back, what really gives me vertigo is to think of those moments when I easily could have listened to the wrong voice. Where at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, even twenty-seven, I couldn’t messed things up forever with one wrong step. One moment of indulging the devil on my shoulder, and my life, my career, could have gone in a very different direction. My entire future– years in the pros, an Olympic gold medal, two championship rings– suddenly erased. And worse, like so many talented kids out there, I might never have even known what I had unwritten. Would I have my kids? Have my creativity? Would I even be here, alive? I was lucky in that way. I want you to be lucky, too.”
p.7 – “No matter what kind of talent you’ve been blessed with, you still have to answer the same question: What do you want to do with this? Where are you going, and how can you use what you’ve been given to get there?”
p.7 – “The great coach John Wooden once said, ‘What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player.’ And I’ve been fortunate to have been surrounded by countless coaches, mentors, and teammates who lived by those words.”
pp.8-9 – “There isn’t a roadmap to get you there, but Rilke’s advice, which I’ve tried to take to heart, is that you have to live everything. … But if you don’t stop to live what you’re doing– if you don’t make space to experience the joy of the game– you’re missing something. You’re missing the biggest thing.”
p.9 – “Whatever our game of choice, whatever kind of talent we’re blessed with, wherever we’re hoping the game will take us, we’re all the same when it comes to this: We all have that capacity to stop and experience the joy of what we’re doing.”

When You Ain’t Nothing But Tired

p.13 – " ‘It was just kind of on to the next,’ she told me. ‘As a female basketball player you really don’t have time to stop and smell the roses, because it’s just grind after grind after grind after grind.’ "
p.15 – “I’ll start this book by telling you something I really believe: How an athlete plays when they’re exhausted tells you everything about who they are as a competitor. The successful ones don’t even think about being exhausted. They’re so used to it that all they think about is performing.”
p.17 – “You think Kobe Bryant just said all of a sudden, ‘Man I’m just really, really in shape, and now I can score 30 points a night without getting tired’? No way. You get that way by never quitting, by pushing through precisely when you are tired. That’s the irony of this game: You become capable of the grind by surviving the grind.”
p.18 – “At moments like that, it’s hard to push through. But I’ve always believed that how you do anything is how you do everything. If you make excuses or take shortcuts in one part of your life or you game, it’s very hard not to do it everywhere else. If you take rebounds off when it doesn’t matter, it’s that much harder to find the will to crash the boards when it does. If you take a play off when you think no one is looking, where are you going to find the strength to keep going when it’s the playoffs, when everyone is going 100 miles an hour, when your opponent wants that rebound just as much as you do?”
pp.19-20 – “That’s what pushing yourself in practice and in the gym is for. It’s not just physical– it’s mental. It teaches you about your Empty light, and when to ignore it. I remember the first time I ran a mile in practice. The whole time, I had that ’little man’ on my shoulder, telling me that there was no way, tell me that I was going to collapse before I made it a whole mile. And then I made it. I thought, Damn, I pushed through that voice. I can do it. What else can I do? If you’re pushing yourself in practice, you’re having a version of that thought every day. You aren’t just teaching your lungs and heart to keep up with your legs– you’re teaching yourself to beat that voice in your head.”
p.21 – “What Ray said about the ending to Game 6 has always stuck with me: Imagine if we put in just a little less in practice. Imagine if we coasted just a little bit more. Imagine we had a little less in the tank when it counted. ‘It would’ve been a shame for that to cost us a championship.’ But instead, we put in the work so we had what it took at the moment it was needed. By the time we got to that life-or-death situation, it was what Ray called ‘familiar territory.’ "
p.22 – “I still remember what our team president, Pat Riley, like to say. ‘Scratch the depths of your soul and see what’s there.’ "
p.23 – “Three of the toughest guys in the NBA when I was coming up were Dennis Rodman, Scottie Pippen, and Ben Wallace. They made their names on defense and on the boards. Want to know where they went to college? Southeastern Oklahoma State, Central Arkansas, and Virginia Union, respectively. They did not have the ’talent’ to attract scholarships to big-time D-1 programs. They only had grit and toughness and conditioning. You know what else they had in common? Fifteen-plus-year careers, and twelve rings between them. They’re all champions.”
p.26 – “It’s there, at the outer limits of your endurance, where you find out what you’re really made of. And when it’s game time, that work pays off. Not just in the game, but everywhere. When you’re running suicides in practice, it’s over when the coach says it’s over. But in the game, it’s not over until there’s zero on the clock and a winner has been decided. How often you end up on the winner’s side of the final score is really up to you and how far you choose to push yourself.”
p.27 – “So yeah, I get being tired. I empathize with it, I really do. I can almost feel you nodding off as you read this, on the team bus or in your bedroom after having done your homework and your chores and spent another long day in the weight room.”

“I feel that.”

“But you know what I say? I say good.”

“You’re building your muscle. You’re becoming stronger mentally, you’re becoming more familiar with a kind of discomfort most people can’t stand. You’re building the strength that you’re going to need when the game is on the line, when something really important is on the line. You’re building supreme conditioning. The ability not just to keep going, but to want to keep going.”

You Have To Find Your Why (And It Can’t Be Fame Or Money)

pp.29-30 – “All of it. You know what I mean: Getting in reps in the weight room when your friends are partying. Waking up before dawn to run. Pushing through the criticism or the doubters. Getting back on the court after a full practice or a game, when all of your muscles are telling you to quit, and shooting a hundred more free throws. What is all of that for?”
p.30 – “Because, believe me, there’s nothing sadder than watching someone going through the motions with no real idea about why they’re doing it. Those people aren’t living their own lives, their own dreams. At best, they’re living someone else’s. You still have time to do better.”
p.30-31 – “So, sure, listen to your coach when he tells you to run suicides. But don’t listen when he or she tries to tell you what this game means to you. You gotta figure that out for yourself.”
p.32 – “Southwest isn’t selling airline tickets– it’s selling the idea that travel and adventure can be for regular people, too. Disney isn’t just making movies– it’s telling stories, stories so vivid you want to experience them in every form possible. Me? I wasn’t playing ball– I was trying to be the best version of myself I could possibly be. I was trying to realize my potential in life, and I carry that why with me to this day.”
pp.32-33 – “What is a why? Knowing– not just thinking, but knowing– that you’re making the most of your God-given talents. The joy of operating at the peak of your ability. The joy of being part of a team that runs like a well-oiled machine.”

“For me, a big part of my why was the squeak of shoes on the gym floor. I just love that sound. The actual smell of the gym. I love the sensation of straining my muscles and feeling the strength in them. It’s trusting that your teammate is going to be where you think he’s going to be when you whip him a pass– and then he is. It’s the hand helping you up off the floor when you’re down. It’s the swish of the ball through the net, the anticipation surging through your body in the seconds before tip-off, the feeling of the blood pounding through your body as the seconds tick down in a close game.”

pp.33-34 – “What I began to understand later was that it wasn’t about ‘attention,’ it was that I had capabilities and talents– like all kids do– and when I put in the effort to realize them, I could do incredible things. That to become who you are in sports, in life, in business is the loudest statement a person can make.”
p.37 – “I’m better for having that extra motivation, but I meant it when I said it was only extra. Need is necessary but not sufficient in this life. Proof? There are plenty of talented kids who had everything they needed to make it… and for some reason could never be bothered to put in the work or care enough to get it. Every generation who’s balled out at the Drew League in LA or at Rucker Park in New York or any playground in America has a story about a guy they played with who could have made it to the league, if only… Yeah, if only.”
p.38 – “It wouldn’t be told if I didn’t tell it. Who knows if that’s the attitude that made it possible for Nas to drop an all-time classic. The point is, he had a why– the kind of attitude that means it doesn’t matter if your story becomes a classic, because it’s your story, and you have to tell it. If I didn’t play, no one would play like me. If I didn’t play, my teammates would be worse off.”
p.40 – “But in those weeks after the Finals, I imagined what it would have felt like to win with that attitude, to actually shut up the haters. Maybe you’ll call it sour grapes, but I came to realize that winning like that wouldn’t really make me happy. Maybe for a few days, or a few months. But not in the long run. Because my story would have been about the haters, not about what I accomplished with my teammates. Even if I wont that way, I still wouldn’t been giving the haters power over me.”
p.40 – “Victory gets old and unsatisfying really fast without a purpose you can be proud of. If you make anger your why, it will suck the joy out of everything you accomplish– even if you win as much as Jordan.”
p.41 – “When I think about Bobby Hurley, who is now the head coach at Arizona State, or Waitkus, who became Comeback Player of the Year, or Ryan Shazier, who has fought his way back to walking again, inch by inch, I see guys who clearly had a deeper why than just the superficial stuff. They had to. When someone like Hurley makes it back to basketball after life-threatening injuries, that’s inspiring. But what’s more inspiring to me is to know that even if he didn’t make it back, he still would have found a way to live a life of meaning and purpose.”

The Gift of Hunger

p.45 – “When you think about the greats who can feel the pain of losing, or the joy of winning, so deep in their gut that it’s almost a physical sensation, realize that their hunger is just as important to their success as their height or their lung capacity or their 40 time or their why.”
p.47 – “It’s the type of scene that’s happened a thousand times in a thousand games in every sport you can imagine. Even at the elite level, hunger is rarer than you think.”
p.47 – “You can talk to any NBA player and they’ll tell you about someone they knew who had all the talent he needed to be in the league, but just didn’t have the drive. I’ve seen it– they’ll tell you about the time he threw down a huge dunk or that epic game she took over in the fourth quarter, and they’ll say something like, ‘He could’ve been great. He just…’ And they’ll trail off. But what they’re saying is that, in a league full of elite talent, elite talent isn’t enough.”
p.50 – “After our first championship with the Heat, a friend told me, ‘Man, anybody can do it once. You gotta do it twice.’ Finding a reason for hunger when you have every reason to feel full– that’s what separates good from great.”
pp.50-51 – “And that’s something all of the greats have in common. They come in all kinds of body types, with all kinds of skill sets– but where the good ones stop, the great ones keep going. They’re never satisfied. They’re never full.”
p.51 – “And, of course, I grew up watching MJ do the same thing. Just like Brady, he could have easily rested on his laurels way before he retired. Pretty much any given night in the ’90s, he could have said, ‘I’m Michael Jordan. Everyone knows what I can do. I’m gonna take it easy tonight.’ But he never did that– even when it took making up grudges and slights to give himself a reason to play hard every night. Someone with Jordan-level talent but not Jordan-level hunger might’ve been content with one championship. It takes both to get six.”
p.53 – “Little things like that fuel you. That hunger sustained me for years. I never forgot it. I never forget any of that stuff.”
p.53 – “At the same time, there are a lot of fables in history about those with insatiable appetites. You don’t want to overreach and you don’t want the joy of victory to become ash in your mouth.”

Cultivating the Mind

p.56 – “There are not-very-bright plumbers and presidents, too, but the vast majority of athletes I’ve met– the really great ones– wer more than just physically brilliant. You have to have an elite mind to be an elite player.”
p.58 – “It wasn’t physical prowess that gave Maddux his edge. It was his mental advantage. He knew every single hitter’s tendencies and weaknesses, he knew how they hit against him and even how he’d pitched them the last time they faced each other. Like a chess grand master, he’d played out at-bats before the game even started. He’d beaten 80 percent of the hitters he faced with his mind– with his focus and preparation and understanding of the game– before they’d even stepped into the batter’s box.”
p.60 – “But so much of success at the game depends on mental sharpness, mental recall, mental creativity, mental resilience, mental preparedness, and yes, even some intuitive geometry.”
p.61 – “Most game nights, I made sure to take some time to read a book before suiting up. I learned that I was only to be able to play at my best if I could stay mentally sharp, so that meant exercising my mind along with my body.”
p.61 – “Because unless something tragic happens, there’s going to be an afterward, and what yu d to cultivate your mind right now will make the difference between your afterward being a rewarding part of your journey and being a boring slog.”
p.63 – “But there’s something powerful about the ideal we have on this side of the pond– that being an athlete means training you brain as well as your body– no matter how bad we often are at living up to it.”
p.65 – “It was their hunger to win that made them explore every possible avenue for improvements.”
p.67 – “And it goes beyond strategy. You have to envision yourself playing the game before you play it. You have to really visualize getting back on D after a missed shot. You have to imagine the crowd noise and the trash talk before you hear it. You have to envision all of the different ways your body is going to be hurting by the fourth quarter.”
p.67 – “Mental toughness isn’t something you just ‘have’ or not. It’s something you build up like any other muscle– by envisioning all of your worst-case scenarios, in a calm state of mine, and gaming out your response. It’s not just toughness you’re building up– it’s trust. Trust in your skill, your preparation, your jumper. Trust in your preparation– so that when the other team makes a run, you know that you’ll be ready to counter. Trust in your teammates. You have to condition your mind so thoroughly that when the game is on the line, you don’t even think about whether or not you trust the guy next to you. You just do.”

pp.68-69 – “But over the years, I built up my mental toughness. My interests off the court weren’t a distraction from that– they were how I made myself tougher. When I started to doubt myself on the court– What if I let my teammates down when they need me? What if I embarrass myself in front of the fans?– having a life outside the game reminded me of how much bigger the world is. It helped me overcome those worries by putting them in perspective.”

p.69 – “Fortunately, a night like that was more the exception than the rule. But the reason it was an exception was because I practiced mental toughness just like I practiced my jumper.”
p.71 – “No matter how high you climb in your sport, you don’t want to be an old athlete with nothing to think about or talk about but memories of the glory days. You want to keep learning and growing until the day you die. And so you have to start now.”

Communication is Key

p.73 – “A big part of learning to play a game at a high level is actually learning the language.”
p.75 – “Because no matter how smart you are, and no matter how good your court vision is, there is more happening on the court at any one time than any one person can take in. You need to be able to process the situation with five pairs of eyes, or you’re getting steam-rolled.”
p.77 – " ‘Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ ’ "
p.78 – “In whatever form, a leader sees the challenge ahead, knows what the members of the team need to do to meet the challenge, and knows the words or the symbols or the images that will get them where they need to be. Knowing that doesn’t just take charisma: It takes a huge amount of insight into the team members. What kinds of words motivate them, and what kinds of words turn them off? How far can they be pushed? Is this a time to pick up their spirits, or a time to get them to ratchet up the intensity? Leaders have to know all that before they find the right words.”
p.79 – “Some players use it as an excuse from the obligation to be a decent person. It’s the truth, so why not tweet it, right? If you’re a warrior, you get to be an asshole, right? But for the most part– though, sure, there are exceptions– the most effective coaches and the most talented players are the opposite of assholes. They’re secure enough that they let their success speak for itself– and when they communicate, they’re trying to build you up, not to dominate you.”
p.79 – “When the stakes are low– when you’re trying to sound smart in a pointless office meeting, for instance– that’s when the BS comes out, stuff like, ‘We need to circle back and do a deep dive on optimizing our synergies.’ Everyone knows that doesn’t mean anything, but because the stakes are low, it doesn’t matter. When the stakes are high– when winning or losing comes down to knowing those other four guys on the floor have your back– communication needs to be sharp, direct, and to the point.”
p.81 – “Like every habit, it can feel a bit weird at first. I’m already running at a full sprint, now I have to use sme of my oxygen to yell at my teammates who should already know what they need to do while I’m doing it, too? It can feel a bit silly, like you’re narrating what you’re doing while you’re doing it. But do it enough, and you’ll get over it. Remember, each player on the court has access to some information that the other players don’t. So when you share that information, it’s like you’re becoming exponentially smarter as a unit.”
p.82 – “It’s hard to say what’s cause and what’s effect, but I think it goes both ways. Bad teams take their frustration out on one another. But doing that also makes them worse, because they can’t honestly assess what they need to do to get better. When everyone is afraid of a fight breaking out, no one is honest. When people are closed off, no one is connected.”
p.82 – “It’s close to a rule: The better the communication, the better the team.”
p.84 – “He helped to build the kind of environment where I felt like I could speak my truth, rather than one where I had to keep it bottled up until the stress got too be too much. Instead of just yelling, ‘Hey, give me the damn ball,’ like I felt tempted to do at times, instead of letting my frustration fester and boil over, I talked it ut with Coach, and got to a place where I felt like I was contributing everything I could to make the team a champion.”
p.85 – “But leading as a veteran isn’t about chewing guys out when a play goes wrong. It’s about knowing each one of your teammates, and understanding how to motivate them. Some guys get fired up when you yell at them. Other guys say, ‘Hey, I don’t like yelling. It just throws me off my game.’ You have to know the difference. A good communicator knows how to discover and respond to those differences. A good communicator knows that each teammate and each situation is unique– what works with one guy in a certain scenario will backfire with another guy in a different scenario.”
p.86 – “Part of communicating at a high level is learning to take your ego out of it, and learning not to attack other people’s egos. You’re not criticizing a teammate to make him or feel bad, or to make yourself feel better– you’re doing it to solve a particular problem. You’re going to solve that problem a lot more effectively if the target of your criticism comes away feeling better rather than worse. One of the great military and political leaders of the twentieth century, Dwight Eisenhower, said that he never dealt in ‘personalities.’ "
p.86 – “And you’ve got to be able to take it, too. That’s the part of communication that many would-be leaders miss. You can’t just dish, dish, dish, and then storm off in a huff when someone tries to fix something about your game. People know it instinctively– no one respects a guy who dishes it out but can’t take it. Remember, when you’re responding to criticism, you’re modeling the way others are going to respond to you.”
p.87 – “If you listen patiently and take criticism in stride, you’re increasing the chances that you’re going to get listened to down the road. Communication has to go both ways, or it doesn’t work. And we’ve talked about this before– if you’re really hungry to improve your craft, you’ll welcome all the criticism you get, because every critique is a chance to get better at some aspect of the game.”
p.87 – “That’s when having steady veteran leaders can matter the most. You need people to mediate– to say, ‘No, no, no, that’s not what he meant. What did you hear when he said X? What did you mean when you said Y?’ It takes a lot of patience and a lot of tolerance. But it pays off.”
p.89 – “But there’s a reason Coach K is so good at what he does. He’s a great communicator. He knew how I could contribute, and he knew how to put the idea in my head. If it had been something like, ‘Chris, we just don’t need you on offense,’ it would have hurt my pride, and I probably would have tuned out. Coach K knew that, so instead he told me what I needed to hear in a way that made it more likely that I would hear it.”
p.90 – “It’s been fascinating to observe how the loudest talkers on any team probably aren’t the best listeners– but that the real leaders know how to do both. When it’s time for them to talk, they get right to the point. When you’re talking to them, they make you feel like you have 100 percent of their attention.”

Sweep Away Your Ego

p.92 – “And what’s especially dangerous about ego is that, as easy as it is to see in other people, it’s really hard to see in the mirror. Ego could be distorting your life, your relationships, your game right now– and unless you’re really good at introspection, you’d have no idea.”
p.93 – “No way, he told a reporter. I’m good enough for the NBA right now. I am not a developmental player, he said. That’s ego, man. If you think you’re as good as you can be, you’re right. You won’t get any better. If you think there is something shameful about being coached or worked with, you’re never advancing to that next level.”
p.93 – “It’s hard when your success depends in no small part on your belief in yourself.”
p.95 – “You go from being the best at your old level to the bottom of the heap (or, at best, the middle of the pack) at the new level. How you respond to this sudden change in the level of play defines you. It’s what separates the amateurs from the pros–literally.”
p.97 – “I’m not complaining– I’m just pointing out that the experience of making it to the next level isn’t what it looks like on TV. And I’m letting you know that the main thing that got me over the hump both times wasn’t my height or my speed or any other physical gifts– it was the ability to keep my ego in check, to get my ass kicked in practice and say, ‘Damn. I have a long way to go.’ Being able to tell yourself that is the difference between making it to the next level– whether it’s in sports, or in academics, or in your career– and stalling out.”
p.99 – “It should have been a highlight of my career, starter’s minutes or not. I was representing my country. I was playing alongside the best in the game. I could have learned a lot from them, if I had gotten my head out of my ass. At the very least, I could have enjoyed the free trip to Japan for the tournament, right? but instead, it was days of feeling sorry for myself. It was days fuming at my coaches for not appreciating me enough. Mostly it was just me, me, me. I wasn’t thinking about the team. I wasn’t thinking of contributing, of cheering for my teammates from the bench, or of playing my ass off in the minutes I did get. I wasn’t thinking of anything much but what I wanted. That’s what ego does.”
p.102 – “That’s the good news about ego. It’s never too late to fix it. If you screw up and hurt your team out of selfishness or frustration? OK, well, the inability to own that, apologize, and grow fom the experience? That’s ego, too. But looking at you behavior with some awareness, taking responsibility, listening to feedback, and doing better next time? That takes humility. It also takes confidence. So don’t dwell. Don’t deny. Improve.”
pp.103-104 – “They don’t want to win, they want to have won. They only want to do the glamorous parts of winning, not the hard, grinding parts. They’d rather have glory than do the work. The irony is that there’s a lot more glory as a grinder on a winning team than as a ball hog on a losing one.”

Leaders Lead

p.112 – “Leaders can set the quiet example. They can set the tone for the people around them. Leaders pick their teammates up when things get hard. Leaders support. Leaders don’t make the team about them– they make the team better by being a part of it.”
p.113 – “A few years ag, Sam Walker wrote a book about sports leadership called The Captain Class, which identified the traits of leaders on the most successful teams ever to play their sport. ‘The great captains of these teams were not obvious people,’ Walker said. ‘They were rarely stars. They did the grunt work.’ "
p.115 – “A leader shows composure when others would fall apart. LeBron didn’t need to say anything to get us fired up– he just needed to set the example and trust that we would follow him.”
p.118 – “Maybe you’ve heard the expression ‘Nobody cares what you say until they know how much you care.’ For the most part, you don’t want to listen to someone who treats you as a cog in a machine. Leaders treat their teammates like real people, not cogs– not because they’re exceptionally nice, but because they understand that that’s how you inspire people to step up.”
p.119 – “Even if you’re comfortable in the role you’re taking on for your team, the things that are expected of you may change as the situation around you changes. If you feel called to speak up in practice, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been pigeonholed as ’the quiet guy.’ In fact, if you are the quiet guy, the moment you do speak up will be powerful. Because the team will know you are serious.”
p.122 – “We talked it out and came up with a plan for how to move forward. He could have just let things get awkward and fester– but instead, he took the more difficult route of actually working on our issues.
pp.122-123 – “Teams have a collective spirit, a collective soul. Leaders are in touch with that spirit, and they know how to keep it positive. Even the greatest leaders know they’re part of something bigger than themselves.”

Take Care of Yourself

p.126 – “Don’t get me wrong– I love ice cream, I love Snickers bars, I love Quarter Pounders. And it’s not like I swore off those things entirely. It’s that I learned how to enjoy them in moderation, because I’d rather skip a few ice creams and win a championship than eat whatever I want whenever I want and never maximize my potential.”
p.127 – “In either case, your body is your greatest asset as an athlete. You have to protect it. You have to invest in it. If you don’t, the value of that asset is guaranteed to decline over time.”
p.128 – “This isn’t the Babe Ruth days, where your opponent is also going to house a dozen hot dogs, smoke a cigarette, and then suit up to play. Standards change, and the science behind taking care of your mind and body is getting better every year. If you don’t keep up, other people who do are going to leave you behind.”
p.129 – “Again, genetics plays a part– but only a part. Sure, talent plays a part– but only a part. The other part, and by far the bigger one, is the science. It’s the time and effort that goes into taking care of the valuable asset.”
p.131 – “It’s not like you leave the game, hit the shower, and hit the club. This isn’t the clock-in, clock-out life. It doesn’t matter what the players’ union rules say, you stay until you’ve done what you need to do.”
pp.132-133 – “Up through the Toronto phase of my career, it was mostly an afterthought, mostly because the NBA hadn’t really come around yet on taking durability and self-care seriously. Those things were for the old guys trying to eke out a few more years. If you were a youngster like I was, even talking about them was taboo. I remember that if you were a young guy getting extra work in on the massage tables, veterans would say things like, ‘You’re young, you don’t need that.’ "
p.134 – “You need to be able to advocate for yourself with doctors, trainers, and coaches. I’m not saying you shouldn’t trust them– just that you’re the only one who can provide reliable information about how your body is doing at any given moment, and you need to learn how to monitor that information and communicate it confidently.”
p.135 – “Taking care of your body isn’t just about eating right, sleeping right, and working out. It’s about learning how to listen to your body, knowing when exhaustion is something you can push through, and knowing when you genuinely have to shut your body down to let it recover.”
p.138 – “It means ‘a sound mind in a sound body.’ Your mind is part of your body. I care about being at peak mental performance or as long as I possibly can be– and if you’re reading this book, I’m pretty sure that you care about that, too. Take it from me: You don’t get peak mental performance without taking care of your body.”
p.139 – “So put that work into yourself, and be proud of it. None of it is ever wasted.”

Don’t Let ‘Em Get to You

p.140 – “With talent and skill and success comes the inevitability of criticism. Maybe you’ve heard the saying that ‘criticism is a tax on success.’ In my experience, it’s absolutely true. And that means two things. First, like a tax, there’s no way out of paying the bill.”
p.141 – “If you’re attracting enough attention to also attract criticism, don’t let that get you down– enjoy it. You’ve earned it.”
p.141 – “Only a fool complains about the bad that comes with the good. Being hit with criticism means you’re doing something in this life. It means people care, that you register in their lives. It means you actions have impact.”
p.143 – “A few people make it to the sweet spot, handling criticism with grace, leaning from it where they can, but not getting consumed by it. Those people are usually the most successful of all– but more importantly, they’re the most content with themselves.”
p.145 – “I saw all of that criticism. ‘Bosh Spice.’ ‘Fake tough guy.’ Bleacher Report ran a series called ‘Everybody Hates Chris.’ Man, wtf?

I let a lot of that criticism penetrate my psyche– and it was mentally exhausting. I wanted to act like it never got to me– but of curse it got to me. I’m human, and any human who tells you criticism doesn’t ever faze them is either lying or a sociopath. When you’re getting criticized as constantly as the Heat were in those days, you start looking over your shoulder even as you’re playing the games, second-guessing the shots you took or didn’t take, wondering what you’re going to tell the reporters if you lose the game, while there’s still time on the clock.”

p.146 – “After we lost in the Finals to Dallas, there were days when I didn’t want to leave my house. The whole team was depressed. But I had to come to terms with something about criticism– something that more-scrutinized players realize a lot earlier in their careers: It was always going to be there.”
p.146 – “But you know what? Realizing that was an enormous relief. I stopped looking over my shoulder. I stopped apologizing for my choices. I cut way back on the amount of time I spent reading about my team and the league, and I read stuff that was more rewarding instead. That’s something I say to guys now. Time spent on Twitter is time not spent reading books. What do you mean yu don’t have time to read or stretch or connect with your teammates? Of course you have the time– you’re just spending it in the wrong places.”
p.147 – “The next year, there was an unspoken agreement that we weren’t going t complain and whine about criticism together, no matter how unfair it was. We were just going to collectively tune it out and work at being champions. Hate is only a topic of conversation if you let it become one. We stopped playing to shut the haters up, and we started playing for ourselves.”
p.149 – “So most of the criticism you hear as an athlete can be safely tuned out. Free advice is usually worth what you pay for it. The more you learn to do a better job separating the signal from the noise, the more you’re equipped to deal with the urgent (and still painful) criticism that does matter.”
pp.150-151 – “And the media? you can tune that out, too. Understand that their job isn’t to make us better players– it’s to tell stories, get clicks, and generate attention. That doesn’t mean that the media is your enemy, and it doesn’t mean you have to take a paranoid, hostile stance toward journalists. It just means that they have different incentives than you do. And most of the time, it’s the simple stories, with clear-cut heroes and villains, that garner the most attention. You don’t have a lot of control over which box you get sorted into. So don’t take it personally. Recognize that the media is playing its game on top of yours, and that they are two very different endeavors. And remember what the Stoic philosopher Zeno said: ‘Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.’ "
p.151 – “What good is a coach who doesn’t tell you where you’re falling short and where you have to do better? That’s their job.”
p.151 – “If you tune it all out, you’re basically choosing to freeze your growth and development right at that point.”
p.151 – “Listening to criticism the right way takes intelligence. It takes cultivating your mind, just like we talked about earlier. You can’t be passive. You can’t let it wash over you. You have to think. Is this critique valid? Who’s giving it to me? What are their motives? What’s their relationship with me? If it’s a good critique, how can I act on it to become a better player?”
p.152 – “Great players think critically about criticism all the time. Great anythings do. As I’ve been working on these letters over the past few months, I came across a saying: ‘If someone tells you something’s wrong about your writing, they’re right. If they tell you how to fix it, they’re often wrong.’ What that means to me is that writing something like these letters is all about explaining what’s in my head in a way that will make sense to you, the person reading it. If a ready doesn’t get what I’m trying to say, for whatever reason, that’s on me– it’s my job to explain things more clearly. But at the same time, just because someone can point out to you a paragraph or a sentence that doesn’t make sense, that doesn’t mean they know how to fix it.”
p.153 – “Identifying problems and solving them are both important– but we also have to keep them separate in our minds.”
p.153 – “Like I said, coaches are usually trying to help the team win, just like your teammates. But they aren’t flawless– no one is. Some coaches are just mad when things don’t go perfectly– but hey, it’s an imperfect game. Other coaches are insecure, and so they criticize you for deviating from the plan– but again, you’re the one on the court. Others– the kind anyone is lucky to play for– criticize because they want to build you up into a better player, not because they want to make themselves feel bigger. Some of the greatest coaches hardly ever raise their voice. Think about Phil Jackson, the great coach of the Bulls and Lakers. How often did you see him yelling?”
p.155 – “When I went back to the critical comments, I tried to do so deliberately, with discipline. I’d ask myself: Will taking this comment seriously make me better? Will it get me closer to the best I can be as a player? If that’s te case, I’m open to it. Even if they’re being mean. Even if they’re on the opposing team. Even if I’d wish it weren’t true. Not just open to it, hungry for it. Every great player is.”
p.156 – “The best way to respond is by putting in the work. In the UFC, Dana White tells his fighters not to leave it up to the judges. He means end the fight with a KO. He means be so good that there is no debate about the winner. In the NBA, in any sport– heck, in life, really– you don’t beat criticism by arguing with the critics. You beat it with your craft– by playing and winning. You don’t prove doubters wrong with words, but with work.”
pp.156-157 – " ‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out hwo the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust adn sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who know great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.’ "

The Name on the Front of the Jersey is What Counts

pp.159-160 – “It is had to be great at teh game, and fo that reason, very rare. It is actually easier but strangely more rare to be a great teammate.”
p.160 – “I myself was coming off seven straight seasons as the primary scorer up in Toronto, were I was, if I may humbly say so, a double-double machine. How was this going to work? Someone was going to have to get back and anchor the defense on one end and make sure the offense didn’t bog down on the other end, while LeBron and D-Wade figured our how to play together within te context of our scheme. That was my job. I was the third leg of the stool. Some people called me a ‘role player’ on the team, but that’s not right. LeBron was a role player. D-Wade was a role player. Everyone on a winning team has a role to play. Winning takes everyone being on the same page about what the roles are.”
p.162 – “That’s what a team is all about: submerging your own ego in something greater than yourself.”
p.162 – “I think of what Jeff Van Gundy said: ‘Don’t fail the plan. Let the plan fail you.’ In other words, i the plan doesn’t work, your coaches and teammates can fix it, as long as everyone is on the same page. But what can’t be fixed is a group of guys who don’t trust one another.”
p.162 – “And when you’ve been lucky enough to have coaches and mentors who hammer that point into you– as I was– you start to see the beauty of the game in a way a more selfish athlete might not.”
p.163 – “But before I could get too discouraged, I heard my old coach Sam Mitchell’s voice in my head: ‘So what if you don’t have any points? You can still get your teammates involved. You can still play hard on defense. You can still lead by example.’ The game has so many facets. There are so many different ways to shine in it. But whichever way is yours, you have to remember to approach it with 100 percent of your enthusiasm, 100 percent of your hustle. That’s what being a good teammate requires. And when you win, whether you led the team in points or you came off the bench, you get to share the spotlight.”
p.165 – “Sometimes a team needs your points– and sometimes it needs you to keep your head up when you’re not getting the minutes you think you deserve.”
pp.165-166 – “Another way of saying that someone is a good teammate is just saying that they’re trustworthy. You can trust them to be where the play says they’re supposed to be, not off freelancing. You can trust them to have your back if a fight breaks out. You can trust them to sacrifice their stats to help the team win. You can trust them to give you constructive criticism on your game– not to put you down, but to build your game up. And that’s what all the practices and midweek games in the middle of the regular season are all about– they’re about teammates building trust in one another, learning to count on one another without stopping to think about it.”
pp.168-169 – “One time I asked Shane why he was always such a great teammate– it’s a weird question to ask– but he told me it was something he learned early, as early as first grade. He was a poor mixed-race kid in the suburbs of Detroit. He went to school with all white kids, and his dad was black, so he’s the only person of color in the whole school– and he’s tall. He was different. Mixed, tall, and poor. He never fit in– which is what every kid wants when they’re young. But he found that basketball was a way to do it. He used the term ‘social survival.’ And he understood that during recess or whenever everyone was playing– whether it was kickball, basketball, any sport– when his team won, people accepted him. He found out quickly that being there for his teammates could make him feel like he belonged.”
p.169 – “There’s a reason he was a champion at every level: not just his talent, but his intelligence and his drive. Every team needs a Shane Battier.”
p.171 – “I remember how one of my teammates told me, ‘I just want to see you do well.’ That stuck with me– and I tried to let my younger teammates know that I wanted the same thing for them. That’s what a teammate is: someone who wants every single person on the team, not just himself, to do well.”
p.172 – “Most of all, I wanted them to trust me– because, like I said, there’s no teamwork without trust. I never wanted to be flashy. Just solid and reliable and trustworthy. I never wanted my guys to doubt, even for a second, tat I was going to have their backs, that I was going to step up to the moment without fear. No matter what, no matter how big the fight, I wanted them to know that they could rely on me to make the extra pass, to set the extra pick, to do whatever was necessary to win.”
p.173 – “Who knows where sports will take you… It doesn’t matter. The one skill that will carry you forward in life, the best thing you can take from teh game– whatever that game is for you– is the ability to be a teammate… To be of use to others. To want others to do well… and to help yourself do well by helping them.”

Winning and Losing: Not Too High, Not Too Low

p.174 – “It’s good to get to the uncomfortable truth of things.”
p.175 – “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same”

p.175 – “Playing so many games in the league, you have to learn how to continue your life, both on and off the court, regardless of any game’s outcome. You have to handle both losing and winning. You have to keep them from bringing you too far down or pumping you up too much.”
p.176 – “It’s embarrassing, sure. But you’d better get over it, because you’ll be out there again in a day or two.”
p.177 – “A major win and a major loss. Do you know what I did after both these things? I did the thing that true pros do after any game, regardless of the outcome: I got back to work. I watched film. I asked for feedback from my coaches. I turned my mind toward the next game– even if the next game was in a new season, or at a new level of the sport. How do you erase a loss? By winning again. How do you sow a big win was not a fluke? By winning again.”
p.180 – “That determined steadiness a team needs to just shut down and dominate any opposition? We didn’t have it. And over the course of a whole series, against an opponent with more maturity and mental stability than we had, it made a big difference. Looking back on that Dallas series, I think resiliency was our weakness, mentally and physically.”
p.181 – “The pain of losing like that is like rocket fuel. If you mishandle it, it can blow up– and destroy you. But if you protect it, channel it, and ignite it at just the right time– watch out.”
p.181 – “So I realized that if I couldn’t control the pain of losing– sometimes you lose no matter how much you deserve to win– I could at least control the pain of second-guessing my own effort. Man, these sprints hurt. Do they hurt more than losing? No? Then get back out there.”
p.183 – “There is no country, no general, no leader, n team with a perfect record. None. You want to be a great? Get ready to lose– painfully, undeniably, in front of an audience– more than pretty much anyone in any other calling.”
p.184 – “As I grew up, I learned that accepting losing doesn’t make you a loser– it makes you brave. You have to put everything you have out there on the line and know that it might still not be enough. The more losing hurts, the more you have to risk. As I figured that out, I was learning that losing and coming back the next day take real, serious, grown-up courage.”
p.185 – “All of those excuses are ways of dodging the truth of what really happened. It takes strength to face the truth: You lost because you lost. Most of the time, you just got outplayed. Live with that, and figure out how to come back better next time. But whenever you point the finger at someone other than yourself, you’re losing a precious opportunity to get better.”
p.185 – “You can’t choose whether or not the refs blow a huge call. But you can choose where to put your mental energy.”
pp.187-188 – “It’s like running on a treadmill– to win the next year, you have to be even better, you have to run faster just to stay in place. At the same time, we had to adjust to new teammates, like Ray Allen– and learning how to play with new teammates at the highest level takes a season at least.

So, despite all that, when we won again in 2013, I think the feeling is best described as elation. I knew that our success wasn’t some fluke. I knew that my teammates and I could keep our egs in check for two straight years. I knew what it felt like to choose to be a team player, and to watch that sacrifice fo my teammates pay off. It’s hard to describe, but in 2012, I felt like we won; in 2013, I felt like we were winners.”

p.188 – “You can’t be driven by a need to prove yourself, because you’ve already proven yourself. You have to be driven by a love of excellence, by a desire to play the game at the highest possible level for a s long as you possibly can. And every time you succeed, some of your external motivation gets chipped away, until all you have left is that inner commitment to excellence.”
p.189 – “All of this makes sustained success the true test of character. And in this way, basketball can be a lot like the rest of life. It’s not that hard to be young and hungry. It’s much harder to be older, and successful, and still hungry.”
p.191 – “The point is that being a good sport is good for you, not just for the people you’re competing against. Sulking when you lose and acting like a jackass when you win both make it harder for you to get better. In different ways, both destroy your excellence.”
p.191 – “When you have real strength, you know that your worth and your deep-down happiness don’t depend on the scoreboard. Winning doesn’t give you that peace of mind, and losing doesn’t have to take it away.”
p.193 – “Like I wrote to you earlier, you need to find a why that can power you through wins and losses, and with all of the dangers of each– a why that can keep you pushing on when you want to lie down and quit. That’s what make you impressive. Not your record. That’s what get you through a life that will be filled with more moments of triumph and disaster than you can anticipate.”

Do the Work. Do. The. Work.

p.195 – “You have no way of knowing ahead of time how much excellence is going to cost. It’s not something with a price tag on it. But every single time it presents you with a new demand, you have to pay up. If you knew what it was going to cost before you started– ‘hit ten thousand free throws, run a thousand wind sprints, and do five hundred pull-ups and you’ll be a champion’– anyone could do it. Or almost anyone. What’s hard isn’t just the work. What’s hard is giving everything you have with no guarantees but the love of the game.”
p.196 – “But it’s more than pushing through fatigue. It’s the long haul journey of the whole thing, the repetition of it, the dedication of one’s life to a craft. If success were promised, the work wouldn’t be nearly as hard. It takes what it takes.”
p.198 – " ‘When you download that into your system,’ he said, ‘you go out on the court and you’re just executing things that you’ve done thousands of times before.’ "
p.200 – “After we won the series, Allen told a reporter, ‘I’d say I’ve taken that shot several hundreds of thousands of times.’ That exact shot.”
pp.201-202 – “No one could blame him if he took his foot off the gas just a little. He’s got three kids now. He’s got a production company. He’s a global brand. There are a million other things that require his attention. But winners don’t think about that when it’s time to get ready to play.”
p.202 – “The thing about Ray and Steph is that they didn’t just go out and bang their head on the wall, like some sort of masochist. They worked hard, but also smart– they were extremely deliberate about the skills they wanted to practice. All of the great ones are. They’re always identifying weaknesses in their game and putting their attention there. You’re happy with your three-point shot? Work on your handle. Happy with your handle? Add muscle so you can bang down low. There’s always something you can add. What’s the thing you’re working on today?”
p.204 – “One of the most surefire ways to keep that fire lit is to make putting in the work part of you daily ritual.”
p.204 – “And if you do it day after day, you see results. That doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to start winning championships– remember, there are no guarantees like that. But you are going to start seeing yourself getting stronger, smarter, quicker. And the more you see that, the more you’ll be motivated to keep building on it. You’ll know that you’re building something special. That’s what kept me in the gym after practice. I didn’t know where this would end up, but I knew I was building something I could be proud of.”
p.206 – “It should excite you when you have the chance to improve yourself. I was always motivated by maximizing my potential. I wanted to be successful in every game, and the only way to do that was to work my butt off. That’s why it’s important to find what you love and try to do that, because it won’t seem like work adn you won’t mind putting in the time necessary to be great. Because that’s a lot of time.”
p.207 – “Everyone talks about being in the zone. But you only get there through intense, vigorous work and single-minded focus. It’s the consistency of practice that enables you to perform and function throughout a game, or a moment when your mind is completely unclouded. The only thing going through your mind when you release a shot is follow-through and good balance. You can tune out hecklers, twenty thousand screaming fans, the fear of failure– everything. Like everything else in sports, people see the results of being in the zone– ‘Damn, he’s on another level out there!’– but they rarely see the work that goes into achieving that plane of consciousness.”
p.207 – “Being in the zone is about being completely present. But you don’t get to that state of mind without preparing for it, day in and day out. You can’t force it– but you can make room for it. In a way, though, that state of total presence is your reward for putting in the work. Most people who suit up or a sport aren’t going to win a championship. But whatever level you’re playing at, you can experience that state of total absorption and total presence– if you prepare for it.”
pp.209-210 – “Some people look at Jordan and see one of the most gifted athletes of all time. Sure– but I look at him and see a person who never stopped learning. I see all those hundreds, thousands of hours of work.”

Conclusion

p.212 – " ‘At some point in your childhood, you and your friends went outside to play together for the lsat time and nobody knew it.’ "
p.214 – “It turns out that winning a championship was much, much easier than coming to terms with the fact that I’d never play basketball again. It was like a part of me died. It was like a piece of life was cut out of me, stolen, taken before its time.”
p.216 – “And building my life after basketball is so sweet because it’s the hardest thing I’ve done. I’ve had my depressed days, my pity parties, all of that. But what you learn playing the game stays with you, and one thing I learned was how to get up when I’ve been knocked down, no matter how much it hurts. You can’t play successfully at the highest level unless you hate losing. You can’t make it to the highest level unless you absorb a lot of losses on the way. Leaving the game is always painful– but playing the game is also a powerful preparation for the eventual pain of leaving it.”
p.217 – “Even if I didn’t get to go out with a championship, I would have loved to go out on my own terms, to have a victory lap like D-Wade or Dirk.

But again, that was not to be.

No mine to reason why.

It is what it is.

I was disappointed. Angry. Sad.

But all I could do was react, move forward, tackle what’s next. Because… life.

The end of on journey sets up the beginning of another.”

p.219 – “You can choose to play like that, every single time you lace ’em up. Play like it’s your last. Put in the work even when you don’t want to, even when your body and mind are screaming at you. When someone offers you the easy way out, take the hard way. Be present to the game and to your teammates. Remember tat the game– whichever game you pursue– is bigger than you, and never forget that you are built for bigger things, too.

And if you do that, you may still be disappointed about how it all ends, like I was. But you won’t have a single regret.”

p.222 – “I’d also like to acknowledge the fact that you can do surprising things if you put in the effort. This book is living proof.”