Don't Let One Bad Minute Ruin Your Day- Positive Mental Muscle Memory

Stephen Curry is the greatest three-point-shooter in the history of the NBA. His efficiency and ability to shoot from all over the court is a wonder to watch. He has perfect shooting mechanics because years of hard work have given him the ability to hit nearly 44% of his three-point shot attempts. In just ten-years he’s become the most prolific three-point shooter in league history.

Curry’s consistency is based on thousands of hours of practice and the confidence and ability to rise to the occasion in tense situations. Those thousands of hours of practice have honed his muscle memory to always get to the perfect shooting position and release, no matter how much pressure the defense is putting on him. From a technical standpoint, muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition and in Curry’s case, thousands of hours of repetition.

Of course Curry’s incredible shooting skills are not just physical, the mind plays a massive role in his success. Great athletes have bad games, Curry included. The key is how quickly they can forget the bad game or situation where they didn’t perform in the clutch and move on to the next possession. There are many incredible athletes that never made it to the NBA not because of their lack of physical abilities, but because of their lack of ability to handle the mental side of the game.

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We Live in a Perception of a Perception of Ourselves

I’m a fan of the Jay Shetty podcast, discovering it about six months ago. He has a fascinating backstory, which includes spending three-years as a monk. During a recent episode Shetty used a quote that really stuck with me:

“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am.”

As Shetty puts it, we “live in a perception of a perception of ourselves. If we think someone thinks we’re smart, we feel smart. If we think someone thinks we don’t look good, we think we don’t look good.” As I often do, I immediately wrote the quote down and really pondered it. Over the span of a several days I thought deeply about this statement. While out socially or in sales meetings in front of clients I thought of the concept and how it holds so much insight into how we build out identity.

The quote is attributed to American psychologist Thomas Hart Cooley, who coined the term “looking glass self” in 1902. The Looking Glass Self is comprised of three main components, which are all unique to humans:

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You're Only In a Race Against Yourself and Other Lessons I Learned from the Marines

I had the honor this past weekend of accompanying my son and his high school rugby team as they took part in a team-building exercise with some members of the 5th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton in California. The experience we had along and the lessons he and his team learned really resonated, reinforcing many of the critical skills I’ve worked hard to instill in my son. It also reminded me why I love the culture and toughness of rugby so much.

In the end all parents really want the same thing: well-adjusted kids of strong character and determination (grit) that are resilient enough to handle what life throws at them. In the case of my son I believe my role is to turn him into someone who will eventually become a great father, partner and provider. This past Saturday, the Marines, through their outlook on the world, helped reinforce some of the key lessons my wife and I have worked so hard to instill in our kids.

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