“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. It takes what it takes. Every day. Of your whole life. And even then, it might not be enough.” – Chris Bosh
Golden: The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry is a biography of Curry. Somehow It didn’t leave much of an impression on me. But it prompted me to revisit Chris Bosh’s book: Letters to a Young Athlete, which I still enjoy. It’s full of good advice from someone who’s been through the journey. I hope Steph’s new book, Shot Ready, will offer more insights on his mindset.
Excerpts from Golden:
It’s not the time he puts in, or how gruelling the load. Housen is amazed at the ethical difficulty. Curry practices the difficult until it becomes normal. He sets the bar so high in practice that his dazzling is monotonous in the games…
He doesn’t work on 3-pointers, he works on 3-pointers from deep after three-pronged dribble moves. He doesn’t practice free throws. He practices left-handed floaters from the free throw line. And once the insane has become normalised, he turns up the heat. He’ll wear a mask to simulate altitude, tiring himself out faster–and saving the wear and tear on his body–so he can get comfortable shooting 3s while fatigued. After the stop-back became normal, as did the step-to-the-side 3, he worked incessantly until he got down the side-step-ping, around-the-back 3-pointers.
Excerpts from Letters to a Young Athlete:
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 exchanged. They’re so used to it that all they think about is performing.
You become capable of the grind by surviving the grind.
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 your game, it’s very hard not to do it everywhere else.
Maybe the biggest difference between great athletes and mediocre ones is the learned ability to distrust that malfunctioning empty light in their brains.
Pain is temporary; glory is forever. If you want to excel, you have to get used to the pain. You have to get used to exhaustion. I can’t promise you that it will ever be a comfortable feeling, but I can guarantee you that you can become familiar enough with it that you can visit that mental and physical space on your path to getting better and not have to worry that you’ll crumple under the pressure.
Finding a reason for hunger when you have every reason to feel full–that’s what separates good from great.
You don’t get peak mental performance without taking care of your body. Sleeping right. Eating right. Exercising. Those investments in yourself don’t stop paying off when you stop playing the game–they will pay dividends for your whole life.
Criticism is a tax on success. If you’re getting criticised, even unfairly, take a second to appreciate it–it means you’re doing something right.
Criticism is easy. Putting in the work is hard. Anything you do to get better at your craft–one extra rep, one extra practice shot, one extra hour of film–is more important and more significant than a thousand pieces of criticism.
Winning and losing are both imposters, and I say that to you as someone who danced with both for four consecutive years. I’m not being flip. When you have real mental 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.
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. It takes what it takes. Every day. Of your whole life. And even then, it might not be enough.
I love the way Jerry Seinfeld put it once: “Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you’re comfortable with…it’s work, it’s exercise. Find the torture you’re comfortable with and you’ll do well.”
There’s no way of knowing exactly what it’s going to cost when you set out on the journey. Maybe that’s just why the journey is so hard–and so rewarding when you reach your destination. Maybe all you can say is: it takes what it takes.
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