If Only You Knew

These past two weeks I recognized a fatal flaw in my mindset towards this season.

With the rhythm and flow I had created last season, I made the incorrect assumption that this season would immediately be more of the same.

I did not account for a new team, nagging injuries, and a new role.

No two seasons are the same.

No two challenges are the same.

They can have similarities, but it is important to approach each challenge with a renewed mindset and vigor for problem solving.

It’s like I thought this season would be smooth sailing.

Smooth sailing does not make a champion.

A champion is made in how they navigate the waves, the ups and downs, and all the emotions.

So, my fellow ‘future champions’, let’s talk about some of the ideas I have been navigating the last two weeks.

Why I Do This:

It never gets old receiving these types of messages from hoopers in the Atypical community who are taking their mindset and development into their own hands. I am empowered when I hear or see other athletes discovering the power of habit and systems. This is what it’s all about using your sport to build yourself up in a way that leads to success and fulfillment in your bigger-picture life.

Use the challenges your sport brings to expand you to tackle life’s challenges with experience, confidence and your own developed mindset.

This stuff fires me up.

Small Update to the Newsletter

As this community grows, I am brainstorming ways to serve you guys better and bring you closer to my processes as a pro basketball player.

Right now, I really like how the Sunday night newsletter is where I talk to you guys athlete to athlete about the challenges I have been navigating and the lessons I learn as I do so. But… I also think there is more I want to share in terms of tangible things I have been experimenting with and trying in my day-to-day development.

Examples of these would be: supplementation, equipment, outside workout programs, reading content, food recipes, shoot even new coffee beans.

I believe you could benefit from me sharing my opinion and experiences with all products involving personal, basketball and professional development.

With this being said, there will now be a mid-week, shorter, newsletter send, called The Atypical Brand, in which I will do exactly that.

Be on the lookout this Wednesday, and please feel free to give me feedback on if it was helpful or useful for your own development.

Thoughts From This Week

So You Got It All Figured Out…

Basketball and life have a funny way of humbling you right when your pride gets a little too big.

I am not sure exactly why it is ‘funny’, but maybe it’s because the timing seems to always be perfect, almost as if your humbling moment comes right when you think it can’t happen.

That is the beautiful part and the part that I can only help but to laugh at.

With our Atypical mindset, we look at humbling moments as the most valuable moments because it’s when the most growth can happen.

We need these moments of failure, of falling flat on our faces, in order to reach the level we want to reach and become the person we want to become.

It’s in these moments that we are forced to take a step back and self-reflect.

Why did this happen?

Where do we need to improve?

If we never fail, then we never have to step up to a higher level.

This champions league game in Germany was my most recent humbling moment (I have had a whole lot of them in my life haha).

I played horribly and we got absolutely whooped, and here is my YouTube video documenting it…

The humbling part about it is that I thought I was going to be able to come back off of injury and sickness and get straight back to cooking.

I went into the game thinking I had everything figured out and under control and very quickly my performance showed that I did not.

Embarrassed and humbled, I was back to the drawing board, but not with my tail between my legs.

Don’t think that this one did not sting. My ego was hit. I was genuinely disappointed and sad about my team and my performance. That shit was embarrassing and sucked to go through…

But instead of wallowing in the emotions, I feel them, and then I am back to the laboratory with an invigorated spirit, one that has even more to prove, and more hunger to grow into the player I believe I am capable of becoming.

This is the key.

The decision to get back to it.

Allow it to motivate you, not depress you.

You don’t have it all figured out, and that is a good thing because that means you have more growth to be actualized and a greater person to become.

All is opportunity.

Beyond Comprehension

I think back 10 years ago to just before I was going to graduate high school. I had finished my senior basketball season with a few college offers (all of them division 2 or lower with a few preferred walk-on spots at division 1), but had really sort of set my eyes on a D2 school called Western Washington. I had been offered a 70% scholarship (tuition and books) and was told I would have until May 15th to give the head coach an answer. Some D1’s had wanted me to workout out in front of them (Virginia and Idaho), so of course I did those… neither offered. That kind of settled it for me, if it was not D1 then it was going to be Western Washington. I had called up the other D2’s that had offered and told them the bad news that my mind was made up.

Now it was May 4th, 2014 and I finally make the call to the head coach at Western Washington to let him know my final decision.

“Hey Coach, I am ready to be a Viking!”

unanticipated 10-15 seconds of silence

“Well, Trey, I am glad to hear that, but we actually gave your scholarship to somebody else because we did not know if you were a done deal…”

…

World shattered

When I think back to this moment, my mind swirling with heartbreak and doubt, I cannot even imagine how we got from there to today.

On that call in 2014, I could not comprehend what my life or basketball career would amount to.

And that is the point…

Life is often beyond our comprehension.

The twists and turns cannot be anticipated.

But, still, one thing can be understood:

Our commitment to a standard of excellence.

What do I mean by this?

It can be very hard to even remotely conceptualize what your life could be, but you can start by committing to how you will act today.

Commit to an standard of excellence that could apply to that future version of yourself that eclipses all the levels you could imagine and accomplishes all the dreams you are not even capable of dreaming.

This is the beginning of building a life beyond your wildest dreams.

You can become it.

You create tomorrow, today.

You may not know what the future holds, but you understand the power that today’s commitment to excellence has on impacting it.

Act today in a way that makes your dreams possible.

YouTube Drops

Two weeks, two game day vlogs with two very different storylines and results.

I am trying to share and document all that goes into this season and this overseas lifestyle. I want to bring you guys along for the ride and into my Atypical mindset. These two vlogs did exactly that.

Hope you enjoy!

I’ll Leave You With This:

Get back to it.

Dream bigger.

Take correct action today.

Make your dreams possible.

Your dreams are only limited by your belief in the power of what you do today.

You create your dreams through excellent action.

Live your excellence.

I know I will.

Live Atypical.

Trey