Building the Foundation

One of my favorite books of all time is Shoe Dog by Phil Knight.

The autobiography is basically Knight running you through his founding story of Nike and how he built it to become the epitome of sport greatness that we see today.

This is now my third time reading it.

There is a quote from his early days of building the Nike brand (at the time it was Blue Ribbon Sports) that resonated with me, and it goes as follows:

For me, I am not selling Atypical.

I truly believe in the power of intentionally crafting your own mindset.

With that in mind, let’s get into some ideas I have been working through these past two weeks of building my Atypical mindset.

Why I Do This:

First off, Mr. Drechsel is crazy… It makes me sound like your local substitute math teacher, but I appreciate the respect hahah

Secondly, my friend here took away a very important piece of the Atypical mindset:

pressing on no matter the results.

We are all going to have high and low moments and the key is understanding that who we are is not dictated by these moments, but rather how we respond to them.

Be relentlessly Atypical.

Choose to push forward to greater and better.

These responses are the real moments that we reinforce the principles which we aspire to have in our Atypical mindset.

Grateful to have my friend here in the Atypical community.

Thoughts From This Week

Take a Breath

Since I’ve been “healthy” (now I am actually close to 100%, it took longer than expected…), it has been all systems go for the season. I have been doing everything in my power to get back into game shape, get my rhythm back, and find ways to help my team win.

Of course, this should be a given.

Meaning: when doing a job, for me its basketball, it is the bare minimum to give your all to it.

Striving towards peak performance as an athlete is a huge task. It is rewarding, challenging, exhausting, and overwhelming all at the same time.

It requires all of your physical effort, mental bandwidth, and emotional capacity.

I am sure you guys can relate, but sometimes the experience overwhelms me.

This mostly happens when I am really in it.

I am talking about when I am fixated on my daily pursuit almost so head-down “grinding” that I lose my well-being.

Here’s what I have found that helps:

If you know me, then you know I go through phases of really getting into yoga.

I enjoy the practice of yoga because of its emphasis on the mind-body relationship.

One of the guiding principles of any yoga practice is the synchronization of your breath to your movements.

In a yoga class you might hear the instructor say something like, “breathe through this position and allow the breath to create space in your body”.

This concept hits.

Breathe to create space, space not just for more freedom of movement, but for more freedom of perspective.

When you consciously breathe, you have a moment when your breathe is suspended (between the inhale and exhale). In this moment you can see things clearly, you can feel things more fully, and you can make calculated decisions.

To put it succinctly, a breath creates a moment of perspective.

The basketball season can be overwhelming without perspective.

Shit, anything for that matter can be seem big if you are too zoomed in.

My solution is to take a breath.

Your homework is to find out what taking a breath looks like for you.

For me, a breath this last week took the form of a trip to Paris just my wife and I, no basketball, no workouts, just quality time with the person that centers me.

Of course in classic Trey fashion, you know I had to document it haha

Here is the visual example of my breath from the basketball season (we had 4 days off due to the FIBA National Team break):

I challenge you to breathe when things get intense whether it be in the small scale of an intense game or the large scale of a tough part of the basketball season.

Gain perspective, see things clearer, and make some good-ass decisions that prioritize your well-being and success.

Ambitioned Turned Downfall

My guess is that if you are reading this newsletter, you have high aspirations.

You want to be better and you will search for anything that will help you in that journey.

That want is the start of crafting your Atypical mindset. The process has to start with an intense want.

I’ve been like this for a long time. I honestly believe my whole life. I am not sure where or why it started, but at this point, this want for more is part of who I am.

Let’s call this ambition.

Objectively, ambition is a good thing. It drives us. It fuels our pursuit.

But, it is not always the answer.

We can want it too bad.

I know this is going to sound random, but take swimming for example.

When you are first learning to swim, you really want to be able to swim (or more so not drown) and so you flail and swing your arms and legs about frantically.

Guess what happens…

You start to sink and your flailing actually makes you sink faster.

You want to swim so bad that you can’t swim.

I find myself facing this same issue when I start to struggle in a shooting workout or in a game.

I want to make shots so bad that it makes it harder to make shots.

I want to play well so bad that it makes me play worse.

I want to become more so bad that I end up overworking myself.

Ambition is a good thing until it isn’t.

For highly driven individuals, sometimes the answer is to want it less.

I know that can sound counterintuitive, but sometimes we need to allow experiences and environments to be what they are without thrusting our idea of control over them.

You figured out how to swim once you used the water to move you instead of you trying to move the water.

Leash your ambition when the time calls for it because sometimes it can be the reason you are sinking.

Understanding > Want

Patience > Ambition

But you still need both.

In the wise words of a karate legend and zen master,

Want the best version of yourself, but do so with awareness and understanding…

YouTube Drops

We had a tough road game in Italy while the team was dealing with a ton of injuries. It doesn’t give us an excuse, but it does make the challenge even greater.

How did we respond to an unforgiving basketball season?

Watch here to find out:

I talked about it earlier, but right after our road trip to Italy, we had a home game, and then the FIBA National Team break. My wife and I headed to Paris for a much needed reset and step away from basketball.

Here is what it looks like to reset and recharge before getting back to the grind of the basketball season:

I’ll Leave You With This:

If you can’t tell, these newsletter drops are almost like therapy sessions for me.

This is my safe space where I self-reflect and work through the challenges of my pro basketball season.

This is my canvas where I map out my Atypical mindset.

I want to say thank you for reading and giving thoughts to my thoughts.

Building the foundation to an unshakable, Atypical mindset,

Together.

I appreciate you guys.

Until next week.

Live Atypical

Trey