Lessons from the Golden State Warriors

How are you coming with committing to a healthy mindset to build a strong foundation for your character? I hope you continue to remember these words from Jim Rohn, “Personal success is built on the foundation of character, and character is the result of hundreds and hundreds of choices you might make that gradually turn who you are at any given moment into who you want to be.”

I prefer watching college basketball although with the NBA basketball championship games going on now, I will watch these. I am a big fan of talented athletes who are also strong, ethical people with character. I happened to be reading a Parent magazine recently and there was an article about Stephen Curry, his wife, and their children. Not only is he an incredible athlete, but his actions off the court show he is a man of integrity, he values his wife and his children, and they both seem to have their heads on straight when it comes to parenting. In my opinion, we need to see more of this in our society!

I was recently reading an article in Success about the Golden State Warriors. For a little background, the Warriors basketball team has had a record-setting season with 73 regular season wins, breaking the NBA record previously held by the Chicago Bulls. Their success, however, didn’t happen overnight. Seeds were planted for this incredible achievement and in a time when the franchise was considered mediocre. It took a coach, Don Nelson, willing to rock the boat and do something different than the norm. Most NBA rosters were anchored around a 7-foot center surrounded by traditional positions. Nelson, on the other hand, took a different approach. He traded big-name players for a “band of journeymen and ‘misfits’ to play ‘small ball.’ “He created a fun, fast-paced style of play designed so that players were interchangeable parts.” The end result was an entire team pulling together, highlighting each other’s strengths while also having fun playing a game they loved. This change began to pay dividends.”

The revitalized franchise has transformed their failure into success. “Fans love cheering for a team that plays with joy, passion and celebrates each other’s successes each and every game.” If you watch any of their games, you can actually see this joy, passion, and celebration through their actions. In the article, it took this success on the court one step further.

On a deeper level, the Warriors success is not only about what happens on the court but is applicable to other sports. It’s also applicable to your business, your relationships, and in your personal life.” There are FIVE Lessons that we can all take to heart and learn how to apply in our own lives:

Create Your Starting Lineup. None of us reach our goals by ourselves. Jim Rohn always says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Think about that for a minute. Who would you say are the five people you spend the most time with? Are these five people going to help you move toward your goals? Are they supportive of you even when you’re struggling? For the Warriors, each player had his own unique set of skills and talents, they worked together to best use their specific contributions with the same goal in mind – work toward the overall good of the team. Egos had to be checked at the door. This leads into the second lesson.

Celebrate Other People’s Successes. Stephen Curry was the regular season MVP, however, he wasn’t named the Finals MVP. Instead, one of his teammates was given that honor. “Curry was seen jumping for joy, celebrating his teammate’s accomplishment.” The lesson here is that “your inner game will improve exponentially when you shift toward abundance and celebrating other people’s wins.” Too often we see athletes, colleagues, friends sulk, point the finger, rationalize, or give excuses as to why they didn’t get an award, make the first team, get the promotion, or their attitude is such a fraud that we all know the “joy” wasn’t real. Can you think of a situation where you didn’t receive an award, or you didn’t get the recognition that you may have thought you deserved or you didn’t get something that you really wanted? What did YOU do? Unlike what we might initially think, someone else’s success doesn’t negate all that we did and our contributions. What if we could all follow Stephen’s example of being excited for someone else’s success?

Focus on Your Strengths. So often we are told we need to work on our weaknesses. There is some truth to that especially when we are part of a team, or we have others depending on us such as colleagues and family members. We always have something to work on to get better. However, if we only focus on our weaknesses we can only become mediocre. If we develop our strengths, perfect our own style based on those strengths then we can get better for ourselves as well as for the team (a team can also be your family or your colleagues). That’s when we can truly become great. In order for this to happen each of us needs to identify one or two strengths that we know we have, then we decide, we TAKE ACTION, and we continue to move forward to make ourselves even better.

Make it Fun. I love watching the Warriors high-five one another on the court, the bench is standing up cheering and sometimes waving towels, they are IN the game emotionally even if they’re not on the court at the time. The atmosphere is high-spirited. On a personal note, I have been watching several Rockies baseball games lately. There definitely is not that same high-spirited atmosphere. Even the sportscasters and announcers will talk about their low energy and the fact it didn’t look like anyone was having any fun. I understand that it’s easier to be “up” when the game is in your favor. However, we’ve all watched games when the momentum switches quickly. It may only be one play, one caught pass close to the TD line, or in the classroom you get back an A paper after several C papers. Things will turn around! It’s a mindset, and it’s usually something small or one event which can begin to make things fun again. Keep moving forward and never quit!

Be the Best Version of You. In the Success article, the author noted that not only was Curry the year’s regular season MVP by a unanimous vote, but he was also the hardest worker. He did what many are not willing to do. He did what he did when there wasn’t any press around, no one was watching. He did it to be able to be the best version of him. He didn’t take one great game for granted. Instead, he stayed after games to work on his jump shot or came an hour early before a game to get a competitive edge. His focus continues to be on consistently getting better himself. He wasn’t looking at everyone else, he didn’t expect others to do what he did, but you can imagine what his teammates did. Of course. They were also energized, they worked on getting better, and they worked hard on their craft as well. That’s called leadership, that’s called being a positive role model, and that means YOU being in control of being the best version of YOU.

How can you take these five lessons and apply them to your life? Choose one area that you want to focus on for the next week. What is it you want to be able to do to begin setting a new habit? What is it you can do to move toward a new goal or a goal that you want to strengthen with more action behind it?

I wish you a week of reflection on what these five winning lessons from the Golden State Warriors means to you.