bcg blog

The Gifts You Keep

AAU basketball … the mere mention of the phrase typically evokes emotion, few sit on the fence. Some absolutely love it and point to player development, college exposure, and critical experience against equally talented opponents for justification. Others absolutely despise it and attribute the decline in fundamentals, growing selfish play, and increasing stress both physically and mentally on young players as the reasons.

Having been heavily involved in that world for the past twelve years, I can soundly say I’m in neither of those camps. While both are true, or can be true, the real value of something like AAU basketball is completely dependent on how it is processed. More simply put, what you decide to hold on to and what you decide to let go of determines your experience.

I’ll share an example from just this weekend. Our team has won 7 of our last 8 games, leading us into a final four matchup against a very good team out of Boston. For the last two weeks we have played in front of hundreds of college coaches and beaten several teams full of high major talent. We’ve played really well, but in this game we did not. We started slow, trimmed the lead down to four in the second half before it got away from us again and eventually lost by twenty. Disappointing for sure, but as a whole we had performed really well and finished much better than anyone projected for our group.

Walking out of the gym following the game, I keep my head down but can’t help but hear a parent venting to a friend about some of the other players on the team and the coach, which is me. As a coach, this part of the subscription. When you sign up to coach, you also sign up for fans, parents, and random observers to talk about every mistake they believe you made. I know the routine. I don’t look that way and keep walking. 

Less than sixty seconds later in the parking garage a couple of college coaches stopped me to tell me how much they’ve loved watching our team play over the past two weeks. One showed me a text exchange with his staff about how much of a clinic our warm-ups were, the other talked about how impressed he was with the level our guys competed at. I thanked them, wished them luck on the recruiting trail and in the upcoming season and finished my journey to my car. 

Now, think about that contrast no more than a minute apart. The criticism. The praise. Truth to both, exaggeration in both. Both could help, both could hurt. It does make you think, which gift do you keep?

Why Should We Care?
Imagine you are walking around with a backpack full of bricks. Those bricks are things we haven’t intentionally chosen to carry, but we carry nonetheless. A boss’ unfounded criticism, a comment from a co-worker in the hallway, an evaluation, a rejection, or a compliment that went straight to our head. We treat so much of it like it arrived and we blindly signed to make it all ours. Once they handed it to us, it's ours to keep.
It isn't. We get to choose. 
Most people think they're being open-minded by accepting whatever comes their way. Someone criticizes you, and you assume the mature response is to absorb it. Someone praises you, and you assume the humble response is to shrug it off. That’s not really the case though, not for those valuing excellence.
Think about how selective we are in other parts of life. You don’t eat any plate of food put in front of you. You choose what you eat based on your health standards. You don’t wear any clothing that comes your way. You choose based on your fashion preferences or comfort. We sort constantly, without a second thought, especially when it comes to physical things. But when it comes to words, the things that actually shape how we see ourselves and the world, we suddenly go passive. We let them all in.
That passivity is expensive. Carry every criticism and you'll live life scared, always bracing for the next voice of judgment. Carry every compliment and you'll start performing for applause instead of for the standard you set for yourself. Either way, you've stopped being the author of your own story. Someone else is holding the pen.
The gift you keep is the one you choose … on purpose. Not the one that showed up loudest or last. That choice is available to you every single time.

REAL TALK - Action Steps
Knowing you have the choice is one thing. Building the habit of actually making it is another. Here's a few ideas on where to start.

• Filter Truth 
  
  • Criticism and praise are both really the same things. They’re nothing more than someone's opinion, usually delivered with confidence. Don’t mistake confidence for accuracy. Before you accept anything as fact, strip away who said it and ask whether it's actually true. Sort the message from the messenger.
    

• Ask Why
  
  • A gift should make you better, not smaller. Before you hold on to a piece of criticism or a piece of praise, ask what you're going to do with it. If you’re just going to carry it around, let it go. If you’re going to take action on it to get better, then get to it.
    

• Practice the Pause
  
  • The habit of accepting everything handed to you gets broken one rep at a time. Next time someone hands you a compliment or a criticism, pause. Give yourself one breath before you decide whether it's yours to keep. That pause is where your power lives.
    

You get to decide. Every word, every judgment, every label anyone has ever tried to hand you is a gift. You don't have to take it just because it's offered. 

Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!

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