Mind Over Matter

I was in my performance center hanging out on the basketball court with this little kid that comes in and shoots basketball. The little boy is a freshman in high school and is approximately 5'3" tall and not all that athletic. Every time he comes to the performance center he goes straight to the court and shoots for about an hour and a half by himself. He started passing me the ball so I could take a some shots. On my fourth shot, I launched the ball and it got stuck between the rim and backboard. He started walking over to the other balls to get one to knock the ball down. I told him not to get one because I wanted him to jump up and knock it down with his hands. Honestly, I did think he had a shot of even coming close but I just wanted to see what his reaction would be to me saying this. Without giving it a second thought he started running and jumping up at the ball trying to knock it down. Just like I thought, he wasn't even coming close but he never quit trying and that is what caught my attention. He was so determined and that made me want him to do it more than anything. After watching him try time after time for approximately ten minutes I told him to walk over and get me the broom that we use to sweep the basketball court. He politely did as I asked and I am sure he thought I was going to use it to knock the ball down. Once he gave me the broom, I told him to stand next to me and I held the broom up to the ball were the tip of the handle was about a foot and a half from touching it. I then told him to jump straight up and touch the top of the broom handle and once again he did just what I asked of him. I had him do this several more times and then asked him how hard was it for him to touch the top of the broom. His reply was that it wasn't hard at all. I raised the broom up some more where it was about a foot from touching the ball and once again asked him to jump up and touch the top of the broom handle. Once again he did what I asked and I had him repeat this three more times. I then asked how hard was it for him to do this and his reply was that it was a little harder. I then asked him if he noticed how close he was coming to touching the ball without having to run up and jump. He said yes. The key for me was to take his focus off of the ball and direct it toward touching the tip of the broom handle, something I knew he could do. I was attempting to build his confidence by putting him in a position to have success. I raised the broom once again where the tip was about six inches from the ball and he could not quite get the very tip but almost. Then I told him I wanted him to go and get a running start and jump up and knock the ball down with his hands. I could see in his eyes that his belief and confidence in his ability was much higher than before. He got on his starting point, took off toward the goal and exploded off the ground. This time he was much closer. Everyone one in the gym started cheering for him to do it and his confidence grew even more. He ran back to his mark and went again. This time he lightly touched the ball with his finger tips. I was so happy for him and if he would have stopped right there it would have been a major accomplishment in my eyes considering that when he first started he would not have gotten close to the ball if his life depended on it. He wasn't coming close at all!!!! However, he wasn't quitting. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to get the ball and he was going to do it. I was so excited. He jogged back over to his mark and I told him I believed in him, to visualize himself knocking it down, run up and make it happen. He ran up with all the confidence in the world and exploded off of the ground and slapped the ball with his entire hand and convincingly knocked the ball down. I was so excited I ran to half court cheering, threw the broom up in the air and let it come crashing down on my very expensive basketball court. I didn't care because I could see the kid accomplished something amazing. He was so happy. After I was able to calm down he walked over to me and with a sincere voice and the happiest look in his eyes, he thanked me. I told him it was no need to thank me at all because for it to happen he had to believe in himself first. Plus, seeing him do this made me believe even more that to achieve success you have to have the right mindset. Watching all of this develop made me think more and more about the point I tried to get across to the readers of my book, "Head Games: Life's Greatest Challenge".