SWENSDAY STUFF

Life is a Rebound
Swen Nater

As you may know, when I played basketball, rebounding was my strongest area. If you were to ask me to show you how to rebound, I would not spend a lot of time on technique, such as faking, maneuvering, and jumping. Instead I would teach you the three “attitude” principles taught to me by John Wooden. These are my secrets to great rebounding.

1. Assume every shot is missed.
2. Get your hands up
3. Go get the ball

I’m going to show you how these three principles can help make you successful in anything you do in life, particularly at work. I’m not kidding. Don’t worry; I’m not going to have you put up a hoop in your office, cube, classroom, or breakroom. You’re not going to rebound a basketball; you’re going to use the principles to rebound from any challenge that could normally discourage you, slow you down, or make you quit. Let’s go back to Coach Wooden’s principles.

While the three principles teach rebounding, they also show three reasons players don’t rebound. If you don’t assume a shot is missed, implying you partially assume it’s going in, you won’t make the full effort to get position and that means you’ll miss opportunities. If you don’t get your hands above the shoulders, you won’t be ready to get the rebounds that come down quickly or take weird bounces. If you don’t go get the rebound, somebody else is going to get it before you do. On the contrary, when you do follow the principles, you’ll be in position, you’ll be ready, and you’ll be the first one to the ball. Are you beginning to see how the principles apply to everyday life at work?

Let’s say a missed shot in basketball is like a negative situation at work, like not getting promoted even though you’re working your tail off and you deserve it. Here is how you apply the rebounding principles.

1. Assume Every Shot is Missed: If you assume someone else is going to get the job you’re applying for, you won’t keep working hard. For example, you won’t follow up the interview with a thank you letter or ask if the interviewer needs more information. That’s going to make it worse. Keep the effort at a high level, and you’ll create opportunities.
2. Get Your Hands Up: In rebounding, if your hands are up about shoulder level, you’ll be ready to grab any rebound, no matter where it bounces to. At work, when you have the attitude that expects opportunities to come, like a second interview, you’ll be ready to take advantage of them quickly.
3. Go Get the Ball: In rebounding, the first one to the ball usually gets it. In my job, we interview lots of people that are applying to be assistants. In many cases, the determining factor was who wanted the job the most.

Rebounding is an attitude that expects negatives to happen, but also positives to come out of those negatives. When I played for the Clippers, one of my teammates was Lloyd “World” Free. That guy never met a shot he didn’t like. Whenever he got the ball, I started making my move to the board because I knew it was going up. (I was never called for three seconds in the key.) His shooting accuracy was below 50% so it was safe for me to assume he was going to miss. I can’t tell you how many times “World” Free gave me a high five for cleaning up his messes.

When rebounding, I put on the attitude, if I kept working, missed shots (negatives) could be turned into scores (positives). As I showed you, Coach Wooden’s rebounding principles apply to the job, but they also apply to the player who sits on the bench, waiting for a chance to prove he or she can play. They work for the medical student who is starting to wonder if all that work is worth it. And they work for that first-year teacher who discovered, teaching real children is a lot more difficult than what they told you in college.

When I played, I believed, rebounding was the second half of an offensive play. When that shot was released, it was time to kick the energy and effort to another gear because it was time to make good out of bad. No matter what you do in life, you’re going to face adversity and challenges that seem daunting. When you do—just remember—Life is a rebound.