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Comfortable in your own skin

by | Jan 18, 2019 | Beautiful Leadership, Open Leadership, Self-Knowledge

Steph Curry Underrated

Just over a month ago I wrote first about Steph Curry and his actions to empower girls.

Today I find myself sharing another example of leadership off the court from this athlete, and again from an article he wrote in The Players Tribune, a quite remarkable publication that gives athletes a platform to share, in-depth, their stories.

I’ll share today his most recent example of leadership voiced in the article “Underrated”, but I dug deeper and the phrase I want to highlight from him today is from an earlier article: “I’m a person who is comfortable in his own skin”

Now, for those of you who are not fans of and versed in pro Basketball, you may know little of Steph Curry. Suffice to say he is a great player and leader of his team, who have won multiple championships.

What is increasingly making him stand out, though, is his leadership off the court. The first article he wrote for The Players Tribune was on Veterans Day in 2017, November 11th. In this he wrote:

I’m a person who is comfortable in his own skin. I’m 29 now. I’ve got two daughters, a wonderful wife, two amazing parents. I’ve been all over this country, from Charlotte to the Bay. And I feel confident in the fact that I’ve developed a foundation for my character that I can be proud of. I know what I believe in, and I know what I stand for.

I’ve written before about Growth Mindset. As my friend Chip Conley puts it “if you have a fixed mindset you are looking to prove, but if you have a growth mindset you are looking to improve”.

Steph Curry has always been underrated (more on that later) as a basketball player, so he has a passion to always improve. What is clear is that he has taken that passion for learning and self-improvement beyond the court and into his life.

In my experience (professional and personal), at 29 very few of us are truly comfortable in our own skin, truly feeling that we have developed a foundation for our character, but back when he wrote that article back in 2017, Steph felt he had reached that point.

Since then, he has led more and more on issues, leveraging his solid knowledge of what he stands for to bring partners and sponsors on board to support action around issues he believes in.

So, what can we learn from Steph Curry here?

To Adopt a growth mindset in every aspect of life, to always look to learn and improve along life’s journey.

For athletes, they can get overly focussed on only improving as an athlete. For most of us, we can get overly focussed on our skills for our work and neglect the wise words of this 29-year-old athlete, of developing a foundation for our character, of truly knowing what we stand for.

We can all do more in this area, today I thank this young athlete for his inspiration.

Now, to close, I share snippets from his recent article, “Underrated”:

“It’s the summer of 2001, I’m 13 years old, and we’re at the AAU national championships in Tennessee. I was 5’5”, 5’6” tops — and maybe like 100 pounds soaking wet. We lost badly, and I played worse.”

“in that moment…my parents sat me down..and gave me what I’d call probably the most important talk of my entire life. I wish I had the transcript for you, since there were some real gems in there. Basically, though? My Mom took the lead. She said, Steph, I’m only going to tell you this one time. After that, this basketball dream….. it’s going to be what it’s going to be. But here’s what I’ll say: NO ONE gets to write your story but you. Not some scouts. Not some tournament. Not these other kids, who might do this better or that better. And not EVER your last name. None of those people, and none of those things, gets to be the author of your story. Just you. So think real hard about it. Take your time. And then you go and write what you want to write. But just know that this story — it’s yours.

Man…. that moment stuck with me. It stuck with me throughout my growing-up years, and it’s stuck with me throughout my career as a basketball player so far. It’s the best advice I’ve ever gotten. And anytime I’ve needed it — anytime I’ve been snubbed, or underrated, or even flat-out disrespected — I’ve just remembered those words, and I’ve persevered.

I’ve said to myself, This is no one’s story to write but mine. It’s no one’s story but mine.”

{Steph then goes on to demonstrate how underrated he was throughout his high school and college career, then even when drafted to the NBA. Then…}

All this analysis that people would put out there, all these scouting reports and whatever, that kept the focus on what I supposedly couldn’t do. “Undersized.” “Not a finisher.” “Extremely limited.” I can still reel them off to this day. But what’s even crazier is how, also to this day — even with how I’ve ended up doing my thing, and even with all of these unique types of players coming into the league and showing what they can do — you’re still seeing these so-called experts scouting hoops that same old way: by focusing on the downside of what guys can’t do.

Instead of figuring out the upside of what they can.

A while back, I had an idea.

It’s called “The Underrated Tour” — and it basically goes like this: You’ve got all of these camps out there, right? All these basketball camps, across the country, around the world. And it’s great, man. It’s special. Those camps are how a lot of NBA guys originally made names for themselves. And we should keep that going! But there’s another thing about these camps I’ve been thinking about. And it’s how, if you take a closer look, you’ll see that it’s the same, exclusive group of kids participating in them, over and over. It’s these same four or five-star recruits, players every scout already knows, going from city to city, camp to camp.

And I guess I just got to thinking about how, you know — taking nothing away from those kids, those blue-chip prospects. But what about all the other kids? What about the kids who, for one reason or another, because of one perceived shortcoming or another, are getting labeled as two or three-star recruits? Now I’m not saying those kids need to be at every camp. (Honestly, man, no one does.) But if we have it set up so those kids can’t get invites to any camp?? Then I think we’ve got a problem. Because then I think we’re putting kids — kids who love to hoop, and who should be out there exploring that love — in a situation where a bunch of limits are being placed on them by other people. A situation where the limits of what they can accomplish are being put in place before they’ve gotten to test those limits for themselves.”

“And I think that’s one of the biggest things I’ve really come to understand about myself over the last 17 years: The way that underrated might start off as just some feeling the world imposes on you. But if you figure out how to harness it?

It can become a feeling that you impose on the world.

And the more I think about it, the more I’ve realized that that — above everything else — is why we’re announcing this today. That’s why I’m launching The Underrated Tour. Because I already have one camp…… and it’s awesome. But guess who wouldn’t have been invited to it?

Me.

And I’ll tell you what — I’m really starting to see something in that dude.

Don’t sleep on him.

Kid is a killer.”

Whoa. Kid is a killer all right. Don’t sleep on Steph Curry, the greatest three-point shooter I’ve ever seen. End of story.

Thanks, Steph, for leading on and beyond the court !