Transcription
Today I want to break down Michael Jordan's confidence. Because of all the players I've ever studied, nobody is consistently more confident than Michael Jordan. Not a big surprise. His body language was always strong, and that's something young players need to learn. Because your body language says so much about your mental state, and your mental state will translate directly into how well you're playing the game.
So, one of the things we we know about confidence is that a lot of it has to do with how you talk to yourself and the images you have in your head. So the more times you see yourself being successful mentally, when you visualize that, it's going to make you more successful on the court.
The other thing is how you talk to yourself. The more positive you are, the more you're saying, "I can do it. I'm always in the zone. I'm good enough. I'm awesome. I'm a tremendous talent." The more you say that, the more you fill your head with those types of things, and your subconscious with those types of things, the more confident you're going to be. So that's the inside game, how you're thinking and the images you're telling yourself.
A third component is to get rid of negative emotions. The full basketball brain program will really help you with that internal game, how to see yourself more confidently in your mind, how to speak to yourself more confidently, and also how to get rid of negative feelings. It's so vital to be able to do those three things to have confidence. Again, it's mostly an internal thing that you have to do.
But we can learn a lot from watching the other way into confidence, the other avenue to confidence, and that's from the body and the body language. Now I want you to watch this clip of MJ right here, okay? I want you to watch. He hits this shot. Notice how he kind of runs down the court in a in a way different than a lot of players. Notice the bounce in his step, the confidence in the way he moves compared to everyone else. He's not just running back, he's putting a little something extra into it. He's moving with swagger. And that's what we call it at basketball brain, swagger. Not in the sense that you have swag, but the real swagger that legends have.
And you'll notice too, there's something about his eyes and his mouth. You'll notice in his eyes when he looks back, you see the fire in his eyes. That's really hard, it's a hard thing to explain, but you can see when you see it, you know it. There's fire in the eyes. And it has to do with focusing your eyes. It's a dominant pose. It's the pose of someone who is looking at someone they know they can defeat, someone who is in control of his domain. It's the way the king looks at someone who has disrespected him. It's the way that somebody knows they're almost invincible looks. It's the way superheroes look.
And there is no reason you can't have that same confidence, that same swagger. All it is is after you put in all the practice on the court, and you're talking to yourself, and visualizing, and getting rid of your negative emotions, and then you start to embody that body language. Why can't you think the same thoughts as Michael Jordan? Why? It's just a thought. You can think anything you want. Why can't you move your body just like him? You can move your body any way you want. You can move your face any way you want. You can't really see how he's breathing here, but you can tell he's in full possession of his breath. He is in his element. He's in the present moment.
We're going to go forward a little bit now to another play. He's going to back down Gary Payton. This is in slow-mo. Hit a great turnaround fade away on him. He's going to go back now. I want you to watch as he backpedals here. And as MJ backpedals, you see something that only legends do. Do you see this bounce in his step? You see how he's into it? He's like a boxer just knocks somebody out. He's like Tyson in 1988 laying people out cold. Do you see this bounce? Let's go back and watch it again. Look at this bounce in his step. Look at his face here. Look at, look at the face and the fire in his eyes. It's the "Who you messing with?" face. "I'm so good, you can't stop me" face. What do you think if he was going to verbalize how he feels right now? He's saying, "I'm unstoppable. There's nothing they can do to me." Right? Right.
Look how he walks. Look at the bounce in his step. Notice the wide movement with the shoulders, right? He's he's a he's an alpha male dominating the arena. And if you're a woman listening, you're the alpha female. Look at the bounce in the step here. Look at that. Who does that? Who have you seen do that in the NBA? Right? Who? There's nobody who really has that except maybe Kobe a few years ago. Westbrook kind of moves like this. You'll notice this fire and this intensity, but still being in control and poised, which is something Westbrook's learning. But notice the fire here. Look at that. Doesn't that pump you up? Pumps me up.
Let's watch another clip. This is against the Knicks. Jordan hits this fade away here. He hits this fade. He hits this fade away here. Notice how he's, it's not as intense as the other one, but notice how he has that little bounce in his step. You see it? Go slow. You see that bounce? See his face? See how focused he is, right? And then let's look here. He's he's getting ready to go on defense. Do you see how intense he is? Look at the eyes. Look at that. Who do you see in the NBA that does that? They all could do it, but they're into the game. I mean, he is into the game. He is, he's the alpha male. And you can have that look on your face when you play. And when you have that look, you're going to start to feel different.
All right, let's just show one more. This is from an All-Star game against Kobe Bryant. So you'll notice here, Jordan comes down, right? Let's watch the whole thing just because he's so much fun to watch. Comes down and he hits this, his fadeaway. Starts backing Kobe down into the the post, right? It's backing him down, backing him down. Boom, hits him with the fake left, hits it. Now watch, watch this after the slow-mo replay. Kobe hits him on the forearm. Now watch how smooth and conf, there's that bounce in the step. Now watch this. Now how confident is that? Did you see that? Did you see what he did there? That's a confident move. That's that's like saying, "That tastes good. I want more of that. I could eat that all night." Finger look, my fadeaway is finger looking good. He was just the smoothest player you've ever seen. He's doing the Johnny Manziel football thing before Johnny Manziel was Johnny Manziel. Was probably even born. He's just smooth. And when you're confident, you move so much more gracefully too. Look how he turns around. That's like a dance move. You see what I'm saying? Like you could see Michael Jackson moving like that. Do you move like that on the court? Do you move with that type of confidence? Like watch this. This is real swagger. This isn't the type of swag kid talk. This is real swagger. See how he turns right there?
So I want to go back just to this bounce really quick before we end. Make sure I talked about this. This bounce here when he hits these shots, right? There's something called overall body tempo. And Jordan was a master of it. I see so many players that come out way too jacked up, right? And sometimes way too low. What we say, overall body tempo, it's kind of like this. This is bounce. It's the rhythm of the game. Like there's there's this rhythm to every great game, right? And Jordan gets into it, and his body language just feeds into that. It's like in sync, in parallel with the rhythm to the game. And when he bounces like this, he's into it. His his the tempo of Jordan's game was why he could average 30 points over a career, night in and night out. And he would keep this tempo even if he was playing poorly. But as you keep this tempo, you play better and better and better. And when you play better, better and better, you just, you automatically get in that tempo. That's why he get in that zone so frequently. Shoot 65, 70%. Score 60 points. Unlike some players today who are great players, but they need a lot more shots and it looks like a lot more effort. It always looks so effortless for Jordan because he was always in that like attack mode. Look at that. That's just beautiful overall body tempo. Try to mimic Jordan's. You know, on a scale of 1 to 10, it's probably between a seven and an eight. That means your, the way your whole body moves, the speed with which it moves. But just watch these videos and go to the court. And this is the last piece of advice. Model this. Who cares if people think, "Oh, look at this guy. Look at he how cocky is this dude? What's he trying to do?" Who cares? Doesn't matter. You're going to get better and better and better. And everyone knocked Kobe Bryant when he came in the league for copying Jordan and acting like Jordan. So what? That was the most intelligent thing Kobe Bryant ever did. That's why he's one of the greatest players ever. He may not be greater than MJ, but he copied his body language, how he moved, his facial expressions. Kobe's no fool. You copy the best. Success leaves a trail. It leaves a blueprint. It leaves clues. It leaves hints. Sometimes it leaves a complete recipe. And Jordan's body language is the recipe for success.