Coaching a Surgeon: What Makes Top Performer Better?

The gist of the article is this: when you have a coach that can point out areas to improve, you can break the performance “plateau” you normally reach after a while.

I read this last night and kept it on the back of my mind. Who knew, after just one day, the lesson from the article would singlehandedly change my life, at least on the basketball court.

Today, after an hour or two of statistics, I had this sudden urge to go play basketball. I was shooting around with someone who was already at the gym (they ran out of basketballs) and he—out of the blue—told me how I could fix my form (elbow in, shoot with an arc, use my knees, etc.). I remembered the article, listened to him and in just an hour, my form, my shooting and my interest in basketball literally tripled. And all I did was explicitly ask him to point out how I was doing, how I could improve and pretty much give me feedbacks on every single shot I took.

My personal best for free throw was about eight out of 10 but after an hour or so of his coaching, I missed just one every fifteen or so shots. And I wasn’t even trying hard to make it; all I was trying to do was internalize his advice. Unbelievable.

My improvement was so dramatic and so fast that I couldn’t resist not writing about it. I’m going to apply this to every possible part of my life. Awesome.