A Pro Athlete’s 2 Tips on Life Mastery
By: Trevor Huffman
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Startup, Self-awareness, Sports

The bright lights blinded me and stabbing pain shot into my brain.

“Wake up, five minutes till we leave,” he said flatly.

“Dad, five more minutes, I don’t want to get up yet,” I said, my 14-year old body writhing in morning suffering.

“Let’s go — time to practice.”

I’ll always remember those words. Those days when my parents were still married and my weekends consisted of peanut butter pancakes and large glasses of full milk and countless hours of shooting hoops with my brothers and my dad in the driveway.

The early morning workouts sucked, and it was my fault for asking for them.

I told my dad as a kid, (I just decided to call him Big Daddy Damon Ray), that I wanted to be great at basketball. He never took my dreams lightly. Even as my older brother Jeremy decided to pursue other sports and endeavors, it was my dad that was tugging at my blankets and flipping on the lights before the sun was up.

There is no time to overthink feelings on, “Why should I get up right now?”

See, Big Daddy Damon Ray knew there wasn’t always the feeling of motivation when building successful habits and mastering the craft you feel passionate about, especially as you begin your journey each day.

“Motivation is like ice. It melts when a choice gets too hot to make. That ice melts when times get tough, when mornings get early, when it’s time to put in the work — you need habits to help you make the decision to practice,” he’d say with his Southern Michigan farmer drawl.

Looking back at my childhood, this lesson of daily practice was what I needed to learn about the beauty of mastering my life’s passions.

“It’s time to become what you want,” he said, the quiet of dawn waiting for us to make our daily walk towards the gym. I’ll never forget those days, of his cinderblock shoulders and hands as thick as bricks ferociously passing the ball back to me.

“8 for 10. 7 for 10. 9 for 10,” he’d should back at me.

Yes, my dad was an inspiration for practicing the mastery of basketball. He didn’t teach me to dabble. To hack. To waffle. To wait. There was no practicing once in a while.

It was:

Every. Single.



Day.

But damn, those mornings were rough. The light would pop on, and I would get up slowly and start my practice with him.

“Stay low, stay fast,” he’d tell me. “Practice good habits, not bad ones.”

But what about when you grow up and have to do real stuff? A startup? Move up the corporate ladder?How do you create habits for your life then?

These days, I know more about basketball than him, but that is because pro basketball became my life. I mastered the game. The training. The end result was 20 years of practice. But really, whether it is pro basketball, basket weaving, writing, startups, or making money doing what you love, it always comes down to your approach to mastery.

It always comes down to being so good (through practice), that people can’t ignore you.

My fitness startup, if it becomes a viable thing, will succeed because of the experience, the design, the team of talent, the community, and the authenticity of how our practice feels to adults that want to smile while they sweat.

Practice shouldn’t always feel hard, but getting yourself moving may. Staying on the path of practice is difficult and takes checking in with yourself. This sports to life lesson taught me the beauty of practicing for the sake of practicing.

Like anything that brings you happiness, or a better, healthier life, paying attention to your breath, or your meditation practice, or your fitness routines, or your relationships (what is that like Trevor, hmmm, I’ll get back to you on that one?), you begin to live a life of mastery rather than mediocrity.

The fruits of living authentically happen naturally, so just practice your passions as much as you can.

The money, happiness, joy, and success will follow true mastery.

But let’s for a second, say, what if I’m wrong?

What if the money and success doesn’t follow true mastery?

What if I write every day for the rest of my life and never make a dime? Will I be upset? Will I quit?

A true master practices his craft regardless of the result.

The funny thing is I truly believe I will become a writer because of my habit to practice writing every day. The success may or may not come, but regardless, writing is a passion of mine.

I wish I had never stopped writing and sharing my stories as a pro basketball player.

You will become a ______ because of your willingness to practice ______ every day.

Fill in those two blanks.

What does it say?

Isn’t life simple if you focus on what gives you back what you put in?

This is one of the most influential ideas and concepts of authentic living: put in the practice of mastering the passions and purposes you know you want to become and you will be rewarded the joy and happiness of that work.

Life Mastery Tip #1: Is Motivation or Practicing Habits More Important?

“A practice (as a noun) can be anything you practice on a regular basis as an integral part of your life — not in order to gain something else, but for its own sake… For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. Ultimately, the master and the master’s path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate — that is, if the path is complex and profound enough — the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels.” — George Leonard

The days I woke up and felt motivated to be a professional athlete got harder and harder as I moved up each level of competition from high school to college, and ultimately, the pros.

This is because we all hit plateaus. One mountaintop signifies the descent and climb for yet another. The initial excitement of winning and success succumb to failure after failure as you continue to find out new levels of competition. As you get better and better and become a master, you also learn success can’t be your only motivation.

The most successful athletes and humans can answer this question with ease:

Life Mastery Tip #2: Can You Control the Controllable?

Each plateau you hit in business, fitness, marriage, or startups, can ultimately ruin you if you practice a fixed mindset when the struggle and suffering start punching you in the face with jabs and uppercuts.

This pain is part of the process. This period is normal, and it might be the long, arduous walk up the next mountain peak.

Not understanding why periods of suffering, non-growth, and plateau happen, can cause a negative shift in your approach to mastering your next level of habits. Sticking to the practice is hard when you don’t get affirmation every day.

But why do you need affirmation if you love what you are doing?

Stop being needy. Insecurity doesn’t thrive with masters, and if it does, they can smile and laugh at it and not take themselves too seriously.

I suffered from this plateau process when I tried out for the NBA and got cut two times. I took it personal. Instead of laughing it off and focusing on the process, I was the most vulnerable to losing the fundamentals of what made me triumphant in the first place, my daily practice routines!

I was a kid, I hadn’t matured enough to see the error of my thinking.

But I see adults doing this and making the same mistake I did. By allowing the colossal failures and plateau of development frustrate you enough into losing your control of the controllable, you will make the same mistake I did.

I wasn’t an NBA player because of a lack of self-awareness about what true mastery is, be your practice for the sake of practicing.

“A boat under a bright starry sky.” by Bryan Goff on Unsplash

But the half-truth is, you will care about the end result more than you should. You will care about the success, the ego, the fame, the money, the greed, the wins, the things, and the funny thing is, all that stuff takes care of itself when you live your life like a master.

True mastery is benign to failure because true masters don’t care about failure. It is their jet fuel, you see.