What is the difference between committing 100% to a challenge, opportunity, or competition and say, 92%?
Here is an example.
As journalist Gary Washburn writes, “The Boston Celtics (a basketball team) were up 18 with just under three minutes left. But Joe Mazzulla’s (the coach) never-wavering focus locked in on Phoenix swingman Royce O’Neale, who was going to release an innocent 3-point attempt after the official’s whistle.
It wasn’t so innocent to ultra-competitive Mazzulla. The coach reverted back to his West Virginia days, running onto the floor, and literally leaping to contest O’Neale’s meaningless jumper. O’Neale still got the shot off, but he seriously had to avoid an NBA head coach’s defense to do it.
Mazzulla said, ‘It’s a little gamesmanship, but you can’t have guys going back to the bench feeling good. One of the biggest pet peeves is just thinking that a guy is going to get a free shot and that’s not the way it works.”
What Mazzulla is describing is his belief during a pause in the game – a timeout, the end of the quarter – you keep competing to the extent you contest an opponent’s shot lest it go in and and your opponent thinks the next might as well. In other words, no free shots. That’s one definition of 100%.
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