Happy Fire Friday, 🔥

My apologies on the late send! Yesterday was a bit of a nightmare with travel arrangements, so hopefully a Sizzling Saturday hits just as hard!

What an incredible first week.

Seven days ago I began my summer sprint, and my goodness I've never felt so proud of myself. I've been doing hard things every single day. Not life-changing things, but really consistent things.

I've made my bed every morning, I've gotten up early and stuck to a morning routine, I've prepared myself for the upcoming summer courses with PGC and with ShootersxShoot, and I've created something new. Every. Single. Day!

The wild thing about feeling momentum is that if you keep leaning forward, it gets harder and harder to stop. But the most important thing I got to do this week? I had the opportunity to be a part of the transformation of a young woman named Ella.

Ella was my first 4-Day Intensive client of the summer, and we go way back. Her mother, Molly, was the professor-ambassador to my college basketball team (a decade ago)... and I helped Ella get into her first PGC course the year before Covid happened. She's since leaned further into who she is as an athlete, basketball player, and scholar, and I've never met a spongier human.

This week, we didn't just transform her shot... I watched her transform in her confidence right in front of my face.

On Day 1, Ella measured as a respectable 52% from 15ft. On Day 2, she measured at 82%.

On Day 2, she measured at a 36% from 3pt. On Day 4, she hit 70%.

Now, these were unguarded shots with a huge level of deliberate focus, but seeing such drastic changes in numbers does two things:

1) It proves to me that we're working on the right things.

2) It proves to her that she's completely capable of being a shooter.

In our mindset classroom, we based the premise on this: If you want to be great at anything, you must identify yourself as someone who is great at it.

Three days ago, if someone walked up to Ella in the gym and asked her if she was a shooter, she admitted that she'd have shrugged and said something along the lines of "Uhm... sometimes."

Now? She has transformed her mentality. If she was asked that today, the answer would be a resounding YES.

To become a great shooter, like becoming great at anything else, it takes much more than physical reps.

It takes the audacity to believe in yourself.

To come forward with an "I AM" statement... even if you know you're not quite there yet.

Ella has leaned into this in a way that I've never seen before, and I've never felt so lucky to be a coach.

But teaching shooting in this way is so much more than just getting buckets.

It's about teaching athletes how to make a deep connection with themselves.

How to fight the voice in their head that says "You can't do that".

Shooting is so hard. It's mental. It's emotional. It is filled with inevitable slumps.

And in doing the scary thing--in deciding that you're going to keep shooting despite the last few shots not going in--it unlocks the cheat code to both shooting and to life. 

Slumps no longer become something you judge yourself for, because you believe you'll come out of them.

Because you've already had those important conversations with yourself.

This time with Ella has reinforced everything inside of me that loves what I do, and I am so excited to be at the beginning of this journey. 

I've decided that this summer I'll be documenting my whole journey via my Instagram. If you'd like to join me and follow along, feel free to follow me here. :)

Next week, I'll be in Wichita, KS to keep it going at a PGC Playmaker course.

Stay tuned. I can't wait to see what comes next. :)

I'll see you next Friday. 🔥

Shooters Shoot,

BriAnna