Why you shouldn’t take shooting advice from Steph Curry
Ever since I was a little noggins, I’ve always loved playing basketball. In fact, one of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to become a better shooter. So, I did a little googling and found out that none other than Wardell Stephen Curry teaches an online masterclass on shooting. “Perfect”, I thought. “Who better to learn from than the greatest shooter in history?”
But as I tried implementing Steph’s advice in practice, my results were…less than stellar. The form even felt a bit uncomfortable. Then one day, I randomly stumbled upon this little known YouTube video which breaks down Steph’s shooting form using game footage. What I found was a bit shocking. Steph Curry’s actual game footage completely contradicts the advice he gives in his masterclass! Specifically:
- Steph tells you to square your feet and body to the basket, when in fact his feet and body are angled away from the basket and the elbow is what is squared to the basket.
- Steph tells you not to dip the ball after you catch it for quick release, but he ALWAYS dips the ball in games (probably for rhythm).
- Steph tells you to hold the ball only on your finger tips and not your palm, but in game footage he clearly rests the ball on his palm before releasing it.
What’s going on here? Why is Steph’s advice so detached from reality? A little known psychology paper from 2008 may shed some light on this conundrum. In the paper, researchers asked both expert and beginner golfers to sink a putt. They then asked each golfer to describe the mechanics of their putt. Surprisingly, the very act of breaking down their mechanics caused experts to perform significantly worse on their next attempt compared to the beginners. Their conclusion was that for well-learned skills, thinking too much about the mechanics can be detrimental to performance. When your performance is largely subconscious, your recall of what you’ve done is not very good.
I’ve found this same paradox to be true when asking for any kind of advice. A few weeks ago, I spent some time in the Bay Area asking investors and entrepreneurs for fundraising advice. Although I learned a ton, their initial advice was difficult to implement. The most valuable advice actually came from people who ran accelerators and had thousands of data points to pull from.
In every field, you will invariably want advice to take your game to the next level. Common wisdom is to seek out those who are better than you and learn from their experience. But how do you actually solicit good advice and, more importantly, put it into practice? I have one simple axiom that seems to work across the board:
If you want better advice, ask more specific questions.
When I first started asking people in my network about fundraising, my question was extremely generic. So I was essentially asking them to break down their successes themselves, which psychology teaches us is extremely difficult. But as I started to understand the fundraising process better, my questions became more specific, and consequently I found I received better advice.
For example, “What advice do you have for fundraising” is a bad question. A better one would be “When you tried to raise your Seed Round how did you think about signaling risk?” The second question brings up a specific memory that the entrepreneur could zero in on, and as a result they were able to recall the answer in much greater detail.
I’m not really sure why this works, but I suggest you try it next time you are getting advice from an expert or a mentor. Here are some more examples that you may encounter (these are all questions I’ve asked or been asked in the past):
- Instead of asking “how do I prepare for this interview?” Ask “for your last superstar hire, what were some questions you asked that really crystallized your opinion? And how did he or she respond?”
- Instead of asking “what advice do you have for someone like me?” Ask “think back to one critical moment in your road to success. How did you set yourself up to take advantage of that opportunity?”
You get the idea. The more specific the question, the more useful the answer is likely to be.
Secondly, don’t always try to seek out experts in a particular field, rather seek out coaches who have witnessed hundreds of high performers firsthand. They will be able to dissect specifics of what makes someone successful much better than an expert can.
So next time you seek out the Steph Curry of your field, try to get Steph Curry’s shooting coach instead. They will be much more accessible, and you may just get better advice.
This post is part of a multi-part series on psychology for founders. You can read my other posts here:
