The Athletic

Former MLB All-Star Bronson Arroyo found that doing these *3* things every day helps him be successful: 1. 100 pushups in 5 ½ minutes It really never gets easy, no matter how good of shape you are in, and it’s a mental challenge. It’s something I have to muster every day, and I like to have to muster something every day. It’s getting over that hump and forcing yourself to do that every single day. 2. Eat four eggs for breakfast It makes me feel like I’m going to be the same guy every day. You’re trying to have a stable life and a body that feels a certain way with a certain amount of energy and the same personality. You want your friends and family and people you’re around all the time to know who’s going to show up when you show up. 3. Sing one song with a guitar It keeps me in the mode of it, and 20 years is going to go by and you’re not even going to realize how much better you get because it’s going to be so slow.

USC assistant basketball coach Will Conroy finds this the best way to give constructive criticism to someone who struggles to take feedback: Always disarm them by using yourself as the example. Bad example: “Man, stop throwing bad f—-- passes.” Good example: “Fellas, we gotta throw better passes and I’m probably the worst at it, but we gotta take care of the ball.”

On Sunday, Jim Leyland entered the Baseball Hall of Fame. Here's his best leadership advice: "The best leaders are those that make a tough decision when others are unsure…You can’t be afraid to make a mistake."

The best leadership lesson former running back and coach Sherman Smith learned in his 25+ years in the NFL? "If you treat the people you lead the way they are, that’s what they’ll stay. If you treat them the way you want them to be, that’s what they’ll try to become. I saw the people that I led as future oak trees, not acorns."

3 daily habits Kansas City Royals general manager J.J. Picollo uses to be successful: 1) Make the bed every morning I am diligent about that. It’s from the book; everybody’s read it or heard the speech. But it makes a lot of sense and I passed that on to my kids. Before you’ve even brushed your teeth, you’ve accomplished something for the day. It’s that simple. 2) Go for a long walk every morning I try to go for an hour walk. It’s not an intentional thing; I don’t have a checklist of things I want to go through in my head. But I just get into the day a lot better. I work through some things in my mind that are there but without intentionally trying to address them. That walk helps me quite a bit. 3) Get away from the job every night I need something to bring me down, and it’s usually something unrelated to baseball. I put something mindless on TV (His favorite show: Peaky Blinders). You can’t work 24/7. You’ve got to have some sort of outlet. In my case, I try to get into a show for the last hour of the day so I’m not thinking about everything.

Quote of the day: “We should…enjoy our successes and learn to forgive ourselves for our failures.” — Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Orr Source: "Orr: My Story"

A book recommendation...from USC athletic director Jen Cohen: "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. Cohen: "I was lucky to read it during graduate school and it had a tremendous impact on how I developed and continue to develop myself holistically. Creativity fosters self-awareness, risk-taking and innovation — all so important to leadership. I go back to the lessons learned from this book any time I feel stuck or off-track."

Quote of the day: “You can lose, but you are not beaten unless you quit.”  — College Football Hall of Fame coach Don James

The NBA has finalized contracts with NBC and Amazon Prime Video, while maintaining ESPN as the home of The Finals, under agreements that will extend for 11 seasons and be worth $76 billion. TNT Sports continues to threaten to match.

Pat McAfee's exclamation mark to his opening monologue was calling Caitlin Clark the b-word. If you went down to Bristol and described anyone that way, you would likely be suspended or worse. Our Andrew Marchand on how McAfee and ESPN came up short ⤵️ https://lnkd.in/gpp3v4p5