Ichiro has a very fine prefrontal cortex

TOKYO — Countless attempts have been made over the years to try to pinpoint Ichiro's prowess, but Dr. Kenichiro Mogi may have trumped all explanations. "Ichiro," he says with confidence, "has a very fine prefrontal cortex." Mogi's a celebrity brain scientist in Japan. More to the point, he also co-hosts a TV show loosely translated as "Secrets of the Ultimate Professional," a popular weekly documentary series focusing on the methodology that has allowed certain individuals to reach the pinnacles of their trades.

For 70 days over three different spans of last season, a four-person, one-camera crew (of which this writer was a member) followed Ichiro's every move, trying to discern his professional methodology.

What viewers saw was a program that quickly zeros in on Ichiro's meticulously crafted daily routine of preparing for a game. It doesn't start at the ballpark or with his equipment or anything else directly related to baseball. Rather, it begins with one of the first activities of the day for people who work at night — lunch.
The camera discovers that Ichiro has eaten the same lunch before home games all seven years he has been in Seattle — homemade Japanese curry from his wife Yumiko. Not variations of her recipe, but the exact same kind every single day. And on the road, he almost always opts for a cheese pizza, easy on the sauce and fluffy around the edges, if you must know.

But why must we know this? When that question is posed to Mogi, he first giggles in slight embarrassment."It's very interesting from a brain science point of view," he says as his tone becomes serious. "There are many solutions, not just one solution to a particular problem. Certainly, some athletes eat lots of different food, that's also a possible approach. But in Ichiro's case, he sticks to a particular style.
"We believe it has a lot to do with his baseball playing style. Ichiro has found in his particular case, it is helpful to follow the same ritual every day and that way he can really fine-tune his brain state so that he can concentrate fully on baseball. Ichiro's way is not everybody's way."

Nor should Ichiro's way be confused with superstition, because he doesn't alter his lunchtime menu depending on the previous night's performance. And it might not be as idiosyncratic as it first appears, either. By limiting himself to dishes he knows he enjoys, Ichiro eliminates the element of surprise. He knows exactly how the meal will taste and how it will sit in his stomach.

Lunch, then, becomes a stress-free way of beginning his daylong mental and physical preparation for that night's game. It doesn't mean Ichiro doesn't enjoy finer foods, which he certainly does. It merely means he's willing to sacrifice the immediate pleasure of seeking a gourmet lunch for the long-term reward of higher focus at game time.

This higher focus allows him to achieve his ultimate goal, which is an acute awareness of the sensations he experiences on the playing field. Some of the minute tinkering Ichiro occasionally makes to his batting stance has been reported before, but often with a tinge of sarcasm out of disbelief that such fastidiousness could actually matter, like a minuscule repositioning of his foot or an infinitesimal reduction in the pressure of a finger on the bat.

To Ichiro, though, batting, and really baseball overall, is absolutely about capturing a unique but essential feeling. The television program explored his unwavering pursuit of this. "When Ichiro said he is aware of his own feelings and he is committed to his own feelings, that was the most interesting point for me," Mogi explains. "No matter what the batting theories are, he doesn't really follow the already established and well-honored style of batting. He follows his own sensations and feelings."

Certainly, different batters have different approaches to their craft. But among all the possible ways of accomplishing the task, Ichiro's chosen way of trying to understand and respond to exactly what his body feels is perhaps the most difficult. Mogi agrees. "Ichiro's way is a very hard way and certainly out of the norm," he says. "In order to rely on your own feelings like that, you have to have something called metacognition. It's the ability to observe yourself as if you're observing your own internal state from the outside. Of course, it's all your own feeling, but you can access and analyze it as if you are observing it from an objective point of view.

"I find that quality very strong in Ichiro. He can actually report on his own internal feelings in an accurate language. It's very unbelievable. Even if he can't describe it in words, he has a very good idea about how he's feeling in a particular situation. For example, in batting, if he doesn't do well, he remembers how he felt at that particular instance so that he can reflect on it later and compare it with the feelings he had when he was doing well so he can make this very fine adjustment to improve his performance. "In order to do that, you need to have these metacognitive abilities, and that is actually carried by the prefrontal cortex in your brain."

And that's where Mogi's earlier praise for Ichiro's prefrontal cortex comes from. But, during the course of the program, Mogi actually finds something even more stunning than his appreciation for what lies beneath Ichiro's forehead. It's the moment in the program's studio segment when Ichiro turns to Mogi and proclaims he's felt no sense of accomplishment to this point in his career because his records have been achieved from what he perceives as a deficient state.

Ichiro goes on to explain that during the course of last season, he captured what he imagines has long been an elusive feeling at the plate and now he feels he's closer to being able to perform at 100 percent of his ability than he's ever been before.
That revelation is also the key to grasping a comment Ichiro made in numerous interviews at the end of last season. As he turns toward what will be his 17th pro season, he finally feels he's on the cusp of where he's always wanted to be from a feeling standpoint. That admission, coupled with the program's ending, could give any baseball fan great anticipation for what Ichiro still has to offer on the field.

LEADERSHIP QUALITIES

If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.

What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective.

Here are some specifics:
1) Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.

2) Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3) Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.

4) You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can’t get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.

5) Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. The key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It’s when you don’t know that you don’t know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.

6) Develop humor without folly. That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly. It’s okay to be fun, but not foolish.

BILL BELICHICK - Handling Expectations

“It’s not about talent, it’s about how the team plays. That’s the litmus. Let’s see how we play. Let’s see how we coach. What the team looks like on paper doesn’t mean a thing.”
-Bill Belichick

BILL RUSSELL - CAPTAIN

On the Jim Rome Show, Boston Celtics great, Bill Russell was his guest. Russ was talking about his new book, ‘Red and Me’, which details his relationship with the late Red Auerbach.

Towards the conclusion of the interview, Russell cut Rome off; “I apologize for interrupting you. Can you do me a favor?” Russell said.

Rome was like, “heck yeah, anything for you.”

“When you introduce me, can you please refer to me as the former captain of the Boston Celtics; That means way more to me then any Hall of Fame or other personal title. That was the most important thing for me.”

TALENT IS OVERRATED

Author Geoff Colvin argues that ‘deliberate practice,’ not innate ability, is the true key to world-class performance.

As Colvin notes, “most people are just okay at what they do.” Few of us play golf like Tiger Woods, compose like Mozart, or pick stocks like Warren Buffett. When we try to explain the success of such extraordinary performers, we typically attribute it to either hard work or talent. People get extremely good at something because they work really hard at it, or because they have a one in a million god-given gift. You have it or you don’t. If you don’t—and of course most of us don’t—then you better be willing to work really hard if you want to reach the pinnacle of your field.

The book Talent is Overrated highlights a growing body of research, which shows that the top achievers in many fields are neither high-IQ geniuses nor former child prodigies turned professionals. In fact, many of these top performers are just reasonably bright people who showed a slight knack for something and then spent decades engaged in “deliberate practice,” which involves spending hours figuring out your weak spots, honing specific skills through constant feedback, and learning as much as possible about your field. The bad news is that such practice is “highly demanding mentally” and “isn’t much fun.” The good news is that if you do it, you will learn that “great performance is in our hands far more than most of us ever suspected.”

Colvin highlights one study, which found that top violinists put in more than twice as many hours of solo practice as their lesser peers.

The story of the Polgar sisters, which Colvin tells at length, also seems to undermine the notion of God-given talent. In the 1960s, Hungarian educational psychologist Laszlo Polgar believed that great performers are made, not born. To test this theory, he designed an experiment. Polgar and his wife, Klara, devoted their lives to turning their three daughters into brilliant chess players. Laszlo was only a mediocre player, and Klara hadn’t played much at all, but they filled their home with chess books and home schooled their girls so they could spend several hours each day mastering the game. As a result, their oldest daughter, Susan, was eventually named a grand master. The other daughters also became top players.

Even the usual stories of prodigies—such as Mozart and Tiger Woods—indicate that “deliberate practice” is more important than God-given ability. Mozart started playing the piano at age 3 under the tutelage of a father whose coaching methods had a lot in common with Laszlo Polgar’s chess instruction. Mozart did not compose his best symphonies until he had been studying composition and practicing—hard—for well over a decade. Tiger Woods began playing golf as a toddler under the guidance of his father, an excellent coach. By the time he started winning major titles in 1997, he had been honing his game daily for 20 years.

Colvin’s message to readers is clear: if you want to perform at a world-class level, you can. You simply have to put in many hard hours of “deliberate practice.”

DEFENSIVE GOALS

New York Knicks defensive goals under Jeff Van Gundy
Field Goal Percentage - 42%

Free Throw Attempts = -25

3 Point Field Goal Percentage = 30%

Fast Break Attempts/Conversion Percentage = -12 @+50%

Defensive Rebounding Percentage = +74%

Deflections = +30

Momentum Changing Players (Blocked Shots/Charges) = +8


At LSU, our defensive goals this year will be as follows:

Field Goal Percentage = 42%

3 Point Field Goal Percentage = 25%

Deflections = +30

Defensive Rebounding Percentage = +70%

Opponent's Points Per Possession = .65 or less

Opponent's FT Per Possession = .15 or less

Opponent's Turnovers Per Possession = .18 or more

Transition: Open 3's or Lay-Ups = 0

GREATNESS

“Greatness is not about someone who has the ability to be great…Greatness shows up when someone might not have the ability but finds a way to succeed. They outwork their opponents, they out hit their opponents, they outfight their opponents. They want it more. Don’t give me the guy who’s supposed to be all-world and you’ve got to try and talk him into something. Give me the guy who has maybe just enough talent to be on the field but thinks he’s great, and who’s willing to do whatever he can do to contribute, to make the team better. That’s what I want…”

-Mike Singletary
Head Coach of the San Francisco 49ers

99%

The following comes from "The Success Principles," by Jack Canfield.

This powerful 100% commitment also figures critically in other important areas -- for instance, the workplace. Consider what a commitment to just 99.9% quality would mean in the following work situations. It would mean:

...one hour of unsafe drinking water every month.

...two unsafe landings at O'Hare International Airport each day.

...16,000 lost pieces of mail each hour.

...20,000 incorrectly filled drug prescriptions every year.

...500 incorrect surgical operations performed each week.

...50 newborn babies dropped at birth by doctors every day.

...22,000 checks deducted from the wrong account each hour.

...your heart failing to beat 32,000 times each year.

Can you see why 100% is such an important percentage? Just think how much better your life and our team would work if you were committed to 100% excellence in everything you do.

LOU HOLZ

"I can honestly say, from the bottom of my heart, I have never had a crisis in my life or a setback that's not made me stronger, and it's turned out to be a positive thing in my life -- if I reacted positively to it. And many times I feel that the adversity and the setbacks that you experience are preparing you for something bigger and better, so when you get in that situation, or even a tougher one in the future, you'll be able to handle it."

-Lou Holz

JOHN WOODEN

His list of expectations of his players...

1. Never nag, razz or criticize a teammate.
2. Never expect favors.
3. Never make excuses.
4. Never be selfish, jealous, envious, or egotistical.
5. Never lose faith or patience.
6. Never waste time.
7. Never loaf, sulk, or boast.
8. Never require repeated criticism for the same mistake.
9. Never have reason to be sorry afterward.

LEADERSHIP BOOK

"The Team Captain's Leadership Manual" by Jeff Janssen