Shooting a basketball is hard. Shooting it well is very hard. Shooting a 3-point shot well is even harder. The distance adds additional challenges. Shooting well from behind the (3-point) line can earn you a lot of money in the NBA.
So what is a good shooting percentage? 70%? 80% surely. Nope. Not even close.
The best 3-point shooting percentage in NBA history is 45.4%. This record is held by Steve Kerr. That means that the best shooter of all time is missing more shots than they make. Only 49 players have ever shot over 40% for their career. It is very hard.
So how can shooting a basketball make you better at decisions making?
Removing Irrelevant Variables
When we make decisions we want to include as much data as we can. Forecasts, predictions, reading tea leaves, feelings, emotions, hunches, you name it we will include it.
But how many of those variables in the equation for success actually matter? Could you remove them and would the outcome still be the same?
They made a robot that never misses.
Shooting is just a physics equation, force, angle of release, and height of release, control these variables and you can’t miss.
Counting Variables
So what variables count?
You have to find out which ones matter, not just the ones you want to matter.
“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”
Michelangelo
Start with what you think affects the outcome then test and remove. Be playful, be brutal. Lots of things that you think matter don’t and some things you think don’t matter probably will.
The equation may change over time so it is not a thing you can stop trying to learn from. The goal is to keep an open mind and keep trying to update your models of thinking, not think your model is the way of thinking.
We want to actually get ourselves out of the way of what we hope is true and just let the truth reveal itself.
If ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know for usre that just ain’t so.
Mark Twain
Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe 