Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green collected his third NBA Championship last year — and he's back for more. His team faces the Toronto Raptors in Game 1 of the 2019 NBA Finals on Thursday night, May 30.
Green, who was named the 2016-17 NBA Defensive Player of the Year, says that the key to his success is his mindset.
If you want to be great, you first have to believe you're great, he said in a pregame interview: "As a competitor, if you're trying to do something meaningful, if you don't have the mindset that you're the best ever, you've failed already."
"That's been my mindset since I can remember," he added. "That will be my mindset as long as I can remember anything: That I am the best ever at what I do. … And that will give me a shot at being the best."
Green's mentality doesn't just apply on the basketball court — anyone in any industry can use it to succeed. "If you don't have the the mindset that you are the best reporter ever, then you already failed," he told the press.
Research is on his side: Author Steve Siebold, who spent decades studying self-made millionaires for his book "How Rich People Think," found that the wealthiest, most successful people aren't afraid to think big and tend to set unreasonably high expectations.
"No one would ever strike it rich and live their dreams without huge expectations," he writes. "Ancient wisdom says you get what you expect, yet many people decide to limit their lives to middle-class mediocrity in an effort to protect themselves from failure."
Set the bar high from the get-go, says Green: "You don't just mistakenly become great at something … and then you start to believe, 'Oh man, I'm great at that.' No — you believed that before and you worked to get that. So I always believed that and I work every day to reach that."
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