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This is the 3rd email in a series of How I Went From College Bench Player To The NBA.
I Was Not Where I Wanted to Be
In my second year in the NBL, I was nowhere near the level I aspired to. My gratitude practice helped me rediscover joy in everyday life, yet I still had an itch I couldn’t scratch—that desperate need to play. All my life, I’d dreamed of:
Making big shots
Winning tough games
Becoming a champion
But none of it was materializing. My minutes were stagnant. My skills weren’t improving.
Yet that season taught me lessons that changed the trajectory of my basketball development. Before any progress could happen, I first had to learn one critical lesson:
You cannot escape the work
The Law of Narcissism
According to renowned author Robert Greene, there are universal truths he calls the Laws of Human Nature. These laws have shaped us since the Stone Age. One of them is the Law of Narcissism, which describes our tendency toward excessive self-focus, where we prioritize our feelings and desires above all else.
Every human has this trait to some degree, and a small amount can be healthy. From an evolutionary standpoint, narcissism helps humans compete for limited resources and stay safe. However, it also shapes our worldview, putting us at the centre and blinding us to reality.
This was me heading into my second year as a pro. I believed:
I was the hardest-working player in the world.
I was grinding harder than anyone.
I was doing everything possible to be the best.
And I was wrong.
A Reality Check from Joey Wright
This is where Joey Wright saved me.
After two years together, we had built mutual trust, respect, and love. On Tuesday at St. Clair Stadium in Adelaide, he put me through a brutal one-on-one workout. I started complaining:
“I’m sore. I’m tired. I’ve been working so hard this week.”
Joey stopped me mid-drill, looked me straight in the eye, and said:
“You have these big dreams, Jack—big goals. You want to be the best player in Australia. But if you aren’t the hardest worker in Australia, then you’re living a delusional life. Your actions don’t match your dreams.”
My narcissistic ego had led me to believe I deserved basketball success because I thought I was working hard. But everyone feels that way. Everyone thinks they grind.
When I saw others succeed, I chalked it up to luck, genetics, or good fortune. I’d say, “If I were on that team, I’d be getting buckets.” In college, I justified my lack of playing time by blaming coaches or teammates:
“I don’t play because my coach doesn’t like me.”“I don’t score because my teammates don’t pass me the ball.”
These excuses were my narcissistic ego blinding me to the truth.
The truth was that I was exactly where I deserved to be, the result of the accumulation of my life training.
A New Lens on Reality
I wasn’t sure if Joey was right, but I was open to listening and challenging my own beliefs. This experience hurt my identity, and I felt embarrassed and ashamed, but it also gave me a new perspective on my situation.
Over the next week, I read and researched players with legendary work ethics. I realized Joey was correct: I had been kidding myself.
Together, we created a plan:
More lifting
More workouts
More recovery sessions
It was the hardest year of my life, physically. But my body adapted, and the grind became my new normal. Because in professional basketball, there’s a fundamental requirement: the hours you spend on the court and in the gym. Kobe Bryant did four sessions a day. LeBron James never takes a day off from the gym. Every time, the story is the same:
The work cannot be escaped.
Three Steps to Improve Your Work Ethic
1. Action Now
Motivation is meaningless—it comes and goes. You can’t rely on an emotion to propel you forward. As James Clear says:
“We don’t rise to the level of our goals; we fall to the level of our systems.”
When you do feel a surge of motivation, use it to create systems to help you take action.
Basketball next to bed
Skipping rope by the door
Shoes and socks out of the cupboard
On the days you do not feel like doing anything, take a small step toward action.
One push-up is infinitely better than none.
One minute of ball handling beats zero.
The action then leads to more action.
No matter how small, action always trumps inaction.
2. Consistency
When you study the greats, you often hear about extreme, boot camp-style workouts. These are glorified, but the great players' real superpower is showing up every single day.
Daniel Johnson, my NBL teammate, is one of the all-time greats. He shows up every day. Before practice, he gets shots up. After practice, he does his shooting drills. Offseason? Same story. Steady, day-in, day-out training for 15 years.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander gave one of my favourite recent interviews. When asked how he consistently performs at a high level, he replied, “My whole life is consistent.”
What he eats, how he sleeps, how he trains—it’s all consistent.
Consistency separates.
3. Study the Greats
“You don’t know what you don’t know.”
I thought I was working hard until Joey Wright exposed how far off I was. He brought my attention to the gap between reality and my perception. Another way to gain that awareness is to study people who stand where you want to stand.
Michael Phelps, arguably the greatest Olympian of all time, trained daily from 2002 to 2007—without missing a single day. Birthdays, holidays, sick days—all included.
Stephen Curry famously shoots 500 threes a day. That’s 3,500 per week, 168,000 per year, and over 2.5 million over his NBA career.
The pattern is crystal clear: the work cannot be escaped.
If you’re not where you want to be, the first place to look is your work ethic. Everybody in basketball believes they work hard. If you’re not progressing, challenge that assumption:
Write down your weekly schedule.
Note how many times you lift, how many times you do skill work, and how intensely you train.
Compare it to the schedules of pro athletes you can find online.
Review your process. Your work is the foundation of your career.
This Is How You Change Your Life
Basketball doesn’t reward wishful thinking. It rewards consistent, unglamorous work. If you suspect you’re not progressing, ask yourself whether you’re truly working as hard as you think. Then take real, measurable steps—every single day, without fail. Make the grind your new normal, and watch your reality transform.