Colin Twomey

Intuit (VP of Analytics). Formerly: Facebook, Sacramento Kings, Stanford GSB, NBA, Hotwire, McKinsey, Harvard. Views are my own.

[NBA TV @NBATV]

"I know you weren't trying to be courageous when you hired me, but you did do something in professional sports that nobody had ever done." 🗣️

This moment between @BeckyHammon & Pop 🥹❤️

@Hoophall | #23HoopClass https://t.co/G3gk51vLU5

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

Love this:
1. "Your confidence comes from your work."
2. "Belief is overrated. Generate evidence."

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

With 1.9 seconds left in overtime of Game 5 of the 2006 NBA Finals, Dwyane Wade went to the free throw line.

Wade & the Heat were down by 1. The series was tied 2-2.

He told Tiger Woods how he prepared to make those high-pressure free throws:

“The night before,” Wade said,

“I was in the gym at midnight.

And I was like, ‘I know games come down to free throws. No matter what happens, it's going to come down to free throws.’

So I was in the gym and I had my cousin standing next to me, I had him right in my ear talking shit to me.

And so the next night, I get in that same situation where I got to make these free throws. And I just went back to last night in the gym. I just went right back to that. I was like, ‘I just hit 200 of these last night. I got this.’"

"That's so good," Tiger says.

"It's like," Wade says, "your confidence comes from your work."

"Correct," Tiger replies.

Wade: "You've done it over and over. You've seen yourself do it."

Tiger: "Correct, thousands of times."

Wade hit the two free throws, and the Heat won 101-100 to take a 3-2 series lead. Then in Game 6, he had 36 points to help the Heat win the game and their first championship in franchise history. Wade was named NBA Finals MVP.

Takeaway 1:

Ryan Holiday likes to say,

"Belief in yourself is overrated. Generate evidence."

Wade simulated the situation so that when he was in that situation for real, he had the evidence.

“You've done it over and over,” he told himself. “You've seen yourself do it.”

Your confidence comes from your work, from your evidence.

Takeaway 2:

What Dwayne Wade figured out intuitively—that confidence is a function of the previous work put in—is scientifically accurate.

For nearly three decades, the neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett has been studying where emotions—calmness, panic, nervousness, and so on—come from.

Her bestselling book, "How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain," gets its title from the discovery that emotions are constructed by the brain.

"In every waking moment," she writes, "your brain uses past experience to guide your present sensations."

In every waking moment, your brain sifts through its library of past experiences, looking for something similar to what is currently happening. If your brain can’t find anything in your past that is similar to your present, you are in a state of what brain scientists call “experiential blindness.”

If you are at the free-throw line with the game on the line, for instance, and you start to panic—you’re in a state of experiential blindness. Your brain, Dr. Barrett would say, is calling you out. You didn't put in the work. You didn't form the past experience needed for your brain to be able to say, as Wade was able to say, "I just hit 200 of these last night. I got this."

- - -

“You are continually cultivating your past…the experiences you have today become the past that your brain uses to make predictions for tomorrow.” — Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett

Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

Steve Kerr’s “this is not a championship team” line has some amazing “I love you but you are not serious people” energy.

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

@AnnouncerScott OK, but when was the last time you saw a “fist ball” get called?

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

[Saved in drafts folder] Timberwolves punch their ticket to first-round matchup against the Nuggets.

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

I was just thinking that it'd be nice to just call moving screens until this game ends.

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

Adam Silver should have the authority to just send both teams home, and send NOP/OKC through to the playoffs.

[Josh Chambers @JoshChambers]

“Culture is the sum of all the wanted behaviors you celebrate, minus all the unwanted behaviors you tolerate.”

(Celebrated Behaviors) - (Tolerated Behaviors) = Your Culture

-@dhmeyer via @tferriss podcast

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

She's ridiculous. National Player of the Year.

[Bleacher Report @BleacherReport]

CAITLIN CLARK FOR THE WIN. UNREAL. 😱😱😱

(via @IowaWBB)

[Kevin Kelly @kevin2kelly]

I've been trying out "Chat with Humans" and so far many responses are laughably wrong, and follow up conclusions illogical. Worse both true and false replies are given with same degree of certainty. I'm sorry but Chat with Humans is not ready for prime time.

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

@JackCooligan45 @AnnouncerScott But can you imagine the media hype when Anthony Edwards bets the under on a Jayson Tatum points prop bet?

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

1. Go back to East vs. West
2. LET THE PLAYERS BET
3. Make all player bets public

[Legion Hoops @LegionHoops]

So… how would you fix the NBA All-Star game?

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

Poole got Steph ejected just so he could hit the game-winner.

[Shane Parrish @shaneparrish]

A few ideas I can't stop thinking about:

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

Feels like someone slipped up in the script for this episode. How could it possibly be the case that Mastodon isn't the name of Trump's attempt at a social network?

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

Travis Kelce was so wide open that Travis Kelce could have thrown his helmet and hit him.

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

Love this description of what "focus" really means (and respect for admitting to the "sacrificial things" where saying "no" isn't really of significance).

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

The best definition of ‘focus’ by Jony Ive https://t.co/Ye1TTldQ8w

[dennis hegstad @dennishegstad]

when I was born I only weighed 5.4 lbs

now I weigh 145lbs

here’s the 7 secrets i used to grow an impressive 10.5% YoY for the last 33 years

👇

[Colin Twomey @Colin2me]

@AnnouncerScott @DieterRuehle Don't lie. You wanted to see a home team win, and odds are way better in LA than with that team in the Bay.

[Anthony Pompliano 🌪 @APompliano]

Since learning compounds, velocity matters.