Before You Can Lead, You Have to Know How to Follow

Do you know what Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Kobe Bryant have in common?

They are among the best NBA players to ever play of course, but they share something else.

They are all worse free throw shooters than Chauncey Billups.

Here is the NBA all-time ranking of career free-throw percentage:

No. 5 — Chauncey Billups, 89.4%
No. 10 — Larry Bird, 88.5%
No. 72 — Kobe Bryant, 83.7%
No. 76 — Michael Jordan, 83. 5%

How do you become a team leader?

Considering the average NBA star shoots between 70 percent and 80 percent, what makes Chauncy Billups so good?

How can one guy make nearly 9 of 10 shots over the course of thousands of games while another makes only 8 of 10?

It isn’t a secret. In a 2005 interview with Stack Magazine, Billups explains:

[Young athletes] don’t work on fundamentals these days. They run up and down the court practicing highlight moves. Well, you’re not going to do that in a game. I don’t waste my time on it. I practice the fundamentals.”

Chauncy Billups is also a known as a team leader — but this didn’t come naturally either. He learned the skill after getting some advice from former Minnesota teammate Sam Mitchell. According to an ESPN story, Mitchell told Chauncey that “…in order to lead, you have to learn to follow, you can’t be a know-it-all, and you have to be coachable.”

So how do you go from being a poor kid from Denver to an NBA superstar?

2 steps for becoming a superstar

It’s the same way you go from being a receptionist to a CEO. Chauncey Billups — and almost every other successful person on Earth — will tell you that there are two simple steps:

Learn and practice the basics.
Learn to follow — and be coachable.

TLNT recently published a book excerpt by Eric Chester about the importance of teaching a work ethic to our children. He’s absolutely right.

Benjamin Franklin said that “He who cannot follow cannot lead.” We need to make the kids understand that real life isn’t about shortcuts to fame and fortune as shown on so many TV shows. They have to learn the basics, the fundamentals of being a good employee — a work ethic.

And when they finally have the fundamentals down they can write their ticket for the dream of their great-grandparents — the American Dream.