This morning a YouTube Short held my attention. It was about how NBA players practise shooting.

A decent player takes a thousand shots a day. A better player makes a thousand. The elite players, the Hall of Famers, make one shot a thousand separate times.

If you’re not shooting “game shots from game spots at game speed,” all that volume just makes you good at bad shooting.

I swapped one word. Shots for pitching.

And then I adjusted the number.

Don’t rehearse the same pitch a thousand times. That’s not realistic.

You’re a founder, a leader, a manager, a parent… busy.

Practise the next pitch about 20 times.

And not all the night before. Practice and preparation work when they’re spaced out and deliberate. That leaves time to reflect and adjust.

The goal is not a word-perfect script reading.

Most people practise by polishing the words. They read it again, tweak a line, and read it again. All in their heads, never aloud.

That’s taking shots, but not making them.

Real practice is out loud, into your phone. Recorded. Transcribed and looped back into AI. Scrutinised. Edited. Run again.

Across the small moments of your day: hanging laundry, unloading the dishwasher, in the shower, driving home.

So when the pressure rises, your inner critic pipes up: “See, you’re boring. They’re looking at their phone. They asked the question you didn’t prepare for.”

Real practice builds familiarity and mental models, so your winning instinct arrives before your critic does.

The base layer

Mentality is the first of my five steps to intentional communication. It isn’t a technique. It’s the desire to take the shot.

It’s the mindset to take the feedback, to sit in the uncomfortable reps, and to get through the tough stuff rather than around it.

If you don’t want that, maybe this isn’t for you.

But if you do, the next time your critic pipes up, you’ll already have the answer.

Be good at doing it right.

About Martin Barnes

Executive communication coach helping business leaders use speaking to drive growth. My 5 Steps of Intentional Communication turns every stage, meeting, or keynote into a business opportunity.