These aren't lessons I learned from a textbook. They're lessons I had to live.

I was born in Lisbon and raised in Edinburgh, a football city where the gym only opened twice a week. So I ran the 40 minutes to practice and stayed until they kicked me out. That was the first thing basketball taught me: nobody was going to make the opportunity convenient.

At 16 I left home for Barking Abbey, a basketball academy in London. Leaving that early teaches you quickly how much of performance is preparation and self-management, because there is no one else there to manage it for you.

It paid off. I represented Scotland and Great Britain at four European Championships, and played for Team Scotland at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. I learned what it feels like to play in an environment where every athlete on the floor is talented, and the difference is who can stay composed.

I played NCAA Division II basketball, then coached as an NCAA Division II assistant working in recruiting and player development. Coaching at that level showed me the same thing from the other side of the whistle: talent gets athletes into the gym, but preparation and composure decide what happens once they are there.

Today I am a boys varsity assistant basketball coach at San Joaquin Memorial and teach Leadership and PE at Green Acres Middle School in Visalia, California. Teaching changed how I coach. A drill is not finished when it has been explained. It is finished when the athlete can do it without me.

Because I teach full time and coach a varsity season, I take a small number of athletes at a time, and the ones I take, I actually have time for. I am also a Mental Performance Mastery (MPM) Certified Coach through Brian Cain Peak Performance, the training that teaches the skills behind performance: confidence, focus, composure, routines and self-talk.

Between the teaching, the coaching and the certification, it all points one direction: knowing is not changing. That is why everything I coach ends in a rep you actually run.