Leveraging Discipline with Josh Pastner

After guiding Memphis to five post-season berths in seven seasons as the Tigers’ head coach, Josh Pastner became Georgia Tech’s 14th head basketball coach on April 8, 2016.

Implementing a high-energy style of play and creative offensive and defensive schemes, and building the Jackets’ talent base for the future, Pastner has established the Yellow Jackets as one of the top defensive teams in the nation, while he and his staff have steadily improved the team’s offense to be ranked in the top half of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Pastner has tirelessly promoted the program on campus and throughout the city of Atlanta in an effort to re-create the major homecourt atmosphere that surrounded the Yellow Jackets throughout the 1980s, 1990s and into the middle of the 2000s. The result has been numerous wins, high excitement and 13 sellouts in four seasons at McCamish Pavilion.

Five of his players – guards Josh Okogie, Jose Alvarado and Michael Devoe, as well as centers Ben Lammers and James Banks III – have earned Atlantic Conference honors during his tenure. Okogie, in particular, developed from an under-the-radar high school prospect into a highly regarded NBA prospect, having been selected 20th in the 2018 NBA Draft, while Lammers has had a successful first two years as a pro in Europe.

In this episode, we discuss how he got into basketball (6:43), his relationship with his dad (8:30), whether or not he was pushed to pursue a career in playing basketball as opposed to coaching (14:30), the difference between inspiration and motivation (19:10), what his drive was, and is, to be a coach (20:30), how to be present (25:56), how he leverages discipline in his life (28:50), if he’s perfectionistic (31:30), why he’s never tried alcohol, soda, or coffee (37:15), if he struggled to connect with his teammates in college because of that (40:46), the relationship between eating and discipline (45:30), when he developed his 3 principles (47:50), what he would’ve done differently at Memphis (50:40), what he learned from John Calipari (53:00), and why he doesn’t allow his players to curse and if he’s experimented with meditation (58:38).

You can follow Josh on Twitter @GTJoshPastner and feel free to send him an email at jpastner@athletics.gatech.edu   

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that will be coming out in October 2020, and you can pre-order on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

-Brian