The Lebron Method: Using Cognitive Distancing to Feel and Perform Better, & Make Better Decisions
When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was shoot hoops with my parents. Both of them were great basketball players, and I used to love stories about them going to college campuses in the Boston area and waxing college students who were 10+ years younger than them in games of 2-on-2. At eleven years old, despite being the best basketball player in my neighborhood, I was the only kid still losing to his mom in a game of one-on-one. If I have childhood trauma, that’s it.
Both of my parents had tendencies on the basketball court that would make you do a double-take if you were walking by. My mom’s favorite move would be to back you down until she was feet from the basket, and with her back to the basket, she would toss the ball backwards over her head and swish it through the net. If she really wanted to crush your soul, she’d close her eyes before tossing it up (and still swish it through).
My dad’s quirk was a bit more jarring. If he’d miss an open 17-footer, he’d shout, “C’mon, Jim! You’re better than that!” If I were a stranger walking by, I’d be seriously concerned. But as a 10-year-old, I just imitated my pops. “C’mon, Dan! You can shoot better than that!”
My friends thought it was weird to refer to yourself in the third person. I agree, it is weird. But it’s something that stuck with me, and I continued to use it throughout sports, school, and my career. I’d coach myself up by talking in the third person. I chalked it up to one of those weird quirks you get from your family, like not ever wearing socks or loving bologna sandwiches. And for whatever reason, it seemed to help. I’d feel myself calm down and I’d see solutions to problems that I’d previous missed.
Then, in July of 2010, I saw another basketball player who referred to himself in the third person.
I remember watching Lebron James on television to announce his now infamous decision to leave Cleveland and “take his talents to South Beach” to play for the Miami Heat. I was in living in California, glued to the TV like 9 million other Americans.
People lost their collective minds. I found it bizarre how angry people got, and it seemed to me that people needed a hobby or some other way to expend their energies.
But I digress.
As if “The Decision” wasn’t enough for the mob, the post-decision interview with ESPN’s Michael Wilbon really caused people to get their panties in a wad. In the interview, LeBron said, “I wanted to do what was best, you know, for LeBron James, what LeBron James was going to do to make him happy.”
People thought he was narcissistic, arrogant, and whatever other adjective they could come up with for people they hated. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote, “It’s always a bad sign when people begin talking about themselves in the third person”.
Lebron is far from the first person to refer to himself in the third person (see: my dad on the basketball court).
Author and psychologist Ethan Kross highlighted a few others in his book, Chatter:
Actress Jennifer Lawrence had to pause during an emotional interview with the New York Times and said, “Okay, get ahold of yourself, Jennifer.”
Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai recounted the experience of being put on the Taliban’s assassination list and how she handled it emotionally. She said, “I asked myself, ‘What would you do, Malala [if you came face to face with the Taliban]?’”
Julius Caesar wrote about himself using his own name and the pronoun “he” when referring to himself instead of “I.”
And, of course, my dad would yell, “Dammit, Jim! C’mon!” when missing an easy look at the hoop at public parks across the country.
Are all these people raging narcissists? Arrogant beyond belief? Emotionally tormented? On the contrary, they may actually be less arrogant, more emotionally intelligent, and more thoughtful and caring for others.
To Maureen Dowd’s dismay, research shows that it’s more of a bad sign when people use more first-person singular pronouns (e.g., I, me, mine, my, and myself). These people tend to be more self-absorbed, experience more negative emotions (like anxiety and depression), and are generally less concerned about other humans.
Referring to yourself in the third person, like Lebron did in his ESPN interview, especially during stressful times, can actually be quite healthy. Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive behavioral therapy and mental health OG, called this “distancing” -- a process by which we separate ourselves from the thoughts or emotions of the moment.
When stressed out, our vision narrows, and we turn inwards toward our thoughts or emotions. Our body’s stress response kicks in, releasing adrenaline and cortisol into the bloodstream, narrowing our vision, increasing our heart rate, and flooding us with negative emotions. This is a great state to be in if you’re entering the UFC octagon or running from a cheetah (as one does). But it’s not great for making decisions, dispensing words of wisdom, or biting your tongue when somebody is wearing their nasty ass shoes on your living room carpet.
In short, we psychologically zoom in on our world and lose perspective. We get stuck inside our own heads.
Therefore, distancing can be an effective way to regain our composure and make better decisions, think more rationally, and experience less intense and less persistent negative emotions.
The best way to distance is to get physical space from the situation.
My mentor and friend Jade Teta always advised me to take 24 hours and workout before making major decisions. It’s advice that has saved me a lot of heartache over the years. It creates the physical space and time I need to overcome the emotions of the moment and make better decisions.
It reminds me of the advice by the writer Robert A. Heinlein to “avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry.”
Taking the time and space to allow the emotions to fade is always wise.
My wife and I have what we call the “Moving Pact,” in which we come together on the morning of a move and agree that no matter what frustration we feel, we’ll not say anything mean to each other, take anything personally, or break up in the heat of the moment (it’s sort of a joke… but not really). We move a lot, and it’s always stressful, so this distancing technique has saved a lot of hurt feelings over the years.
Ideally we’d always be able to get the physical distance from problem (i.e. take 24-hours and a workout), but getting a physical distance is not always possible, so a good substitute is to take a page out of the Lebron James Playbook and refer to ourselves in the third person.
This creates a psychological distance from our thoughts and emotions of the moment, allowing us to ruminate less, think rationally, and make better decisions.
In experiments, when participants are prompted to use this distancing technique, they experience less shame and embarrassment, make better first impressions, perform better on stressful problem-solving tasks, make stronger moral decisions, and even see improvements in cardiovascular function.
Now, you don’t have to do this out loud like my dad or Lebron. If we can learn something from them, it’s that disrupting social norms can cause a few raised eyebrows (or a complete uprising in the case of LBJ). But the strategy remains effective. Anything you can do to remove yourself from the center of your own universe will allow you to be more effective in your work and relationships.
This practice I picked up from my dad all those years ago has always served me. I just didn’t have the research to back it up. I just knew it worked for me.
This week’s podcast is all about creating space between impulse and action, and about how it turns out LBJ (and my pops) was onto something. Utilizing the third person when talking to ourselves is a useful tool to feel and perform better.
Give it a try. Best case scenario, you experience less anxiety and make better decisions. Worst case, your hometown will revolt, burn your jersey, and call you a traitor and narcissist. It’s a toss-up, but the research is on your side.