The Mental Strategies of Top Traders: The Psychological Determinants of Trading Success

Chapter 6. Nurturing Team Players: Listening, Learning, and Working Together

For college basketball fans, the run to the Sweet 16 during March Madness of 2008 brought an exciting finish and excellent example of teamwork for one up-and-coming, relatively unknown team seeking to make a mark in basketball history.

After a dramatic comeback that led to overtime play, Western Kentucky University was moments away from ending their season. The Toppers were down by 1 with little more than 5 seconds left in play when Tyrone Brazelton got the ball and made a mad dash down the court. Brazelton was having a career-high game, having already scored 33 points including six 3-pointers. He was hot and, all things considered, relatively open for the shot. But then he made a surprising and likely legendary move. Brazelton passed the ball backward to teammate Ty Rogers, a senior guard, who then made the game-winning, last-second, never-forget-me, 3-point basket that will inevitably go down in NCAA history. Instantaneously, Ty Rogers became famous. His shot was literally plastered on newspapers and Internet sites and replayed hundreds of times on radio and TV broadcasts for days and weeks afterward.

Rogers got his piece of college basketball fame, but what about Brazelton? Why did he do it? Given the percentages, the likelihood of his hitting the shot was just as great, if not much greater than passing it off to Rogers. He could have shot it. He might have made it. Why did he give away his big chance ...