One second left on the clock.
You shoot.
The buzzer sounds.
The ball goes in.
The crowd goes wild.
One second left on the clock.
You shoot.
The buzzer sounds.
The ball goes in.
The crowd goes wild.
Every kid who’s ever picked up a basketball has dreamed of that moment. I must have taken that shot 10,000 times in my driveway growing up in Oak Harbor. I’m pretty sure it was how every session ended before I went inside for dinner.
That dream became reality for one young man recently. Grady DeVries is a high school basketball player at North Kitsap, and I happened to be on the microphone at courtside as the public address announcer. The game against rival Kingston had been tight all night. As North Kitsap held the ball for the final possession, trailing by one point, Grady – playing point guard – was directing traffic.
As the play unfolded, a teammate launched what he hoped would be the game-winner. It missed, caroming high off the rim. Players leapt for the rebound as the clock ticked down. The ball was tipped, and Grady, who had instinctively moved toward the play, secured it. With arms flailing around him and no time to hesitate, he put up a short shot from about six feet.
The ball dropped.
The horn sounded.
Pandemonium.
I was especially happy for Grady. He’s also one of my high school golfers and a family friend. He now owns a memory that will last a lifetime. Better yet, it’s on video, ready to be shown to future children and grandchildren!
Grady will rightly be celebrated for the made basket. But that moment was built on something less visible: process.
Everything he did leading up to that shot mattered. Had he missed, the emotion would have been disappointment instead of jubilation, but the process would have been exactly the same. And it would still have been right.
We’ve become prisoners of results.
Wins over losses.
Makes over misses.
Success or failure—right now.
Results matter, no question. But results don’t show up consistently unless the process is sound.
Here’s why that matters.
When the initial shot went up, Grady wasn’t positioned where the rebound ended up. Instead of watching, he stayed active. He moved his feet. He read the play. He remained calm in chaos. He put himself in position for something unexpected. That’s not luck, that’s preparation meeting opportunity.
If he had stood still and spectated, there’s no game-winner. The habit of movement, awareness, and engagement comes from practice. From reps. From trust in the process. Even if the shot doesn’t fall, winning the process over time produces more wins than losses.
So, what does this have to do with you?
Plenty.
In business, we trap ourselves with result-based thinking:
Each one of those outcomes has a process behind it. When we fixate solely on the result, progress stalls, even when we’re doing the right things.
One of the most important lessons I learned in golf was to stop obsessing over immediate outcomes. When working on a new technique, the early results are often ugly. If I tied my emotions to those shots, frustration followed: then stress, loss of confidence, and sometimes quitting the new technique altogether.
But by committing to the process, the results eventually improved.
So, what’s your process?
How do you acquire new clients?
Improve your résumé?
Strengthen your financials?
Hire and develop the right people?
And what about life?
If you want to be healthier, there’s a process involving nutrition, hydration, sleep, and movement.
If you want to be more present with loved ones, there’s a process that includes putting devices away and clearing mental clutter.
If you want to improve a hobby like gardening, learning a language, or playing a sport, there’s a process of learning, practicing, and applying.
The winning shot always starts with the process.
Grady has talent, no doubt. But talent alone doesn’t guarantee results. Talent without discipline eventually goes to waste. What showed up in that moment was coaching, work ethic, patience, and process that was so ingrained it became instinct.
That same commitment is available to all of us.
When your game is on the line—professionally or personally—how will your process show up?
Are you ready to take the shot?
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