One day, when Wayne Gretzky was already the greatest hockey player in the world, he was practicing with his team, the Edmonton Oilers. Walter watched from the stands.

Afterwards, the two drove home together.

“You just wasted two hours of your life,” Walter Gretzky told his son. “If you’re going to practice, then do it right.”

No word on what happened the rest of the ride home. Maybe there was a sullen silence.

But Walter Gretzky’s comments are a reminder that even the world’s best need a wake-up call now and then. It can come from a coach, a family member, or an unexpected loss. That’s what happened to the Soviet hockey team when the U.S. Olympians defeated them in 1980.

Performers must be, in the words of golfer Bobby Jones, “everlastingly on the lookout against the self.”

Slumps often begin when things are going well. When results are good, performers never notice little flaws creeping into their game. The flaws only get discovered when results begin to fall.

Walter Gretzky knew his son well enough to know whether or not he was working hard. Trouble is, as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has said, you can fool yourself about how hard you are working.

Don’t fool yourself about your practice ethic.

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

Watt intercepted an Andy Dalton pass and returned it for a touchdown, leading the Houston Texans past the Cincinnati Bengals in the first game of the NFL playolffs.

Watt’s, play according to Houston defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, came from hours and hours of the right kind of practice.

“When you do it practice, you’ll do it in the games,” Phillips said, referring to Watt’s exceptional practice habits. “You’d be surprised how many times he’s done the exact same thing in practice. We were probably surprised he hadn’t done it (in a game) before.”

“He does it every day in practice.”

Not so long ago, Watt wasn’t working with the kind of focus that he’s shown recently. His early college career was spotty, and he found himself down in the dumps and delivering pizzas. At a certain point, he regained his motivation and realized he didn’t want to be a pizza guy for the rest of his life.

He won’t. He got his career back in order, was drafted in the first round by the Texans, and practiced with fanatical attention to batting down passes. All the practice added up.

Ed Smith, best-selling author and creator of the One Minute Motivator, says, “Your short-term actions multiplied by time equal your long-term accomplishments.”

That certainly is true in Watt’s case.

It all begins in the few precious hours before Dick Clark comes on TV and the ball comes down in Times Square. With one fun exercise you can create a year to remember.

Just use the Banquet Technique. It comes in three steps.

First, imagine that this time next year you are a guest at a banquet that celebrates your achievements. Imagine what you would like the speaker to say. Be as specific and vivid as possible. What did you accomplish? Who was with you? How did it feel? How did it look? Enjoy this exercise. Hear the speaker. See the look of admiration from others at the banquet. It’s like goal-setting, except that in your mind it has already happened. So visualize as richly and deeply as you can. There is no cost to dream. For instance, if you’re a college football player, picture yourself in the NFL. If you’re in the NFL, picture yourself headed to the Pro Bowl. If you’re an entertainer, imagine yourself performing with Katy Perry. If you’re an up-and-coming comic like my friend Logan Hobson, see yourself on Comedy Central. Seeing such a dazzling future will motivate you

Second, take stock of where you are right now. How far are you from where you want to be? As peak performance coach Dave Cross likes to say, “The road to improvement begins with an honest self-assessment.” New York Rangers Coach John Tortorella asks his players to assess themselves constantly. There’s no point in fooling yourself. This is a private exercise; there’s no one there to judge you.

Third, develop a strategy that will take you from where you are to where you want to be. Here’s a hint: Success is simple. (Not easy, simple.) Usually you can create a great future by identifying ONE thing that you must do every day, then making sure you DO it. If you want to call it a New Year’s Resolution, OK.

Chose the one thing that suits you. For me, that one thing is blogging. For others it may be diet, regular exercise, daily attendance at AA meetings. Give it some thought. Remember, champions identify what needs to be done and make sure it gets done.

To summarize, see the future you want. Assess where you are now. Develop a plan to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Happy New Year!

That’s because Hurricane Irene wiped out hundreds of pumpkin patches in the northeastern states.

No one (except the pumpkin farmers and distributors) thought much about pumpkins when Irene was causing massive flood damage. There were bigger things to worry about.

But now that the immediate storm has passed, we are seeing the subtle effects of nature’s fury. And a pumpkin shortage is one of them.

It’s a reminder that we live in a world of cause and effect. The things that you think, say and do really matter. Even if you’re not paying attention, these things have consequences down the road.

Take a baseball player’s hitting slump. It’s often the result of a flaw that has gradually slipped into the swing. This flaw may not show up until long after it begins. That’s why you must pay close attention to details.

Dr. Carl McGown, an internationally respected volleyball coach, says, “There are no little things.”

There is even a term for this. It’s called “The Butterfly Effect.” It means that the flap of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the world can affect a hurricane on the other.

And long before “The Butterfly Effect,” there was Sir Isaac Newton saying that every point mass in the universe affects every other point mass.

So whether you’re talking about pumpkins, butterflies or Newton, you’ve got to be careful about how you flap your wings.

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Mike Tully coaches athletes, businesses and teams on how to improve. You can reach him at (973) 800-5836.

The week went well, except for one drill. No one had any energy. No one seemed to want to improve. So not wanting to have a losing drill, the coaches made it a learning drill.

Calling the girls in, we asked this question: Would you rather have results or reasons?

It’s an important question for anyone who wants to accomplish anything worthwhile. Reasons are always easier than results. It’s always easier to find reasons why something DIDN’T happen than to have the toughness to make sure it DOES happen.

You can be sure that fans of the Miami Heat want results now that LeBron James has joined their team. No one wants reasons.

To illustrate the point about results and reasons, we asked the girls at our camp to start listing REASONS why the drill didn’t go well. Here are some of their answers:

It’s too hot.

It’s too hard.

It’s too unfamiliar.

The other girl keeps messing it up.

I don’t like this drill.

I don’t see why this drill is important.

Pretty soon we had filled up the whiteboard with all reasons why we hadn’t done well. There were lots of reasons, and few results.

No matter what you’re doing in life, this question about reasons and results can guide and challenge you. Let’s say you’re a student who has been assigned some summer reading. At the end of summer vacation, will you have results or reasons? How about New Year’s and your resolutions? One week into January, will you have results or reasons?

One other thing: Do you suppose winners have results or reasons?

Coach Tully and Gary Pritchard have teamed up to produce the book: “Ten Things Great Coaches Know.” It’s available at:
http://www.tenthingsgreatcoachesknow.com.

“But that was only warmup,” she said.

Only warmup?

What could be more important than a strong warmup?

Warmup sets the tone — physically, mentally and emotionally — for what will come in the rest of the practice.

If your warmup is sloppy, chances are the rest of the practice will be, too.

If the warmup cuts corners, or lacks attention to detail, then what are the odds the practice will get any better from that point?

On the other hand, if you approach practice with a will and an aim to improve, you increase your odds of achieving that improvement.

“I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough,” basketball Hall of Famer Larry Bird said. “I still wonder if somebody — somewhere — was practicing more than me.”

But it was more than the AMOUNT Bird practiced that made him great. It was the WAY he practiced. He never gave away a single shot. Never allowed himself to get sloppy.

And you can bet that included his warmup.

Relationships mean everything to sports teams. Bad chemistry has doomed many a dream. Great chemistry can produce what seems to be an overachieving team.

This subject comes up because of a report from ESPNBoston.com that Rajon Rondo is hinting at trouble in the Boston Celtics locker room.

“We gotta make a change and do something about it quick,” Rondo was quoted as saying. “Not a trade or anything, but just making some changes in the locker room, amongst ourselves. Every guy has to look in the mirror and hold themselves accountable.”

No matter what level you’re coaching on, chemistry can be an issue. Human nature is the same whether you’re talking high school sports or the highest pro level.

Jealousy, laziness, and ego can all come into play. Some people give; some people receive. Sometimes the problems can be addressed with a clubhouse meeting, sometimes they fester all season.

Good coaches keep an eye on clubhouse chemistry, and do all they can to promote a team-first atmosphere. It won’t always work, but you’ve got to keep trying.

The Dallas Academy girls basketball team, which made national news last year when it lost a game 100-0, broke an eight-year losing streak recently with a 34-33 victory over Johnson County. Her is another account.

Meanwhile, players at Wrenshall (Minn.) High School were trying to fathom a 65-0 loss. This one, according to the website RivalsHigh, did not generate the uproar that the 100-0 game did. That’s because, according to Coach Michelle Blanchard, Wrenshall just couldn’t make its shots go in.

Among the missed attempts, according to Blanchard, were 11 layups.

That reminds me of a conversation with another coach a few years ago. We were talking about reducing each sport to its essence. For instance, Coach Vince Lombardi said that football is blocking and tackling. Pitching in baseball is about throwing strikes. Tennis and volleyball are about serving and returning.

When I asked this coach about basketball, he said: layups and free throws. If that’s true, then Wrenshall knows what to work on in practice!

This particular attendant offered full service — windshield, oil check, etc., no matter what the weather. Most people would have filled the tank, collected the money and then retreated to the warmth of the office.

But not this attendant. He delivered the same service, whether it was a beautiful spring day or the most forbidding day of the winter.

In other words, he decided that full service was simply the way things were going to be. He did not let circumstances dictate how he would live his life. He decided what his standards were going to be. And in his case, the standards were very high.

Whether you know it or not, every day you are making the same choice as the attendant did. You choose your standards. Maybe they won’t be as high as the attendant’s was, but you are choosing nevertheless.

You decide whether you will merely get by, or whether you will be good, or whether you will be peerless.

It’s pretty clear that all these choices — day after day, week after week, year after year — add up to your destiny.

Choose to be great, no matter what the circumstances.

Dave is the National Director of “Yes, I Can!” volleyball, and his article led me to think about about some definite “no’s” for your program. For instance, there should definitely be no excuses on your team.

This comes from Matt Bahr, hero of the New York Giants‘ drive to the 1990 Super Bowl championship. He kicked five field goals, including one as time ran out, to put the Giants into the Super Bowl. Then he kicked another one for the eventual margin of victory in the Super Bowl itself.

Interviewed on radio, Bahr said he always felt comfortable in late-game situations because he knew he was doing his best. Bahr also felt that Bill Parcells, the Giants coach at the time, liked him because he never gave an excuse.

If he missed a kick, Parcells would ask him, “What happened?” Bahr would reply, “I missed it.”

Do your best. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. If you lose, end of story. No excuses.

Hall of Fame hockey player Mark Messier said, “The minute you start making excuses, you’ve got one foot in the grave.”

Noted sports psychologist Dr. Rob Gilbert puts it this way: At the end of the day, you are going to have either results or reasons. Which would you prefer?

If you prefer results over reasons, then concentrate on results and leaves the reasons to others.

In your program, there are no excuses.