The San Francisco Bay Area’s NBA team, the Golden State Warriors, broke the record for the best opening to an NBA season Tuesday night, by going 16-0. After the decisive win elite point guard Stephen Curry told the New York Times, “You got to continue to just stay in the moment. When you stay in the moment, good things happen, because everybody’s just wrapped up in the process.”
The team is led by head coach Steve Kerr—who played for the Chicago Bulls during the Michael Jordan era—and was taught meditation and how to refine the inner game, along with other teammates, by George Mumford, who recently put out the book The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance.
At the time, Kerr, who has an ample sense of humor, coined the term “Mumfied” to describe the effect Mumford’s work could have on a player. Something about the teachings and practices from those days seems to have stuck, though, since, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Kerr told his players on Tuesday before their pregame shootaround that he wanted them to exude four qualities:
Joy Mindfulness Compassion CompetitionNot your conventional formula for athletic performance, but it seems to be working.…