When Dirk Nowitzki was a gangly teenager, his coach asked him to decide: stay in Germany or go to the NBA. Nowitzki came to the United States and turned pro, winning the 2011 NBA championship with the Dallas Mavericks.

I'm no Dirk Nowitzki, but I did play professional basketball in Europe. Until recently, I hadn't thought much about how my hoops career could inform my business career, but at the urging of Joel Cooperman, managing partner of Citrin Cooperman, I took a crack at it.

Turns out there are many parallels.

Business - like basketball - is about competition. To perform at the highest level, you must consistently execute better than the other gal (or guy). You have to work well with your clients and associates - your team. And it doesn't hurt to be in great physical condition. Here are five lessons from professional sports that all CPAs can use to raise their game.

WATCH YOUR GAME FILM

In the early days of my career, coaches would scream at me to "Block out!" I blew them off, because I knew I was blocking out; I just wasn't getting the rebounds. But then I saw some game film, and it was clear: I was terrible at blocking out. Seeing myself on tape gave me a whole different outlook on my game. Suddenly I could see what the coaches saw ... and I could improve.

In our firms, there are only a few ways to see our performance from another perspective: client feedback (which is rarely solicited in a way that is truly helpful), on-the-job training, annual reviews and 360 reviews.

If you're serious about raising your game, you have to take all of this feedback to heart. It's the equivalent of your game film. Yet I routinely see CPAs who blow off their 360 or other feedback because, "I know who said that, and they have an ax to grind."

What a shame. Rather than manning up and watching their film, these CPAs are putting a lid on their performance. That's not being a pro; that's being obtuse. Pros are relentless about finding the parts of their game that need work.

WARM UP

Throughout my basketball career, all practices and games started in a routinized way: with a warm-up. Warm-ups prepare our minds and bodies for the task ahead.

Do you have a warm-up to your workday? Maybe you start each day with a to-do list, but when you get to the office, do you get sucked into someone's cubicle to talk about last night? Does the e-mail vortex take hold of you? If you're like most CPAs, your to-do list implodes by 10, because you don't have a good warm-up, or workplace discipline.

Steven Pressfield, author of Do the Work and The War of Art has a daily ritual to help him overcome resistance and get writing: He reads a compelling poem, dons a special necklace, and sits down to crank out 20 pages. Every day. Those are real results.

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