The Mental Game Powered by The Pazik Performance Group: Recent Episodes
The Pazik Performance Group
If you want to improve your confidence, culture, or communication within yourself, business, team, or your sport like baseball, softball, basketball, bowling, etc., then this is the podcast for you. Monday through Saturday we‘re putting out a quick hitter-episode for you to mentally prepare and learn more about sport psych and mental performance.
pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/beyond-skills-embracing-core-principles-for-meaningful-success-and-self-discovery
https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/zen-and-the-zone-meditation-for-enhanced-baseball-performance
https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/finding-harmony-meditations-role-in-balancing-baseball-and-life
https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/mindful-mastery-the-role-of-meditation-in-mental-performance-for-baseball
https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/navigating-expectations-with-philosophy
https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/baseballs-mental-game-changer-your-guide-to-effective-reminders
https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/building-mental-resilience-the-science-of-mental-reminders
https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/game-changing-mental-reminders-secrets-of-baseballs-elite
pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/scientific-techniques-to-elevate-focus-and-performance-in-baseball
https://pazik123.squarespace.com/thementalgame/silencing-the-inner-critic-a-game-changer-for-baseball-players
https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/staying-present-for-peak-performance-the-neuroscience-of-baseball
https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/mentalskillsmechanics
This is an excerpt from our long-form video in The Mental Skills Mechanics Membership. You can find the full video here. The full video is titled, “3 Common Mistakes Amateurs Make and Proven Corrections for Success.”
https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/mentalskillsmechanics
In the realm of sport psychology, mental fortitude often distinguishes champions from contenders, and the Recognize, Release, Routine System stands as a winning formula. This system equips athletes with the tools to seize control of their emotions, maintain unwavering focus, and consistently perform at the peak of their abilities. This podcast breaks down the three fundamental steps that make up this transformative system.
https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/mentalskillsmechanics
Tiger Woods and Steve Nash are two iconic figures in the world of sports. They have achieved greatness in their respective fields, and a significant part of their success can be attributed to their unwavering routines. In this episode we dive into their routines and extract the lessons.
https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/mentalskillsmechanics
In this podcast we’re diving deep into something every champ swears by… IN-GAME ROUTINES. Those rituals and habits that might sound like superstition but are actually the secret sauce to peak performance.
You see, when we talk about executing the mental game, it’s one thing to talk about focus, confidence, and all that good stuff, but it’s a whole different ball game when you can walk the walk. That’s where in-game routines step in, and trust me, they’re a game-changer.
Join The Mental Skills Mechanics to take your mental game to the next level! https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/mentalskillsmechanics
Join The Mental Skills Mechanics to take your mental game to the next level! https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/mentalskillsmechanics
Join The Mental Skills Mechanics to take your mental game to the next level! https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/mentalskillsmechanics
Join The Mental Skills Mechanics to take your mental game to the next level! https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/mentalskillsmechanics
Check out more about Body Language, Focus, and Self-Talk here: https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/the-power-of-body-language-focus-and-self-talk-in-performance
Find this article at: https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/cultivating-confidence-through-action-and-attitude
Check out all the episode on our website: https://pazikperformancegroup.com/thementalgame/unleash-breathroughs-with-body-language-focus-and-self-talk
Learn all about goal setting and what the real trick to goal setting is! I'll tell you this... it's not just about setting specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed goals. It's about something EXTRA. If you REALLY want to reach your goals, listen to this podcast.
Avoid Giving Sandwich Feedback: In many organizations, leaders tend to deliver feedback using the traditional sandwich method: You talk about a positive, then address an area that needs improvement, then finish with a positive. This makes sense in theory, but in practice it often leads to confusion, as people tend to focus either entirely on the positive or entirely on the negative. In the cultures I visited, I didn’t see many feedback sandwiches. Instead, I saw them separate the two into different processes. They handled negatives through dialogue, first by asking if a person wants feedback, then having a learning-focused two-way conversation about the needed growth. They handled positives through ultraclear bursts of recognition and praise. The leaders I spent time with shared a capacity for radiating delight when they spotted behavior worth praising. These moments of warm, authentic happiness functioned as magnetic north, creating clarity, boosting belonging, and orienting future action.
"Belonging cues are behaviors that create safe connection in groups. They include, among others, proximity, eye contact, energy, mimicry, turn taking, attention, body language, vocal pitch, consistency of emphasis, and whether everyone talks to everyone else in the group... Belonging cues possess three basic qualities: Energy: They invest in the exchange that is occurring Individualization: They treat the person as unique and valued Future orientation: They signal the relationship will continue These cues add up to a message that can be described with a single phrase: You are safe here. They seek to notify our ever-vigilant brains that they can stop worrying about dangers and shift into connection mode, a condition called psychological safety." - Daniel Coyle
"We are solidly connected. Jonathan’s group succeeds not because its members are smarter but because they are safer. We don’t normally think of safety as being so important. We consider safety to be the equivalent of an emotional weather system—noticeable but hardly a difference maker. But what we see here gives us a window into a powerful idea. Safety is not mere emotional weather but rather the foundation on which strong culture is built." - Daniel Coyle
"Three negative archetypes: the Jerk (an aggressive, defiant deviant), the Slacker (a withholder of effort), and the Downer (a depressive Eeyore type)... “When Nick is the Downer, everybody comes into the meeting really energized. He acts quiet and tired and at some point puts his head down on his desk,” Felps says. “And then as the time goes by, they all start to behave that way, tired and quiet and low energy. By the end, there are three others with their heads down on their desks like him, all with their arms folded.” When Nick plays the Slacker, a similar pattern occurs. “The group quickly picks up on his vibe,” Felps says. “They get done with the project very quickly, and they do a half-assed job. What’s interesting, though, is that when you ask them about it afterward, they’re very positive on the surface. They say, ‘We did a good job, we enjoyed it.’ But it isn’t true. They’d picked up on the attitude that this project really didn’t matter, that it wasn’t worth their time or energy. I’d gone in expecting that someone in the group would get upset with the Slacker or the Downer. But nobody did. They were like, ‘Okay, if that’s how it is, then we’ll be Slackers and Downers too.’ ” Except for one group. “It’s the outlier group,” Felps says. “They first came to my attention when Nick mentioned that there was one group that felt really different to him. This group performed well no matter what he did. Nick said it was mostly because of one guy. You can see this guy is causing Nick to get almost infuriated—his negative moves aren’t working like they had in the other groups, because this guy could find a way to flip it and engage everyone and get people moving toward the goal.” We’ll call this person Jonathan. He is a thin, curly-haired young man with a quiet, steady voice and an easy smile. Despite the bad apple’s efforts, Jonathan’s group is attentive and energetic, and they produce high-quality results. The more fascinating part, from Felps’s view, is that at first glance, Jonathan doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all." - Daniel Coyle
"Culture is a set of living relationships working toward a shared goal. It’s not something you are. It’s something you do." - Daniel Coyle
"A strong culture increases net income 756 percent over eleven years, according to a Harvard study of more than two hundred companies." - Daniel Coyle
"He closed by telling us the real battle is won in the mind. It’s won by guys who understand their areas of weakness, who sit and think about it, plotting and planning to improve. Attending to the detail. Work on their weaknesses and overcome them. Because they can." - Marcus Luttrell
"The distant words of Reno sung in my ears: 'Someone screws it up, the consequences affect everyone.'" - Marcus Luttrell
"When a special forces commander makes even a slight reference to an issue that may be helpful, listen and then do it. Even if it was an aside, not a proper command, maybe even starting with I think it might be a good idea if" - Marcus Luttrell
"And perhaps above all, your character is under a microscope at all times; instructors, teachers, senior chiefs, and officers are always watching for the character flaw, the weakness which may one day lead to the compromise of your teammates. We can’t stand that. We can stand damn near anything, except that." - Marcus Luttrell
"Over and over during training, we were told never to be complacent." - Marcus Luttrell
"The philosophy of the U.S. Navy SEALs: “I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My Nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight.” - Marcus Luttrell
"Character is key because it is an indicator of a person’s capacity. General William Boykin points to capacity as more important than current ability: “What are you looking for—hard skills or capacity? Ideally, you look for both, but if you have to choose, and you have a fair way of doing so, assess their capacity. What is their capacity to learn new skills? What’s their capacity to think for themselves? What’s their capacity to problem-solve?” - Mike Serraille
"Personality ≠ Character Personality and character are not the same thing. Character is a person’s deep inner attributes that drive their decisions and behaviors. Personality is how someone outwardly presents themselves to the world. Drive, resiliency, adaptability, humility, integrity, effective intelligence, team-ability, curiosity, and emotional strength are all character traits. Personality is how someone exhibits those traits externally: they may be loud or quiet, obnoxious or charming." - Mike Serraille
(Three row table. First row says assessment and selection. Second row says training. Third row says combat/war.) "According to conventional wisdom, the first two rows of this table are non-revenue-generating functions. As such, many organizations spend as little as possible in these areas, viewing it as expense management, but not Special Operations. sof has long invested heavily in assessment/selection and training because these two stages are what determine victory or defeat in combat." - Mike Serraille
"The only way you have true talent acquisition is if your leaders at all levels, starting from the top and going to the bottom, are aligned with the belief that managing your human capital is just as important as managing your financial capital." - Mike Serraille
"Based on our research and interviews, we have identified nine core characteristics that mark an individual as having high potential: Drive—the unrelenting need for achievement and constant self-improvement Resiliency—the ability to persevere in the face of challenge and bounce back from setbacks Adaptability—the ability to adjust according to the situation, learn new things, innovate, and try new methods Humility—self-confidence in one’s ability while understanding that there’s always room for improvement and that others’ experiences and knowledge are valuable Integrity—an adherence to not only what is legal but also what is right Effective intelligence—the ability to apply one’s knowledge to real-world scenarios Team-ability—the ability to function as part of a team, placing the success of the whole above the needs of the self Curiosity—a desire to explore the unknown and question the status quo in pursuit of better, more effective solutions Emotional strength—a positive attitude, high empathy, and control over one’s emotions, especially in chaotic and stressful situations." - Mike Serraille
"In business, as in the military, the only competitive advantage you can hope to achieve and maintain is your human capital. Nothing is as important to your company’s success as your people. Not your product. Not your service. Your people." - Mike Serraille
"I am reminded of my goals at least 20 times a day because I write them on the back of my phone and have little notes around the house to keep me focused and motivated. I don’t just read them, I say them out loud and I say them boldly. Our minds don’t know the difference between real and imagined information. So I know if I say what I want to happen enough times, my mind will help me accomplish it. The other key for me is repetition. It’s like riding a bike; I do it so many times that one day I don’t even think about it, I just do it. That’s what I try to achieve with my goals - I say my goals so often and with so much conviction that they actually come to fruition." - Tia Toomey
"Committing to a career has always been a really important decision for me because the rest of your life is a very long time." - Tia Toomey
"If I lost a race and started to sulk, I’d get shut down pretty quick smart by Dad. “Don’t get upset. Reflect and think about what you did to prepare for that race and what you could do better next time. What did you eat, how much sleep did you get and how hard did you train? I bet there is always an area you can improve on.” - Tia Toomey
“Alright T, tell me how fast can you run?” “As fast as a leopard.” “Come on now, tell me, how fast are you going to run?!” “As fast as a leopard!” “Then let’s see you do it!” - Tia Toomey
"Nobody else can take you to the place you want to end up. You have to get there yourself." - Tia Toomey
“We live in a world with a lot of insecure, jealous people. Some of them are our best friends. They are blood relatives. Failure terrifies them. So does our success. Because when we transcend what we once thought possible, push our limits, and become more, our light reflects off all the walls they’ve built up around them. Your light enables them to see the contours of their own prison, their own self-limitations. But if they are truly the great people you always believed them to be, their jealousy will evolve, and soon their imagination might hop its fence, and it will be their turn to change for the better.” - David Goggins
“It won’t always go your way, so you can’t get trapped in this idea that just because you’ve imagined a possibility for yourself that you somehow deserve it. Your entitled mind is dead weight. Cut it loose. Don’t focus on what you think you deserve. Take aim on what you are willing to earn!” - David Goggins
"Tell the truth about the real reasons for your limitations and you will turn that negativity, which is real, into jet fuel. Those odds stacked against you will become a damn runway. There is no more time to waste. Hours and days evaporate like creeks in the desert. That’s why it’s okay to be cruel to yourself as long as you realize you’re doing it to become better. We all need thicker skin to improve in life. Being soft when you look in the mirror isn’t going to inspire the wholesale changes we need to shift our present and open up our future." - David Goggins
"The reason it’s important to push hardest when you want to quit the most is because it helps you callous your mind." - David Goggins
"Remembering that you’ve been through difficulties before and have always survived to fight again shifts the conversation in your head. It will allow you to control and manage doubt, and keep you focused on taking each and every step necessary to achieve the task at hand." - David Goggins
"And never forget that all emotional and physical anguish is finite! It all ends eventually. Smile at pain and watch it fade for at least a second or two. If you can do that, you can string those seconds together and last longer than your opponent thinks you can, and that may be enough to catch a second wind. There is no scientific consensus on second wind. Some scientists think it’s the result of endorphins flooding your nervous system, others think it’s a burst of oxygen that can help break down lactic acid, as well as the glycogen and triglycerides muscles need to perform. Some say its purely psychological. All I know is that by going hard when we felt defeated we were able to ride a second wind through the worst night in Hell Week. And once you have that second wind behind you it’s easy to break your opponent down and snatch a soul. The hard part is getting to that point, because the ticket to victory often comes down to bringing your very best when you feel your worst." - David Goggins
“Discipline starts every day when the first alarm clock goes off in the morning. I say ‘first alarm clock’ because I have three, as I was taught by one of the most feared and respected instructors in SEAL training: one electric, one battery powered, one windup. That way, there is no excuse for not getting out of bed, especially with all that rests on that decisive moment. The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The rest is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.” - Jocko Willink
“It was a shocking turn of events. Boat Crew VI, the same team in the same circumstances only under new leadership, went from the worst boat crew in the class to the best. Gone was their cursing and frustration. And gone too was the constant scrutiny and individual attention they had received from the SEAL instructor staff. Had I not witnessed this amazing transformation, I might have doubted it. But it was a glaring, undeniable example of one of the most fundamental and important truths at the heart of Extreme Ownership: there are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” - Jocko Willink
“Engage with them,” directed Jocko. “Build a personal relationship with them. Explain to them what you need from them and why, and ask them what you can do to help them get you what you need. Make them a part of your team, not an excuse for your team." - Jocko Willink
"Ego clouds and disrupts everything: the planning process, the ability to take good advice, and the ability to accept constructive criticism." - Jocko Willink
"In order to convince and inspire others to follow and accomplish a mission, a leader must be a true believer in the mission." - Jocko Willink
"I stood before the group. “Whose fault was this?” I asked to the roomful of teammates. After a few moments of silence, the SEAL who had mistakenly engaged the Iraqi solider spoke up: “It was my fault. I should have positively identified my target.” “No,” I responded, “It wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?” I asked the group again. “It was my fault,” said the radioman from the sniper element. “I should have passed our position sooner.” “Wrong,” I responded. “It wasn’t your fault. Whose fault was it?” I asked again. “It was my fault,” said another SEAL, who was a combat advisor with the Iraqi Army clearance team. “I should have controlled the Iraqis and made sure they stayed in their sector.” “Negative,” I said. “You are not to blame.” More of my SEALs were ready to explain what they had done wrong and how it had contributed to the failure. But I had heard enough. “You know whose fault this is? You know who gets all the blame for this?” The entire group sat there in silence, including the CO, the CMC, and the investigating officer. No doubt they were wondering whom I would hold responsible. Finally, I took a deep breath and said, “There is only one person to blame for this: me. I am the commander. I am responsible for the entire operation. As the senior man, I am responsible for every action that takes place on the battlefield. There is no one to blame but me. And I will tell you this right now: I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens to us again.” - Jocko Willink
"In our culture we tend to equate thinking and intellectual powers with success and achievement. In many ways, however, it is an emotional quality that separates those who master a field from the many who simply work at a job. Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers. Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything. Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive." - Robert Greene
"We live in a world that seems increasingly beyond our control. Our livelihoods are at the whim of globalized forces. The problems that we face—economic, environmental, and so on—cannot be solved by our individual actions. Our politicians are distant and unresponsive to our desires. A natural response when people feel overwhelmed is to retreat into various forms of passivity. If we don’t try too much in life, if we limit our circle of action, we can give ourselves the illusion of control. The less we attempt, the less chances of failure. If we can make it look like we are not really responsible for our fate, for what happens to us in life, then our apparent powerlessness is more palatable. For this reason we become attracted to certain narratives: it is genetics that determines much of what we do; we are just products of our times; the individual is just a myth; human behavior can be reduced to statistical trends." - Robert Greene
"The principle is simple and must be engraved deeply in your mind: the goal of an apprenticeship is not money, a good position, a title, or a diploma, but rather the transformation of your mind and character—the first transformation on the way to mastery." - Robert Greene
"The Apprenticeship Phase - The Three Steps or Modes. Step one: Deep observation - the passive mode. Step two: Skills acquisition - the practice mode. Step three: Experimentation - The active mode" - Robert Greene
"In the [appreticeship phase] you will transform yourself from someone who is impatient and scattered into someone who is disciplined and focused, with a mind that can handle complexity." - Robert Greene
"Some 2,600 years ago the ancient Greek poet Pindar wrote, “Become who you are by learning who you are.” What he meant is the following: You are born with a particular makeup and tendencies that mark you as a piece of fate. It is who you are to the core. Some people never become who they are; they stop trusting in themselves; they conform to the tastes of others, and they end up wearing a mask that hides their true nature. If you allow yourself to learn who you really are by paying attention to that voice and force within you, then you can become what you were fated to become—an individual, a Master." - Robert Greene
"Struggle is not optional—it's neurologically required: in order to get your skill circuit to fire optimally, you must by definition fire the circuit suboptimally; you must make mistakes and pay attention to those mistakes; you must slowly teach your circuit. You must also keep firing that circuit—i.e., practicing— in order to keep myelin functioning properly. After all, myelin is living tissue." - Daniel Coyle
"Other researchers, like Dr. Fields, uncovered the mechanism by which these myelin increases happened. As he described in a 2006 paper in the journal Neuron, supporter cells called oligodendrocytes and astrocytes sense the nerve firing and respond by wrapping more myelin on the fiber that fires. The more the nerve fires, the more myelin wraps around it. The more myelin wraps around it, the faster the signals travel, increasing velocities up to one hundred times over signals sent through an uninsulated fiber." - Daniel Coyle
"Useful Brain Science Insight Number 1: All actions are really the result of electrical impulses sent along chains of nerve fibers. Basically our brains are bundles of wires - 100 billion wires called neurons, connected to each other by synapses. Whenever you do something, your brain sends a signal through those chains of nerve fibers to your muscles. Each time you practice anything - sing a tune, swing a club, read this sentence - a different highly specific circuit lights up in your mind, sort of like a string of Christmas lights. Then there's Useful Brain Science Insight Number 2: The more we develop a skill circuit, the less we're aware that we're using it. We're built to make skills automatic, to stash them in our unconscious mind. This process, which is called automaticity, exists for powerful evolutionary reasons. (The more processing we can do in our unconscious minds, the better our chances of noticing that saber-toothed tiger lurking in the brush.) It also creates a powerfully convincing illusion: a skill, once gained, feels utterly natural, as if it's something we've always possessed. These two insights - skills as brain circuits and automaticity - create a paradoxical combination: We're forever building vast, intricate circuits, and we're simultaneously forgetting that we built them." - Daniel Coyle
"Q: Why is targeted, mistake-focused practice so effective? A: Because the best way to build a good circuit is to fire it, attend to mistakes, then fire it again, over and over. Struggle is not an option: it's a biological requirement. Q: Why are passion and persistence key ingredients of talent? A: Because wrapping myelin around a big circuit requires immense energy and time. If you don't love it, you'll never work hard enough to be great." - Daniel Coyle
"Deep practice is built on a paradox: struggling in certain targeted ways—operating at the edges of your ability, where you make mistakes—makes you smarter. Or to put it a slightly different way, experiences where you're forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them—as you would if you were walking up an ice-covered hill, slipping and stumbling as you go—end up making you swift and graceful without your realizing it." - Daniel Coyle
"The talent code is built on revolutionary scientific discoveries involving a neural insulator called myelin, which some neurologists now consider to be the holy grail of acquiring skill. Here's why. Every human skill, whether it's playing baseball or playing Bach, is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse—basically, a signal traveling through a circuit. Myelin's vital role is to wrap those nerve fibers the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out. When we fire our circuits in the right way—when we practice swinging that bat or playing that note—our myelin responds by wrapping layers of insulation around that neural circuit, each new layer adding a bit more skill and speed. The thicker the myelin gets, the better it insulates, and the faster and more accurate our movements and thoughts become. Myelin is important for several reasons. It's universal: everyone can grow it, most swiftly during childhood but also throughout life. It's indiscriminate: its growth enables all manner of skills, mental and physical. It's imperceptible: we can't see it or feel it, and we can sense its increase only by its magical-seeming effects. Most of all, however, myelin is important because it provides us with a vivid new model for understanding skill. Skill is a cellular insulation that wraps neural circuits and that grows in response to certain signals. The more time and energy you put into the right kind of practice—the longer you stay in the Clarissa zone, firing the right signals through your circuits—the more skill you get, or, to put it a slightly different way, the more myelin you earn." - Daniel Coyle
"Where in your life are you not taking 100 percent responsibility for the success or failure of your present condition? Write down three things you have done in the past that have messed things up. List three things you should have done but didn’t. Write out three things that happened to you but you responded poorly. Write down three things you can start doing right now to take back responsibility for the outcomes of your life." - Darren Hardy
"Every professional athlete and his or her coach track each performance down to the smallest minutiae. Pitchers know their stats on every pitch in their repertoire. Golfers have even more metrics on their swings. Professional athletes know how to adjust their performances based on what they’ve tracked." - Darren Hardy
"The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not." - Darren Hardy
“The day you graduate from childhood to adulthood is the day you take full responsibility for your life.” - Darren Hardy
"Because I chose to not be completely responsible for the business, in the end, I was responsible for the results." - Darren Hardy
“What percentage of shared responsibility do you have in making a relationship work?” I was a teenager, so wise in the ways of true love. Of course I had all the answers. “Fifty/fifty!” I blurted out. It was so obvious; both people must be willing to share the responsibility evenly or someone’s getting ripped off. “Fifty-one/forty-nine,” yelled someone else, arguing that you’d have to be willing to do more than the other person. Aren’t relationships built on self-sacrifice and generosity? “Eighty/twenty,” yelled another. The instructor turned to the easel and wrote 100/0 on the paper in big black letters. “You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return,” he said. “Only when you’re willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work will it work. Otherwise, a relationship left to chance will always be vulnerable to disaster.” - Darren Hardy
"“How do you stay motivated?” The answer? I create new reasons to keep showing up." - Grant Cardone
"An “excuse” is a justification for doing—or not doing—something. I think the dictionary implies that it's a “reason.” However, in reality, an excuse usually turns out to be something other than the real reason that motivates your actions (or lack thereof). For example, let's say that your excuse for being late to work is due to traffic. Well, that's not truly the reason you didn't make it to work on time. The reason you were late is because you left your home without enough time to allow for traffic. Excuses are never the reason for why you did or didn't do something. They're just a revision of the facts that you make up in order to help yourself feel better about what happened (or didn't). Making excuses won't change your situation; only getting to the real reason behind it can do this. Excuses are for people who refuse to take responsibility for their life and how it turns out. Slaves and victims make excuses—and will forever be destined to having leftovers and others' scraps." - Grant Cardone
"There can never be enough wood on your fire. You can never take too much action or accumulate too much success. There is no such thing as being talked or written about excessively, being covered too frequently, receiving too much authority, or working too much. These are simply claims that mediocre people make in order to justify their own decisions to be happy with the status quo." - Grant Cardone
"When bad things happen to good people, I assure you that the good people had more to do with it than they take responsibility for." - Grant Cardone
"Assume control and increase responsibility by adopting the position that you make all things happen, even those things you have previously considered to not be under your control." - Grant Cardone
"Scripts for assorted boundary behavior: Saying No “I have other priorities, but I am sending good vibes for you to figure this one out.” “As you know, it’s my busy season at work. So, unfortunately, I won’t be able to help you out with the event.” “No, I’m sorry; I definitely can’t.” Interruptions “Can I please finish that story? Once I finish, I’m all ears for your story about Bob.” “When you interrupt me, it makes me feel like you’re not really listening. I would like to request that you stop.” Passive-Aggression Disguised as Teasing “That wasn’t funny to me, and I don’t appreciate it.” “Hey, you might be joking, and I am still telling you that I don’t like it and want you to stop.” - Terri Cole
"Silencing the advice giver: If you want to share news or a personal dilemma with a pal, relative, or colleague who is often quick to give you their unsolicited opinion, you can set them up for success by starting with a qualifier, such as: “I have a situation I want to share with you. Can you just listen with compassion, please?” “I want to share what is going on for me and ask that you simply listen without offering advice or criticism. I’d really appreciate that.” If you don’t preface the conversation with your desire, either because you forgot or it feels too confronting, you can halt any auto-advice (cuz you know it’s coming) with: “At the moment, I’m not looking for feedback. I would love it if you could just lend a compassionate ear.” In relationships, especially romantic ones, where the other party has a well-established fixer role, you may want to offer more context about what you’re striving for: “I love that you are always game to help me out. What I’d appreciate right now is for you to listen and have faith that I’ll come to the answer on my own.” - Terri Cole
"The 3 Rs. Recognize. What’s not working for you? How do you feel in your body? Are you reminded of a historical situation, and is that contributing to the sensations in your body? Focus on you and your feelings, instead of judging and making the other person wrong or bad. This is about increasing your self-knowledge and understanding what is good for you—and what’s not. Listening to your body can prompt you to get curious about your experience and also to interrupt your normal way of operating, which creates the opening for something better. Release. Be brave and willing to step out of your comfort zone. Find and release the physical feeling by breathing deeply into that spot until it expands. Let go of what’s familiar, whether a limiting belief or an old behavioral pattern. Identify any transference, or Repeating Boundary Pattern. Remember that now is not then. Tell yourself, “That’s just old stuff,” and let it go so that you can be in a more thoughtful and strategic mindset. Respond. Choose to speak and act from a more mindful and conscious place. Make a simple request. State your preference, desire, or deal-breaker. Take a new action." - Terri Cole
"Gratitude Practice Among: Equally important is developing a regular practice of recognizing all that is right in your life, right now. Take a moment to conjure your real feelings of gratitude for the experiences, people, or places in your life... Did anything shift? Personally, every time I think about a baby laughing, I get a hit of joy. Remember: where your attention goes, your energy flows. When you’re feeling low, use this exercise to amplify your gratitude and elevate your mood." - Terri Cole
"Many people get confused about the difference between shame and guilt, so let me clarify: guilt feels like you did something wrong, while shame feels like you, as a person, are wrong." - Terri Cole
"Harry Emerson Fosdick said that a person wrapped up in himself makes a pretty small package." - Andrew Sobel
"Listen aggressively. Listen attentively. Listen to the silence. Listen with your eyes. Listen!" - Andrew Sobel
"People crave two things above all else. They seek appreciation and they want someone to listen to them." - Andrew Sobel
"‘What do you think?’”.... Those four words, What do you think?, are powerful. You are seeking an opinion. The person you're talking with wants you to listen. You've heard about people who talk too much. You never heard about a person who listens too much." - Andrew Sobel
"Good questions challenge your thinking. They reframe and redefine the problem. They throw cold water on our most dearly held assumptions, and force us out of our traditional thinking. They motivate us to learn and discover more. They remind us of what is most important in our lives." - Andrew Sobel
"Good questions challenge your thinking. They reframe and redefine the problem. They throw cold water on our most dearly held assumptions, and force us out of our traditional thinking. They motivate us to learn and discover more. They remind us of what is most important in our lives." - Andrew Sobel
Systems thinking takes into account the structure of the system, the agents and their interactions/incentives, and the dynamics of the system (a system’s behavior over time).
It's important to understand and honor the fact that reality doesn't reward effort. It rewards utility and effectiveness.
“Indian researchers investigating the “biochemistry of belief”—a phrase I love because it captures the mind-body connection so precisely—wrote that “each and every tiny cell in our body is perfectly and absolutely aware of our thoughts, feelings, and of course, our beliefs….” - Deena Kastor
“I won, crossing the finish line with my arms raised. My time was 14:54. I’d broken the world record held by Paula, a competitor whom, two weeks earlier, I hadn’t considered beating... I caught my breath, then a television camera was on me... My mind, though, was on the thrill of having pushed myself to a new level and could immediately see beyond it to the next. This was a positive mind at work, a mind that after six years of being steeped in belief knew that even a world record did not cap my potential, and amidst the celebration, I was already thinking about the next chase.” - Deena Kastor
“I got out fast. Later, I heard that Lornah Kiplagat from Kenya was in front of me for the first 400 meters. I don’t remember her at all. In fact, I don’t remember any of the competitors. I looked up Grand Avenue to the first turn, a left, in the distance, and ran to it. I took the turn, then looked for the next target. A lamppost. I chased it, working to extend myself with each step out of the speed I was in and into a faster one.” - Deena Kastor
“The answer came on the plane ride home. I had gone to the starting line knowing I could run with the best in the world but not believing I could beat them. I had limited myself by setting a goal based on my competitors. It was a natural thing to do. A competitor’s goal is to beat the competition. But I’d settled for achieving my goal instead of pushing toward my limit. It occurred to me that while we need a plan B to turn to when races aren’t going well, we should also have a plan when our strength exceeds our expectations.” - Deena Kastor
"The course was full of sharp turns and hills, like a roller coaster, and I pictured myself as a fast-flying car, zipping around turns, chugging up hills, and barreling down them." - Deena Kastor
"Freedom must be sought out - freedom from saviors, teachers, leaders; freedom from the self-enclosing walls of goo dand bad; freedom from authority and imitation; freedom from self, the cause of conflict and pain... we are not saying it is right or wrong but are considering its cause and effect, are we not?" - J. Krishnamurti
"You know what caring is? If you care, when you plant a tree, you care for itl you cherish it; you nourish it... You have to dig deep before you plant, then see the soil is right, then plant, then protect it, then watch it every day, look after it as if it were a part of your whole being." - J. Krishnamurti
"As long as success is our goal we cannot be rid of fear, for the desire to succeed inevitably breeds the fear of failure." - J. Krishnamurti
"To have an open mind is more important than learning; and we can have an open mind, not by cramming it full of information, but by being aware of our own thoughts and feelings, by carefully observing ourselves and the influences about us, by listening to others, by watching the rich and the poor, the powerful and the lowly." - J. Krishnamurti
"Training the intellect does not result in intelligence. Rather, intelligence comes into being when one acts in perfect harmony, both intellectually and emotionally. There is a vast distinction between intellect and intelligence. Intellect is merely thought functioning independently of emotion." - J> Krishnamurti
"Free divers condition their bodies to tolerate high levels of CO2 using timed breath-hold exercises called static tables. Essentially, it’s interval training. Breathe two minutes, take four huge breaths, hold breath for two minutes; breathe one and a half minutes, take four huge breaths, hold for two and a half minutes, and so on. The aim of static tables is to increase breath-holding time while decreasing the rest interval. Within a few weeks, I hit my goal of three-minute breath-holds with only one-minute rests in between." - James Nestor
"THE CTENOPHORA, THE WALKING FISH, the shoal of glittering squids, the vertical feeders—all seem to me like outlandish rarities, but in fact they represent the norm here. The bathypelagic and the sunless depths below house 85 percent of the ocean’s life, the largest living space on the planet. There are an estimated 30 million undiscovered species in the ocean but only 1.4 million known species on land. The largest animal communities on the planet and greatest number of individuals live below three thousand feet." - James Nestor
"ASTRONAUTS LEARNED TO DEAL with the psychological and physical trauma of space travel by focusing on specific tasks, reminding themselves to stay rational, and working and communicating with other astronauts as much as possible." - James Nestor
"Though the brain represents only about 2 percent of the body’s weight, it uses 20 percent of the body’s oxygen." - James Nestor
"Scientists have discovered that every cell in the human body also contains an electrical charge. Tibetan Buddhist monks who practice the Bön tradition of Tum-mo meditation have learned to focus these cellular charges to warm their bodies during bitterly cold winters. Researchers in England have discovered that by controlling the output of cellular charges in our bodies, humans can not only create heat but treat many chronic diseases." - James Nestor
“Listen,” Prinsloo says urgently. She grabs me by the shoulder and looks directly at me. “You need to set the right intention now. They can sense your intent.” I know how dangerous human-whale interactions can be, but I strive to set my fear aside, calm myself, and think good thoughts." - James Nestor
“There’s a story,” I say, “that major league managers all tell their players these days.” I go slowly. I speak too fast when I speak in front of people. I spoke way too fast in spring training, and during all the pregame shift speeches. But I’m going slow now. After every clause. I take a pause. To hit my marks. To keep my meter. “It goes like this: When the explorer Hernán Cortés landed in Mexico, with plans to defeat the Aztecs and colonize the New World, he ordered his ships be burnt. This way his men would have no way to flee. The only direction they could go was forward. The only option was victory. History says it worked, but I hate this story. This is a story about a leader who didn’t trust his men, didn’t think they would be loyal and fight on their own, couldn’t do the job unless some manager at the top took away their agency. “Cortés was selfish as fuck. “Cortés, to me, is the Pacifics, telling other leagues’ managers that their players aren’t good enough to move up, keeping them all stuck here. “That’s not us. That’s not our team. “We want to do everything we can to get you guys out of here, and we pay for that. We’ve lost a lot of good players because of it. But we’re not going to be Cortés. Cortés was a bad guy. “There’s a different story I like a lot more. It’s about a guy named Hugh Glass. “Hugh Glass was a frontiersman in the 1800s, before the West had been settled. He went to the coldest parts of the country, to North Dakota and Montana, where the Indians were violent and the winters were cruel and the grizzly bears were everywhere. In 1823, he surprised one of those grizzly bears, and she charged at him, threw him to the ground, mauled him, and left him near death. The party he was with was sure he would die, so they left him. Only two men stayed behind, to dig his grave, and to bury him. But after they were attacked by Indians they fled, too. They took his rifle, his knife, and all his supplies. Hugh Glass woke up abandoned. He had no food or supplies. His wounds were festering. They were so deep you could see his exposed ribs. He was two hundred miles from another American. “Glass could have given up. Instead, he looked around and said fuck it, because Glass knew one thing: There is no such thing as almost dead. There is dead, and there is alive, and if you’re alive you have a chance. “He set his own broken leg and began crawling. To prevent gangrene, he laid his wounded back on a rotting log and let maggots eat away his dead flesh. With no weapons, he still managed to drive two wolves from a dead bison and ate the meat. He fixed his eyes on an isolated mountain far off in the distance and crawled toward it. It took him six weeks. He survived mostly on roots. “We know this story because he lived. And we know it because people remember. Records get left and stories get told. Your story will get told. Baseball men in major league front offices will know it and scouts will know it. People you know will know it, and people you meet in the future will find out about it. Everything the world remembers about you as baseball players is happening right now. “Right now, we get to decide whether they’re going to remember a team that got frustrated, that felt abandoned, that gave up and let San Rafael be the heroes; or whether they’re going to remember a team that said Fuck no, patched themselves up, and made themselves the heroes. “There’s always a part where the hero looks defeated. Always. Every story has it. Where you guys are now is not new and it’s not unusual; it’s the starting point for every third-act turnaround that this world has ever known. “A couple days ago, I was listening to a tape recording of our dugout during the third game of the season. That was the game when we fell behind five runs in the first, and then we were down 9-2 in the fifth. The amazing thing about that recording was how loud our dugout was; we were talking, we were encouraging, we were rattling the other team. We sounded like a team that knew it was going to win. You might be thinking, yeah, we had Feh in the dugout, and Feh brought that energy. And it was Feh that I heard on that tape. But it was also Baps. It was Gonzo. It was Schwieger. It was Sean Conroy. It was Kristian. It was Moch. And even though I didn’t hear him, I’m sure that Hurley was there doing his death stare the whole time, freaking Pittsburg out with how intense he was. It was Hurley who singled in the tenth, stole third, and scored on a wild pitch to win that game 10-9. “You guys have this in you. I swear to you, I see it, Theo sees it, Yoshi sees it, and everybody’s going to see it. When you go out there today, you just need to see it yourself. I want to hear that dugout that’s confident, that never stops talking. I don’t care if you’re a rookie, I don’t care if you’re new, I don’t care if you’re hitting .200, I don’t care if you’re scared: I need to hear you today, and every day for the rest of this season. Don’t worry if you sound stupid. The only rule is it has to work. So let’s do this.” - Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
"From there, it’s dominance. Sean calmly walks off the mound after the first inning and asks Sam for a pen; he keeps a broken-bat tally on the bill of his cap, and he just got one." - Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
"we’re here every day at the same time the players are, with sunscreen and thermoses and afternoon snacks—a plastic bag of mushrooms for Ben, who is increasingly revealed to have unusual tastes. We don’t show up late and we don’t leave early; we don’t take long lunches or long phone calls, even though there’s little happening yet... Before we ask the players to trust us, we need them to see how hard we’re trying." - Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
"...like a preschooler remembering his mantra: “When you feel so mad that you wanna roar, take a deep breath and count to four.” - Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
"We have a friend, Russell Carleton, a clinical psychologist by day and a sabermetric writer on the side. He consulted for the Cleveland Indians for a while, and has since written about clubhouse chemistry for us at Baseball Prospectus. Ben writes to him in mid-May: “Our players report to spring training this weekend, and then we have about 10 days before Opening Day. Do you have any recommendations or suggestions? Surveys or personality tests we should administer? Spring training group activities? You name it, we’re probably willing to try it.” Russell immediately writes back with some suggestions. “As hokey as they seem, there’s evidence that those corporate icebreaker things actually work,” he says. “My personal favorite is ‘two truths and a lie.’ You write two truths and one lie about yourself on an index card and walk around to meet everyone else and vote for which one you think is the lie. Then everyone reveals which things are which. In a group of 25–30 guys, it will get kinda bawdy, but whatever. Everyone gets a turn. Everyone reveals a little bit about themselves, but has control over how much. It’s a good, safe, get-to-know-you game. “I’d recommend water balloons one day. It will be summer. Cheap and so much fun. Guys love them because you can throw them at each other, but it’s not an actual thing that will hurt you. If there’s a theme to any of this, it’s ‘12-year-old birthday party.’ The baseball stuff kinda takes care of itself. “Start a star sticker chart. 10 stars and you get a burrito. Use food to your advantage. Stars can be given for anything you want to reinforce. Yes, I’m treating them like 4-year-olds. The first rule of child psychology is that it applies throughout all of life. They will scoff at it and three days later be checking out how many stars they have. “Have an absolute non-sequitur item that is given out to someone each day, by team vote. Funny hats always work. Smith gets the funny hat because he went 3-for-4. A ritual will develop around the presentation of this hat. Go with it. When I worked day care, we had ‘The Golden Dustpan’ for the cleanest room. The kids went crazy over the Golden Dustpan. You might also try a crazy toilet plunger (spray paint works wonders…). The guy who gets it gets to keep it in his locker as a sign that he had the best day, but with the caveat that if the toilet gets clogged up, he’s gotta go in there and plunge it out. A little scatological humor. You are both being honored and humiliated. “Eat together as a team as much as possible. For the first few days, have a ‘don’t sit with the same person twice’ rule. Watch to make sure that everyone has a buddy. Actively approach guys who are friendly, team-leader types and ask them to keep an eye out for loners. Some guys do like to just be by themselves and that’s okay, but loneliness might be the most dangerous thing a baseball team has to guard against." - Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
"The boys scatter to their positions, and we migrate to scouting spots thirty feet behind them, where we can see their movements, gauge their arm strength, and hear everything they give away in their small talk. (“Fucking thing took a shit hop on me,” one says, and we scratch out his name. There are going to be a lot of bad hops this year, and it’s way too early for complaining.)" - Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller
“The only thing more powerful than calling your shot is recalling a shot. What you just did is recall the shot from Wednesday. Always savor your shots, so you can take advantage of this most powerful tool in your armor, the recall.” - David L. Cook
"There is only one thing in golf that you control, and that is your thoughts." - David L. Cook
“Take the black book and after every few shots write something that comes to mind with regard to what you sensed or felt. Get rid of other people’s words and find your own. Be creative, use word pictures, illustrations, anything that will help to return to this place and time.” - David L. Cook
"Finally he asked if I was warmed up. I said I was. He then asked me why I gripped the club in the manner in which I did. I said that I hadn’t given it much thought, that it just felt good this way. “Completely unacceptable,” he replied. Thinking he was talking about my grip, I asked him what was wrong with it. He said, “The grip is fine. It is your answer that is unacceptable.” With this he pulled out a small pink note pad, scribbled my name on the top page with the word FIRED underneath, tore it off, and handed it to me. I sheepishly took the piece of paper while asking why I was being handed a pink slip at our first lesson. “Son,” he said with a certainty to his voice, “You just got fired. You are the CEO of a potential multimillion dollar company. If you want to be rehired by the end of this day you better learn to answer your board of directors with a competent and well-thought-out answer to such a strategic and crucial question. If you want to lead a successful organization, you better build a bullet-proof foundation for why you do what you do and how you do it. Or you should hang it up right now.” - David L. Cook
"His emphasis was always about playing the game in front of the ball, not the game behind the ball." - David L. Cook
"As I hit shot after shot with the skill of a true marksman, I was struck by the simplicity of the game. I chose a target, felt the swing, and allowed it to happen." - David L. Cook
"The same goes for any hotbed of talent development: all that’s required are ideas, information, passion, and reps." - Travis Lindbergh
"In 1988, Braves pitcher Tom Glavine led the major leagues in losses. But in the spring of ’89, while standing in the outfield during batting practice, he picked up a ball that rolled toward him and happened to grip it in an unusual way, with his middle and ring fingers along the seams. He threw it into the infield, and the release felt right. He’d discovered his signature circle changeup. “If I hadn’t found that pitch, picked up the ball that way… I don’t know,” Glavine told Sports Illustrated in 1992. In 1991, he’d led the majors in wins, and twenty-five years after his pitching epiphany, he entered the Hall of Fame."
"More happily, Hall of Famer Harry Heilmann was a run-of-the-mill regular for several seasons before his Detroit Tigers teammate Ty Cobb, newly named to the position of player-manager in 1921, had him back up in the batter’s box, move his feet closer together, hold his hands farther away from his body, and crouch while waiting for the pitch. Using the new stance, Heilmann surpassed Cobb to become the most potent hitter of the next ten years not named Ruth or Hornsby." - Travis Lindbergh
"In his 1970 book The Science of Hitting, Williams recalled that Hornsby, whom Rickey had rebuilt, taught him, “A great hitter isn’t born, he’s made. He’s made out of practice, fault correction, and confidence.”21 Williams tried to impart the same lesson to his academy audience. “He talked about not taking one hundred swings a day, but five hundred swings a day,” Stewart remembers." - Travis Lindbergh
"Even so, Wrigley continued to rebel against orthodoxy, installing retired air force colonel Robert W. Whitlow as the team’s athletic director. Whitlow, who was supposed to oversee the entire organization and report to Wrigley directly, purchased exercise equipment, formulated workout and nutrition regimens, and proposed applying psychology to the team’s operations, but like Griffith before him, he was largely ignored and resigned after the 1964 season, prompting Wrigley to lament that “baseball people are slow to accept anyone with new ideas.” - Travis Lindbergh
"In 1938, he invited the first failure by hiring Coleman R. Griffith, a groundbreaking researcher in the fledgling field of sports psychology, to consult for the Cubs on implementing a rigorous training program. As Professor Richard J. Puerzer recounted in a 2006 essay for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), Griffith’s work included “filming players, recommending improved training regimes, the documentation of player progress through charts and diagrams, and changes in batting and pitching practice in order to make the practice sessions more closely resemble game conditions.”10 The psychologist was speaking the language of advanced player development about eight decades ahead of his time." - Ben Lindbergh
"Nitric oxide is a powerhouse molecule that widens capillaries, increases oxygenation, and relaxes the smooth muscles. Humming increases the release of nitric oxide in the nasal passages 15-fold. There is the most effective, and simple, method for increasing this essential gas. Breathe normally through the nose and hum, any song or sound. Practice for at least five minutes a day, more if possible. It may sound ridiculous, and feel ridiculous, and annoy those nearby, but the effects can be potent." - James Nestor
"Here’s the information: To practice Wim Hof’s breathing method, start by finding a quiet place and lying flat on your back with a pillow under your head. Relax the shoulders, chest, and legs. Take a very deep breath into the pit of your stomach and let it back out just as quickly. Keep breathing this way for 30 cycles. If possible, breathe through the nose; if the nose feels obstructed, try pursed lips. Each breath should look like a wave, with the inhale inflating the stomach, then the chest. You should exhale all the air out in the same order. At the end of 30 breaths, exhale to the natural conclusion, leaving about a quarter of the air left in the lungs, then hold that breath for as long as possible. Once you’ve reached your breathhold limit, take one huge inhale and hold it another 15 seconds. Very gently, move that fresh breath of air around the chest and to the shoulders, then exhale and start the heavy breathing again. Repeat the whole pattern three or four rounds and add in some cold exposure (cold shower, ice bath, naked snow angels) a few times a week." - James Nestor
"When Buddhist monks chant their most popular mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, each spoken phrase lasts six seconds, with six seconds to inhale before the chant starts again. The traditional chant of Om, the “sacred sound of the universe” used in Jainism and other traditions, takes six seconds to sing, with a pause of about six seconds to inhale." - James Nestor
"The perfect breath is this: Breathe in for about 5.5 seconds, then exhale for 5.5 seconds. That’s 5.5 breaths a minute for a total of about 5.5 liters of air." - James Nestor
"Every healthy cell in the body is fueled by oxygen, and this is how it’s delivered. The entire cruise takes about a minute, and the overall numbers are staggering. Inside each of our 25 trillion red blood cells are 270 million hemoglobin, each of which has room for four oxygen molecules. That’s a billion molecules of oxygen boarding and disembarking within each red blood cell cruise ship." - James Nestor
"This book will explore many things: evolution, medical history, biochemistry, physiology, physics, athletic endurance, and more. But mostly it will explore you. By the law of averages, you will take 670 million breaths in your lifetime. Maybe you’ve already taken half of those. Maybe you’re on breath 669,000,000. Maybe you’d like to take a few million more." - James Nestor
"Excellence is mundane. Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized hole".
"Talent is indistinguishable from its affects. One cannot see talent exists until after its affects have become obvious".
"Different levels of sport are qualitatively distinct. So consider three dimensions: technique, discipline, and attitude".
"Excellence is achieved through qualitative differentiation, not through quantitative increases in activity"
Three places excellence does NOT come from: "1. Excellence is not the product of socially deviant personalities. 2. Excellence does not result from quantitative changes in behavior. 3. Excellence does not result from some special inner quality of the athlete. "Talent" is one common name for this quality; sometimes we talk of a "gift," or of "natural ability." - Robert F. Chambliss
"We like people who are similar to us... Many sales training programs now urge trainees to "mirror and match" the customer's body posture, mood, and verbal style, as similiarities along each of these dimensions have been shown to lead to positive results." - Robert Cialdini
"The principle of social proof: It states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct... We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it." - Robert Cialdini
"Whenever one takes a stand that is visible to others, there arises a drive to maintain that stand in order to look like a consistent person." - Robert Cialdini
"Observers trying to decide what a man is like look closely at his actions... His behavior tells him about himself; it is a primary source of information about his beliefs and values and attitudes." - Robert Cialdini
"For the salesperson, the strategy is to obtain a large purchase by starting with a small one. Almost any small sale will do, because the purpose of that small transaction is not profit. It is commitment." - Robert Cialdini
"Inconsistency is commonly thought to be an undesirable personality trait... On the other side, a high degree of consistency is normally associated with personal and intellectual strength." - Robert Cialdini
"The fourth agreement: Always do your best... it is action that is going to make you feel intensely happy. When you always do your best, you take action." - Don Miguel Ruiz
"The third agreement: Don't make assumptions... The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth." - Don Miguel Ruiz
"The second agreement: don't take anything personally... you are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you. When you truly understand this, and refuse to take things personally, you can hardly be hurt by the careless comments and actions of others." - Don Miguel Ruiz
"The first agreement: Be impeccable with your word... when you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself... how much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word." - Don Miguel Ruiz
"Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive - the risk to be alive and express what we really are." - Don Miguel Ruiz
"We keep searching and searching when everything is already within us." - Don Miguel Ruiz
"The quality of one's answers can only be determined by the quality of one's questions"
"Have you every noticed how we judge the bad guys by their actions and the good guys by their intentions?"
"Our portion of history is being written today. What will be remembered about your contribution?"
"The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in government is to live under the government of worse men"
"As philosopher George Santayana said 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'"
"Simply stated, the past is what is real and true, while history is merely what someone recorded." - Andy Andrews
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"Leaders who believe teamwork is important and expect their people to be humble, hungry, and smart should come right out and say so. They should tell everyone. Employees. Vendors. Partners. Customers. Prospective customers. Prospective employees. Everyone." - Patrick Lencioni
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"Three outcomes of evaluation: 1) confirming that the employee is an ideal team player, 2) helping the employee improve and become one, or 3) deciding to move the employee out." - Patrick Lencioni
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"I've found that, in most cases, managers greatly underestimate the impact that a comment or quick gesture of approval has on employees. They'll spend weeks trying to tweak an annual bonus program or some other compensation system, believing that their employees are coin-operated, but they'll neglect to stop someone during a meeting and say, "Hey, that's a fantastic example of hunger. We should all try to be more like that." - Patrick Lencioni
"Truly humble people do not see themselves as greater than they are, but neither do they discount their talents and contributions. CS Lewis addressed this misunderstanding about humility when he said, "Humility isn't thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less." - Patrick Lencioni
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"I'm not exactly sure what a hag is, Craig. Be a little more specific." - Patrick Lencioni
"At United, we expect to win every game." - Alex Ferguson (winningest British manager of all-time)
"In the 36 hours before a game there was a rhythm to our preparation. We'd show a short, condensed video of the opponents to the players before we practised and then, at the hotel, on the evening of the game, we'd centre their attention on the things they needed to pay heed to... I always liked to dwell on an opponent's weaknesses rather than its strengths. While it was.good to look at video of some of the lethal players we would find ourselves up against, ultimately no battles are won by mounting a sterling defence. The way to win battles, wars and games is by attacking and overrunning the opposing side. So I would always dwell on our opponents' weaknesses - partly to exploit them and partly to impart in my players a sense of what was possible. If you overemphasise opponents' strengths, you just plant seeds of doubt in your players." - Alex Ferguson (winningest sports manager in British history)
"For me drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, enormous powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat." - Alex Ferguson (winningest manager in British sports history)
"I placed discipline above all else and it might have cost us several titles. If I had to repeat things, I'd do precisely the same, because once you bid farewell to discipline you say goodbye to success and set the stage for anarchy." - Alex Ferguson (winningest British manager in history)
"Watching others, listening to their advice and reading about people are three of the best things I ever did." - Alex Ferguson (winningest British manager in history)
"If you are leading people, it helps to have a sense of you they are - the circumstances in which they were raised, the actions that will draw out the best in them, and the remarks that will cause them to be spooked. The only way to figure this out is by two underrated actitivities: listening and watching." - Alex Ferguson (winningest British manager in history)
"It's Don Juan, who says, "Each path is only one of a million paths. Therefore, you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path. If you feel that you must now follow it, you need not stay with it under any circumstances. Any path is only a path. There is no affront to yourself or others in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear and ambition. I warn you: Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself and yourself alone one question. It is this: Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same. They lead nowhere. They are paths going through the brush or into the brush or under the brush. Does this path have a heart is the only questions. If it doesn't, then it is of no use." If your path is love the goal is unimportant, the process will have heart." - Leo Buscaglia
"I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate - it's apathy. It's not giving a damn. If somebody hates me, they must "feel" something about me or they couldn't possibly hate. Therefore, there's some way in which I can get to them. If you dn't like the scene you're in, if you're unhappy, if you're lonely, if you don't feel that things are happening, change your scene. Paint a new backdrop. Surround yourself with new actors. Write a new play. And if it's not a good play, get the hell off the stage and write another one." - Leo Buscaglia
"The hardest thing to be is what other people want you to be, but that's the scene we are living in. Are you really you or are you what people have told you you are? And are you interested in really knowing who you are because if you are, it is the happiest trip of your life." - Leo Buscaglia
"Everything is filtered through me, and so the greater I am, the more I have to give. The greater knowledge I have, the more I'm going to have to give. The greater understanding I have, the greater is my abilit yto teach others and to make myself the most fantastic, the most beautiful, the most wondrous, the most tender human being in the world." - Leo Buscaglia
Our Win The Week email comes out tomorrow. All fear, frustration, inconsistency, stress, discouragement, anxiety, and anger come from out-of-control thinking. Out-of-control thinking leads to out-of-control performance. Each Sunday I'll send you an email to make sure your mind stays disciplined for when you need it the most. Join the Win The Week Club at www.pazikperformancegroup.com/wtw
"In order to go our hardest, we need to know when we can finally stop." - Sam Sommers
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"When we encounter an emotionally turbulent event such as a death in the family, a primitive set of brain and hormonal responses is activated. We get a surge of cortisol, the stress hormone. This can be dirorienting; after a rush of cortisol, people describe a feeling akin to an altered state of consciousness, as the brain/body system kicks into emergency mode. This feeling subsides after a few hours, however, allowing us to continue with life as we know it fairly quickly.... How so? Bonanno has proposed and found evidence of four distinct trajectories of response in the wake of a potentially traumatic event. There's chronic distress, an immediately high level of dysfunction that never really goes away. There's delayed reaction, whereby an individual initially experiences only a moderate level of grief and disruption but then gets worse rather than better as time goes by. There's recovery, the gradual process of working through acute distress, in the "let nature run its course" manner. And, finally, there's resilience, the absence of major symptoms or dysfunction." My note: What they found is that people respond with resilience more than they are respond with the other three combined. So when pros go out there and perform after a traumatic event happens in their lives, it's not that they're special. You can do that too! We are all resilient. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. All it takes is for you to step into your life and get back to doing what you do on a daily basis." - Sam Sommers
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"Praise can boost performance in the classroom, just as it can on the home ice of South Bend - but not when it's based on simply showing up, and not when it frames success in terms of fixed levels of aptitude. To maximize impact, praise has to be linked to effort. In other words, contrary to intuition, it's problematic to tell a kid she's a natural athlete. Or that he's a winner. Becuase when performance-based praise or reward is framed in terms of fixed ability, the stage is set not for perseverance but for future letdown. It's those kids praised for effort who are more likely to show grit and less likely to skirt a challenge down the road. To lapse into coach-speak: They're the ones who develop sticktoittiveness when the going gets tough." - Sam Sommers
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"Unlike the football program [at Notre Dame], the Irsh hockey team is a more recent success story. For decades it skated bak and forth between varsity and club status, and in the early '80s Lefty's teams started to go sideways. Despite heralded recruits and stars... the Irish struggled. In 79-80, the team won 14 of its first 16 games, and the season was pregnant with promise. But things took a hairpin turn, with several lon losing streaks culminating in a final record of 18-19-1. The Irish then endured losing seasons of 18-20-1 and 13-21-2. Lefty was puzzled, and the seniors were left groping for any solution that might help them finish their college careers on a winning note. The co-captains of the team approached some of their psychology professors and explained the team's failure to fulfill the potential of its celebrated recruiting class. It was an inspired, if unusal, course of action... two of the psychologists, Charles Crowell and Chris Anderson, specialized in behavioral management within organizations.... After hearing the hockey players' lament, the professors - as psychologists do - asked the captains to engage in a bit of self-diagnosis. What was the team's biggest on-ice limitation? If the cocaptains could change one thing about the way the team played, what would it be? Their answer: Checking. The captains said that increasing legal body checks was critical to improving the team's performance. More checking would disrupt opponents more and create more opportunities for ND to regain control of the puck. This would lead to more Irish goals, which would lead to more victories.... the first step was to create a player feedback intervention. Each Monday following a weekend home game, the captains posted graphs in the locker room showing each player's hit rate... second, in the middle portion of the season, the researchers moved on to individualized goal setting. This intervention required meetings between the captains and each player during which the player was asked to come up with a challenging but achievable hitrate objective. This target was then added to each player's locker room graph in the form of a bold line, giving him a goal to aim for in each game (and to compare his performance to afterward). Finally, the researchers introduced performance-contingent praise. For the last two games of the season - a number increased to six in a follow-up study the next year - Coach Smith spent a few minutes during the pregame dinners lavishing public recognition on specific players based on their hit rates. Crowell, who's still a professor at ND, recalls that Lefty was "reluctant at first," but the coach played along. His praise was specific to the checking. It wasn't "great job out there" or "hell of a game." It was targeted praise for specific players whose stats indicated that they had been aggressive. "Great job on the boards, Number 68," or "Hell of a difference you made out there on the ice with those three checks in the third period." The effects of these interventions were impressive. They led to improved player performance, in the form of an overall 82 percent increase in hit rate. The Irish played more aggressively, but it was a controlled aggression: Researchers found no evidence of an increase in penalty minutes after any of the interventions; only clean hits were on the rise. Most importantly, the 81-82 Irish finish 23-15-2, giving their graduating seniors their first winning season. What helped turn ND hockey around? Concrete feedback. Specific goals tied to performance. And praise linked directly to increased effort." - Sam Sommers
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"Lardon walked us through the basic effects of arousal. "Think of the brain as a series of highways," he explained. "You've got the thalamus - you can think of that as a relay station; the cortex, a place where consciousness, attention, and processing occue; and the amygdala, which also helps with decisions but plays a big role in all emotional responce." Under non-arousing circumstances, Lardon said, the following oversimplified series of events might occur: We perceive a stimulus in our environment; it's relayed to the thalamus; the cortex helps us digest it and ponder, at least briefly, the potential repercussions of how we might respond; the amygdala weighs in if an emotional response is called for; and we respond. Following this examples, Lardon continued, "you decide that it's best not to give the umpire the finger becuase there are consequences, so you don't do it... you just don't go crazy." Arousal, Lardon says, "short circuits that pathway," making us more prone to outbursts (such as flipping off that ump). When the arousal is sexual, emotion and imagery inundate the cortex, "revving it up," as Lardon put it. In the midst of this bombardment of excitement? The cortex is flooded, distorting rational thinking. "Bottom line is, you don't think the best," said Lardon. But in many respects, the effects of competitive arousal are potentially more dramatic, Lardon suggested to us. Referring to the thalamus, the brain's relay station, "the fight or flight type response blows open the gate - going directly to the amygdala, or 'fear factory' - and we don't really go through the cortex at all," he explained. So while the brain ordinarily takes the high road from thalamus to cortex to amygdala, a tense and anxiety-producing situation sends us down the lower express route from thalamus directly to amygdala. From an evolutionary perspective, this rerouting switch has served us well: When the prehistoric caveman saw the dangerous bear, he didn't stop to ponder various courses of action; the amygdala told him to be fearful and run... but when the modern caveman takes a questionnable called third strike in the late innings of a playoff nail-biter, he blows open this very same gate. And bypassing the cortex means an increased chance that the batter, too, gets bypassed - for the duration of the game, after being ejected for cursing out the ump." - Sam Sommers
I heard a coach say yesterday that coaches want performance skills, they don't necessarily want communication skills... my answer to that is it's going to be really hard to get the most out of your athletes if you aren't a good communicator! That's the reason I created a free 8 week mini-course on communication skills. Join the course at pazikperformancegroup.com/mastercommunication
If you're looking to stay sharp this season or just today in general, you might want to check it with your "Totalitarian Ego." Tony Greenwald wrote a paper called just that, "The Totalitarian Ego." Here's what they say in the book:
"What [Tony] proposes is that our typical self-views "correspond disturbingly to thought control and propaganda devies that are considered to be defining characteristics of a totalitarian political system." Specifically, Greenwald suggests that our personal histories - the autobiographical stories we tell ourselves about past performance and how we've gotten to where we are today - are replete with revision, fabrication, and an unrealistically egocentric perspective.... Here are but two examples: 1. We always think we're the center of attention.... tyrannical rulers aren't the only ones who think the world revolves around them. Most of us do - it's a consequence of spending much of our day engaged in internal conversation but lacking insight into the monologues everyone else is producing. 2. We think we're more powerful than we are. We regularly succumb to the illusion of control, overconfident in the role we play in outcomes around us.... regardless of the actual scoreboard, athletes looking for a reason to stay sharp can almost always find it through a quick totalitarian infusion of perceived underappreciation." - Sam Sommers
Our Win The Week email comes out tomorrow. All fear, frustration, inconsistency, stress, discouragement, anxiety, and anger come from out-of-control thinking. Out-of-control thinking leads to out-of-control performance. Each Sunday I'll send you an email to make sure your mind stays disciplined for when you need it the most. Join the Win The Week Club at www.pazikperformancegroup.com/wtw
"You feel better, don't you?" Without looking at her he said "Yes." Her dress, her figure, the expression of her face, the tone of her voice, all revealed the same thing... "Forgive me," but said "Forego" and waved his hand, knowing that He whose understanding mattered would understand." - Tolstoy
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"An explanation would be possible if it could be said that I have not lived as I ought to. But it is impossible to say that," and he remembered all the legality, correctitude, and propriety of his life." - Tolstoy
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"Whenever the thought occurred to him, as it often did, that it all resulted from his not having lived as he ought to have done, he at once recalled the correctness of his whole life and dismissed so strange an idea." - Tolstoy
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"And he had to live thus all alone on the brink of an abyss, with no one who understood or pitied him." - Tolstoy
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"Her attitude was this: "You know," she would say to her friends, "Ivan Ilych can't do as other people do, and keep to the treatment prescribed for him. One day he'll take his drops and keep strictly to his diet and go to bed in good time, but the next day unless I watch him he'll suddenly forget his medicine, eat sturgeon—which is forbidden—and sit up playing cards till one o'clock in the morning." "Oh, come, when was that?" Ivan Ilych would ask in vexation. "Only once at Peter Ivanovich's." "And yesterday with Shebek." "Well, even if I hadn't stayed up, this pain would have kept me awake." "Be that as it may you'll never get well like that, but will always make us wretched." - Tolstoy
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"Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible." - Tolstoy
Our Win The Week email comes out tomorrow. All fear, frustration, inconsistency, stress, discouragement, anxiety, and anger come from out-of-control thinking. Out-of-control thinking leads to out-of-control performance. Each Sunday I'll send you an email to make sure your mind stays disciplined for when you need it the most. Join the Win The Week Club at www.pazikperformancegroup.com/wtw
"For one week, force yourself to go to sleep an hour earlier than normal and see how much better you feel the next day. Go through your calendar and cancel meetings and events that are not critical to your mission and at which your attendance isn't mandatory. Replace those appointments with personal time to recharge, recover, and refuel." - Dave Asprey
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"When you feel the urge to vent, complain, or think negative thoughts, seek forgiveness right away. If you don't find it, set a timer for five minutes and let loose. When the time is up, go back to being productive." - Dave Asprey
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"Put your phone into airplane mode before you go to bed, and keep it on airplane mode until you're down with your morning practice." - Dave Asprey
Thanks for listening. Our 6-week coaches course is getting up and running soon. Make sure you get on our short list to guarantee yourself a spot. You can check it out at https://www.pazikperformancegroup.com/6weekcoachescourse
"Begin a daily practice of doing something meaningful right after you wake up. Try journaling, meditating, doing visualizations, or writing down goals." - Dave Asprey