The Champion's Comeback

The contender sees all obstacles + setbacks as THREATS.

The champion sees those same obstacles + setbacks as CHALLENGES.

And that slight shift in mindset makes a HUGE difference.

Begs the question: How do you see obstacles + setbacks?

As a threat or as a challenge? I see setbacks as: _________________.

This is the essence of Confidence 101.

We need to KNOW we have what it takes to handle *whatever* life throws at us. Intense trust in our ability to not only deal with the challenges but to get STRONGER as a direct result of facing them.

Joseph Campbell-style (see Notes on The Power of Myth): “There is an important idea in Nietzsche, of Amor fati, the ‘love of your fate,’ which is in fact your life. As he says, if you say no to a single factor in your life, you have unraveled the whole thing. Furthermore, the more challenging or threatening the situation or context to be assimilated and affirmed, the greater the stature of the person who can achieve it. The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.”

Here’s to moving from the contender mindset to the champion mindset, swallowing whatever demons life is throwing at us and getting that much more powerful!

P.S. Here’s how Kelly McGonigal puts it in The Upside of Stress (see Notes): “If you believe that the demands of the situation exceed your resources, you will have a threat response. But if you believe you have the resources to succeed, you will have a challenge response.”

She also says: “Like a fight-or-flight response, a challenge response gives you energy and helps you perform under pressure. Your heart rate still rises, your adrenaline spikes, your muscles and brain get more fuel, and the feel-good chemicals surge. But it differs from a fight-or-flight response in a few important ways: You feel focused but not fearful. You also release a different ratio of stress hormones, including higher levels of DHEA, which helps you recover and learn from stress. This raises the growth index of your stress response, the beneficial ratio of stress hormones that can determine, in part, whether a stressful experience is strengthening or harmful…

People who report being in a flow state—a highly enjoyable state of being completely absorbed in what you are doing—display clear signs of a challenge response. Artists, athletes, surgeons, video gamers, and musicians all show this kind of stress response when they’re engaged in their craft or skill. Contrary to what many people expect, top performers in these fields aren’t physiologically calm under pressure; rather, they have strong challenge responses. The stress response gives them access to their mental and physical resources, and the result is increased confidence, enhanced concentration, and peak performance.”

Jim comes back to those 7 L’s throughout the book.

Let’s take a quick look at each of them now:

1. LET GO—release the mental brick

We need to let our disappointments go. The last point is over. It’s time to train your recovery. Build in systems to flip the off switch on what just happened and be present—focused on what needs to get done right.now to rock it.

2. LOOK FOR SUPPORT—build a winning team

Surround yourself with positive people. Remember that the fastest way to boost your grit is to join a gritty culture. Emotions are contagious. Get infected with the good stuff.

3. LOVE THE GAME—compete with purpose and passion

Pelé tells us: “Success is not [an] accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrificing, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”

4. LEARN—embrace a growth-mindset

It’s impossible to talk about coming back and not mention Carol Dweck and her research. See Notes on Self-Theories + Mindset for more. Remember that failure is just feedback. We win or we learn. Know you can grow.

5. LABOR—keep pounding the rock

The stonecutter pounds the rock again and again and again and again. Nothing happens for the first 100 blows. Then the stone cracks. Was it the 101st strike or all the preceding? Work hard. Pound the rock.

6. LEARN OPTIMISM—believe in your comeback story

Do you believe your future is going to be better than your present if you put in the effort? You better. Be a functional optimist.

7. LEAN ON YOUR MENTAL GAME—win the game from within yourself

If peak performance is 90% mental, then we better be training that part of our game (and lives). Big goals, confident body language, visualization, positive language and deep breathing are key.

The 7 L’s. Where are you strong? Where + how can you optimize?

Outperforming your contract. <— What an awesome (!) standard.

Sounds a lot like “astonishing.”

Are you committed to creating so much value in what you do that everyone looks around and says, “WOW!”?

That’s the standard of a master en route to greatness.

Let’s make it ours.

P.S. Jim shares some gems in this section, including these:

Michelangelo: “If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.”

Boxing champ Larry Holmes: “Hard work ain’t easy, but it’s fair.”

Running legend Steve Prefontaine: “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”

NBA coach Gregg Popovich (who’s won 5 championships) tells us: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”

Here’s to hitting the rock!!!

“You don’t do something until you get it right, you do it until you can’t get it wrong.”

I remember when Troy Bassham said basically the same thing in our interview on Attainment (see Notes).

I LOVE that.

Don’t do something until you can get it right.

Do it until you can’t get it wrong.

Let’s pause and think about how we can apply this gem to our lives starting TODAY.

What’s an important skill you can work on in your life? The one that would most positively benefit you if you *really* nailed it?

This is it: _______________________________________.

Awesome.

You practicing it till you can’t get it wrong?

That’s fascinating, eh?

Players who had a full smile on their baseball card lived SEVEN (!!!) years longer than those who didn’t. (Kinda nuts.)

If you had a baseball card with your picture on it, would you be smiling?

Jim shares this great quote from Charlie Chaplin: “I have many problems in my life. But my lips don’t know that. They always smile.” (He lived to 88.)

Of course, functional optimism is about more than just busting out a smile but it’s one of those little, easy things that has a surprisingly big immediate impact.

Remember the research we talked about in our Notes on Robert Emmons’s book Thanks? He told us about “An ingenious series of experiments conducted a number of years ago showed that when people mimicked the facial expressions associated with happiness, they felt happier—even when they did not know they were moving ‘happy muscles’ in their face. Researchers have found that smiling itself produces feelings of happiness.”

The way they had them mimic a smile in that study? Holding a pencil in their teeth. (Rather than with their lips.) One leads to a smile, the other a frown.

That simple little change boosted feelings of happiness.

So, smile!! :)

#saycheese

Our minds will naturally drift in sports and life.

The key is to NOTICE that drift before it gets too bad and get back to balance as fast as we can.

As Jim says: “During a performance, it’s not your mistakes that matter; it’s how quickly you recover from those mistakes.”

That’s basically what Marcus Aurelius told us 1,700 years ago.

Check out the Notes on his classic Meditations where he tells us: “When force of circumstance upsets your equanimity, lose no time in recovering your self- control, and do not remain out of tune longer than you can help. Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.”

I like to call it The Equanimity Game.

And I love Jim’s 3 P’s:

• Focus on the present. What’s happening RIGHT NOW. Put your focus there.
• Focus on the positive. What’s working? What’re you doing well? Put your focus there.
• Focus on the process. What’re the next steps you need to take to crush it? Put your focus there.

Remember the wise words of an Emperor-Philosopher: “Habitual recurrence to the harmony will increase your mastery of it.”

We are the authors of our own hero’s story. (Or, victim’s story. The choice is always ours.)

What’s your story going to say for the rest of your life?

Think about it.

Then write it.

Then live.

Let’s do this!!!