Recently, I had a great conversation with peak performance coach, Brian Cain. We traded books and so far, the best line I have read in his book is this…
“We want our players to play at their pace and to treat every game like practice, and every practice like a game so that nothing changes.”
I really like that.
To me, this means, take practice seriously and compete like it’s not a big deal.
Recently, I was teaching a young boy and at the end of the session, I asked him, “Did you give a full effort today?”
He responded, “Not exactly.”
“Could you have?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
Then I asked him the million dollar question…
“What if, at the beginning of the lesson, I said, ‘I’ll give you a million dollars if you give it your full effort today.’ Would you have been able to give a full effort then?”
My student enthusiastically responded, “Oh YES!”
We both laughed.
I told him that effort is a choice. It’s not a question of CAN you, it’s a question of WILL you?
Lesson learned.
Ed Tseng
Director of Mental Conditioning
Monroe Sports Center
609.558.1077
Diogenes was an early Greek philosopher.
When asked why he begged money from a statue, Diogenes said that he was practicing disappointment.
At first this seems like a negative attitude, but I think it is brilliant.
In sports and life, there will always be disappointment.
There will always be challenges.
But we never practice what we will do when those situations arise.
Most of us react emotionally.
The key is to react intelligently.
Take some time today to think about a potential challenge that may come up, and think about what your ideal reaction would be.
If it happens, you will be prepared.
You might even enjoy the challenge.
“Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them”
-JACKSON BROWN
Happiness in sports is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them.
Anyone can deal with playing well, but most athletes cannot deal with playing poorly. But most people don’t get it—it’s not about getting rid of problems/challenges, but how we react.
How we make adjustments.
The next time you are in a tough situation, think NOT of the situation, but HOW you are going to react.
Then just do it.
Over the winter, I envisioned the image above in my mind. Last week, I took that image at the Trenton Thunder game of top Yankee prospects, Manny Banuelos and Austin Romine. And tonight, I stopped by the ball park to show it to them. They were impressed with the image and were kind enough to sign it for me.
I spoke with Austin several times last season on baseball and mental toughness (see our video interview HERE), but last night was the first time I spoke to Manny. I asked him if he had anything to say to my blog readers. He said two words:
WORK HARD.
Simple, yet powerful. See, most people want to be successful, but they don’t want to put in the work. People want to be more fit but don’t want to eat healthy. People want to make more sales but they don’t want to make phone calls.
Everybody knows what to do, but nobody does what they know.
How hard are YOU working today?