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MESSAGE #602 PEAK PERFORMANCE IN BALLET…

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Nora Orphanides.

Last night I attended the American Repertory Ballet & ARB’s Princeton Ballet School’s Jubilee in the beautiful Patriots Theater at The Trenton War Memorial. The event was in celebration of Graham Lustig’s 10th anniversary as Artistic Director of American Repertory Ballet and ARB’s Princeton Ballet School and Anne Woodside Gribbins, recipient of the Audree Estey Award for Excellence in Dance Education.

I have to admit, this was my first ballet, and I was impressed. I used to think of ballet as girls in tutus twirling around. I know that football players are known to take ballet classes to improve their balance and movement, I just had not been exposed to it. I was pleasantly surprised.

The program included a powerful blend of young dancers and seasoned veterans. The music ranged from Strauss to Sinatra. Watching the performances, I gained a new appreciation for ballet and the performers as they showed me new ways to apply the principles that I already teach, such as focus, concentration, teamwork, performing under pressure, and hard work. The choreography was amazing and the strength of the performers was incredible, but these performers were not born to be dancers, they were trained to be dancers.

I realized, just as I did with Dr. Charles Frantz and music, that the skills needed in ballet and the lessons you learn are the same as in sports-and life. It’s all peak performance.

Not many of the performers will become professionals, but they all will walk away with skills they can used to perform in whatever they do.

Thank you Nora Orphanides and thank you, Anna Salvadore.

MESSAGE #601 IT’S ALL CONDITIONING…

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Max Rubin-Happy Belated Birthday!

Larry Bird was one of the greatest shooters in basketball history. He was once shooting a commercial, and all Bird had to do was purposely miss a foul shot, take a vitamin, and then make the shot.

Well guess what?

It took Bird 10 tries until he missed the shot. He had conditioned himself to make foul shots automatically. Supposedly, he also used to be able to make 3-pointers with his eyes closed. Impressive.

Conditioning is one of the keys to greatness. It’s not about doing something once, but doing something consistently. You can condition your body and you can condition your mind, but it takes work. And it takes good habits. When Larry Bird was practicing, he used to take 1,000 free throws a day. 1,000 free throws a day!

Put in the work, get the results. It’s as simple as that.


Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #600 THIS IS A TEST…

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“Life is not a talent game-it’s a strategy game.”
-ROB GILBERT, Ph.D., Professor of Sports Psychology, Montclair State University

Today’s message is especially dedicated to all my loyal blog readers.

This is Message #600. Is this a big accomplishment? Some may say yes. While I am certainly excited that this is #600, by no means do I think that I have made it. Arthur Ashe said “Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is more important than the outcome.” I am doing what I love and trying to make a difference; and I am definitely enjoying the journey.

One of the keys to success and mental toughness is that you can do anything with the right strategy. If you have seen me give a lecture, you know that I perform magic tricks, to prove this point. The strategies to my 600 messages were that I was committed to posting them every morning, I enjoyed doing them, and I did it whether I wanted to or not.

Focus on the process, not the product.

Click on the link below and see if you can figure out the strategy to this test given to 2nd graders in China. You have two minutes. Leave your comments.

http://www.funstufftosee.com/frogleaptest.html

Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #599

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Kristy Frilling is a professional tennis player, and currently on the Notre Dame team. She competed in ITF tournaments and pro circuit events during high school, advanced to the semifinals of a $175,000 professional doubles tournament in Cincinnati, Ohio in August 2008, won $50,000 professional doubles tournament in Florida in May 2008, won a $25,000 pro doubles tournament and the Eddie Herr International doubles in 2007, advanced to the doubles semifinals of the US Open Juniors in September 2007, participated in the Junior Australian, Junior Wimbledon and Junior US Open three times, and played for Team USA in Barcelona, Spain, Prostejov, Czech Republic and Melbourne, and Australia.

I spoke with Kristy recently and asked her the following questions…

E:What are your short and long-term goals?

K:My future goals are to finish college while hopefully winning the NCAA tournament and also playing pro circuit events. After I graduate, I would like to play professional tennis, full-time.

E:What in your eyes are the keys to success on the court?
K:Determination, natural talent, and good resources.

E:How has tennis helped you in other areas of life?
K: It has mostly helped me be really independent, and it helped me be focused on other aspects of life because I know if you can put that much effort into one thing, you can do it in other things as well.

Was Kristy Frilling born to be a tennis player?

No. She was trained to be a tennis player. That means, if you work hard and work smart, you too can do anything you want. The key point that stayed with me that Frilling said was “if you can put that much effort into one thing, you can do it in other things as well.” Make the EFFORT and get the RESULT. Be on the lookout for Kristy Frilling.

MESSAGE #598 BE GREAT…

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There are no menial jobs, only menial people.

“If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.’ “
-MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Do you have to be the most skilled to start to be great?

Not at all.

Whatever you do, at whatever level you are at, give it your all-in your sport, in your job, at school and at home. People will notice, especially you. Trust me.



Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #597 PUSH YOURSELF…

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to Crystal Applequist and Pam Cooper. A very Happy Birthday to you both.

“Some of us are like wheelbarrows-only useful when pushed, and very easily upset.”
-JACK HERBERT

I’ve worked with thousands of athletes in the past 15 years and a common theme is that…

#1 People don’t like to work hard.
#2 They let external situations get the best of them.

If you have been following my blog or read my book, you know that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. And anything is possible if you have the right strategy. Tiger Woods works harder than everybody else on tour. Venus and Serena Williams trained from 6am-6pm when they were younger. Hard work gets results.

Many athletes complain about their opponents, the weather, the field conditions, and the referees.

You can’t control these things, so why worry about them? Nothing external from you had influence over you…unless you let it. Focus on your game-plan, your attitude, and your effort. The success will come as a by-product. All the greats in history had a winning mindset.

You may not have the same physical skills as some of your teammates, co-workers, competitors, but you can instantly become better by having a better mindset than them.


Thanks for reading.





MESSAGE #596

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I caught a little leprechaun, quite wise and very old and he said to me, “You have one wish, would you like my pot of gold?” “No thank you,” was my quick reply, “But how about another… A gift that’s truly precious and esteemed above all others? “He offered then some emeralds, rubies, sapphires, pearls and a host of other treasures that would make your senses whirl! As I rejected all his list his bright eyes flashed with fire and, angrily, he said to me: “What is it you desire? “I said: “A rainbow’s far more beautiful than its’ supposed treasure and the ‘rainbow’ that I’m wishing for is priceless beyond measure. “I’d like to have the dearest friends a person ever had to share in all the good times and help me through the bad…”To laugh and sing and joke with, love and appreciate as we live life’s greatest adventure that would certainly be great!” “Oh, now I know you’re daft!” he said as he ran off with his pot… “to waste your wish on something you have already got!”
-author unknown

People search their whole lives for more money, a bigger house, nicer car, and more clothes. Why? Because they think that those things will make them happy.

Guess what?

You can be happy NOW…everything you need is already inside you.

Be grateful for all that you have and enjoy every day.

The question is not “Is life beautiful?” but instead, “Are you noticing?”


Happy St. Patrick’s Day and a very special Happy Birthday to one of my favorite athletes, Brad Abouchedid, Special Olympics Gold Medalist.

Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #595 DIFFICULTIES…

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Sandy Mittleman in Boston.

“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.”
-WILLIAM A. WARD

I love this quote.

Someone once said, the only people without problems are the ones in the cemetery. We all have problems, they are a part of life. We cannot avoid problems, but we can control our reactions to them.

Some people break, fold, or run away when they are under pressure.
These are the losers.

Other people thrive under pressure; they love it. They increase their intensity and focus. They break records.
These are the winners.

It’s not pressure, it’s perception.

In my book, “Game. Set. Life.” I talk about how at the end of a set, when the pressure was greatest, Pete Sampras rose to the occasion and improved the level of his game. That’s why he was #1 for so long.

To be just like Sampras, you have to think just like Sampras.



Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #594 MASTERY…

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Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Marlene Myers in Michigan.

There is a great article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend. John Paul Newport wrote in the Golf Journal about talent versus hard work and if you’ve been following my blog, or have come to one of my lectures, you will see how Newport’s article fits right in with one of my biggest themes. The article, “Mastery, Just 10,000 Hours Away” talks about how hard work, not talent is the key to success.

Newport talks about two key books, “Outliers,” by Malcolm Gladwell and “Talent Is Overrated,” by Geoff Colvin and how a common theme is “super-high achievers are not fundamentally different from you and me, they just work harder and smarter.”

“In explaining the development of extraordinary talent, both Mr. Gladwell and Mr. Colvin zero in on seminal research by Florida State Professor Anders Ericsson and colleagues that suggest the threshold for world-class expertise in any discipline-music, sports, chess, science, business management-is about 10 years, or 10,000 hours, of persistent, focused training and experience.”

Colvin talks about “deliberate practice,” which is “activity specifically designed, ideally by an expert teacher, to improve performance beyond a person’s current comfort and ability level. These activities are repeatable, provide clear feedback and are highly demanding mentally, even when largely physical…The good news about deliberate practice is that, with commitment, almost anyone can engage in it at any age.”

The article also said that we don’t all need to spend 10,000 hours on something, as long as we put in quality time. We can practice a slow-motion, or a 30-second swing to really become aware of what we are doing. I always tell my students that you can either commit your swing to muscle memory, which will take you a long time, or you can just understand the components of your swing and then visualize it, before you actually do it.

What does all this mean?

If you work hard and work smart, anything can happen.



Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #593 TALENT…

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Happy Pi Day (3.14) and Happy Birthday to Albert Einstein.

“Most of us look at an unusually talented person and assume that all it takes to win is talent. Don’t be fooled. Talent is only the beginning. A great person takes a small talent and develops it as a tool for serving others. A small person with great talent soon fizzles and wonders why.”
-LLOYD D. MATSON