Be Trustworthy With Your Behavior | SIP Book Club #1

What's up family welcome back to stay in process today's episode is going to be information heavy. This is one where I'm going to be reading from a couple books and you know referencing a lot of reference points. And this is one where I would encourage you to take notes on it. And if you can't you're on a treadmill or you're driving whatever it is no factor but this is definitely going to be an episode where you come back to it. Because it's going to be filled with a lot of information. I would also just say that you shouldn't try to take every single thing away from this video from this podcast you should be selective and take a couple things and try to apply them again. I'm a researcher and this is an opportunity for me to. To organize my thoughts into overlap these principles that's what my intention is going into this podcast but for you as a listener I just would say. To be intentional maybe you take a couple things away and that's okay and I think when the student is ready to teach you real appear and you'll meet the information at the level that which you're ready to receive it. And so take the things you like leave the things you don't. And let's get into it actually before that I just want to tell you that we did a community call today in my school community. And there was around 40 people that joined it was incredible and I just love getting to talk to these people that are that are part of such an important part of sip just like you guys. And I just want to remind you that that is an option is in the description below and if you want to join the community it's just a dollar a day we're going to start doing live coaching calls and they're more frequently group coaching calls and it would just be awesome to get to interact with you guys and to get to just. Chop it up over the mental game so we did we talked about a specific topic and then we did about 30 minutes of Q and A it was awesome and I just wanted to make sure you guys know that that is available to you but let's just dive right into it real quick I want to start off with a quote I wrote this in my morning pages today. Came from this book I'm reading about a therapist who is seeing a therapist it's a great book. But she says creativity is the ability to grasp the essence of one thing and the essence of some very different thing and smash them to create some entirely new thing that's what creativity is and a lot of the time that's kind of how I see. What I'm doing is I like to take reference points from so many different people and overlap them and yeah just combine these ideas so with that being said let's dive in. So the first chapter we are going to dive into is the behavior chapter I'm going to go ahead and read to you the behavior chapter comes from the ABC's a pitching. This is my Harvey Dorf in one of my favorite minds in the mental game and what I really love about this is how in every chapter he always goes back to behavior and I think we have to understand what it means by behavior because when you are an athlete you are being entrusted to behave in a certain way. And you're going to hear behavior come up a lot in this podcast a lot in my coaching and you know a lot of that I actually got from Harvey Dorfman but he actually has an entire chapter dedicated to behavior so here we go behavior is the payoff word. Everything already read in this book leads to behavior everything that remains to be read leads to behavior good behavior provides a good payoff poor behavior yields no payoff. Executing a pitch is behavior battling behavior throwing a fit is behavior caving in is behavior the most important thing a pitcher or anybody out there an athlete individual can do is behave appropriately having done so you can take whatever happens. It says like a man another woman out there so you can you can wear it off the chin is what he's saying you can come to terms with results because you have come to terms with yourself. You did as much as you could do and that's all that anyone can ever ask of yourself that is all that you should ever ask of yourself so right away I put a note here from James clear there is this tweet he put out a couple years ago from the best advice that he ever got from his dad. He says you know to go out there and do your best if you can do your best you can live with the results and I think sometimes you know it is that simple go out there and do your best can you be in the present moment and give your best effort and if you can look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and say that you did your best. You can live with it right I said wrote down the affirmation I do my best I let go of the rest very good. It is a lot to ask nevertheless behaving well as a performer and as a person is the entire responsibility you have preparation approach adjustments behaviors all they stem from thoughts attitudes and beliefs. The next topic to be discussed too often they stem from feelings the picture or the athlete who operates out of this out of the out of your feelings who concerns yourself with your feelings is the individual with whom he spends. This is the picture or the athlete who invariably will get little or no payoff until you learn to perform in spite of feelings that are troubling to you. If your behavior is driven by these feelings Harvey Dorpen says I tell him he can expect more trouble the athlete must train themselves to act out of what they know instead of what they feel. If you act bravely and wisely he suggested them your feelings will change the habit of behaving appropriately will be established habit is powerful he must as Lawrence Dorrell has written begin by pretending in order to end by realizing I'll read that again begin by pretending in order to end by realizing. Remember the song from the king and I I whistle a happy tune whenever I feel afraid I hold myself erect for when I fool the people I fear I fool myself as well again whenever I feel afraid I hold myself erect for when I feel when I fool the people I fear I fool myself as well. I try to assure the athlete that if they fool themselves for a short while they will become what he acts out for a long while. So if you can fool yourself for a short while you will become what you are acting out for a long while I wrote down behavior way into a feeling remember that emotion is bias he talks about that in the book it takes whatever moment. Emotion is bias is just a distraction I don't really care how you feel I care about what you do so therefore we are going to behave our way into this feeling call it through body language through focus and through self talk right so I wrote also we are going to wash our brain in the chapter mantra which I'm actually going to talk to you about today he talks about the champ becomes he who chance it and so if we're going to be brain washed we might as well wash our brain. With our own voice again the law of substitution says we can only hold one thought in our mind at a time and so let's tell our self what to focus on and in this exact example let's tell our self how we want to behave we are going to behave our way into a feeling right now I wrote down Michael Jackson. He said I wrote that I'm Michael Jackson I'm beautiful Michael Jackson wrote this when he was feeling ugly he's using repetition to comfort himself here he says I'm beautiful I'm beautiful I'm beautiful I'm gorgeous God is for me who could be against me I'm beautiful I'm a new person now beautiful knowing the secrets and determine with fire to move mountains and all I do molding my own world I'm beautiful the old me is behind I will march ahead and knew. MJ he didn't feel beautiful in this moment obviously so what is he doing he's behaving his way into a feeling by. Writing by getting into his journal writing some affirmations it's a great tool to tool that I have all my athletes do the affirmations piece and when you are not feeling your best remember. Whenever I feel afraid I hold myself erect for when I fool people I fear I fool myself as well let's wash our brain let's fool our self as well by behaving our way into a feeling there's an angel's picture name Tim Belcher and an interview that's reference in this book he included I don't care about your feelings I care about your actions in other words their behavior. Harvey Dorfman says his recommendation is that the end of a performance you the athlete should evaluate yourself according to that behavior grade yourself out the more you address behavior the more apt you are to be successful when you shift your concern from outside distractions feelings or pressures concentrate instead on behaviors that will help get the job done. So now we're going to go through the notes at the end of the chapter says what the picture should do and we'll just say what the athlete should do because again this is applicable to every sport. You should understand that behavior is driven by thoughts and feelings so again we're going to tell ourselves what to focus on. I would remind you that emotion is just energy and motion feelings and so can we prime our self through physiology through our routines through our. Techniques to get our self into an elevated state emotionally right recognize the particular driving force within the athlete before during an after competition during performance be certain that the rational will call itself to is in charge rather than the emotional which is self one. That is focusing on what to do rather than on how you feel if necessary make the appropriate adjustment i'll just remind you intergame of tennis. Self one's role is to be still and observed, to sit in the corner, stillness and observe. Self two's role is to hold a clear image in your head if you're somebody who visualizes and to let it happen. And when something happens, do not be surprised. So again, more rational, less emotional. That's who self two is. Discipline yourself to act out enhancing behavior despite inhibiting beliefs. So he's telling you to act your way into a feeling. Jake Arietta, one of Saiyong, had written in his hat, A-C-E, acting changes everything. That's an area that you should have disciplined. Through repetition, integrate what you know rather than what you feel, again, emotion is bias. Integrate what you know rather than what you feel into behavior. Hold yourself accountable for behavior by grading yourself after your performance. Pursue your own understanding of excellence rather than others' expectations of you. Couple notes that wrote down as the chant becomes he who chants it. I watched this episode of Ella Langley and Theo Vaughn. And I'm gonna put a clip in this podcast after I'm done talking about behavior, but she was very clearly anxious and nervous. And she actually calls it out later in the episode. But what's cool to see is maybe she wasn't perfect with her body language because she's moving fast and she looked a little bit frenzied and frantic. But something that I liked was she was able to regulate herself down. She was able to ground herself. She was able to behave her way into a feeling. She was able to call it out, by the way. This is like an eight mile with Eminem. And he says, I am why. I am a bum. I do live in a trailer with my mom, right? This is Eminem calling himself out before somebody else can call him out. In sales, they tell you to do this as well. I read the book, what's the book called? Never split a difference. And I think it talks about that in that book. But I liked it. It's in a way, it's like behaving her way into a feeling. She's just gonna call it out. You know that when you call it out, yeah, I am nervous. It actually like gets better, right? When you make something conscious, that emotion or that thought often subsides. It talks about that in the power of now. So that's just a note to pay attention to. I'll play the clip at the end of this. But the next one comes from Roger Federer, it's from a speech he gave, and it's all about how it's only a point. He says, perfection is impossible. It is only a point. In the 1,526 single matches I have played in my career, I won almost 80% of those matches. Now I have a question for you. What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. In other words, even top ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. When you lose every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot. You teach yourself to say, okay, I double-faulted, it's only a point. Okay, I came to the net and I got passed again. It's only a point. Even a great shot, an overhead backhand smash that ends up on a top 10 playlist. That too is just a point. Here's why I'm telling you this. When you are playing a point, it has to be the most important thing in the world. And it is. But when it's behind you, it's behind you. This mindset is really crucial because it frees you to fully commit to the next point. And the next point after that with intensity, clarity, and focus. My question for you is, can you bring intensity, clarity, and focus to every pass, to every play, to every pitch, to every swing, to every point. That is what it looks like to behave in the right way as an athlete, to have appropriate behavior as an athlete. So onwards, let's keep going with this quote. The truth is, whenever game you play in life, sometimes you are going to lose a point, a match, a season, a job. It is a roller coaster with many ups and downs. And it is natural when you are down to doubt yourself and to feel sorry for yourself. By the way, your opponents have self doubt too. Don't you ever forget that. But negative energy is wasted energy. You want to become a master at overcoming hard moments. That is to me the sign of a champion. Pause. That's an opportunity to refer back to Novak Jokovic. He says, you don't have to try hard to be present. It's a game of recovery. How quickly can we get back to the now, the way that he gets back to the now, is through conscious breathing recovery. So once again, he says, that is to me the sign of a champion overcoming hard moments. The best in the world are not the best in the world because they win every point. It's because they know that they'll lose again and again and again and they've learned to deal with it. You accept it, you cry it out if you need to and then you force a smile, you move on, you're relentless, you adapt and you grow. So that's Roger Federer all about how it's just a point. By the way, shout out, Founders Podcast. Founders Podcast has such a good episode on Roger Federer. Highly recommend you listen to it. So now we're going to read that Novak Jokovic quote where he's talking about presence. One of the biggest lessons I've learned about mental strength is that if you lose your focus, if you are not present, things start to go the wrong way for you. It's fine. It's fine. Accept it. Then come back. I think that that recovery, how long you stay in that emotion is what differentiates you from others. So see now we're seeing the overlap between Roger Federer and Novak Jokovic, his mindset. So again, I think the recovery is more important than actually working hard to stay in the present because it's almost impossible to stay in the present all the time. We always think what's going to happen? Am I going to win or not? He says, you go back and forth and how quickly you go back for me is the most important part. The recovery piece is the most important part. And he says, the one ingredient that he takes out as the most important is conscious breathing, which is just to focus on your breath. Go back to the law of substitution. When you can focus on your breath, you can only focus on one thing at a time. And when you're focused on your breath, you're not focusing on all these internal thoughts. So I really, really love that. One more time with Roger Federer, he says, you want to become a master at overcoming hard moments. The next quote comes from James Cleary, he says, your goal in life should be to reduce the amount of time it takes you to get out of a bad state. The ability to bounce back quickly is a key skill in life. My wife once told me, when you are five, you could be mad for a day. When you're 10, you could be mad for an hour. But by the time you're 30, you get 10 minutes. Then you have to move on. Life is full of moments of frustration and disappointment. Growth and maturity is learning to pull yourself out of a bad state faster. So here we are seeing all these examples of people talking about recovery, about behavior. And if you are going to compete at the highest level, you have to be trustworthy with your behavior. And part of that is having the ability to behave your way into a feeling, to recover, to get to the next best decision, the next best shot, the next best play, the next best pass, whatever your sport is, it is a game of recovery. Now just reminding you, this is my attempt here to kind of combine some of these chapters and some of these mental models that I have. And try to see how they overlap and try to organize my thoughts. So the next chapter I'm going to pull from is the chapter mantra. He says, by now, the reader has surely recognized that positive, rational task-oriented thoughts are prerequisites for effective behavior on the mount. So we were just talking about behavior. How do we get to behaving our way into a feeling like prerequisite for a good behavior is to have positive, rational, task-oriented thoughts. Over and over again, this point has been made. The purpose of these repetitions is to help the pitcher to create an understanding of a mantra, a sort of incantation casting a spell, so to speak, over him as he chants the same sound point of view. The repetition is a strongly defined and constant reference point. This is a tool in your tool belt. Don't forget it, you can always go to this tool. The start of guide, the pitcher's ship, by through safe waters, away from troubled waters. If using a mantra is a form of brainwashing, the pitcher can be assured his brain is being washed by the pitcher himself. In doing so, he must be careful to choose, choice, choose, impeccably correct messages to deliver to his brain. Messages that ultimately affect his muscles. Remember that what you say to yourself has a physiological response. So let's make sure we're speaking to ourself in a way that is positive, rational, and task-oriented. So again, what you say to yourself, these messages ultimately affect your muscles. From the trust in and the repeated expression of it, the mantra will become a counter-vailing force to all the wrong messages delivered by pressures, anxieties, distractions, and fears. So let's make something abundantly clear. You will have pressure, you will feel anxiety, you will have distractions and there will be fears. And your mantra and the repeated expression of it is a counter-vailing force to all these distractions. A strong positive mantra can mute the voices of negative would be intruders. That is why one pitch at a time, one play at a time, one shot at a time, whatever it is for you. It has become such a popular and appropriate mantra. It puts the athlete's mind where it belongs on the next pitch, next play, whatever it is. Simple, direct, clear. Every time we chant our mantra, the brain rewards us with a release of soothing endorphins. Again, this is how we're behaving in a way that serves us. So every time we chant our mantra, our brain rewards us with a release of soothing endorphins. John Dufresne wrote that. Endorphins help relieve pain and stress. The additional reward a pitcher gets from his mantra is the reminder of what focus he needs at the moment that has very practical value. Her Shire's mantra, previously referred to, brought the veteran pitcher back to his lost focus. So there's this pitcher, her Shire, or whatever his mantra was, just helped him refocus in the task in hand. Greg Maddox, insistence that his whole, his soul concern is executing a pitch. This has become his mantra. He chose it, and here's the thing about it. He ritualistically verbalized it. He learned to believe it, by the way, his mantra was, all I do is execute one pitch at a time. He chose it. He learned to believe in it. He is now unfailingly spellbound by it. So the more that you say this mantra, you will become spellbound by it. It is scary. He told me a couple years ago. Full stop, real quick. How many times have you told yourself something so many times that it's almost scary how much you believe it, only to figure out that it's not even true? Right? It could be something you believe to be true about politics. It could be something that you believe to be true about the world, about how I don't care what it is. We've all had that opinion where we have so much conviction in it. We say it so many times. We tell ourselves it so many times, and eventually we believe it. Tony Robbins always quotes Hitler that if you tell a lie big enough and bold enough for long enough, people will believe it. So not giving Hitler his flowers at all don't give me wrong, but there's something there. Our minds are such a malleable thing. And if you tell yourself something for long enough, you'll believe it. So we might as well wash our brain with empowering thoughts. If someone thinks about a particular thing in a singular way, they learn to own the thought and to represent it. The body here is the same directive repeated it and repeated and repeated. The chant becomes he who chants it. Scary is Greg Maddox said, the power our minds have if we choose to use it. So here's a couple additional notes. Remember that your needs will change as you change. Develop new and additional mantras according to what you need. Don't forget that. That's why the mental game is not cookie cutter. You are always adapting. All athletes are different. So your mantras are going to adapt. Be willing to adapt. Create mantras that are based on behavior rather than results. Don't forget that. We care about behavior rather than results. We care about behavior rather than feelings. So mantra should be in alignment with your behaviors. Be persistent in owning the mantra rather than allowing someone, whether it's a reporter, newspaper, whatever it is, somebody you know, take it from you with a relevant or distracting questions and concerns. There's a story about Greg Maddox getting interviewed about the all-star game, about Sai Young, and he says, all I do is execute one page at a time. That's what he's saying there. Be persistent in owning your mantra rather than allowing someone to take it from you with a relevant or distracting questions and concerns. Here you go. Know that familiarity comes with use and time. And that time is not your responsibility, but the use of your mantra is. So again, the familiarity with this mantra, your ability to recite it comes with time and use. And the time is not something you should worry about, but how often you use it is. Here's a couple examples for me. My dreams and my visions come from God and God has the power to create and accomplish them. You could call that an affirmation. For me, that grounds me. I use it as a mantra, and I've used it so many times that it is automatic. God's gift to me is creativity, and my gift back to God is the use of my creativity. The way that I show God love this through the use of my creativity. These are all mantras that I have used over the last year that have completely transformed my world. And when I'm renewing my mind, I am going back to those mantras. I have this negative thought for my sensor. Well, how quickly can I get back to my mantra? Recovery. There it is again. I said, take lies captive and replace them with the truth. Right? Romans 12, too. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Renewal of mind process. Yep, there we go. So that is a chapter mantra. There's not much to add there other than this kind of ties into behavior. How are we going to behave our way into a feeling? We are going to leverage our mantras. So now we move on to the chapter relaxation. And I put this in order intentionally. Not exactly sure how this all ties together, but when I was building out this outline, I certainly put it in order. So relaxation, he says, the setting was Medford organ, an hour or so before the opening game of the season in the Northwest rookie league. I was leaning on a dugout railing, watching the opposing team taking infield. There's this young picture that goes over to him, joining him at the rail. I can't relax, he said, do you have any relaxation techniques you can give me? Sure, I answered, but tell me why are you not able to relax? He gestured towards the opposing team's players. These guys are pros, he said, I turn towards him and I pulled at his uniform. So are you. I said, and those are guys whose butts you kicked in the Little League in the Little League World Series. He looked at me and dropped jawed amazement. The professor of a new, the possessor of a newly discovered perspective, perspective, it's a must. If an athlete is to be able to perform in a consistently relaxed state, every picture performs more effectively when they are relaxed, every athlete performs more effectively when they are relaxed. Your perspective suffers when you have anxiety or fears about consequences, obviously. Your muscles also suffer as well. So this is one thing Harvey Dorfman always goes back to. The physiological response that you have to ineffective behaviors, to ineffective thoughts and emotions, and it does cause your muscles to tense up, which for a picture can cause you to not throw strikes, for a hitter, it could cause you to belong in your swing, whatever your sport is. You have seen how it affects you from a physiological standpoint. He says, one of my standard lines to a tense, anxious athlete is, you know your muscles, they convene every night. They have a beer. They share this thought with each other. Man, if this guy would only trust us and leave us alone, we'd be fine. I get no argument at all from the athlete. An athlete cannot function effectively in an overstimulated or excited state. The note that I wrote down here is we can only perform to the level of our nervous system. You can't outperform a dysregulated nervous system. This is why I have these athletes moving slowly, right? Sitting down when they eat, driving the speed limit. We are regulating our nervous system, doing breath work. We can't outperform a dysregulated nervous system. They need to get back to what is called homeostasis, a state of physiological equilibrium. The picture with perspective in poise is able to maintain their equilibrium. The athlete with perspective in poise is able to maintain their equilibrium. This athlete controls their tension level, thus avoiding a pervading feeling of apprehension. When tension does exist, the picture must learn to release himself from it through deep breathing and self-coaching during competition. Okay, so the athlete must learn to release yourself from this tension through deep breathing and self-coaching during competition. So I want to pause right there. In the task and hand chapter, I believe in this, he talks about how you have the execution version of yourself and you have the coach version of yourself. I literally have pictures draw a line behind the mountain and when they're behind that line, that is the execution line. That is where they coach themselves up. This is where we're going to take a deep breath. This is where we're going to go to our mantra. This is where we're going to go to our tool belt and pull tools out of the belt to regulate ourself to get back to the task at hand. So we have to be able to coach ourself. We also have to be able to go through our breath work that we have practiced prior to the event. You have to know what breath work serves you before the event. So when things hit the fans, so for when you're sped up, you can go to it. This doesn't even have to do with sports all the time. If you're giving a speech, whatever it is, we have to know what to go to. It is important for the athlete to relax the antagonistic muscles in order for their delivery or their performance to be sound and fluid, free and easy. Away from the field, this athlete can work with a variety of techniques, but first, the athlete should understand the internal focusing that cause whatever anxious state may exist. So we first must bring clarity to what is bringing us this pain, to what is causing us this anxious state. You should build out a solid foundation of reason and controlled behavior, rather than emotion and dreaded consequence. as was the case with the young pitcher discussed above, a distorted view of circumstance is a problem. Anxiety is a symptom. So again, the distorted perspective, the distorted view of the current situation, is the problem. And the anxiety is just a circumstance. Solve the problem and the symptom disappears. More than 30 million unrelaxed people have high blood pressure, resulting in an inability to function at optimum level at their job. More than 25 million work days are lost each year. And these workers do not have to stand on a pitching mound and perform in front of thousands or millions of people if television audiences are included each day. A pitcher who does his work in full public view can find it helpful to have a few relaxation techniques available to them. If you are an athlete, we need to have a few helpful relaxation techniques available to you at all times. This is more of the technique side compared to philosophy side. There's more where that came from. The skill of decreasing the heart rate can be learned and practiced in the privacy of one's room. It has to be practiced, right? The voluntary slowing of your heart rate can be very beneficial to an athlete who must face stress inducing game situations. Tension brings on muscle tightening. There it is again. Which the pitcher is very often aware of, which the athlete is very often aware of. Through what is called progressive relaxation techniques, you can learn to relax these tensions. A muscle group is first tense and then relaxed. Doing this allows the athlete to develop an awareness of your muscles tension and distinguish those tensions from a relaxed muscle state. The progressive aspect of the exercise is achieved by following the same procedure from one muscle group to another. So what this is is you sitting down and squeezing your biceps and your forms as tight as you can, hold it, hold it, hold it, relax. Feel what it feels like to be relaxed. He calls that progressive, where does it let me read it again? Progressive relaxation techniques. An example of technique the pitcher should sit comfortably in a chair and relax themselves as much as possible. After having achieved that relaxed state, close your fist, clench it tight, tighter, tighter, tighter, until you can feel the muscle tension in your hand and in your arm. After maintaining tension for a few moments, you should relax the hand, open the fist, and move the fingers to make them feel free and easy again. You should repeat the process doing the same with the other hand and the other arm. This exercise can be done with facial neck muscles, chest and stomach muscles, back muscles, all your muscles. Eventually the whole body can be worked this way. The duration of each exercise should be approximately five minutes. When the pitcher has learned how to relax their muscles, they will be better able to release the body tensions during performance. This can be done during your gathering off the mount. Again, we have coach mode. This is behind the execution line. When you are gathering yourself, when you are coaching yourself up, you can squeeze and then relax. You know how to relax because you practice this in private. You should move your head and shoulders, stretch your body slowly by bending or moving side to side. You should employ positive calming self-talk. Remember, positive rational task at hand. Breathe deeply. We are combining the breath, we are combining our self-talk with easy relaxed movements. I know it sounds like common sense. But if you are on the sideline and you are getting ready to go in the game for soccer or the cross or whatever it is or football, these are all things that we should be going back to. They should be a part of your routine that is practiced. I am going to read you something from Bob Rattell's book in a minute that hammers this home. But again, we need to practice this. Deep breathing patterns during competition will be enhanced by exercises incorporated during progressive relaxation exercise. In your chair, you can work on specific breathing exercises, inhaling and exhaling regularly and slowly. You can count from 1,000. I shut mine clear. It is especially good for inducing sleep at night. You should create a consistent breathing pattern on the mound or on the sideline in the game or wherever it is. It is part of your approach. For pitching, it is absolutely why you are on the mound. But I think these other sports where it is a little bit more fast paced, I would encourage you as part of a more pre-competition routine to have a consistent breathing pattern. When you are sped up, the recovery piece is going to your breath and let's have a consistent breathing pattern in that moment. Let's know what breath to go to. Let's have a conscious breath and focus on the breath. Take your attention externally to the breath. Right, legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden defines happiness as being at peace with yourself. With self, inner peace despite our turmoil. Such a peaceful internal state will significantly increase a pitchers ability to relax, which in turn will signal his muscles. All systems will then be in an easy go mode, an optimal kinetic state for performance. A reason perspective will encourage the muscles to do their thing with naturalness and ease. Happiness should unhappiness set in. The pitcher should use the acquired techniques to relieve the tension and relax your muscles. The athlete should use the acquired techniques to relieve tension and relax your muscles. Understand that tension is a system symptom. It is not a problem. Recognize the source of tension and address it with objectivity. Develop a point of view based on reason rather than emotion. And therefore conducive to relaxation. So develop a point of view based on reason. I wrote down the note, what are the facts? Remember non-judgmental awareness is not adding or subtracting from the facts. Monitor and adjust pre-game arousal in order to keep his kinetic system in a relaxed state. I wrote down assess where you are at every single day. Kobe Bryant talks about this. When he would arrive to the arena, every single day he would do a check-in. And every day was a little bit different. So you have to assess where you're at and assess what you need. Learning to apply off the field, progressive relaxation exercises, teach yourself body awareness in order to be able to relax and control your muscles. During competition, separate yourself from the source of stress by getting off the mound, from stepping away from detaching, stretch slowly, employ self-talk, breathe deeply. Talk out loud while coaching yourself. We're taking thoughts captive, we're placing them with truths. Know what you are saying in that moment. Talk to yourself, do not listen. Now he says, use a slow, deliberate and calming tone. Concentrate for a few seconds on an outfield sign, on a rosemback, whatever your sport is. Find an external focus and concentrate on that focus. Take your attention there and breathe on it. Move your focus away from the stressor. Let's get external. Get back to focusing on the task in hand. Get back on the rubber or wherever you are competing. Concentrating only on pitch selection, location and the target. For you as the athlete, that would be focusing on the task in hand. One play, one shot, one pitch. Whatever the sport is, you have to figure out what that is for you. But the moment that we step over the line into execution mode, nothing matters. It doesn't matter how you feel other than the task at hand. I wrote down breath work and relaxation strategies must be practiced. So we're going to pause there. I'm going to go to this book, golf is not a game of perfect. So we just talked about the relaxation chapter. And now I'm talking to you about routines and how routines can help you to relax. So here this is, Barbara Teller, golf is not a game of perfect. Golfers with an effective mental approach to the game, know they can control much better what happens before the swing begins when the movements are slow, deliberate and more susceptible to discipline. They seize that advantage by adopting a disciplined, constant, pre-shot routine. They use this routine for every full shot. Be it a wide open layup on a par five or the tightest, most challenging T-shot on the course. Every player I work with has his or her own variation on the routine. So remember everybody's different. Your routine is going to look different. That's okay. Have the agency to figure out what works for you. But all sound routines incorporate certain fundamentals. A good routine enables a golfer to be trusting, decisive, and focused on the target, right, the task at hand. It fits his or her personality. To develop a reliable routine, a golfer has to decide to follow it and practice it time after time after time until it becomes an ingrained habit that will show up no matter how much pressure he or she is under. These are the moments that Harvey Dorfman is talking about, the relaxation techniques, the breath work. Whatever the routine is, it's going to look different for everybody. But we do need to practice this away from the competition so that when it comes time to compete no matter how much pressure you can go back to it, it's automatic. You can be sure that under pressure you will find out what your dominant habit is. Some players like to begin their routines with a triggering gesture. They may fiddle with a grip on the club or hoist the club over a shoulder. They may set a hand on the top of the driver as it rests in the bag. It does not matter what the gesture is. It simply serves to remind the player that his pre-shot routine has begun, and it is time to focus intently on it. Players whose attention tends to wander on the course may be find a triggering gesture particularly helpful. Other players don't need triggers to start their routines. Just taking the club out of the bag or standing behind the ball and beginning to plan the shot surfaces to get their attention. It's a matter of personal preference. This is where the creative aspect comes in. What do you prefer? Good players feel that when their routine start, they are stepping into a bubble, a small private world in which nothing can distract them. Tom Watson once said, "It feels like going into a room where everything is dim and quiet." Once their routines are underway, most players assess the distance they want to hit the ball, the wind, the trajectory. If that's a factor and the appropriate club, the important thing about club selection is decisiveness. If you step up to the ball, still uncertain whether you have the right club, your routine is not sound. This is more about the slow sports where you have more time to execute a routine. I think if you're playing a more fast-paced sport, what I'm trying to communicate here is that we have to be decisive. We have to make instant decisions. I work with a guy who plays in the NHL and that's something that we always talk about is making instant decisions. If you're playing a game that's a little bit slower, baseball, golf, bowling, we'll go with those for now. When you make a decision, it's all about the size of this. Another sport that comes to mind for instant decisions is jujitsu, is wrestling. By the time that you have thought, "Should I make this move or too late?" When we are going into a competition, it's good for you to have a routine that locks you into being somebody who makes instant decisions. You can live and die by your decisions when you make instant decisions. Those are self-two decisions. Self-one is the one that is indecisive. You got to start over or you think the shot until you are convinced you have the right club for it. Next, you pick the target. Most players do this standing behind the ball. Some do it standing next to the ball. It does not matter. What is important is that the target is small and precise. After this chapter, we're going to talk about target from Navy. He's a pitching. The pre-addressed phase of a routine is the time to deal with any problems that might be caused by an unusual or unfavorable lie. If the ball is on a downslope, an upslope, or the side of a hill, take a stance next to it, practice swing or two, and determine the adjustments and the flex of your knees or the tilt of your shoulders. Think them through at this stage because you don't want to have them occur to you as you prepare to hit the ball. The next step depends on the individual. Some players when they have picked the target in club can visualize the ball flying through the air or landing, rolling and stopping where they wanted to stop. They can visualize how their swing will look. These visions are as clear to them as they were in a movie theater watching them. Such visualization can help to provide a successful shot. Brad Faxon feels the vision in his mind dictates to his nerves and muscles the type of swing to execute. So he is saying the image that he holds in the mind has a physiological response overlaps with a Harvey Dorfman saying, "What you say to yourself, what images you hold in your mind impacts your body." If he stands on the tee of a par four that dog legs to the left and demands a high draw, he sees the high draw. That is enough to get his body to produce a swing that makes that ball fly high and curve from the right to the left. He doesn't have to think consciously at all about the grip, the stance, the swing plane, or any of the other mechanics most golfers would associate with a high draw. Once again, let it happen, baby. Self-too. You don't have to visualize a lot of great players don't because their minds don't work that way. That's okay. They look at their targets, decide they're going to hit those targets and how the ball will and how they will work the ball draw our fate. That's surfaces. Some players simply focus on the target and know their ball is going there. That gets a job done. The important thing is that you know the ball is going to the target. Conviction. Decisiveness. If you can't make yourself believe it, pick another club or another target until you can. If you've got a driver in your hands, you can't believe that that ball is going to go where you want it. Put it back in the bag and take a three wood or an iron. Here you go. Last part of this. Enstilling this unwavering belief in the shot is one of the fundamentals without which your routine loses its purpose. Remember that the point of the routine is not to go through a physical ritual. Hear me again. Don't be a bot. The routine is not for a physical ritual and is to get your body aligned properly and your mind in an effective state before every shot. So as we are talking about this relaxation chapters, we are talking about routines as we are talking about behavior. Understand that this routine is to get your body primed into a relaxed state first. Get your body aligned properly and then get your mind into an effective state. Behave accordingly. I really love this. Last thing on the routine. The routine is when you dispel doubt and negativity. She did not follow the mental side of the routine which required her to dispel any doubt or anger from her mind before she hit the ball. This is often the hardest part of the routine to execute. It is not enough to go through the motions that set up the body properly. You have to set up the mind as well. Shout out Bob Ritella. So now we just read you the relaxation chapter. We read you the Bob Ritella. Now I just want to go to the target chapter. This is really cool and this is one that I have been touching up on lately with some of my pictures. I think you will appreciate this. This might not be very applicable for everybody. But if you are in a sport like baseball, you are in a sport like golf. I think this ties into the Bob Ritella book. I was just reading you. This chapter is applicable. And if it is not, I just think it is cool for you to learn these things. See how you could apply these things. Target. He says, "Tunnel vision is how I explain it." No one Ryan has said it. You become isolated from all outside distraction and there is only you and the catcher. It is the most satisfying feeling I have ever known. The iset Suzuki explained the mastery of archery. The archer sees us to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's eye which confronts him. Ultimate focus on the target. When we have this idea of no mind from the power of now, it explains no mind as consciousness without thought. And so when we are saying consciousness without thought, no mind, literally the athlete sees us to be conscious of yourself. You are not even aware of yourself because you are so focused on the task at hand, on the target. Whether it is pitching or archery or it is skeet shooting or it is golf or it is lazo throwing or it is completing a pass in football. The eyes attend to the object to the target. Every physical throw requires an aim, a visual direction. So I don't love the idea of aiming the pitch, the fastball or whatever you are throwing. But eyes dial. I worked with the tie-down and he is a division one football player at tie-down and we talked all the time about having your eyes dialed. Have your eyes dialed. Have your eyes attend to the object to the target, to the task at hand. The catchers met best serves the pitcher as his target. Some people like a little bit of a broader focus. Some people like a more narrow focus. But I had a conversation this past week with an athlete who on his slider is focusing very specific on a target pitch location execute. But on his fastball, he just wants to throw a strike. So he has got a very broad focus. By the way, this was my approach when I pitched. I never had anybody tell me this. I wish I would have tried this to be more specific. It sounds like common sense, but it really isn't for a lot of baseball players. So narrowing in your focus on a more specific point. I hate the idea of aim small miss small, but you get the point. In order to develop a consistent command of your pitch, the pitcher should develop consistent habits related to his approach. His breathing should be patterned. There we go. Back to the breath work. It should be consistent. It should be patterned. His tempo should be regular. His delivery should be replicated with each pitch. And so too should his focus on the target. Now I do want to say one thing here. You're not a slave to your routine. So if you mess up your tempo, whatever, recover back to the no back joke of it. Don't be a bot. In appropriate thinking, distracts a pitcher from all or some elements of his approach, causing you to behave inappropriately. Very often it takes his mind and his eyes entirely away from the target. Without a narrow focus, his pitches are delivered into an expanded area, a more broad area. One scene with, quote, "soft focus or no focus." If the pitcher sees the target at all, it is with a cloudy vision. The target is fuzzy rather than sharp. I relate to that. The same result follows a lazy and casual mental approach. A lack of intensity will take a pitcher's attention away from the target, just as a particular distraction will. He's talking about this pitcher for the Florida Marlins. He had a fine outing against the reds. He pitched four and two-third innings against the reds. He had a four-o lead. The third batter on the top of the fifth inning was Dion Sanders. He bumped it. Rap came off the mound, the pitcher, with enough time to make the play. He slipped. He grabbed desperately for the ball without being able to come up with it. Sanders was on first. Man on first, two out, no factor. Except for the fact that Rap made a big deal out of it. He was upset with himself for not having made the play. Getting five shut out innings with a lead in the book. He then threw 11 consecutive balls. Can you recover family? Can we recover? It's a game of recovery, right? Unemotional and consistent. Behavior way into a feeling. How quickly can we get back to the now to the next best decision, to the next pitch? Faces loaded 3-0 on the hitter, rap laid in on the strike zone. Double off the left center wall. We'll say. There were three runs at scored. Manager took rap out of the game. He left to the 4-3 lead, but was not eligible for the win. Because you have to go five innings to get the win in baseball. He's furious. Next day, he's stretching. He comes up to Harvey Dorfman. Before he gets close to me, shouts, I said, everything you always told me to say out there, and it didn't work. Let me ask you one question, Harvey. Says, what did the target look like while you were going through all that? After a long pause, he said with a laugh. With a laugh, I got no F in idea. Rap had been so unhappy with his failure, not behaving appropriately, that in spite of what he was trying to tell himself, he maintained an inappropriate focus. And he never saw the target. The side work done by a pitcher in the bullpen has provided me with many opportunities to point out casual or lazy approaches. So what he's saying here is when a pitcher is in practice and they're practicing pitching, he sees how lazy they are. He sees how unintentional they are. And what he's saying here is, side work is preparation. For all you athletes out there, whatever the side work looks like for you, this is an opportunity to form good habits. First, you form your habits, then your habits form you. Habits are formed by whatever a pitcher does on a regular basis. That is enough ammunition for me. Many times, I've asked a young pitcher to turn around and face away from the catcher. He then asks them, what color is the catcher's mitts? Many wrong answers, many correct answers before some admit to guesswork. Purposeful side work should include practicing your breathing patterns. There it is again, mechanical consistency, picking up the target. This is a form of rehearsal for the athlete. As actors have their stage rehearsals, the same thing. And actor rehearses his lines. His inflection, his stage presence, his entire delivery in the manner that he wishes to perform. So, too does a pitcher rehearse. So, too, you must rehearse. Pick up the target. One aspect of his performance requires his conscious, conscientious attention. Now he talks about another guy making a big league debut for the Houston Astros in 1976. For a young pitcher, he had unusually good control, good command, which means that he could place a ball wherever he wanted to. I was just hoping to throw strikes, he kept telling himself, just throw strikes, but I couldn't. Later I realized what I had done to myself. I didn't have a target. I didn't even think about where I wanted to throw the ball. I was just hoping that I would throw the ball into the strike zone, a very broad focus. That's called soft eyes. Where he mentioned soft eyes earlier, mentioned above. In this context, soft eyes means too soft, not allowing for sharpness of focus on the object being attended to. Hard eyes in contrast are locked up. This is focusing too hard. I was kind of like this too, actually, in moments. Causing tension to the muscles in the face, probably a result of tension and/or too high in a rouse level. So you can get too aroused. You can have too much attention. And you're trying to focus too hard, not too soft, not too hard. The ideal focus in the target is gained where they relaxed intensity. It's referred to all the time in the Inter-Gym-Attentist that's self-too. This means relaxed muscles, including the muscles in the face in a narrowly directed vision on the target. Many pitchers are naturally able to bring this focus to their game. Others learn to develop it. Once again, good habits are developed through diligent practice. Finally, pitch through the target. That is what conviction looks like, not to the target, but through it, meaning aggressively attack the target rather than steering the ball to it. Understand that the eyes are the muscles guide. Keep your eyes dialed. They should be appropriately used during the delivery of each pitch. Develop the habit of being on target. Recognize that distracting irrelevant thoughts would adversely affect your concentration in cloud or obscure your focus, your sharp focus, on the target. Make the necessary adjustments during competition when he has a sense of divided attention through gathering and self-coaching off the mound. So again, when you're sped up, get away from the act, get off the mound, get some space away from it. Have a release routine. Make the necessary adjustment during competition. When you have a sense of divided attention, gather yourself and self-coach yourself. Develop a consistent, disciplined approach to picking up the target during side work. Focus on the target with a relaxed intensity. And then again, conviction pitch through the target, not through the target. So I like it. That ties into that chapter with Bob Ritella. I know I'm giving you a lot of information. I hope you're just taking things that you like away from it. But that chapter ties in perfectly with that routine aspect, getting your eyes dialed on the task and hand on the target. It's a difference between a broad focus and a narrow focus having your eyes dialed. I think it's a really valuable chapter. And if it doesn't mean anything to you or your sport, don't try to make it mean anything to you. It just might not be applicable to what you do. So again, have that filter, have the discernment, know what is right for you and what is not. Now this last chapter that I'm going to read to you is from the chapter of urgency. It all ties together. It's such a good chapter. He says, "Conventional wisdom speaks to the point that athletes perform better when they are in a relaxed state. This view is supported by much research on the topic. Obviously, athletes perform better when they're relaxed." A sense of urgency, so common in pictures, is the antithesis of relaxation. A sense of urgency for any athlete is the antithesis of relaxation. Now when I say instant decisions, I don't mean urgency. You're going to learn more about what urgency means. I mean, go with your gut. Allow self-tutor takeover. So just know the difference there. At best, a picture or an athlete's urgency inhibits his ability to function well. At worst, it makes him dysfunctional. A feeling of urgency can have as many causes as there are pictures. Each individual brings his perspective and needs to the mound during every outing. If one picture feels the need to do well to save your job, if you're an athlete trying to save your job, you can manifest this urgency by trying too hard. If another athlete is in a must-win game for his team or her team, your urgent response will work hard, will work at cross-proposes with your intention to just win the big one. So again, must a must-win game-- no, it's just another game. Stay on task. What do you need to do? Emotion is bias. Stay on task. You will try too hard becoming too aggressive and less controlled. That's not behaving appropriately. That's not thinking appropriately. As mentioned previously, some pictures have a sense of urgency kick in as soon as they fall behind in the count. As soon as one thing happens, you put somebody on base. Something happens in the game. Urgency kicks in. They always seem to be pitching to get something back. You know that feeling. You make a mistake, and you're trying to make up for it, talking to a lacrosse player this past week. Makes one mistake. And we're celebrating because she didn't try to make up for that mistake. All she did was make her next best decision, incredible. So we're not playing to get something back. That is, when you're doing that, it's governed by vague perception of having lost something. What has actually been lost-- all that you've lost is your good approach. The successive concern or worry or fear produces the same symptoms, a loss of a controlled mental and mechanical pattern, desperation sets in, thoughts become disjointed and scattered, muscles tighten the delivery quickens. Every lac state speaks to the pitcher by saying, be easy. Trust it. Stay on task. Let it flow. There's your mantra. There it is. You're seeing how it overlaps. Urgency speaks in other language. Hurry up. Force it. I'd better. You call it the language of maladjustment. It is not difficult for you, the listener, to recognize the distinction between the language patterns above. There's one expression that's conducive to adjustment. Be easy, baby. Be easy. Stay on task. It's conducive to adjustment and an effective approach and effective behavior to performance. The other to maladjustment and ineffective approach. A sense of urgency will rush the athlete's thoughts towards judgment. Remember, judgment is just a personally go-wick reaction. It's a distraction. It's not good or bad. It just is. And these judgments are often related to consequences. Your concentration and muscles follow those thoughts. There it is again. Physiology follows your thoughts, all going in the wrong direction. "Eurgency, what is urgency? It's, I have to, I must. Urgency is tension, urgency is fear, urgency is, or else, urgency is, do or die. Urgency induces a loss of control, a loss of purpose, a loss of balance, a loss of focus, a loss of tempo, a loss of trust, just to name a few losses. Illustrative behavior can be seen just about every day, and just about every game. It happens to varying degrees, just about every athlete. The greater the sense of urgency, the greater the loss of all the good elements of a good approaching, a good pitching approach." I'll say that one more time. The greater the sense of urgency, the greater the loss of all the elements of a good approach. Real crisis will test your mental discipline. Perceived crisis will test your view of the world and of yourself. Or test you, a controlled behavior helps you to pass. Urgent behavior induces failure. The passing test key is a reaffirmation of a healthy point of view and a renewed understanding of what works and what does not work on the, on the mound in your game, whatever the sport is. First an athlete who performs with a heightened sense of urgency has made everything matter too much. Or else syndrome takes over. Viroc consequences are always close to his surface thinking. A healthier perspective is required. So wait a minute. Romans 12, too. How do we do that? We take thoughts captive. We replace it with an affirmation, with a mantra, with a truth. The champ becomes he who chants it. I also like where it said, "Whichever tests him, a controlled behavior helps him to pass. A healthy behavior induces failure. There we are again with behavior." It says, "Second, the pitcher or the athlete having gone through the experience of performing at this high level of urgency understands the power that it has over you. You must further understand what measures you should take to transfer that power. Again, you need to know the breath work. We need to know these relaxation techniques. In my experience with athletes, this has been done with constant, frequent reiteration of desired approach. The brainwashing referred to in earlier pages, mantra, which I read you. Daily work on mental discipline. The preparation helps train the pitcher to a, establish a healthier, more effective approach. So again, mental discipline and preparation that your daily work is helping you to want to establish a healthier and more effective approach. And number two, it's helping you to recognize when it breaks down. To have the clarity, to have the conscious awareness to know when it breaks down during competition, and to make an adjustment. This rather than allowing the urgency to cut off his head and having him pitch like the proverbial chicken. Finally, regular relaxation exercises are appropriate for a pitcher or an athlete who regularly performs with a feeling of urgency. So he's telling you, "We need to be practicing these relaxation techniques all the time. I got one of my pitchers plays for the Dodgers, tech to me last night, that he has started doing the breath work that I'm putting him through twice a day for a reason. Philosophy deals with the issue, techniques deal with the symptoms, and urgent athletes should deal with both. I love that. I think about that all the time." As an athlete who is working the mental game, you do have to understand that there is a philosophy and there is a technique. Philosophy is self-one and self-two. It's understanding behavior. It's understanding what a mantra is. But the actual techniques are going to your mantra. The techniques are breath work. The techniques are a physical action releasing breath and verbal trigger. It's these routines. The Bob Rutella routines that I'm talking to you about. You have to know both. You have to know the philosophy. You have to know the techniques. And you have to be able to apply both. So here are my final notes. Understand that a sense of urgency will take you out of a relaxed state that helps you to maximize your ability. Re-interrate the causes of urgent behavior and work at developing a more realistic perspective. Re-iterate and/or review your philosophy of pitching an effective pitching on a daily basis. Let me read that again. Re-iterate and/or review your philosophy of effective performance on a daily basis. Renew your mind every single day with this. During competition, be aware of any tendency to accelerate your tempo and to rush your delivery. Make the necessary adjustments at such times, gathering yourself, slowing your thought process using calming self-talk and refocusing on the task in hand. Use the catcher. Use accountability partners to help you with keys or triggers when urgent behavior is evident. According to need, develop a routine for using relaxation, exercises, and techniques. I wrote down, remember instant decisions, remember Novak-Jokovic, it's a game of recovery. The way that he recovers is through conscious breathing. Can we just take a full second here? Can you just breathe with me real quick? We're going to go in for six. In. Hold. Exhale through a straw. Let's go one more breath together. Focus on your breath. In. Hold. Exhale. That's a conscious breath right there. When you are focusing on your breath, you are not focusing on anything else. So that is me connecting some ideas, diving deep into this research. I love this stuff. I often go back through and revisit my notes to renew my mind on what is an effective way to think. The last thing I want to say to you is I have put together a lot of these notes. I know I gave you a lot on this call, I guess on this podcast. What I'm going to do is I'm going to create a PDF that includes all my greatest takeaways from this podcast so that you can take it with you in reference. That PDF is going to be available in the show notes below, the description below. So go ahead and just click that link and you can download those show notes, the PDF and you can review that on your own time because obviously it's a lot of information. But I'm grateful for you guys. This was a deep one and again, you're not going to take everything away from this and that's okay. You don't have to. Come back to this video. Come back to this podcast and I just would encourage you to come back to it multiple times because again, you're going to constantly be adapting as it says in that mantra chapter. So be willing to adapt your philosophy, be willing to adapt to things that you are doing based on what you need. There might be 60% of this podcast that you don't need right now and that's okay. I'm telling you that's okay. Just take the things you like and put your energy into that and see how it works out. At the end of the day, we're just collecting information and it is a courageous act to be willing to try. To courageous act to be willing to put yourself out there and be vulnerable and try these new techniques and collect information and be willing to adjust. Take the information, apply it, move forward. Emotion is bias. Judgment is a personal egoic reaction. So let's remove the emotion. Let's remove the judgment. Let's be willing to try these things and then let's be willing to take the information and iterate in whatever way you need because you are unique. You are different. You are creative. And so you got to figure out what works for you, but that does take agency. That takes ownership. So have some agency, have some ownership and let's be eager to take the smallest step forward because it is a pro iterative process. Again, if you want to join the school community, it's currently sitting at a dollar a day. I do see that getting more expensive because I will be doing more live calls. So if you want to get in, now is the time to get in. Please comment your biggest takeaways. Please share this with anybody that you think needs to hear this. And I'm so grateful for you guys, stay in process. Talk to you soon.