Bob Rotella

People who go for greatness are going to get knocked down a lot. They’ll have difficult times. They’ll struggle with doubt and uncertainty. People around them will question the wisdom of their quest. The issue is not whether you’ll fail, because you will. It’s whether you’ll get back up and keep going. It’s whether you can sustain your self-confidence and your belief in yourself and keep bouncing back. Failure is only final when you stop striving.

Once an individual has a philosophy, he should be ready to answer the question ‘What if I fail?’ He should understand that over the span of a lifetime, the only lasting failure is the failure to try. He appreciates the opportunity to find out what he can do with his life and career.

After years of thought and research about the human mind and human behavior, William James wrote this: ‘People tend to become what they think about themselves.’ There is enormous wisdom in that sentence. And there is enormous hope.

It’s almost as if exceptional people belong to a special club. In this club, the members know that the average person limits himself. They know that the exceptional person is exceptional in large part because he doesn’t limit himself.

I don’t see a lot of exceptional people whom I’d characterize as well-rounded. I see a lot more people who are very single-minded. They have a passion for one thing, and they pursue it zealously. They generally reserve time for family when they’re not pursuing their passion. But that’s about all the spare time they have.

But as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm. Somewhere and somehow, exceptional people find the way to bring that enthusiasm to what they do, and they find it every day.

But they and other champions all have a few common characteristics. They are strong-willed, they all have dreams, and they all make a long-term commitment to pursue those dreams.

A golfer can and must decide how he will think.

When great athletes stop trusting, they stop being great.

If a golfer chooses to compete, he must choose to believe that he can win. Winners and losers in life are completely self-determined, but only the winners are willing to admit it.

A golfer must train his swing and then trust it.

Striving to be exceptional is never easy. But when people tell me that what I’m suggesting they do won’t be easy, I just say, ‘You’re right!’ Going after big ideas takes sweat. It takes persistence, patience, and a bedrock belief in yourself. Not everyone will do it. That’s why we call it being exceptional.

People with confident, optimistic outlooks tend to succeed. People who are pessimistic, who lack confidence, tend to fail.

In sports or in business, if you’re not aspiring to dominate, to be the very best, you’re coasting. And you can only coast in one direction.

Before playing any shot, a golfer must lock her eyes and mind into the smallest possible target.

Jack [Nicklaus] told the golf team... ‘You have to be a legend in your own mind before you can be a legend in your own time.’

Courage is fear turned inside out. It is impossible to be courageous if at first you weren’t afraid.

A golfer must learn to enjoy the process of striving to improve the short game.

The challenge lies not in understanding the concepts I teach, for, as I’ve said, they’re simple and make common sense. The challenge lies in thinking this way every day on every shot.

I’m always telling people that I don’t care what their families or their schools or their communities said or thought about them. I tell them, ‘You’re an adult now, and you get to decide.’ So what’s the decision going to be? You get to write your life story. Will you be heroic or just someone trying to get by? Will you be the star or someone sitting on the end of the bench?

There is no such thing as a golfer playing over his head. A hot streak is simply a glimpse of a golfer’s true potential.