The Turnaround

Self-Confidence and Self-Image.

Those two things go together and helping us master each of them is what the book is all about.

Darrin’s a big fan of a bunch of the authors and books we feature including: The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, How Champions Thinkby Bob Rotella, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter, and Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman.

Check out the Notes on all those books plus Confidence 101 + Self-Image 101 for more. For now...

David Schwartz tells us: “Here is the first step toward success. It’s a basic step. It can’t be avoided. Step One: Believe in yourself, believe you can succeed.”

While Bob Rotella tells us: “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.”

And, know that there’s a SCIENCE to self-confidence. Academics call it “self-efficacy”—the belief that you can achieve the things you set out to achieve.

As we discuss in this +1 on The Science of Self-Confidence, there are FOUR ways Albert Bandura tells us we can build our sense of self-efficacy: Mastery Experiences + Vicarious Learning + Social Persuasion + Physiology.

In short, pay attention to prior successes and other people successfully doing what you want to do, find guides and buddies who encourage you to achieve your dreams and eat, move, sleep, breathe, focus and hold yourself like a champion!

On the Self-Image side of things, check out our Notes on Lanny Bassham’s With Winning in Mind where he tells us:“Changing a Self-Image that is keeping you from reaching your goals may be the most important skill you will ever learn.”

And:“Your Self-Image ‘makes you act like you.’ It keeps you within your comfort zone. If you are below your zone, Self-Image makes you uncomfortable and turns up your power until you are within the zone. Likewise, if you are above your zone, the Self-Image will cut your power, dropping you back within your zone. As long as you ‘act like you,’ the Self-Image is content and does not interfere. To change your performance, you must change your Self-Image and elevate your comfort zone. Controlling that change in your Self-Image may be the most important skill you will ever learn. You can change any attitude you do not like. When the Self-Image changes, performance changes.”

Who are YOU at your absolute best?

Let’s create those Identities in our Energy, our Work and our Love and commit to BEING that best, most Heroic version of ourselves TODAY.

Want more confidence? Be the hardest worker in the room.

We’re first introduced to these two things we always have control over (our effort and our attitude) in the first book in the series when that fable’s main character meets John Wooden.

Here’s how Darrin captures the wisdom in Think Like a Warrior:“I FOCUS ON ONLY THE THINGS I HAVE TOTAL CONTROL OVER: MY EFFORT AND MY ATTITUDE. By focusing on only what I can control, my effort and my attitude in the present moment, I will have the peace of mind that comes from knowing the results will take care of themselves. I will not lose myself in the past or worry about the future. I will focus on the present. If I truly give my maximum effort to be the best I can be today, I will be successful. NOTHING can take that from me.”

Remember: Confidence is EARNED. And then earned AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN. Thinking you’ve done enough hard work to ease up is the fastest way to *lose* your confidence.

As I thought about who embodied this ideal the best in all the Notes we’ve created so far, I thought of Jerry Rice. As you may know, Jerry Rice was the greatest NFL wide receiver ever.

In Go Long!, he tells us:“As for me, if I was going to play, it wasn’t good enough just to be average. I had to be great. The only way I knew how to do anything was to outwork, outperform, and outplay everyone else.”

And: “One thing that hit me that first season was the varying degrees of work ethic on a team. There were some guys who gave 100 percent every day in practice and others who just exerted enough effort to get by. It pissed me off. I couldn’t understand how anybody could not give an all-out effort daily. And I’m talking off the field as well.”

Question time: Are YOU the hardest worker in the room?

Here’s to getting our Energy Focused on What’s Important Now and giving ourselves and our families and our communities all we’ve got—whether that “room” in which we’re showing up is our office for the Deep Work or our kitchen with the kids or the gym for our workout.

Remember: “Give your best every single day and I promise you’ll have no regrets.”

Change the channel.

This is a BIG IDEA from a chapter all about the fact that, as Darrin’s Guide tells us: “Confident people choose to think mostly about the positive memories while insecure people choose to think mostly about the negative ones.”

Plus: “The ability to move on quickly from a past mistake is one of the secrets to being successful in whatever you do. It’s also a secret to happiness and peace of mind.” And: “You want to be happy in life? Stop dwelling on your worst moments.”

How do we do that? We learn how to “change the channel.” The MOMENT a negative memory pops up, REPLACE IT with a positive memory.

The Hero of the book is a quarterback. He once played a TERRIBLE game. He couldn’t get some of the plays out of his head.

What did his Guide have him do? He had him remember a time when he was at his ALL-TIME best—when he absolutely dominated and felt the pure joy of playing a game he loved.

Then...

The MOMENT the bad memory showed up in his head, he CHANGED THE CHANNEL and replaced it with the HIGHLIGHT REEL moment. Happen again? Perfect. Repeat.

Let’s shine a spotlight on YOU.

Any negative memories popping up for you? Fantastic. You’re human. Quit beating yourself up and ruminating on the negative. Now... What’s a SUPER positive memory you could use to REPLACE that negative memory?

Seriously. What’s A REALLY (!) inspiring moment in your life that you’re REALLY proud of?

Got it? Fantastic.

Remember: The VERY NEXT TIME (!) that negative memory pops up, CHANGE THE CHANNEL and replace it with that positive memory. How are you going to get good at that? PRACTICE. Out-hustle your old self and dominate it, Hero.

P.S. This practice works for EVERYTHING. It’s not just for peak performers in a sports environment. In fact, the Buddha basically taught the same thing.

Here’s how Eknath Easwaran puts it in Conquest of Mind: “‘The first strategy is literally ‘changing one thought for another’: a negative thought for a positive one, an unkind thought for a kind one. ‘Just as a carpenter uses a small peg to drive out a bigger one,’ the Buddha says, ‘you can use a right thought to drive out one that is wrong.’”

Easwaran gives us this example in personal relationships:“To give one small illustration, whenever somebody is unkind to me, I can immediately unroll the panorama of that person’s good qualities. Instantly the balance is set right. As with most skills, this is a matter of practice. When you are having trouble getting along with someone, a simple first step is to sit down quietly and recall how many times that person has given you support. You are using positive memories to drive out negative ones before they have a chance to crowd together and form a mob, which is all resentment really is.”

btw: Going back to the idea of hard work... Easwaran has this to say on THAT subject as well: “Hard work is absolutely necessary for excellence in any field, and nothing requires more intense effort than meditation.”

What are YOUR goals?

And... Personal question time... What do they say about you?

While you consider that, here’s some Maxwell Maltz wisdom from Psycho-Cybernetics: “We are engineered as goal-seeking mechanisms. We are built that way. When we have no personal goal which we are interested in and which ‘means something’ to us, we are apt to ‘go around in circles,’ feel ‘lost’ and find life itself ‘aimless,’ and ‘purposeless.’ We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve. People who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they themselves have no personal goals which are worthwhile. Prescription: Get yourself a goal worth working for.”

Sonja Lyubomirsky puts it this way in The How of Happiness:“Working toward a meaningful life goal is one of the most important strategies for becoming lastingly happier.”

Here’s to setting goals that inspire us—after WOOPing them, of course!

Then let’s give those goals all we’ve got. Remember:“Give your best every single day and I promise you’ll have no regrets.”

The modeling method.

This is alsoan ancient practice. In fact, it was one of the Stoics *favorite* practices. Donald Robertson talks about it in TWO of his great books: The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavior Psychology and How to Think Like a Roman Emperor.

It’s literally the exact same practice as what Darrin’s coach tells us above. Who do you admire? How would THEY respond to YOUR current challenge? Act like that. NOW.

btw: Donald also tells us:“In addition to asking ourselves what qualities the ideal wise person might have, we can ask what qualities we might hope to possess in the distant future. For instance, what sort of person would you hope to be after having trained in Stoicism for ten or twenty years?” 🡨 Love that.

He also emphasizes the importance of hard work and even connects philosophy and sports to our soul—which just so happens to be THE PERFECT way to wrap up our deep dive on Darrin’s Sports for the Soul series.

Donald tells us: “Underlying this conviction is the parallelism between physical and spiritual exercises: just as, by dint of repeated physical exercises, athletes give new form and strength to their bodies, so the philosopher develops his strength of soul, modifies his inner climate, transforms his vision of the world, and, finally, his entire being.”

Here’s to developing the strength of our soul, my beloved Hero.

Day 1. All in. LET’S GO!!!