Monday, February 28, 2011

Mindset Monday 2/28/11- 4 Mandatory Mindsets for Championship Weekend

Pre-Competition

1. I don't care who I go against, I want everyone. I go after the tougher opponent. I live for the challenge.
The best defense is a good offense right? Same thing with your mindset. If you seek the challenge and look for tougher opponents, you're not worried about competing against someone good. You want them!

2. I'm good enough to beat this person, or anyone else for that matter.
Confidence Plus is a Must.

3. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world right now. I live for this. I love it!
Present, In the moment. Devoted 100% to the experience you're having.


Post-Competition

4. This is the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
Learn from everything- wins and losses. Learn lesson regardless and move on.


Note- If you are missing ANY of these mindsets, it is important to rethink your mental game and take the steps necessary to change them to the ones above.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Mindset Monday 2/21/11- Step on their Throat

When you compete you gotta be out for blood. –Team Zannetti Principle

When you’re winning you gotta step on their throat. –Jim Clarke (sales and investing guru and personality)

No Mercy. –John Kreese (Cobra Kai Sensei)

The point illustrated-
Watch as my UPenn professor kicks the crap out of a racist author:

“It is certainly embarrassing to be wrong. It is doubly embarrassing when your own facts prove you wrong. But isn’t it triply embarrassing when, rather than confess the mistake, one is incoherently pushing the disconfirming facts in support of the theory? And isn’t it quadruply embarrassing when the argument that shows the theory to be wrong is included—and with some insistence!—in the book that defends the theory? Finally, not to be uncharitable but the question must be asked: isn’t it quintuply embarrassing when all of this should be transparently obvious?”*

*taken from the theories of Gil-White (Dr. Francisco Gil-White)

This is the intellectual equivalent of how you handle your opponent on the field of play. There's a place for mercy, compassion, and empathy, but it's not in competition. If you are going to look back and regret a loss or a close score, you must kick them while they are down. You gotta be OUT FOR BLOOD!

In honor of the Region tournament this week in New Jersey wrestling, here is the documentary THE SEASON: IOWA WRESTLING...this is what I'm taking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peKWoVOA85s

Monday, February 14, 2011

Mindset Monday 2/14/11- Life is Choice

The longer I live, the more...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.”
- Charles R. Swindoll

These numbers seem pretty strong. And I am sure these figures severely underestimate sociology and the power of context. I do not know if you can assign accurate numbers, but I am sure life is part what happens to you and part how you react to it.

In other words- Life is Choice.

Life is filled with choices, made up of trade offs which include their own respective consequences, some of which we cannot see, only predict. The consequences in turn shape your life to some extent.

So at the most basic level, your choices affect your life.


My parents always stressed two big concepts to my brothers and I- (1) Always be a good person (2) Always use good common sense.

Both are important!

I've heard it said, "good things happen to good people" and "what goes around comes around." Neither of these are true in a literal sense, all the time. These saying hold up sometimes, but not always.

I have seen many "good" people make bad decisions that have literally ruined their life. Good people who made 1 bad decision, 1 time.

This is not to say that everything you do has life affecting consequences. But the truth is, some choices you make do have THAT big of an impact.

But remember! You do not only have a choice in big matters. You have a choice all the time. The first step to controlling your life is recognizing that you are in control of your life (at least to some degree). Remember life is part what happens to you, but also part how you react to it. How you react to life are your choices. And good decision making is crucial to a happy and successful life.

You have control of your choices. You can choose to be a victim or anything else. (-peaceful warrior).

Realize you can choose to let someone anger, annoy, or upset you or not.
You can choose to eat healthy or not, go all out or hold back, exercise or not, take drugs or not, have unprotected sex or not etc.

All life is a choice. Even reading this right now is a choice. You can choose to do what you want.
This is a very empowering and liberating idea. Imagine living under Communism with no choice at all. You would be dying to come to a Democracy, like you live in, with the options and choices before you right now.

Start appreciating your choice.

Another thing to remember is to only concern yourself with things you have control of. Do not waste time worrying about things you cannot control. This will lead to unnecessary fear, anxiety, and stress.

Your Choice (which includes how you will act) is the only thing you can control. Do not overly concern yourself with other people's decisions and actions, even if they work against you. Just decide what you want to do from this point forward.

The second step to controlling your life is realizing NOW is the moment of power. Now is the time we harvest the crops of the past and plant the seeds for the future. There is power that lies in the past or future. The past does shape where we are now. The future does shape the course of action we will take now. But, the PRESENT is the only time that you can act.

So our first two steps to controlling our life are (1) Recognizing you have a choice and (2) Realizing that Now is the only moment you are capable of acting on your choice.

You can choose to act in the future, but you are only capable of acting in the present. Concern yourself with (1) Your Power of Choice and (2) The Present Moment

Monday, February 7, 2011

Mindset Monday 2/7/11- Pull the Trigger

Pull the Trigger
To sum up Sport/Performance Psychology in a 3 word sentence- Pull the trigger!

This is analogous to the Nike slogan of "Just Do It." However, I like "pull the trigger" because it commands the most attention and includes a sense of urgency.

When it comes right down to it, you are faced with one major decision in life- Am I going to go all out OR am I going to hold back? (thank you Dr. Rob Gilbert) Are you going to make it happen or are you going to sit back and hope it happens? I'm sure anyone reading this does not need to be convinced that the difference between champions in sports and life are the ones who make things happen. Champions pull the trigger.

There are many things that could inhibit someone from pulling the trigger- fear, past experience, over analysis, etc etc. Many people have a misconception that champions do not go through similar mental discomforts- they are just different kinds of people than we are, they say. Well guess what? Champions are human just like anyone else- never subhuman or superhuman, but simply human. They have emotions, doubts, fears, nervousness, and past failures just like anyone else, but they act ANYWAY.

A warrior isn't about perfection or victory or invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability- that's the only true courage. (Peaceful Warrior)

Champions do not let doubts, fears, and past failures cripple them from taking action. Typically, a champion uses "failure" to motivate themselves to take more action. Champions will pull the trigger.

Many do not realize this, but Champions lose more than normal people lose. Why? Because they make more attempts than ordinary people. The difference is that they continue to take action no matter what their outcomes. Surely they use their failures as feedback and thus look honestly at themselves and make modifications when necessary, but they continue to act, they continue to pull the trigger.

Take a look at a few examples of Champions losing more than normal people:

~Few people would think that the hitter who struck out most times in baseball history would be thought of as a good player, much less a baseball hall of famer, Mr. October REGGIE JACKSON.
~Or that the batter who made the most outs ever would also have the most hits- does PETE ROSE ring a bell?
~ Surely the pitcher with the most all time losses would be sent back to the minors. He wouldn't be the pitcher with the most all time wins would he? Would they name the Most Valuable Pitcher the CY YOUNG award?
~You would think the basketball player who missed over 9,000 shots, lost almost 300 games, missed the game winning shot 26 times, and cut from freshman high school team would be MICHAEL JORDAN.
~Just google the "successes and failures of ABRAHAM LINCOLN" if you want to see real adversity and bouncing back from losses!

NJ wrestling great Andrew Flanagan once said that in high school he wrestled in higher divisions in the off-season and thus had a lot of losses. But that made him tougher and was a big contributor to his success. He said, "if you're not losing, your not wrestling good enough competition." You can apply this to any area in life. The Champion seeks the best competition. He goes for the challenge, to test himself. We often tend to compete at the level of our competition. So to raise your level, raise your competition. How many people could have been so much better if they would have chosen to join the pack of lions instead of assuming the lead among wolves. Yeah it may feel good, but which will make you better? Ask yourself that honestly. Is your goal to look good in front of people and feel good? Or is it to get as good as you can (which of course will eventually lead to recognition and good self feelings)?

I love to hear the reasoning when I hear great performers call BS on Sport/Performance Psychology. They say "that stuff" is garbage. I don't think about psychology or anything for that matter. I just do it.
When I hear this I always laugh to myself because theirin lies the master of Performance Psychology. If I had to make a brief list of what Performance Psychology in a nutshell it would be (1)Help person find what they want (2)Come up with a plan of how to achieve it (3)Get person to take action (3)Get person to step out of their own way (get their mind and body to work together). That's it!
The Champions who call a bluff on Performance Psychology do naturally exactly as they are supposed to (they just do not realize it) - they know what they want, they act, they don't get in their own way by over thinking or negative thinking.

True, some people have it naturally. So it's tempting to say, "you either have it or you don't." Well I say, you have it or you can LEARN IT. Remember the strong rule the weak, but the smart rule the strong (for example humans tame lions, not the reverse). As some people are naturally stronger than others, this is not the end of the story. On the contrary, a person who is naturally strong who never lifts weights can and will lose to the unnatural who makes lifting weights a high priority. There are scientific ways to improve your strength, just as there are scientific ways to improve your mindset.

That's right, this is not chat room discussion. This is a SCIENTIFIC FIELD. A lot of people aren't aware of that. Sport Psychology is a SCIENCE. Many coaches tell athletes to be more confident or to relax. But they never tell them quite how to do it. Probably because they themselves are not aware of how to do so. I'm here to tell you there are techniques and systematic ways to help you get more confident and to relax when you get too nervous. Whether you take advantage of them or not is up to you...

Gene Zannetti
Peak Performance Specialist
(908) 337-6143
genezannetti@gmail.com