MESSAGE #946 WALK LIKE A MATADOR

It’s easier to act yourself into a way of feeling than it is to feel yourself into a way of acting.

Dr. Jim Loehr once watched hundreds of hours of videotape of professional tennis matches and noticed a difference between the champions and everybody else. The difference wasn’t talent or skills, but what they did in the 15-20 seconds between points.

“Champions like Chris Evert…kept their heads high even when they’d lost a point, maintaining a confident posture that telegraphed no big deal. Loehr nicknamed this ‘the matador walk’ after a Spanish matador told him, ‘The most important lesson in courage is physical, not mental. From the age of 12, I was taught to walk in a way that produces courage.’

The tennis champions like Evert would next concentrate their gazes on their rackets or touch the strings with their fingers and stroll toward the back court–focusing, avoiding distraction, relaxing, and effectively letting the past go. After this mini-meditation, they’d turn back toward the net, bounce on their toes, and visualize playing the next point.” (Source: Psychotherapy Networker; “Living on Purpose” by Katy Butler)

What’s the point?

How you act is how you are going to feel.

Act how you want to feel and you will feel the way you act.

MESSAGE #944 TODAY IS THE ONLY DAY THAT MATTERS

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten,
either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.
-BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

My only question to you is…

ARE YOU GOING ALL OUT?

If you’re a writer, write things that are worth reading. But if you’re not a writer, do things worth writing about.

I may not know you, but I know THIS about you…

 

1. You have unlimited potential.

2. All of the ability is already inside you (you just have to discover the strategy).

3. You can learn any skill, mental or physical.

4. You can’t win when you’re focused on winning.

5. You don’t have to be great at the start, but you need to start to be great.

 

So today is the only day that matters. Why?

Because you can only live one day at a time.

Make every day the most important day of your life.

Make every practice the most important practice of your life.

Make every competition the most important competition of your life.

If you do this, I’m sure you will be pleased with the results.

Go all out today!

MESSAGE #943 A MENTAL TOUGHNESS EXERCISE

It’s not what’s happening around you. It’s not what’s happening to you. What matters most is what’s happening inside you.

Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Steven Nakagama Magee in Millburn, NJ.

EXERCISE:

Think back to a “good day” in your sport. Visualize what went on before, during and after that peak performance. Re-create those feelings and actions.

Now go back to a “bad day” that you had. Visualize what went on before, during and after that poor performance. Re-create those feelings and actions.

Compare the two.

The difference is always in your head.

So what does this mean?

It means you have to be mindful of your self-talk during practice and competition.

Instead of breaking yourself down, build yourself up.

MESSAGE #942 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WINNING

Today’s message is especially dedicated to the great Lewis Howes.

Does your day determine your attitude or does your attitude determine your day?
-COACH DARREN VENTRE

Does how you play determine your attitude or does your attitude determine how you play?
-ED TSENG, author of “Game. Set. Life.” and Pro of the Year USTA 2005

True champions can do their best when they feel their worst. Anyone can perform well when they feel good.

But the great ones are able to perform well even when they don’t have their “A” game.

Will you act how you feel, or will you act like how you WANT to feel?

It’s your choice whether you act like a winner, or you act like a whiner.

If you practiced your sport today for ten hours, would you really wake up tomorrow morning a better athlete?

No.

But do you know how you CAN instantly become better?

By having a winning mindset and by having a winning attitude.

I taught a boy yesterday in a group lesson. He seemed low energy and I asked him if he was tired; he said yes. I told him that it was okay to feel tired, but he didn’t have to ACT tired. He smiled, and said, “Okay.”

He then proceeded to increase his energy and ended up playing great the rest of the lesson.

You don’t have to be a talented, gifted or a world champion to have a winning attitude. Anyone can do it, it’s a choice.

Who has the best attitude that you know?

MESSAGE #940 A GREAT OLYMPIC STORY

In 1938, Karoly Takacs of the Hungarian Army, was the top pistol shooter in the world. He was expected to win the gold in the 1940 Olympic Games scheduled for Tokyo.

Those expectations vanished one terrible day just months before the Olympics. While training with his army squad, a hand grenade exploded in Takacs’ right hand, and Takacs’ shooting hand was blown off.

Takacs spent a month in the hospital depressed at both the loss of his hand, and the end to his Olympic dream. At that point most people would have quit. And they would have probably spent the rest of their life feeling sorry for themselves. Most people would have quit but not Takacs. Takacs was a winner. Winners know that they can’t let circumstances keep them down. They understand that life is hard and that they can’t let life beat them down. Winners know in their heart that quitting is not an option.

Takacs did the unthinkable; he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and decided to learn how to shoot with his left hand! His reasoning was simple. He simply asked himself, “Why not?”

Instead of focusing on what he didn’t have – a world class right shooting hand, he decided to focus on what he did have – incredible mental toughness, and a healthy left hand that with time, could be developed to shoot like a champion.

For months Takacs practiced by himself. No one knew what he was doing. Maybe he didn’t want to subject himself to people who most certainly would have discouraged him from his rekindled dream.

In the spring of 1939 he showed up at the Hungarian National Pistol Shooting Championship. Other shooters approached Takacs to give him their condolences and to congratulate him on having the strength to come watch them shoot. They were surprised when he said, “I didn’t come to watch, I came to compete.” They were even more surprised when Takacs won!

The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled because of World War II. It looked like Takacs’ Olympic Dream would never have a chance to realize itself. But Takacs kept training and in 1944 he qualified for the London Olympics. At the age of 38, Takacs won the Gold Medal and set a new world record in pistol shooting. Four years later, Takacs won the Gold Medal again at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Takacs – a man with the mental toughness to bounce back from anything.

Winners in every field have a special trait that helps them become unstoppable. A special characteristic that allows them to survive major setbacks on the road to success. Winners recover QUICKLY. Bouncing back is not enough. Winners bounce back QUICKLY. They take their hit, they experience their setback, they have the wind taken out of their sails, but they immediately recover. Right away they FORCE themselves to look at the bright side of things – ANY bright side, and they say to themselves, “That’s OK. There is always a way. I will find a way.” They dust themselves off, and pick up where they left off.

The reason quick recovery is important is that if you recover quickly, you don’t lose your momentum and your drive. Takacs recovered in only one month. If he had wallowed in his misery, if he had stayed “under the circumstances,” if he had played the martyr, and felt sorry for himself much longer, he would have lost his mental edge – his “eye of the tiger” and he never would have been able to come back.

When a boxer gets knocked down, he has ten seconds to get back up. If he gets up in eleven seconds, he loses the fight. Remember that next time you get knocked down.

Takacs definitely had a right to feel sorry for himself. He had a right to stay depressed and to ask himself “Why me?” for the rest of his life. He had the right to act like a mediocre man.

Takacs could have let his terrible accident cause him to become permanently discouraged, to take up heavy drinking, to quit on life alltogether, and maybe even to end his own life. He could have acted like a loser.

But Takacs made the DECISION to dig deep inside and to find a solution. To pick himself up and to learn to shoot all over again. Winners always search for a solution. Losers always search for an escape.

Next time you get knocked down, DECIDE you will act like a winner. DECIDE to act like Takacs. Get up quickly, take action, and astound the world!

(By Ruben Gonzalez, three-time Olympian)

MESSAGE #937 PEAK PERFORMANCE IN REAL ESTATE

Today’s message is especially dedicated to all the great Weichert Realtors in Manalapan, NJ.

I’m giving a talk to one of the top performing Weichert Realtors offices in New Jersey today.

What do I know about selling real estate? A lot.

See, it’s not about real estate, it’s about resiliency. Bounce back ability.

Real estate is challenging these days, so you need to be able to bounce back. It’s a numbers game.

In sports, you don’t win all the time, but if you can bounce back from losses, you will eventually win. Selling real estate is the same way.

Remember Message #918 SW9?

You don’t drown by falling in water.

You drown by staying there.

 

Thanks for reading.

MESSAGE #935 A POEM

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

(Thanks to the great Jake Putnam in Boise, Idaho for sharing)

MESSAGE #931 TED

The TED Conference is going on right now in California.

One of my favorite resources is TED.com. If you haven’t gone to it yet, do yourself a favor and check it out. Videos from some of the top minds in the world are on this great site.

I just finished watching a talk by magician, David Blaine on how he held his breath for 17 minutes to break the world record.

It was a great presentation, but all you needed to hear were the last ten seconds…

“Magic is pretty simple, it’s practice, it’s training, and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best I can be.”

–DAVID BLAINE

MESSAGE #921 PRACTICE DOES NOT MAKE PERFECT


In this video blog, Ed Tseng talks about how to practice perfect, and shares tips for athletes who are trying out for their school teams in a few weeks. https://www.edtseng.com

MESSAGE #914 WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T LAUGH…


Ed Tseng and high school tennis player, Kevin Roveda demonstrate a laughing meditation. At first they were faking their laughter, but then they started actually laughing. Even the camera woman was crying from laughter.

If you want to feel a certain way, start faking it and you will soon start feeling it.

Video blog: https://www.edtseng.com