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Book Review: 177 Mental Toughness Secrets
Date Published: 15 July, 2009
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Introduction to '177 Mental Toughness Secrets' |
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By Steve Siebold
After 20 years of interviewing, coaching and competing against world-class performers, I have broken down their secrets into mini-modules that are easy to read and simple to understand. Here are examples of Secrets 1-5, just as they appear in the book:
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#1 The World Class Operates From Objective Reality
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“Amateur performers operate from delusion, pros operate from objective reality. The great ones’ habits, actions, and behaviors are totally congruent with the size and scope of their ultimate vision. That’s why we call them champions.”
– Steve Siebold | |
In 20 years of competing, coaching and working with performers from various fields, I’ve discovered most amateurs suffer from mild to severe delusion in relation to their efforts and competencies. In other words, most people delude themselves into thinking they are working harder then they are, and that they are more competent than they actually are. Of the five major levels of conscious awareness, (poverty, working, middle, upper, and world) my experience has been that performers at the middle-class levels of consciousness suffer the grandest delusions. The poverty level is barely surviving and living in a very harsh set of circumstances. The working class is punching a mental time clock and counting the days until retirement. They’re usually not expecting much, and no one around them expects much, either. They are typically not concerned about climbing any higher. |
| It’s the middle class that is most incongruent with reality. They are operating at a high enough level to understand that higher levels exist. Although they don’t expect to get there, the thought crosses their minds from time to time. Because of their low expectations, their actions are incongruent with their desires. In other words, they want to live the life of the world class, but are unwilling to pay the price. Since this reality is too harsh to bear, they delude themselves into thinking they are doing everything in their power to get ahead. Of course, they’re not. They’ll tell you they’re putting in far more time than they are. They’ll swear they are thinking about their vision all the time, but they’re not. The world class is brutally honest with themselves, and they tend to look reality in the face. They err on the side of over-practicing and over-preparing. Champions know that, to ascend to the top, you must first be operating from a mindset of objective reality. Self-deception and delusion have no place in the professional performer’s consciousness. |
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Action Step for Today: Make a commitment to check delusion at the door. Be honest and ask this critical thinking question: “Are my habits, actions and behaviors congruent with the vision I have for my life?” | |
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World-Class Resource: Get a copy of Leadership and Self-Deception, by The Arbinger Institute. This book made me reexamine my entire belief system. It’s a must-have for your mental toughness library. | |
#2 World-Class Wealth Begins With World-Class Thinking
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“Wealth is the product of a man’s capacity to think.”
– Ayn Rand, 1905-1982,
author, philosopher | |
If you got out of bed this morning and went to work because you wanted to, you are in control of money. If you got out of bed this morning because you had to, money is in control of you. Even in the wealthiest nation in the world, 99% of the population is being controlled by money. The effect is lack of money. The cause is thinking. Albert Einstein once said, “a problem cannot be solved at the level of consciousness in which it occurs." |
| Knowing this, champions raise their level of consciousness by studying how the world class creates wealth. The middle class believes formal education is the answer to acquiring wealth, yet very few academics are wealthy. They seek advanced degrees and certifications and are confounded when these things don’t bring them riches. While the great ones are strong advocates of higher education, they don’t believe it has much to do with acquiring money. The middle class trades time for money. The world class trades ideas that solve problems for money. Money flows like water from ideas. The middle class often scorns the world class out of frustration over a lack of money, yet the answer to earning more than they can spend has been in their laps their whole lives. Ideas -- it’s such a simple concept that the majority misses it. The poverty class talks about and regurgitates the past; the middle class talks about other people; and the world class talks about ideas. Professional performers know money doesn’t care in which direction it flows. They know the world will bend over backward to make them rich if it will help them solve their problems. About 150 years ago, Karl Marx was sure the working class, as a whole, would rise up and overcome oppression if they had a chance. What Marx didn’t figure into the equation was the poverty-driven thought process of the people. Give people operating at middle-class consciousness a million-dollar opportunity, and they will find a way to make it back to the middle class. It is where their limited self-image tells them they belong. The difference has nothing to do with reality. It’s all perception in the mind of the performer. |
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Action Step for Today: Ask this critical thinking question: “At what level of monetary success do I feel most comfortable? a) poverty class b) middle class c) world class.” Where you feel most comfortable reflects your self-image, and most likely, your current status. If you want to become wealthier, begin by raising your self-image by upgrading the self-talk you use regarding money and finances. If all you do is chase more money, you are simply attacking the effect. The cause is how you think, and if you improve the cause, the effect will take care of itself. | |
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World-Class Resource: Read You Were Born Rich, by Bob Proctor. This man knows more about the mind/money connection than anyone alive. I study everything he produces like a scientist. Learn more about him at www.bobproctor.com | |
#3 Champions Have An Immense Capacity
For Sustained Concentration
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“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all of your energies on a limited set of targets.”
– Nido Qubein, speaker, author, philanthropist | |
Champions are famous for concentrating their energy and efforts on what they want and blocking out anything or anyone who threatens that focus. While average people haphazardly pursue loosely defined goals, champions concentrate on the attainment of a singular purpose with an intensity that borders on obsession. World-class performers invest an inordinate amount of time and energy in selecting their major goals. While the masses consider making changes every New Year’s Eve, the goal setting and planning process is an everyday habit of champions. |
| When the goals are set, champions put mental blinders on and move forward with dogged persistence and ferocious tenacity. World-class performers create such an intense level of concentration to overcome challenges and achieve goals that it is the last thing they think about before they fall asleep, and the first thing that hits them when they wake up. The great ones dream about their goals so frequently that they often keep pen and paper on the nightstand so they can quickly record any ideas or solutions that come to them in the middle of the night. While average people see world-class performers’ successes as a matter of intelligence or luck, champions know sustained concentration of thought and action is usually the true key to their success. |
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Action Step for Today: Write down the single most important goal you want to achieve in the next twelve months and make a commitment to concentrate on achieving it – no matter what it takes. | |
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World-Class Resource: Read Focal Point, by Brian Tracy. This book is required reading for all Mental Toughness University clients in corporate America. | |
#4 Champions Are Driven By Emotional Motivators
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“When a performer begins to experience physical or emotional pain in the heat of the battle, the brain, whose primary role is self preservation, asks the question: ‘Why must I suffer?’ The champion will answer the question with the vision they have carefully constructed, and they will continue to fight. Since the masses lack this mental clarity and have no reason to suffer, they quit as soon as the pain kicks in. Developing a world-class vision is the secret to world-class motivation.”
– Steve Siebold | |
The masses are primarily motivated by extrinsic motivators, such as material possessions and money. The world class is motivated intrinsically, by their dreams, desires and passions. External motivation is short lived, while internal motivation is nearly impossible to exhaust until the goal is achieved. The rah-rah, jump-up-and-down motivational pep talks are fun and temporarily motivating, yet lack the real fire emotional motivators generate. World-class leaders know the secret to motivating themselves and others is discovering what they will fight for when the going gets tough. The great ones move from logic-based motivators to emotion-based motivators. They know the key to finding the true power of the individual lies in the deep recesses of the psyche. The process great leaders and coaches use is tedious, time consuming, and simple: ask questions, and don’t stop until you have landed on the emotional hot buttons. World-class coaches keep digging until they hit the vein of gold – when the performer begins answering in terms of how they feel, as opposed to what they think. When they hit the vein of gold, they continue to probe until the performer reaches an emotional high point, known in performance circles as the white moment. The white moment is the strongest emotional driver of a performer. Coaches use emotional drivers to motivate and inspire performers to push far beyond their threshold of pain, to accomplish feats that, without this level of motivation, would be impossible. |
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Action Step for Today: Ask these five critical thinking questions:
1) What am I willing to fight for?
2) What values do I hold dearest to my heart?
3) What values would I be willing to die for?
4) If I could achieve a single thing, what would make
all my hard work worth the struggle?
5) If I had thirty seconds left to live, what would I tell
my children are the three most important things I learned about how to live a happy life?
Your answers will tell you a lot about what drives you emotionally. | |
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World-Class Resource: Read Authentic Happiness, by Martin Seligman, Ph.D. | |
#5 The Great Ones Separate Truth From Fact
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“We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.”
– William James,
1842-1910, author | |
While average performers tend to believe truth and fact are the same, the world class knows there is a difference. Champions use their critical thinking skills to make a clear distinction between truth and fact. Fact is reality. Truth is our perception of reality, and perceptions are subjective. One person perceives giving to charity as an expense, while another perceives it as an investment in someone else’s life. The fact is that many people give to charity; whether it’s an expense or an investment is a perception. Which line of thinking represents truth? |
| Both. In the minds of individuals, perception equals truth. This subtle distinction allows the great ones to understand themselves and others at a higher level of awareness. The masses tend to operate from truth, which is often a distorted version of facts. Champions make decisions based on facts, not feelings. The world class also uses this understanding of truth and fact in their mental programming. The great ones know the conscious mind functions most effectively on fact, while the subconscious can be programmed with truth. Since the subconscious is unable to make the distinction between fact and truth, champions program their subconscious minds to believe their visions, dreams and ideas as truths. Because the subconscious doesn’t have the ability to reject an idea, it accepts it as truth and begins to create behaviors that are congruent with this new “truth.” The conscious mind knows this “truth” is not fact, and tension begins to build between the conscious and subconscious, creating cognitive dissonance. As a result, the two go to work to create congruency. The great ones are not only aware of the difference between truth and fact, but they also know how to use them both to get what they want. |
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Action Step for Today: Write down 10 things you know are fact, and rethink each by asking, “Is this really a fact, or a truth I’ve created from my own or others’ perceptions?” For example: is it a fact that the sky is blue? Is it a fact that you are a nice person? Is it a fact that the faithful will be rewarded in heaven? You’ll see how often we operate from truth, rather than fact. |
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