IT’S EVERYTHING!

The 4^th Key to Beating Big Shots is Attitude

We hear it all the time…"attitude is everything." It’s certainly true that without the right attitude you have no chance.

Attitude keys your energy
When you have a great energy you don’t hold back. You expect good things to happen. You focus on doing your job.

If things go wrong, you stay focused and just assume your luck will change and you’ll get a chance to get back on top. Whatever play the coach calls—you jump in.

If you don’t have a great attitude you will question everything. You'll resent all the work you have to do, because you think it’s a waste of time.

Your attitude is tested everyday, every minute.
At every step, you have challenges that test you and give you the opportunity to turn sour. It’s only those who maintain a positive attitude that are able to stay positive going through the painful stages of conditioning, practice and preparation. 

No matter how great the game plan is that the coaches prepare, it’s worthless unless executed with energy and precision. If you have athletes with great attitudes on the field, you know that gives you the absolute best chance for that plan to work.

Great team attitude creates consistency, bad attitude destroys it
It keeps them focused on the team goal…winning! Maybe a player is having a bad day, but if he can overcome it by focusing on the team, it won’t matter. He will stay focused and intense. 

Self-centered glory hogs lose focus if they start to play bad. They are thinking about themselves—their statistics—and their real motivation is exposed. They become the drop of poison that destroys the team’s focus at the critical moment.

These are the ones quick to blame others and complain. You can’t win with them.

Great attitude gives you all the extras:

• It helps you keep things in perspective.
• Prevents you from making excuses.
• It gives you toughness and determination to win because you are always looking for positives.
• It creates the desire to improve and the drive to make the extra effort so you can improve
• It makes the process fun for the player and everyone else on the team

Protect the team’s attitude! With it, you have chance to do great things!

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Part 6 of 5 KEYS TO BEAT THE BIG SHOTS. Related posts:

• You Can Beat The Big Shots
• John Wooden and Shoelaces 
• Get READY, Get SET
• Face the Pain
• OUT THINK THEM

The Self-Centered Black Hole

We are emotional beings

We all have our ups and downs. Over our lives we experience the gamut of emotions. We soon discover we’d rather stay on the satisfied, fufillled and joyous side of life as much as possible

Here’s why you shouldn’t let yourself get too wrapped up in yourself
Being self-centered leads to depression, it draws you inward facing your imperfections, focusing on all you don't have.

It’s like a Black Hole
It’s a downward spiral that can grab you and not let go. You lose perspective. You forget about the good things in your life. You forget so many others have it much worse than you because you aren't thinking about them, you are thinking about you. You focus on all that you are lacking and that makes you feel bitter and helpless. Down, down, down.

Thinking about others has the opposite effect
Satisfaction and fulfillment are usually related to going outside yourself, getting involved in the world and other people. The more you get involved in others lives, the more appreciation you get for your life. You get a balanced perspective on life. You have new experiences, make new friends and learn new things. You stay fresh.

We are social beings, we need to be around others and involved in their lives to stay emotionally healthy. The alternate is a life of isolation and self-centeredness, a life of despair.

Watch out for yourself, but also for your friends and family as well. 
If you see any of them withdrawing into themselves, go get them. Take them to dinner. Get them out and find something fun to do. Let them know they have a friend. Draw them out and let them talk. 

They may be stuck in a downward spiral. They may desperately need a helping hand to get them out. Be that friend. Make a difference!

There's Always Someone Yapping

When you win there’s always someone around yapping their mouth about something you did wrong.

It usually comes from someone who never did anything themselves. They are hung up on the unimportant, minor issues.  They are so caught up in the minutia that they miss the big picture.

It's called, "Majoring on the Minors."

They strain and nitpick and miss the main point and that’s that you WON! Don’t worry about them! If they knew what they were talking about they would have won themselves.

They may have a minor point, but they miss the major point—winning. They think winning means perfection
Wrong, wrong, wrong! Winning is doing enough to win—it has nothing to do with perfection.
The yappers need to focus on what you did right, not on what you did wrong.

Let them yap and you enjoy your win!

Fireplaces & Horses—It Depends On How You Look At Them

I was excited to show my granddad my new big fireplace in our new dream home.

It was beautiful! Brick façade, great big mantle—it was spectacular! Granddad was not impressed, at all.

He said that since he had spent all his life cutting firewood for fireplaces, actually there were six in the house my mother grew up in, that he looked at them differently. They represented hard times, a lot of work and a way of life he had put into his past. His idea of a great house was one that didn’t have ANY fireplaces. That meant there was a great heating unit in there and he could stay as warm as he wanted by simply adjusting the thermostat.

Now to him, THAT was spectacular!

Now all that didn’t change my attitude about my fireplace but it did make me realize there was another way to look at it. It all depended on where you were coming from.

I ran into the same reaction when the subject of horses came up in a conversation with my friend Brian Mehmen. He told me he grew up on a horse farm and that his dad still lived on one. Warming to the subject, I told him I loved horses, had a horse farm myself and had that our family had been involved in all kinds of horse activities for years from fox hunting to eventing to competing on the Hunter Jumper show circuit.

However, it didn’t take long to notice Brian was not as gung ho about the subject as I was. It turned out he grew up having to muck out stalls. His entire experience was taking care of them, every day having to clean up after them, feed and water them. He was not on the fun side of the horse. I never got involved in that part.

Just like babies, horses are a lot more fun when you aren’t required to clean up the poop. When Brian thought of horses, that’s the thought he had in his mind. No wonder he wasn’t thrilled. That memory would never leave him. In his world, a great life would be totally without any horses involved.

Perspective. It changes how you look at things.

When you are on the enjoyment side, you love it!
When you are stuck on the work side you hate it.
When you do something because you want to, you love it.
When you do something because you have to, you resent it.

It's worth remembering, just because you love something, it doesn’t mean everybody will.