Working in the world of human performance where athletes try to set world records, beat and compete with the best, and challenge for championships has given me a unique perspective.

Just like in every other domain of life, in sport there are disagreements, misunderstandings, arguments about what happened, who did what to who, and what should or should not have been done.

Short of the accuracy of timing, or the ball crossing the goal line (and even those sometimes have photo finishes or instant replays to settle the score), in most instances what happened is all a matter of perspective. What you saw, or the coach saw, or the opposition saw or heard for that matter, is all framed in a perspective born of bias, and of memory.

All of us have grown up whether we want to admit it or not with certain social biases driven from our experiences throughout our lives, and driven by the opinions and biases of people we looked up to as we grew up. In some instances we simply adopted, adapted, or accepted those biases as our own, leaning towards the same viewpoint as our parents.

For instance, if our parents were bigots, then quite often we accepted those thoughts as real and true…..inarguable.

Alternatively, we might have decided that what our parents thought, or our grandparents or our teacher’s thought was malarkey. 

We made our own decision that we would not be swayed by their bias and so we adopted the opposite perspective, another viewpoint so to speak. Was it the right viewpoint? Were our parents wrong, or were they just seeing things from the eyes of their own biased perspective?

When we add to this that much recent research in the area of memory has revealed that our subconscious mind likes to colour or functionally replace information we may not have seen or experienced in order to complete the stories we recall. 

Considering this we begin to understand that there is very limited certainty in most discussions or arguments, just shades of gray biased by perspective.

The fallibility of our recollection has been challenged so much so that eyewitness testimony, which for so long was considered the key to establishing doubt or certainty in a court case, is often no longer admissible or considered relevant in a court of law.

So if we realize that in any given situation in which there is disagreement, there will always be bias and discrepancy in recollection, we start out knowing that we may be wrong. If we start with that baseline, then our challenge becomes an opportunity to learn, instead of denying.

How do we learn? How do we open our eyes to other perspectives? How do we challenge our recollection or bias?

We listen.

Yep, that’s it! We listen intentionally, with a true desire to understand what another person is saying, even when they are not doing a great job of listening themselves. We put away our desire to be right, to know the answer, or to put them in their place, and we just listen.

Then we ask questions.

Yep, before you start telling the other person what has been festering in your mind and needs to get out. What you believe to be the solution, or the correct answer, take some time to ask questions about how that person got to that place in their mind. 

Don’t tell them what you think, listen to why they think the way they think. Listen and understand their viewpoint and even when you disagree with it vehemently, recognize that it comes from a place of bias and uncertainty in them as well.

Empathy is the most valuable emotional center point for any discussion. Doing our best to understand the other person should be our goal every time. Recognize that they may be coming from a negative space, or a different world of experience that is clouding or freeing their recollection.

Finally, recognize our own state of mind when we enter into such discussion. Our state of mind clouds our viewpoint and often challenges our ability to think and express ourselves clearly. If we are amped up because of a challenging day at work, or something has us in a place of negativity, then our opinions will be coloured once more by our mind’s eye.

An emotional triad worth considering every time you perhaps disagree with someone else’s perspective is first be kind to yourself and understand where your mind is coming from, then recognize that the person across from you has their own bias and state of mind, and finally recognize that no one, not you, nor the person you are talking to knows anything with total certainty. 

Practicing this triad when connecting with others will often bring a sense of calm and kindness often missing in communication today.

Yes, You may never be right again, but that’s ok!

Hello, 60!

Wow, it’s really here, 60 trips around the sun have been incredible.

All the things I’ve seen and done in 60 years, crazy!

I was born December 3rd, 1963, just days after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  It’s an event that has always intrigued me, maybe because my angel was coming down while his had just risen?

The 60s were a tumultuous time, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated as well, Malcolm X, and Jimmy Hoffa disappeared!?  And the Vietnam War was a fixture of the times surrounded by the hippy-counter-culture.

Canada wasn’t quite so intense.  

Born in Ottawa, I was adopted by my parents and soon after found myself in Singapore, the new son of a neophyte diplomat and his fish out of water wife (she didn’t love the foreign service).

Back to Canada in the late 60s, adjusting to the snow with my new adopted brother.

The late 60s early 70s began with Man on the Moon!  One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!

We moved to England, my father’s diplomatic career in high gear, my mother’s unhappiness in full view.

Then the wheels fell off at the Watergate hotel, and so too in my parents’ marriage.

By my 16th birthday I was the man of the house, and I grew up fast, my brother didn’t. He struggled.

Everything blew up, and the only thing holding me on the ground was playing football and the deep connection with friends.

I loved music and conversation, and at one point I thought I might become a radio talk show DJ, but that dream got shelved, not something my father wanted for me…….

So, I fell into Athletic Therapy, Strength and Conditioning too…..who knew either of these things we even professions when I was a kid. Someone just taped my ankles and when they got sprained, I iced them until I could run again!

And thus began an incredible career, never contemplated, always inspiring.

I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my 60 years

• Man on the moon
• Canada vs Russia – Paul Henderson and the boys!
• More PM’s than I can count and 11 Presidents
• The Home Computer and the Laptop
• Elvis, Lennon, Jackson, and too many others too early
• Regan, Princess Diana, OJ
• 9/11
• The Cordless Phone and the answering machine
• Vinyl, tape, cassettes, 8-track, DVDs, and Digital
• Rabbit ears, cable, satellite, 1000 channels, streaming
• The Internet, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.!
• Too many wars
• Pin-ball, Pong, Super Mario, Video Gaming
• The cellular phone
• The iPod, iPhone, iPad, I can’t imagine!
• All the Super Bowls and the halftime shows!
• Many Grey Cups (been around longer than the Super Bowl)
• Hockey Dynasty: Bruins, Canadiens, Flyers, Islanders, Oilers, Devils, Penguins, Red Wings, Avalanche, Black Hawks, Kings, Lightening.
• Orr, Lafleur, Gretzky, Lemieux, Crosby, McDavid
• And the list goes on……..

My career really began in 1988, 35 years ago I became a certified Athletic Therapist, and shortly after a certified strength and conditioning coach.

I created my own job at Concordia University as the first full time hire as an S+C coach in Canada.  It really wasn’t a thing back then.  A few people in Olympic sport, but few and far between.

I’ve seen it all blow up in Canada over the course of the last 30 years. It’s really quite incredible to see where the world of human performance has gone in such a short time, but then again, so has the world in general.

In my time, I’ve traveled the world, and seen many interesting places and things.  I’ve been to several Olympic Games, World Cup races, cities, arenas, and fields.

I’ve been blessed to work with some of the world’s greatest athletes, doing things that are just so unimaginable, and doing it with grace, power, and speed! (it really is something incredible to see the best of the best do what they do best, what an honor!).

I’ve seen triumph and despair……I’ve seen it all, been at the bottom looking up, and the top looking over it all.

I am blessed to have worked with incredible people, and to have so many really good friends who matter to me, I hope they know how much.

But the best things that ever happened to me…..meeting my best friend and partner, Jaime, and having our incredible daughter Gretchen. 

The last 20 years of my 60 so far have been the best, and I have no doubt there is more amazing stuff to come.

Now my intention is to give back as much as I can, help others reach higher, and use all 60 years of experience to provide insight to those who care to listen.

“Some men see things as they are, and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?” RFK

Have you ever heard that saying, “Winners never quit, and quitters never win”?

The essence of that saying is that if you want to be great at something, you need to be committed, consistent, and relentless.

It’s not really about how “hard” you work, but how long you are willing to wait.

That’s the mistake that many people make, they think working hard is the solution, but working hard is not truly possible to do consistently and continuously.  In the training world we talk about the idea of intensity versus volume.

Intensity is sexy, it’s explosive, it’s high demand…..it makes a statement, but it’s impossible to sustain.

Volume on the other hand, is far more elusive.  You can fill a bucket of water one drop at a time, or you can fill it with a fire hose, bottom line is that it can only be filled so high before it overflows.

So the secret sauce of success is the simple application of the always doing, never completely stopping, just keep moving monotony of consistency.

When you speak to those who have had great success, and by success, I mean that they are recognized for doing something really well, being the very best, or at least approaching that impression.

When you speak with them, or to those who have supported them or observed them intentionally, the same things are always mentioned;

Desire to do what it takes

Attention to detail

Consistent repetition

Adapting to feedback

Intentional practice

Intentional recovery

Sacrifice

Success….this type of success……isn’t sexy.

Maybe the outcome looks sexy.

There may be fame or fortune in some instances, but that’s really all medium dependent.  

Some of the best teachers in the world aren’t on the cover of Rolling Stone or Vogue magazine, but their students remember them years and years after they’ve been touched by their greatness.

You probably don’t know the best policeman(woman) or fireman(woman) in your town, but you will most surely appreciate their presence in a moment of crisis.

The truth is, arriving at being the best is about your internal desire to explore what’s possible within you through the never ending process of growth.  

You can let off the gas pedal, you just can’t let go completely, otherwise you’ll stop moving. 

Momentum serves to push us through the bumps and potholes of life, but when we stop moving, it’s an awfully difficult thing to get moving again.

Build consistent habits and practices that serve you, don’t stop moving, give yourself permission to slow down, but just don’t stop.  That’s the secret to greatness.

It’s not sexy, but it’s the truth.

Every day is a new day.

Some roll out without a hitch.

Some start well and for some unknown reason go sideways on us.

Some are just dreadful from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep.

Not much we can do to change this right? We’re stuck with what happens each day, it’s just a matter of fate and circumstance, no?

Truth is that the day or even parts of each day don’t have to be determined by any particular moment of negative contemplation. Rather they can be re-framed by our perspective.

Our experiences in life drive our perspective and in turn our behaviors.

If something has happened to us in the past and resulted in a certain outcome, our brain likes to categorize that outcome, prescribe a reaction, and keep it for the next time it happens again, or worse, when it perceives it might happen again.

Yep, that beautiful brain of ours likes to predict so it can be prepared, so given free reign, it’s often likely to choose the path of least resistance.

Stay home, turtle, get out of the way, fold, or maybe just have a temper tantrum and storm away!

Much of the time, a bad day, or a bad part of the day will get defined by the way we frame the information, the way things are interpreted. We define things as binary, good and bad, happy or sad, up or down. Truth be told there is far more gray and far less definition in each moment.

But because of this nature, the outset, or the outcome of certain moments in our day can actually define our day and make it all look and feel far worse than it has been or will actually be!

What if I were to tell you that there are a few ways we can change our frame of mind and as a result, move the needle far more towards positive than negative?

Yes, it’s true, and the things you need to do are really simple, straightforward, and easy to implement.

What? Seriously?

Yep!

There are three techniques you can use, one starts your day, the second one can be used any time you start to feel a sense of negative energy welling up inside you, and the last one ends your day.

1 — Start Your Day with Intention

At the beginning of each day set one intention for your day. Intentions are objectives that are aligned with the person you wish to be and as such, they aren’t meant to be a part of a to-do list.

Intentions have meaning, they are connected to a feeling, the feeling of being a better person.

So, in the beginning of this process of re-framing your day, don’t be too hard on yourself and pick ten intentions you wish to make true, or even stress yourself with how deeply this question needs to be considered.

Simply take a moment to think of things that make you smile inside, things that make you feel warmer, happier, more connected to others, better about yourself, or simply calm you down. Make a list of all these things, chances are, they align with your spirit, and if they do, they reflect the image of you.

Now, just make sure that your daily intention is on that list, and get it done.

By simply setting this intention, you will feel better about your day, and you will be more connected to the intention of your day. When you get better at this process, when you know yourself, even more, you can begin to set more intentions at the beginning of each day that align with you, and your days will become even more powerful.

2 — End Your Day By Counting Your Wins

Just before you go to bed each night, take a moment to count your wins for the day. What were a few of the things you accomplished today? What were a few of the things you felt really good about experiencing? What were some of the things you did that align with you?

Make sure you write down the one intention you accomplished so you ponder your connection to that feeling especially.

The more these wins are connected to your intentions over time, the more powerful they will become.

Why?

Well first off, by just simply counting your wins you are creating a forced moment of positivity in your day. By doing it at the end of the day, your brain will recognize the positive energy and move you to a calmer place, and thus more likely a place where you will sleep more deeply. Good sleep equals a greater chance of waking up on the right side of the bed the next day.

So, counting your wins at the end of the day sets the course of your mindset towards a better start tomorrow.

But if your wins are connected to your true intentions, and your intentions are connected to the person you wish to be, well then all of this becomes just that much more powerful. The positive energy you will begin to feel over time will overcome most any negative kink in your day.

The accomplishment of each intention throughout each day will serve to re-fill this positive state and you will begin to become far more aware of your progress and intentional state of mind.

You will begin to own your day!

3 — Re-Shape Your Day By Minding the Gap

The third technique is not necessary every day, but rather a great strategy for cutting a slip in humor from becoming a landslide into the abyss. No matter what we do, there will be days when things happen, and we won’t always react well, and when these happen, our brain likes to ramp up quickly.

When you feel that negative self-talk begins to ramp up and that sense that things are going sideways, take a few moments to reflect. This might not work in the heat of the moment, but if you start to become more aware of when the energy of the day is moving you towards the heat, take a time out and reflect on where you’ve come from, what you’ve accomplished recently, or even over the past year or more.

Minding the Gap is an act of reflection that helps you gain perspective on your life in general. We get very much stuck in time. Stuck in the state of mind of today, or this moment and that state drive our perspective moving forward.

Instead, take some time to look back at where you’ve come from, where were you a year ago, a month ago, a week ago. What have you been able to do that you’ve completely forgotten about, something that is actually far more important than this little crisis today?

This technique is especially powerful when you have become more connected to your intentions and you are living them daily. Minding the gap will allow you to really reflect on how much you’ve gained through connecting with who you are and being more intentional about delivering it every day. This is a truly empowering experience.

1-Set your intentions

2-Mind the gap

3-Count your wins

Daily practices that will change your frame of mind and set you on a course towards a better you!

Every year at this time, we are reminded of our solemn duty to “remember” our fallen heroes of wars past.

One of the great challenges of this word “remember” is the impossibility of remembering what you have not experienced.

Perhaps that is our generation’s greatest gift and at the same time, our most glaring ignorance.

It is particularly difficult as we witness the terrible atrocities of war that seem to be a daily occurrence across the globe.

These last few years with what has transpired in Ukraine, and now in Israel and Palestine, the fog of war seems lifted, more tangible and evident to our eyes.

But that’s just it, unless you live it, you don’t smell it, feel it, or acknowledge it’s disturbing and unyielding cost.

The cost of losing everything of meaning. The cost of living in unimaginable circumstances, seeing the unbelievable savagery of humanity exploited every day all around you.

You go about your day, a life unexplainably anointed. So strange is this dichotomy of birth. Born to a place of wealth and prosperity, or born to a place of savage and unyielding pain.

Better yet, there are those within our ranks who choose to leave the soft underbelly of our comfortable lives and place themselves in harm’s way simply to protect us, and to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

Those who chose to give everything away, just because they felt the call to duty.

Then we are subjected to the rants of those among us who would wish to believe that our civil liberties are being constrained, our freedoms removed. Yet, here we reside still with roof overhead, food on our tables, and the opportunity to live a life so many elsewhere could never even imagine possible.

We who are so anointed by circumstance and luck must simply understand that there have been men and women who gave everything they had, in great suffering, so that we might have our freedom and serenity.

Our debt must be paid always in our thankfulness to the many souls who sacrificed on our behalf, not in complaint of our seemingly difficult first world problems.

Lest we forget…….we are the lucky ones.

A few years ago I was really struck by the definition of success penned by Earl Nightingale.

“Success is a progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”

He reported this definition in his book the “Strangest Secret”, and I think it is the best definition I’ve ever heard to describe success.

Success is not about:

How much you have

How much you are doing

Who you are hanging with

What you can buy

Who you are wearing

What deals you can make

How many followers you have

How many likes you get

It’s not about acquiring and accumulating.  It is about working towards a WORTHY IDEAL.

What is a worthy ideal you may ask? Something you believe in, something that you think about positively, something that keeps you up at night in a good way!

It’s your contribution to something greater than you.

And by the way the opposite of success is not failure!

I would argue that the concept of failure as we often identify with it is not the opposite of success but really just opportunity.

Think about all the things that may not have turned out the way you originally planned, or desired. Think about what happened afterwards, what life is like now, compared to then!

In most instances, when we “fail” we create an alternative conclusion, and this alternative conclusion can often result in consequences, although unforeseen or predicted, that end up being very desirable.

Real failure is perhaps the essence of making a mistake, and not learning from it.  Not having the awareness or reflective process to turn it into opportunity.

I was working in New York as a performance coach for the New York Rangers in the spring of 2001. I got called into the General Manager’s office one day and drove the long drive into Manhattan so I could be told I was going to be fired.

I remember it like it was yesterday. The legendary Glenn Sather leaning back on his chair with his hands behind his head, cigar in his mouth, looked at me and said, “Scotty, I’m not going to fire you, I’m just not going to re-hire you.”

Wow, the first time you get fired, well it is a strange feeling. Leaves you feeling quite empty. 

What had I done? What had I not done?

The loss of my job with the team appeared as a failure to me at the time, but several months later, when I was available to come home to Montreal to take a job with the Montreal Canadiens, the team I had dreamed of working for since I was in university, well it didn’t seem like a failure very much anymore!

My epic failure in a marriage, which happened at the same time as being fired (yes, all kinds of fun!) resulted in my finding the best partner I could have ever wished to have, and the consequent creation of my wonderful daughter.

So when you are beating yourself up about so-called failure, realize that it is really just opportunity.

Understand that the opposite of success is really the absence of  a worthy ideal.

Instead of burning your life candle with no intent, concentrate on establishing who you are and what you want your contribution on this earth to be, and set your life up so you are invested in that ideal.

There is no such thing as failure as it has often been labeled, the alternative pathway called opportunity is simply a part of the process of life.

My mom was born in 1930.

It was right in the thick of the world’s worst economic disaster, known to us all now as the great depression.

Her father and mother, like so many at the time, struggled to make ends meet.  The family was everything, and her family lived all around her, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and everyone supported everyone else.

She nearly lost her leg and arm from infectious diseases no one had the medicine or solutions for, resorting to putting maggots in the cast on her leg to eat the dying and diseased flesh.

Her sister had to have her leg amputated to save her from disease.

Her mother lost two boys in pregnancy, and the girls grew up without the brothers they might have known.

Untold hardships, things my mom has never told me most definitely live behind her eyes.

She grew up through the time of the most devastating war in the history of the world.  Every other war pales in comparison.  

Her father served in the Canadian Air Force as a mechanic, away on the airfields of Britain throughout much of the war.  Spared the trauma of serving on the front lines.

My mom was 15 years old when the war ended, the same age as my only daughter is today.  Different lives they have lived.

We sometimes think what we are living with and through today is quite destabilizing, but perhaps much of what we feel is our own self-doing. Focused too often outward to find our compass, stuck in comparison and judgment.

There was no time for that when my mother grew up.  All she had was the immediate requirements laid before her, where to sleep, what to eat, what was the next task to complete.

No time for self-pity, or worse, looking around at others to see who you are.  Simply faced with getting each day done.

She married an Air Force pilot in the 50s.  

My Dad was searching for his own medium of expression. Himself a victim of a father jailed, a mother overwhelmed, and life growing up in a church-run boarding school (knowing what we know now about those places, who knows what challenges he faced).

He soon found identity in higher education, studying political science, and then joining the foreign service.  Not the life my mother expected.  Strange foreign lands, travel, cocktail parties, and no community. She was a small-town girl with small-town thoughts and these were people not of her tablecloth.

My mom had lost a battle with cancer that left her unable to bear children.  She instead chose to adopt, and I was the benefactor of that decision. Who knows who or what I would be today if she had not chosen me?

She was immediately whisked off to figure out motherhood in Singapore, a new life, and new love, and no family or friends to support her…..but she was strong.

She figured it all out, not without her share of mistakes and missteps, just like all of us.  We are imperfect you know…….we sometimes forget to respect that about ourselves.

She came back from overseas and they soon added my brother, he was not like me, and she struggled with that.  She struggled for the rest of her life because of that, and so did he.

Not many years later, the strain of a life misunderstood, and the misalignment of two people’s growth, my parents began a very challenging time.  There was an ever-growing crack in the foundation.

A lot of pain, a lot of yelling, and a lot of misunderstanding and harm.

And one day it was all over.  I was sixteen years old, and I was relieved.

There she was now, alone, a mom of two boys, trying to find a way to make a living, be a mom, and find a way to be a dad too…..

Her work ethic was never something you could challenge.  I never saw my mom complain, or give up, it just wasn’t in her DNA.  Her dad was a fierce workhorse, and she had his genes.

She did what she had to do, and I grew up like there was nothing missing.  My brother struggled, and she struggled with him.

He spent some time with my father, which didn’t work out, then boarding school, and then he found his birth parents, and life began anew. 

I know that hurt my mom…..she couldn’t figure him out.  She has always carried that with her, another emotional scar to add to the many over the course of an uneasy life.

Years after both my brother and I had become adults, my mother found a man who loved her just as simply and as honestly as he could. He cherished her.  I was happy for her, she deserved such love.

But true to the nature of my mom’s life, it would not last, he would pass away, 15 years older than her, he was struck by disease and lost the battle.  She would be denied her fairy tale.

For the last 30 years of her life, she worked, then retired, built a life of friendship with many, and remained steadfastly, and fiercely independent.

The scars of life with nothing made her a champion of saving, something that serves her life today in a way that is difficult to comprehend.  

She is financially independent, and that is something really important for a son.  I would be heartbroken if I could not care for her after all she has done for me.

In the last few years, she is now 93, her health and independence have deteriorated.  She is slowly but surely slipping away.

The Louis Armstrong song, “We Have All the Time in the World” made me lament my life with her, what remains is short, and not the same.  

Time is running out.

We have all the time in the world

Time enough for life

To unfold all the precious things

Love has in store

We have all the love in the world

If that’s all we have you will find

We need nothing more

Every step of the way

Will find us

With the cares of the world

Far behind us

We have all the time in the world

Just for love

Nothing more, nothing less

Only love

Every step of the way

Will find us

With the cares of the world

Far behind us, yes

We have all the time in the world

Just for love

Nothing more, nothing less

Only love

I wish I had more time, but that’s not what life is all about. It’s about being present, and recognizing what we are experiencing because it will not always last.

Sorry Louis, but we don’t have all the time in the world.

Cherish the time you have.

I had the honor of working with one of Canada’s great Alpine skiers. Near the end of his career he was fortunate enough to win a Super G World Championship race by .45 of a second, but the next day, he lost the top of the podium by just .12 of a second!

Think about that for a second (which is more time than the time he had to win or lose by the way!), how little time that actually is!

Take out your cellular phone and go to the stopwatch mode. Set it up and push the button as fast as you can to start it and then stop it.

How long did it take you to stop and start it?

I bet you could not stop it in under a tenth of a second. 

Probably the first time you were up around .3 or .4 seconds. Isn’t that crazy? In the time that it took you to simply start and stop a stopwatch, someone’s life will be in the winner’s circle and someone else’s will not!

Why is this important? 

Basically, it’s that time is of the essence, but not necessarily the way one would expect. You see, we would normally react to this concept by saying that in order to win, or to reach above your competitor, or simply be better at what you do, you have to go faster, do more, and just get after it. 

You need to succeed, not fail.

But that’s not what I am saying. In fact, I want you to think of it from the exact opposite perspective.

I want you to think of it not in a manner that should cause anxiety, or stress, or a sense of urgency. Don’t think of it as a win or a loss, or a success or a failure, but think of it as an opportunity.

Life is about every moment. Every moment has an effect on our lives.

In the movie “Sliding Doors” when the main character played by Gwyneth Paltrow arrives at a train she needs to catch, the movie plays the moment out in a tale of two choices.

In one scene she catches the train, and then shortly thereafter, the scene plays over again and she misses the train. The rest of the movie is played out revealing what might have happened had she made the train, and what might of happened had she not.

The moment of catching or missing a train can change your life. 

More importantly, we understand these metaphoric forks in the road are happening every second of every day or every tenth of a second.

Neither story that gets played out is the best one or the worst one, they are just the story that gets played out. In every life story, there will be moments that we have been socially influenced to view as positive and moments that we might regard as negative, or as some would say successes or failures. 

You won or you lost. 

But are they really successes or failures, or are they actually just opposite sides of a piece of blank paper ready for the next line to be written?

In “Sliding Doors” catching the train, which would normally be considered a positive outcome leads Paltrow’s character to the disparaging reality that her partner is cheating on her, which would most likely be considered negative!

The point is to label the outcome as our failure, not the outcome itself. 

The outcome just leads to other moments, moments we need to embrace, live, and experience. 

Moments create the shape of our lives while we live them.

The paradox of .10 seconds is that the choices you make along the way change the outcome. 

Sometimes very slight course adjustments can be the difference between winning and loosing, or the difference between making the sale, not making the sale, or getting the project or not getting the project. 

So the key is not to overthink each moment or try to pre-define each moment but to spend more time in each moment. Live it rather than manipulate it because all of the above examples are neither successes nor failures but just further opportunities.

There is never just one race, one project, or one sale, there are many, and each one offers you an opportunity to refabricate your pathway, make choices, and find a new line.

Stop thinking about the one result or the outcome and start investing in the moments and the process. Understand that by beating yourself up about every choice you make, you slow down, and that by thinking too much about how you will get there or what you must do better to get there, you lose time rather than save time.

We get so focused on being first, or being the best, that we lose track of the fact that what separates first from second, or second from third is tiny adjustments, momentary risks, instantaneous challenges, and many things you can’t control. So stop trying to control them, stop trying so hard to win, and focus more on the process of getting there, and the feelings you have along the way.

Looking at life as a constant flow of opportunity and not as a journey to a destination, with hardened socially acceptable outcomes will allow you to live in the moment, live freely, and realize that life really is about letting go, not holding on!

In my career as a Performance Coach and Reconditioning Professional, I am always shocked at how often athletes think that they can jump the line and somehow beam themselves to a state of expertise or greatness. 

They don’t necessarily want to do the work or pay the price required to be great.

It seems this phenomenon is getting even more prevalent in life in general because of all the access to high-quality (and many times low-quality!) video and audio coaching living out there on every social media stream. 

People seem to believe these days that they can just watch a video, take a weekend course, or consult an online resource and they become……snap……experienced!

You need only Google how to do something, and there are 10 to 20+ how-to blogs, or videos available on YouTube that you can digest and become knowledgeable in a myriad of interesting topics. 

But you can’t YouTube or Google experience. 

You can’t WordPress a resume. 

You can’t be something you haven’t earned.

If you don’t pay your dues, you will eventually pay a price.

I worked in the National Hockey League where veteran players used to refer to rookies who thought their S-H-I-T didn’t stink as two-year ten-year guys. They would regularly joke about the character of rookies who thought they knew it all, carried themselves with plenty of attitude, and basically felt they were the man long before they had truly paid their dues. 

Paying your dues is a basic tenant of respect and trust in elite sports, and it is the same in the corporate world and life as well.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aspire to be the best you can be, or shouldn’t have confidence in yourself, or dive in and learn as much as you can every day. In fact, it means exactly that; work hard, learn more, establish a plan and execute it daily, and go from average, to good, to great.

During that process, cultivate great habits, stay humble, respect those who take the time to mentor you, and be thankful for those who help you rise. Recognize that you cannot be great at something unless others who are greater than you take the time to show you the way.

No one does it alone. 

Anyone who tells you they did it alone, they did it all by themselves, is absolutely full of it. All great ideas are iterations of other great ideas, all great achievements are final steps in a long and meandering discovery process. 

There really is no such thing as “overnight success”.

And even when you can make a case that someone leaped rapidly to high achievement there is, generally speaking, always a moment of reckoning when a price is paid in some form for the skipped steps.

A few years ago, my daughter experienced her first sleep-away camp.  I didn’t know what to expect at the time, I hoped it would be an extraordinary experience that would in some way contribute to her growth and development.

To my amazement, she had a great time. It was so much fun that she lamented that she wished she could go back right away!

Even better, she wanted to go back every year, and every year since, it’s been a powerful growth experience.

What was really wonderful at the time though was to see that not only had she had a good time, but she learned some amazing life skills that will truly make a difference in her life for years to come, several of which I have only learned to practice myself most recently!

The first lesson that struck me was not being overcome by “What if?”

Sure, she went in with some trepidation about meeting new people, what if she didn’t fit in, or what if she didn’t know anyone?

But she fully embraced the opportunity.

The day we dropped her off, she simply accepted that she would explore this new experience and see what would come. There were no tears of fear and no clinging to mommy or daddy, just acceptance that what was to come would be a new experience.

The takeaway; “what if?” discussions serve no purpose. At the end of the day, you can’t control everything, so beating yourself up and churning over the possibilities only serves to create stress and discomfort with what is about to come, even if it is not about to come!

If you are going to get stressed, get stressed about what you do know, not about what you don’t know.

The second lesson was that even when you lose or fail in life there is a win or an opportunity that usually comes out of it.

She described a game called “freeze” that they played at the dinner table each night that saw each camper try to outstare the others.

One camper got to shout out “Freeze!” (he/she didn’t have to participate), and then everyone would have to stop moving and the first one to move was the loser.

As the losers, they had to clean up the table after everyone else. But, they also got to be the ones who yelled, “Freeze!” the next day. So losing always led to a little win the next day when you got to be the caller.

Opportunity is often a side effect of failing.

The third lesson was to never think you have won or succeeded until you “know” you’ve won or succeeded.

The camp had a game that campers played on a dock where each person stood at opposite sides of the dock, perched precariously on the balls of their feet while holding a rope between them both. Each had to pull on the rope trying to get the other to somehow fall in the water. 

You would lose if you let go of the rope, or fell in the water.

Well, she learned a hard lesson when she thought her opponent had put her full feet on the dock (against the rules) and as she went to point it out, she lost her balance, and the other person took advantage, sending my daughter into the drink!

Never believe you’ve won until you have solid proof!

The fourth lesson she learned was that sometimes you are going to reach higher than you ever have before, and it’s going to feel scary.

Don’t give up.

Pause, take stock, and keep reaching higher, it’s the only way to go.

She was climbing a climbing wall for the third or fourth time in her life, each time having aborted about halfway into the climb. She was scared but she was also only 5 or 6 years old at the time.

This time, being a little older she had developed a little more hutzpah and was going to give it a shot.

She described to me how she got about half the way up and then wanted to stop. She looked down towards the instructor who encouraged her to keep going. With one over-reaching thought of ringing the bell, she pushed through her fear and kept climbing.

She was so proud to tell me she had rung the bell at the top!

She overcame her fear of the unknown.

Did she grow another inch perhaps?

The last lesson she learned is to reflect on and celebrate each day.

Each evening at dinner the campers had to tell everyone their thorn, rose and bud for the day. 

The thorn was something that hadn’t worked out for them, the rose was something they most enjoyed about the day, and the bud was what they were looking forward to doing tomorrow.

The opportunity to reflect and re-set for each new day is something we should all do every day, it keeps your subconscious focused on the positive, and not so much dwelling on the negative.

Mindset rules so make yours a positive one!

These five simple practices are life-changing, so wonderful she’s experienced them already at camp, but for those a little older it’s never too late to try.