Pro Athlete Advantage

Mental Toughness Blog Posts and Interviews

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Worry about what other people think about you?

I have been intrigued lately with the teachings of the Stoics, ancient Greek philosophers whose ideal of Stoicism basically boils down to the idea that virtue is happiness, and we should be judged solely on our behavior, rather than our words. Essentially, this means that since we can’t control external events, we can only control our responses to those events.

Deep… yet actually quite simple. We are no what we say; we are what we do. How we react to adversity in our lives determines our happiness.

I recommend that you pick up Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and start reading it and reflect on the powerful ideas inside.

One quote really struck me recently:

“We all love ourselves than more than other people, but care more their opinion than our own”.

Sound familiar?

I think we all suffer from this problem. We internalize every little piece of negative feedback we receive, feeding the cancer of self-doubt. We obsess over a negative comment from a random acquaintance on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn, and that little comment can derail us from the actions and the momentum that we’ve gained. One the other hand, we often brush off the compliments we receive.

When I first started my podcast, I would obsess over every comment people wrote, becoming more and more mired in self-doubt the more of them I read. “It’s too long!” “It’s too short!” It’s too complicated!” “It’s too simplistic!” I’d gloss over the positive comments, and stew over the negatives.

Over time, I learned that complaints are a valuable tool to help me reflect and improve. But I no longer let them get to me. I know that for every negative comment there are dozens of positive ones, and those gratify me much more than the negative ones could ever hurt me.

There are lot of negative people out there, people who feel better about themselves when they bring others down. Take a lesson from the Stoics: don’t let them get to you. You cannot control how others react to you, you can only improve yourself. Learn. Grow. Do something to better yourself every day.

Bottom line: we control where we get in this world. We control the path to our destination and so we got to be focused on getting better each and every day. Don’t react to negativity; use it to motivate yourself forward.

By the way, if you are interested in subscribing to a podcast that is 100% focused on mental toughness and leadership growth, you can subscribe to THE Mental Toughness Podcast with Matt Phillips by clicking the links below:

- iTunes - Stitcher - TuneIn - GooglePlay

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Luck Favors the Prepared

Have you ever heard this phrase “Luck favours the prepared?” We often look at other people’s successes and think, “Yeah wow, they got lucky!”

Whether they got that promotion, built a business and made a lot of money, or maybe they found the man or woman of their dreams. We look at it as luck. Why?

I am sure part of their good fortune had to do with luck, because luck is all about timing. Luck is being in the right place at the right ti­me. We’ve heard that before. But what’s often very interesting is when we see that promotion, or see that person become successful, we chalk it up to just luck.

Instead we should go a step further and try to understand how they positioned themselves personally or professionally, and look at the work they put in to becoming so successful.

How prepared were they when that opportunity came up? What work did they put in?

I want to tell you a personal story: I received an email from an individual down in Oklahoma that honestly blew me away. He was an aspiring business coach and wanted to pick my brain about success in this business.

He asked me for 30 minutes of my time and just wanted to learn from me, ask questions about my business, discuss how I got started and how I got to where I am today.

This was a very humbling email to get first of all, just to get asked those questions but it was the most organized, well-thought-out email I have ever read in my life!

When he got to the end and asked for 30 minutes of my time... any day, any hour he promised to be ready for the call. I knew I had to make time for this person!

We set up a call and I had a conversation with him.

And again, he was so unbelievably prepared for that meeting. I could tell, I could tell just being on the other end of the line that he had thought out exactly what questions he wanted to ask me.

He asked about my personal story, about my business, how I had gotten it to this point... he was asking me questions about my growth model and how I am going to expand.

It was one of the most fun conversations I’ve had because I was so blown away by how prepared, focused and inquisitive he was.

And this experience especially got me thinking about that phrase, “luck favours the prepared.”

In just this very simple situation where this individual wanted to just have a have a phone call, he thought about what he wanted to get out of the meeting and what questions were critical for him to ask, and this opened up a fabulous conversation between he and I.

At the end of our conversation I even threw down a challenge that he accepted.

I asked him to film a video about “What mental toughness meant to him and the top three things he does on a daily basis to train his mind.”

And within, like, two days... it was done!

So my point being, when you think "luck favours the prepared," only part of that is true. Being prepared is the key part of that phrase.

You have to be willing to put in the work, to figure out the processes or the systems you will need. You don’t have to spend 24 hours a day on it; it matters more that you are intentional and purposeful with your time.

Because when you are prepared, when that opportunity does arise, when you are open when you have your ducks in a row (or at least enough in a row where you can figure out the rest at that point), that’s when the lucky stuff starts to happen and "luck" becomes just an opportunity that you can take advantage of, that you can go after, that you can capture. Essentially, "luck" is when you decide that "it's time."

Think about that. Don’t worry about the luck; the luck will come as long as you are taking the necessary steps today to prepare for what’s coming tomorrow.

By the way, if you are interested in subscribing to a podcast that is 100% focused on mental toughness and leadership growth, you can subscribe to THE Mental Toughness Podcast with Matt Phillips by clicking the links below:

- iTunes - Stitcher - TuneIn - GooglePlay

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Is Fear Holding You Back? Here's One HUGE Exercise You Need to Do!

When you're lying on your deathbed and someone asks you what your biggest regret was, what will you say? If you regret not having the courage to take every chance you were given to make a better life, it may be time for you to face down your fears and take action!

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10 Life Lessons I Learned While Living Abroad

Living in a foreign country will transform you in ways you never thought possible. Take a look at the 10 Life Lessons I Learned While Living Abroad. These you can apply to your life at any time in any country.