You Willing to Do the Work?

Most people REALLY REALLY REALLY want things. A 70, a win. A faster time. But far fewer, when push comes to shove, are really willing to DO THE WORK. They’re going on vacation. They’re planning a 4th of July BBQ. They’re feeling a little under the weather. They’re BUSY. They have LIVES.

They think: I’m doing the same thing that everyone who I see perform and win does. I mean they SHOW and they SCHOOL and they LESSON.

The problem is that’s only the tippity-tip-top of the ice berg which represents what it takes to achieve their success.

Take Andrea Fappani. Matt Mills. Casey Deary. If you do the same OBSERVABLE things that they do—if you own the same OBSERVABLE things they do—you still won’t achieve their level of success. Because most of what drives their success is NOT observable.

And sure, the most successful Pros have LIVES. They get SICK. They attend 4th of the July BBQs and go on vacation and observe holidays. But as professional athletes, what you don’t see, is that they have success systems which helped them get to where they are, and help them STAY there.

I’ll admit, one thing I didn’t anticipate when we developed our coaching program and started walking people through it was how, surprisingly, people you’d think would be absolutely committed to achieving success and doing the work necessary to get there… turn out to be a little less committed than anticipated. They’re busy. They have lives. So do professional athletes. And yet they do the work every single day.

What separates meh from good, good from great, isn’t the observable characteristics of the ice berg. It’s what you can’t see. It’s their success systems. Systems which inevitably include daily routines and practices. Exercise to hone their body so it’s capable of doing what they ask it to do, reliably. And yes, EXERCISE for their mind. So their mind doesn’t obstruct their body’s ability to do what it’s been trained to do.

It’s a bit weird when you think about it. All of us focus, almost exclusively on our exterior. Our bodies. Or extremities. How we PHYSICALLY feel. It’s only when our mind gets so out-of-whack that it leads to physical symptoms that we pay any attention to it. And then we’re upside down. Almost like we bought a house in an inflated market and now your payments are out of whack to the value of the home.

But if we take half-a-sec to think about it, we realize that the single MOST IMPORTANT MUSCLE in your body…is, you guessed it, YOUR MIND.

It’s interesting. We chatted with a couple expert ex-NRHA judges recently about what they do with their podcast, and what we’re up to. They readily understood the importance and impact of what we do, but they said something that really struck me. To paraphrase they said how they could see how important mental performance coaching would be after getting the riding down.

After the call, thinking about it, we realized that we 100% disagree. And not just because it’s our business, but because we realized that in order for your PHYSICAL performance to be reliably excellent your MENTAL performance has to be every bit as disciplined. Otherwise your performance will be all over the place.

We’ll have more to say in the days and weeks ahead, on this topic of developing systems for success (and, yes, it’s part of our program), but we’re curious: what do your systems of success look like right now?

And what will you start doing TODAY (or maybe tomorrow) which will meaningfully drive your progress to new heights. It doesn’t have to be a lot.

Just think of something you’ll start doing 15 minutes each day. And if you need an idea, I’d recommend starting with either affirmations, meditation, or visualization. These techniques are incredibly powerful when consistently practiced most days.

But do 50% of the work…and you’ll get 50% of the results. So I challenge you to take YOURSELF seriously. What separates the “pros” from everybody else is more about how they perceive themselves, and less about an arbitrary distinction by any sort of recognized body. Which is great because it means, inside, you can TODAY BE a pro. And work to align your life to that internal reality.

Until next time!

Adiós, mi amigos!

Abe