The Competitor’s Brain

UNC Women's Soccer #1 - Don't Whine

Legendary UNC women's soccer coach Anson Dorrance is retiring, and his Core Values for his program set the tone for the winningest program in the sport's history. #1: Don't Whine. Why is this important? Learn more in just under three minutes.

Life Rewards Action

In life, we often think that riches will be bestowed upon us. But good things rarely happen without hard work and self-reflection. In today's podcast, I'll dig into a quote from Shane Parrish's Brain Food newsletter that really drives this point home. 

Opinions

Epictetus said "It is not things that upset us, it is our opinion about those things." He's right. When we take things personally, we project perceived opinions of others about us onto them, accurate or not. 
When you're going about your day today, make an effort to realize it's not all about you. Take small slights that have nothing to do with you and realize it's ok to have no opinion about them. 

#59 - Don't Major in the Minor

Arnold Schwarzenegger brought it up in his daily newsletter yesterday. The fact that when we start a habit, we generally need everything to be right. Going to the gym? What supplements should I take? Should I take a pre-workout? 
It goes back to the old adage Rob Gilbert brought up yesterday. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
Hopefully, I don't take six weeks off again. But if I do, whatever, I'll get right back on it. 

Your Best Friend

I was on Instagram (boo) watching Mookie Betts talk to himself during a round of BP. There were two things that happened in the video (thanks @sweetspothitting for posting it). 
1. He sort of dictates the outcome before he takes the swing. Of course, this is hard to do, and we're talking about a guy who's hit as high as .346 during a season. But you can do the same thing off a tee.
2. He's kind to himself. He talks to himself like he would a friend. Most players I coach don't do this. They don't get the desired result and beat themselves up. So there's a coaching point for me there: when I hear a player using negative self-talk in the cage, I need to step in and correct it. 
Thanks for listening, as always.

My 3-Minute Grad Speech to the Class of 2024

Well, it's three minutes and 30 seconds. But it's a collection of things I wish I'd heard when I was 18. Or maybe it's a collection of things I wish I'd listened to when I was 18. I probably heard them but I thought I knew everything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Don't practice until you can't get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong

I recorded this in one take, which is ironic. 
Nick Saban says "Don't practice until you can't get it right, practice until you can't get it wrong."
And it's often said that you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training.
So if you practice to a point you can't get it wrong, what happens when the occasion happens? And what do you get out of it? 

Creating, or why you shouldn't use AI to create cool stuff

I saw a quote that my colleague Kara LaMarche posted to Instagram: "I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so I can do laundry and dishes."
We have handed many uniquely human things over to AI. Designing, making art, making music, writing. 
If you hand those things over to a machine, what is left of you? 
Nothing. 

Excellence

I've seen bits of the same quote from Daniel Chambliss about excellence in Olympic swimmers. I saw it in Billy Oppenheimer's Sunday email back in September, and James Clear had it in his last Thursday... so now you get it too.
Excellence is created by doing the little things, one on top of the other. The little things that are going to make a ball fly 10' farther, add 3 mph of velo to your fastball, make you swim .01 faster. 
I do reference two swimmers who tied in the 1984 Olympics. This is the background on it. I am definitely not disparaging them in any way, merely making a point about whether a hundredth of a second could have been gained anywhere else to make either of them the solo gold medalist. (In retrospect, I think it's pretty cool they tied. I still remember that, 40 years hence. I still remembered their last names, but not their first names, so I used neither.)

Circumstances - 51

In this episode, I talk about how Marcus Aurelius' response to circumstances (ie what happens) isn't terribly unlike what Mike Damone's advice to his friend Rat is in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Probably the first time that sentence has ever been typed. Probably also the last time.