The Confident Champion Session Three Transcript · 2) They work smarter than other athletes 3) They...

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The Confident Champion Session Three Transcript

Hi it’s Lisa Lane Brown welcome to the Confident Champion System. In this System, you are going to discover how to create breakthrough confidence so you can believe in yourself so you can deliver incredible peak performance, become a star athlete, and dominate your sport.

Remember, I created this system so that you NO LONGER: 1. Lose your confidence, be passive and self-conscious, and over-think what you are doing so you perform at only a fraction of your potential and really don’t enjoy competing 2. Approach competing overwhelmed with fear, choke, and get worse and worse out there so that your performance goes up and down like a yo-yo and you lose playing time, get yelled at, or let your team down. 3. Try to compete with sub-par skills or skills that have hit a plateau so you really can’t accomplish your goals no matter how motivated you are because you don’t have the skills.

Instead, you will learn to do the following: 1. Create breakthrough confidence for yourself so that you are energized, confident, aggressive, and excited to perform whenever you go out there. 2. Transform yourself into a star athlete with superior, amazing skills so you can deliver peak performances, get instant respect, and win, even against tough competitors. 3. Develop consistent confidence by mastering the art of persistence and the will to win so you achieve total self-mastery and are in control of your athletic destiny.

In this program you’re going to learn five key skills: Session One How to Create Unshakable Confidence and BELIEVE in Yourself in Sport

Session Two How To Express Your True Greatness & Transform Yourself Into A Genuine STAR

Session Three The Magic Formula for Becoming Fearless and Super-Charged with Confidence BEFORE You Compete

Session Four CONSISTENT Confidence: How to Master the Art of Persistence & the Will to Win

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Session Five Relationship Mastery - How to Create Happy Relationships for Ultimate Confidence

Session Two Review In Session Two, Master It – The Practice of Competence, you will discover exactly how to do this. Specifically, you will learn: Letting Go and Locking in Superstardom. The astonishingly simple tool that all superstars use to draw the lesson out of every setback, let go of emotional baggage, and free themselves to make exponential gains in their performance.

How to Create a Winning Self-Image. How to make ‘being a star’ and a ‘true winner’ feel completely natural in your heart, no matter what your past. You will construct a powerful, unstoppable self-image that will set you up to dominate your sport.

Get Better, Faster. Why superstars have better skills -- and how to harness their secrets to become 30% better this season (without adding any time to your practice schedule). The Greatness Mindset. Most athletes are trapped inside their Comfort Zone, afraid to take chances and express their true greatness.

GOALS! How to find The Big Goal for you that will cause you to finally Break from the Pack - and fill you with excitement every single day.

You had a number of Action Exercises to complete from Session Two, but there are two that I want to check in on:

EXERCISE – Instilling Your Belief Your next assignment is to repeat this belief for two minutes in your warm ups for practices, games, or training.

Why Star Athletes Have Better Skills There are three reasons why star athletes have better skills: 1) They work harder than other athletes 2) They work smarter than other athletes 3) They go outside their Comfort Zone more

EXERCISE – Your Athlete’s Training Journal To become a star athlete and express your true greatness in sport, you’ll want to take a super-simple approach to your practices and competitions. Here’s a simple formula that you can try that will make you 30% better this season with very little extra training time.



Step One Select three weaknesses you want to turn into strengths. Step Two Select the #1 skill in your sport that, if you perfected it, would make the biggest impact on your results.

Step Three List these skills in order of importance from 1 to 4, with one being the most important:

1. ___________________________________________

2. ___________________________________________

3. ___________________________________________

4. ___________________________________________

Step Four Choose to devote one month (30 days) to improving each skill (making this a four month training program). Then, work on this skill using the following three step format:

1. Practice this skill for one extra hour each week outside your regular training and competition. Record and make notes in your training journal.

2. Visualize executing this skill perfectly for 10 minutes a day, three times a week. You can do this in warm up or while falling asleep at night. Record notes in your journal.

3. In practices or competition, put much more effort into improving this skill, and make sure you go outside your Comfort Zone. For example, if you’re a softball catcher, call a different pitch than you would normally call; if you’re a conservative tennis player, come to the net; if you’re an overly aggressive volleyball player, pass the ball rather than spike it. Record what you did to go outside your Comfort Zone, what you learned, and how it worked.

4. After each competition, record what you learned about this skill and how your efforts are paying off.

How did your Exercises from Session Two go? Did you notice a difference with your confidence levels and if so, how can you build on this next week? Write down your comments and observations in the space below:

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Session Three Agenda The Magic Formula for Becoming Fearless and Super-Charged

with Confidence BEFORE You Compete

• Eliminate The Fear of Making Mistakes. Learn the Code of the Samurai, which is the psychology of “winning beforehand” – once you know this formula, it will be like child’s play to take the lead early in competition, putting you in the driver’s seat. This is the specific method for eliminating the fear of making mistakes so you can start off your event excited, aggressive, and ready to take the smart chances needed to win.

• Good Nerves, Not Bad Nerves. What do to when you’re overwhelmed with nerves to become calm and energized, including how to transform “bad” nerves into self-trust and let go out there.

• Becoming Fearless Before You Compete. You discover how most athletes put massive pressure on themselves before competing and the most effective strategy for avoiding this trap to become fearless before you compete.

• Creating A Winning Self-Image Using GAME FACE 2.0. Detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to set yourself up from the beginning of your event to be a fearless, confident competitor so it is easy and automatic for you to handle “rough patches” and sail through the situation.

What Is Confidence? Confidence is the belief that you can cope with the challenges of competition and fulfill your desires. It is a profound belief in your athletic self.

It's a truly wonderful feeling. You know you're the goods and you believe you can succeed.

We develop confidence from continually defeating fear using the three mental practices of the Confident Champion: Face It, Master It, and Make It Happen.

Face It – The Practice of Consciousness Master It – The Practice of Competence Make It Happen – The Practice of Commitment

When you engage in these three practices every day, you gain more and more CONTROL over your performance, which triggers your Confident Self.

In Session One, you learned how to face your fears using the Practice of Consciousness. In Session Two, you learned how to Master It – Master Your Sport Using the Practice of Competence.

In Session Three, we are going to focus on a really important element of confidence, which is how to become fearless and super-charge yourself with confidence BEFORE you compete.



This session is a combination of both Face It: The Practice of Consciousness and Master It: The Practice of Competence and takes you “deep” into both practices.

How To Eliminate The Fear of Making Mistakes Remember, the very best method for triggering your Confident Self is gain a sense of CONTROL in your event.

One of the key ways you can do this is to eliminate the fear of making mistakes. The main way to accomplish this is to learn a simple, easy technique for correcting mistakes when you make them in big events.

Sounds obvious, right?

If you want to stop stressing out over mistakes, then figure out how to correct them.

Yet, most athletes do not do this. They were told by a parent, coach, or leader to “not be so hard on themselves,” or “be more positive” about their mistakes.

I always thought this advice was ridiculous. What competitive athlete is going to be able to be positive about making a mistake?

To me, it makes more sense to figure out WHY you are making mistakes and correct them. This way you can re-gain your confidence, because it’s impossible to stay confident while you are making mistakes.

You can see that by correcting mistakes, you’re using both Face It: The Practice of Consciousness and Master It: The Practice of Competence. You are facing your worst mistakes (including why you are making them), and becoming much, more competent in competition by being able to correct them on the fly.

How To Correct Mistakes in Competition We start be determining WHICH mistakes are mostly likely to lower your confidence and destroy your performance.

EXERCISE - Your Demon Mistakes List in the space below the worst 7 mistakes you can make. Here are some examples athletes often cite (these are not all technically ‘mistakes’ but they all relate to poor performance):

Feeling bad in warm up (being tight) Getting behind in the score Making a technical error, like missing a pass Losing your check, who scores Letting in a goal Feeling slow or tired Trying a new move and having it backfire Calling the wrong play Looking stupid



In the space below, list your worst 7 mistakes (things that trigger a loss of confidence):

1._____________________________________________________________

2._____________________________________________________________

3._____________________________________________________________

4._____________________________________________________________

5. ____________________________________________________________

6. ____________________________________________________________

7. ____________________________________________________________

Now, list your worst mistakes in order from most bothersome to least bothersome.

1._____________________________________________________________

2._____________________________________________________________

3._____________________________________________________________

4._____________________________________________________________

5._____________________________________________________________

6._____________________________________________________________

7._____________________________________________________________

Now you know which mistakes cause you to lose confidence, choke, or under-perform. This is very powerful exercise, because now you have the opportunity to transform your performance as an athlete by figuring out how to CORRECT these mistakes and remove their influence over your emotions and results.

The Code of the Samurai: Win Beforehand To create breakthough confidence and BELIEVE in your ability to cope with the challenges of any competition, you can use the Code of the Samuari: Win Beforehand.

You determine how you can SUCCEED in your competition no matter what happens in it, or how your opponent performs, or what conditions you must face.



How To Correct Errors – Diagnose Before You Prescribe To trigger your Confident Self, you’ll want gain even more control by realizing one very important principle: it’s not making any particular mistake that counts.

It’s WHY.

Remember earlier when I said that most athletes get ‘cooked in the squat’ because they don’t admit their fear? The reason why ignoring fear is dangerous is because if you push it away your fear of failure or rejection, you’ll never ask yourself WHY were making the mistakes that led you to lose or fail in competition. Take Branden, for example. "Lisa I won the first match and was up 18-12 in the second. I just needed three points to lose it out. But I got anxious. I hit the bird into the net and then out. He got momentum, I got frustrated, I ending up losing the tournament. Lisa I need more mental strength." --Branden, badminton player Can you see Branden's MAJOR problem? What he's missing? He's doing what 97% of athletes do. He's thinking about the fact that he got nervous and choked. And he's putting himself down for choking and losing. He forgot to ask WHY he got so nervous, WHY he got behind in the match, and WHY he lost. If you try to re-gain your confidence, become a star athlete, or win without answering this question first, you'll spin your wheels forever. So I asked my badminton player the one question he WASN'T asking: "What was happening in this match that made you so nervous?" Turns out Branden’s opponent was a long time rival who Branden beat five months ago by moving him around the court. See, Branden's a smart player. He's quick. He specializes in exhausting the other player so he can't get shots back. That's how he won five months ago. But then the inevitable happened. After he got beat, Branden's rival got mad.



Then he got better. When he saw Branden again, he was returning Branden's shots. This unnerved Branden, who counts on his opponent not being able to get the bird back. And here's the truth: There's a story behind every match, every game, and every race. There are physical, technical, and tactical REASONS why one side wins. There aren't many flukes in sport. That's why it's so sweet when you win. But Branden forgot to dig up the story. My guess? He didn't want to face the story. That’s why we’re using the practice of consciousness to Face It – face your fear, face your story, face anything that can help you get back on track. Once you know what it is, your power is back, because you’re back in control. You're now in a position to solve the problem that’s creating your fear, including the MISTAKES that are a part of this problem. Prescribe The Solution To crank up your confidence and start performing like a star, your next job is to be like a doctor: prescribe a solution and correct the mistakes that both you most. You prescribe a solution by assigning yourself the proper RIGHT FOCUS that will correct the error.

Two Targets There are two ways to learn how to hit a target. The first way is to stand 50 feet away from the bull’s eye and practice trying to hit it.

The second way is to walk up to the target so you’re only a few feet away and shoot. Then, you could walk to the side of the target and shoot from there and notice what happens. Then, you can step back another two feet and shoot again.

Obviously the second way is a much, much easier way to learn how to hit a target, because the closer you are to the target, the more CONTROL you have over your shot, the more relaxed you are, and the faster you will learn. The RIGHT FOCUS To become fearless and create breakthrough confidence for yourself BEFORE you compete, you’ll want to set a RIGHT FOCUS goal for the competition.



A RIGHT FOCUS is a goal that is under your direct and immediate control that, when you achieve it, corrects a performance problem almost instantly and dramatically reduces your fear. A RIGHT FOCUS is your “second target.”

Have you ever noticed that a coach correcting you lowers your confidence? Have you ever wondered why? I discovered the answer eight years ago teaching kids a lesson in my sport, ringette (if you aren’t familiar with this sport, picture ice hockey in your mind).

I was frustrated because we were trying to teach them to speed up when skating with the ring instead of slowing down. But no matter how often we corrected them, they were still slowing down after picking up the ring. I realized that the more we corrected them, the less confident they got, and the slower they skated.

I said, “Ok, I have an assignment for you. Just watch me skate with the ring three times. After each time, tell me exactly how fast I’m skating. If I’m skating fast, yell out the number 3. If I’m skating at medium speed, yell out the number 2. If I’m skating slowly, yell out the number 1.” After each time I skated through checkers, the players cried out their numbers in unison:

"Two!"

"Three!"

"Two! Three!" (sometimes the group disagreed)

"One!"

"Three!” Eventually, they could all pick out exactly how fast I was skating with the ring. Next, I had them to do the same drill, except I called out the speed I wanted them to skate at (a 1, 2, or 3). After the drill, I brought them back in. "So, what did you notice?” "It's easy for the checkers to check you if you skate slowly!!" They cried. "Hmm...interesting observation. Let's try the drill again. They hustled back into the drill. I called out, "One! Two! Three! One!" and they mirrored these speeds exactly. Every time they skated at a 3 (the fastest speed), they were able to hold onto the ring. The final test: I had them do the drill one last time. Except, no one told them what to do. They were allowed to choose their speed. Without exception, every one of them skated at top speed



(a 3) while carrying the ring. They got it! All of them! Only 22 minutes had passed. I was a bit stunned. How could this be? They all got it--in less than half an hour! No coaching, no corrections, no begging, no cajoling.

What Happened? These athletes learned a new skill in 22 minutes, all because we let them trust themselves to figure it out. We told them the RIGHT FOCUS was – their speed when carrying the ring -– and they did the rest. In sport, experience is the best teacher--as long you focus on the right things during the experience. One time I was working with one of the best hitters on the Canadian National softball team because she had lost her confidence in hitting, but didn’t know why. We were casually watching her team scrimmage. I wanted to know what part of her batting had gone awry so I asked her to watch the pitcher carefully and tell me exactly when the pitcher was releasing the ball by saying the word “pitch”.

The first two times she said it, she was late – instead of saying “pitch” exactly when the ball was released, she said it a fraction of a second after the release. I told her this, and she quickly corrected it and said “pitch” at the right time. We then chatted for a few minutes until I asked her to resume the exercise. Once again, she was late calling the pitch too late, but didn’t realize it. I had to point it out to her. This told me what had gone wrong with her hitting – she was obviously reading the pitch too late, and therefore swinging her bat too late.

Why was she doing this? …probably because she was a little afraid of the pitch.

However, by bringing her focus back to the timing of the pitch, she was able to self-correct her timing and hit with confidence again. Why Does RIGHT FOCUS Work? When you are not succeeding in an outcome like scoring goals, putting a ball, scoring a point, or winning a rally, or sweeping a stone, it’s because you LACK AWARENESS of a variable critical to your skill or strategy—but you don’t know it. Usually, the more anxious we are, the less AWARE we of what what’s going on around us in sport. When anxiety goes up, awareness goes down.



When this happens, you have very little control over your performance, because you are literally not seeing what’s happening around you correctly.

RIGHT FOCUS works because it raises your awareness of the exact variables you need to be aware of to execute and win.

When this happens, your Confident Self comes out, because you are giving your body what it needs to excel, putting yourself back in CONTROL.

Jim Furyk, 2003 US Open Champion in golf, developed a classic RIGHT FOCUS to put his golf career back on track.

For years Furyk used to slice the ball. His Dad wanted Furyk to improve his alignment by first laying his club down parallel to his target.

This would help Furyk keep his shoulders parallel and aligned to the target.

But Furyk was lazy and stubborn and refused. He just kept hitting the ball, trying to get a good outcome.

Finally Furyk got fed up with being inconsistent.

He started carrying rulers around in his bag, putting them down parallel to his target line every time.

That made Furyk practice his alignment on every swing.

Hank Aaron & RIGHT FOCUS Baseball legend Hank Aaron created a textbook example of Right Focus to help him become one of the best hitters in the game.

You probably know that in the summer of 1973, baseball legend Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's career home run record.

What you may not know, though, is that he did it despite being massively pressured by haters.

Aaron got more than 3,000 letters a day during his chase for the record.

Unfortunately, much of the writing was hate mail because Aaron is black. For example: "Dear Nigger Henry, You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it...Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. My gun is watching your every black move."

On April 8, 1974, in front of the biggest crowd in the history of the Braves (53,775) Aaron ripped an Al Downing pitch into the Braves bullpen.

The new home run king was feted by his teammates and cheered by his fans.



But Aaron still has the letters.

They remind him of what the real world is like - and what he accomplished.

Aaron's secret to focusing?

He approached hitting with a RIGHT FOCUS mindset.

Most hitters worry about their batting form (their technique).

They obsess about their hips or their hands.

This is a technical focus and most of the time all it does is make you clumsy.

That's why Aaron focused on the pitcher and the ball instead.

He'd visualize the pitcher, because every pitcher has a different fastball.

Some fastballs move up. Others sink.

And you'd better know what's coming at you if you want to hit the ball.

Aaron would even say to himself, "What is good for Koosman, what works good for Koosman, and how is he going to try and get me out in different situations?"

You can see that confident champions think differently than everyone else. Their mindset is not about what everyone else thinks is important.

It is about what they think is important: focusing on what they can control and getting sky-high awareness so they can correct mistakes and deliver amazing peak performance.

In Aaron's case, he carefully prepared a Right Focus that let him anticipate pitches better than anyone else.

EXERCISE – Your RIGHT FOCUS I want you to select one RIGHT FOCUS for competing that is under your control for your next big event. The best way to come up with this is to ask the question, “What is a goal under my control that, if I achieve it, will give me success in what matters most to me in competition?”

For example, if you are a badminton player, you might set a goal to move your opponent around by mixing up your shots. If you are a figure skater, you might set a goal to really connect with your music and the feeling of your routine. If you are a basketball player, you might set a goal to “box out” and stay between your check and your defensive hoop. If you are a curler, you might set a goal to have supreme awareness of ice conditions and hog to hog times so you can make strategy and sweeping calls. If you’re a hockey player, you might set a goal to take the



puck to the net with speed. If you’re a golfer, you might set a goal be highly aware of your club head and swing speed by giving it a number after each shot.

Remember, your RIGHT FOCUS is always under your direct and immediate control, it gives your body the information it needs to succeed and helps you correct errors. In the space below, write down a specific RIGHT FOCUS that, if you achieve it, will set you up for success: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

More Examples of RIGHT FOCUS

Hockey Goal: “I want to improve the accuracy of my backhand shot.” RIGHT FOCUS: “I want to look at the net when I’m shooting.”

Golf Goal: “I want to improve my distance putting.” RIGHT FOCUS: “I want to read greens better – specifically, knowing if the putt is it uphill, downhill; is the line going to break left or right?”

Tennis Goal: “I want to be more aware of my opponent’s tendencies in competition.”

RIGHT FOCUS: “I want to notice my opponent’s weak side, hit to him there, and notice if he adjusts.”



Badminton Goal: “I want to improve my smash.” RIGHT FOCUS: “I will keep my eyes focused squarely on the shuttlecock when smashing.”

Curling Goal: “I want to improve my ability to draw to the button.” RIGHT FOCUS: “I want my leg drive to be just right – not too fast or too slow.”

Fastball Goal: “I want to improve my batting percentage by one.” RIGHT FOCUS: “I want to be able to say “pitch” exactly when the pitcher releases the ball.”

Soccer Goal: “I want to make more completed passes every game.” RIGHT FOCUS: “I want to know exactly how far off my passes are when they are not accurate.”

Basketball Goal: “I want to cut down on how many baskets my check gets.” RIGHT FOCUS: “I want to keep the perfect gap control so that I am in front of her the entire way.”

Already Heard of The RIGHT FOCUS? If you’ve been involved with any of my programs in the past, you’ve heard of the concept of RIGHT FOCUS.

But, chances are, you are not getting the massive improvement in your performance you COULD be from using it.

I’ve noticed two important reasons why this may be happening. These are three secret errors that, if you correct them, will cause you to leapfrog over your competitors and go straight to the top.

RIGHT FOCUS Secret Error #1 Most athletes don’t really COMMIT in their hearts to executing their RIGHT FOCUS. Instead, they ‘mess about’ with it a few times.

The reason most athletes don’t commit to executing their RIGHT FOCUS is the same reason they are afraid.

They’ve been programmed to believe that there are only three really important things worth obsessing over: winning, performing well, and being confident.



They’ve never truly considered that they could create a WIN for themselves and obsess over that.

Confident champions don’t let other people dictate their destiny. Confident champions take control by realizing that by obsessing over their RIGHT FOCUS, they will have enough awareness to execute without having to press. This allows them to relax and TRUST themselves completely.

RIGHT FOCUS Secret #2 The second error is not selecting the proper RIGHT FOCUS needed to correct the errors you are making.

Remember my story about the National Team softball hitter who was struggling to hit the ball? In working together, we figured out that the reason she wasn’t hitting the ball was timing. Her timing was off. By having her create the RIGHT FOCUSE exercise of saying “pitch” when the ball was released from the pitcher’s hand and saying “swing” when she thought she should swing, she was able to correct this error by bringing more awareness to her timing.

But if her timing wasn’t the problem, this would not have corrected the problem. What if her problem was that she was swinging at the wrong pitches? For this problem, the RIGHT FOCUS exercise would be to say “ball” whenever she thought the pitch was a ball and “swing” whenever she thought the ball was going to come over the plate into the strike zone.

Your job as a confident champion is to use the exact RIGHT FOCUS needed to correct the errors you are making. Here’s how to do it:

1. Figure out which error you want to correct. Example: if you are a tennis player and you keep hitting forehands long, outside the court, the error you want to correct will be, “I want my forehand to be more accurate and hit the ball just inside the line.”

2. Assign yourself a RIGHT FOCUS exercise that makes you try the skill you’re trying to correct THREE different ways: once just right, and two that are in the opposite of just right. For example, you’d try hitting the ball too long, too short, and just right.

3. Notice what happens and make notes in your Athletes Journal. Hitting the ball too long will feel differently than hitting it too short and just right. What is the difference in feel?

Remember in Session Two when I revealed the three reasons why confident champions have better skills than other athletes? One of these was Working Smarter – The Perato Principle, where I discussed the fact that you can break from the pack simply by focusing on perfecting the 20% of skills in your sport that will give you 80% of your results. The example I gave was the movie Moneyball, where the Oakland A’s were able to compete with the best teams in baseball with only a fraction of the budget because they evaluated and selected players based primarily on hitting - whether they could hit the ball and get on base.

The same applies to correcting errors. Every athlete has the tendency to make the same errors over and over again. You could call them bad habits. And some of these errors are more



significant than others. By eliminating these errors, you can take yourself from good to great to world class.

I’ve give you an example. Right now in my sport, I have three errors I’ll make in a game: not picking up my check quickly enough; being too aggressive on defense and letting the other team get too close to our net; and not shooting a really quality shot when I have an opportunity (either shooting a slow shot or an inaccurate one).

For me, the third error is by far the most significant, because if I were able to score two or three more goals every game, it would have the biggest impact on my team’s success and my athletic self-esteem.

EXERCISE – Creating the Proper RIGHT FOCUS for Correcting Errors Let’s create the proper RIGHT FOCUS to correct the most important error you are making. Here are the steps:

1. Describe in the space below the error you want to correct.

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

2. Describe how you would execute the skill three different ways:

Way One: ___________________________________________________

Way Two: ___________________________________________________

Way Three: __________________________________________________

3. Practice the skill this way three times this week. Notice what happens and make notes in your Athletes Journal. What is the difference in feel?

RIGHT FOCUS & Expectations To become fearless and create breakthrough confidence for yourself before competing, you’ll also want to become masterful at managing your expectations.

The reason for this is because your expectations govern how much pressure you’ll feel.

How Most Athletes Pressure Themselves Most athletes pressure themselves by loving themselves when they succeed and hating themselves when they fail. You may not be consciously aware of this phenomenon, but if you observe yourself carefully, you’ll see that it is true. Consider your most painful failures for a moment. I suspect the hurt of these failures is really the emotion of shame.



Shame is the emotion we experience when we criticize ourselves for not getting what we want. When most athletes perform poorly, lose, or lose their confidence, they criticize themselves mercilessly. They do not distinguish between results under their control and results not under their control.

This is a big disadvantage to winning. It’s a big disadvantage because it puts ridiculous pressure on you. Your edge will come being different.

EXERCISE -- Expectations For the two things that scare you the most, I’d like you get clear on your expectations of yourself in competition. Example: If your biggest fear is not scoring, write down how many goals you expect to get in every game. In my case, I expected myself to score within the first 4-5 shifts of the game.

EXERCISE – Effect of Expectations If I scored, I would feel great and play better and better. If I didn’t, I’d decide that I wasn’t having a good game, my confidence would go in the toilet, and things would go downhill from there. If you meet your expectations, what happens to your confidence and results?

If you violate your expectations, what happens to your confidence and results?

How Confident Champions Pressure Themselves Confident champions are not people who perform well under pressure.

Nobody performs well under pressure. Confident champions are people who create an internal environment for themselves in which they do not feel overwhelming pressure.



Confident champions do expect a lot of themselves, but they do it differently than most athletes. They do not pressure themselves to do things outside of their control. Confident champions expect themselves to execute on things under their control, including their RIGHT FOCUS goals. As a confident champion, you can EXPECT yourself to go to the wall physically...to be awake to what’s happening in the game…to learn on the fly…to take calculated chances…to persist and never say die, not matter what. Most of all, you’ll want to expect yourself to execute your RIGHT FOCUS goal – and hold yourself accountable for doing this with 100% quality effort, no matter how tempted you are to focus on outcomes. This is a challenging goal to achieve when everyone around you is doing the opposite, but when you take it seriously, you put yourself back in CONTROL, which triggers your Confident Self.

He Came Out of Nowhere to Beat Giants Like Tiger In 2011, the Golf US Open was up for grabs as late as Sunday morning.

In terms of technical golf ability, there were several guys -- including golf giants Tiger Woods, Phil Michelson, and Ernie Els -- who could have won the Open.

But the player who brought the most mental toughness was North Ireland's Graeme McDowell, the first European in 40 years to win the Open.

His mental game secret?

Expertly managing his expectations.

The entire day on Sunday, McDowell never lost sight of how hard playing the US Open is...let alone winning it.

Realizing how tough a golf course Pebble Beach is, McDowell (smartly) peeled back his expectations.

After missing a few shots on the 9th and 10 holes, he was frustrated -- but not shocked.

His realism allowed him to get back on track. "If you go chasing birdies, they'll quickly turn into bogeys," McDowell said later. (For you non-golfers that means if you try too hard to shoot a hole one under par, you'll end up scoring one over par).

When you bring your expectations in check, you develop the 'slow and steady wins the race' mentality.



In poker there's a saying: "He's playing on TILT." Playing on TILT happens after a player loses a hand he SHOULD have won.

He forgets that poker is maddening and sometimes violates statistics. So he gets mad and takes unnecessary chances with his next hand.

He plays on TILT.

Playing on TILT is very tempting when your event is tough. That's because you'll be thwarted at every turn.

If you don't take control of your expectations, pretty soon you'll be playing on TILT.

McDowell summed up his expectations beautifully after he won. "It's so difficult to win a golf tournament, let alone a major. I'm just so thrilled to get over the line," he said, hugging the silver trophy on the 18th green. Again, don’t misunderstand me.

It’s okay to have high expectations when your expectations are about things under your control. When it comes to working hard, focusing, or executing on your strategy, your expectations of yourself should be sky-high.

The key to managing expectations is not to lower your expectations. The key is to have sky-high expectations about what you CAN control.

EXERCISE - RIGHT FOCUS Expectations What expectations are you willing to commit to with respect to your RIGHT FOCUS?

For example, if you are a basketball player, can you commit to boxing out and keep the perfect gap against your check on every play?

EXERCISE – RIGHT FOCUS Stakes Assuming your RIGHT FOCUS is the correct one for you, there is only one reason it will fail to improve your performance dramatically: if you don’t commit to it. Since you now know how important it is to commit to your RIGHT FOCUS, I suggest you raise the stakes to make sure you do it. What are you will to give yourself in way of a reward for committing to your RIGHT FOCUS?



Example: You will try to achieve your RIGHT FOCUS goal every time during your next game or you’ll donate $100 to your opponent’s fund-raising efforts. You will tell the person keeping stats for your team about your goal and have him track your results. You will put your goal on Twitter or Facebook and declare it publicly and then report back to your team. You will treat yourself to your favourite gift (outfit, iPod, movie, etc.). You will do your most hated chore every day for a week. OR: all of them! You get the idea. Put down the biggest stakes you can think of to motivate yourself to committing to your RIGHT FOCUS: How To Eliminate The Fear of Errors and CRUSH IT in Try Outs, Evaluations, and Qualifying Events

To be a star athlete, you must know in your heart that you can CRUSH IT at a try-out or qualifying event when you need to.

If you're like me, tryouts make you nervous. They can be ESPECIALLY nerve-racking if you have a new coach or team to "impress," because you are worried about making mistakes in front of people.

Remember, the method for mastering fear and triggering your Courageous Self is to create a sense of CONTROL over what you are doing.

And as I just explained, the way to take control and is to turn them from bad nerves into good nerves using your RIGHT FOCUS goal.

I know what you're thinking. "Ew. That's lame. It's too simple to actually work." Stay with me here.

Just last week I talked to a goalie who was disappointed by his latest try-out.

GOALIE: "I really struggled in try outs - there were 12 goalies and 6 made it. I should have been able to get noticed more."

LISA: "What do you mean?" GOALIE: "I could have covered my angles more. People have told me that all season - to make sure I'm always following the puck and not the player."

LISA: "If you DON'T follow the puck and you follow the player, what happens?"



GOALIE: "When I follow the player I'm too far back into my net - I'm almost on top of the goal line. When I follow the puck I push out and challenge."

See, here's the thing.

In try-outs, you'd never make a mistake intentionally. It only happens because your AWARENESS of something is a little bit low. This happens in pressure situations because when your anxiety goes up, your awareness goes down a bit. In my goalie's case, his awareness of where he is in the net can get low. To correct it, he needs to follow the puck.

At this point I asked him the obvious question: "Did you have a GOAL to follow the puck?" I'm sure you can guess the answer: No.

RIGHT FOCUS works like a charm in try-outs because you’re not trying to accomplish something that is outside your control.

You’re simply executing on a goal that you know you can accomplish. This brings out your Confident Self because you know you can do it as long as you are committed.

EXERCISE – RIGHT FOCUS for Try-Outs or Evaluations In the space below, write down the name of an upcoming try-out or qualifying event for your sport. Then, write down your best RIGHT FOCUS goal – the one that will create high awareness for you and bring out your best performance:

Event: ________________________________________

RIGHT FOCUS Goal:

Remember to record this goal in your Athlete’s Journal and evaluate how you did after the event. Are You A Perfectionistic Athlete? I’d like to say a word here about confidence and perfectionism. Most athletes who struggle with their confidence are usually super-intense, Type A perfectionists struggling to trust themselves.

I should know.



This was exactly my mindset before discovering mental toughness training.

Below is a confession from Sandra, a perfectionistic tennis player:

"Lisa I had a really terrible tennis match today. We went early and had a good warm-up. We also had a good game plan. We were winning 5 games to 2 and on match point I hit a smash out of bounds. Then I hit the next one in the net and then another smash out of bounds.

Then my partner hit a ball out and we ended up going into a tie breaker and losing that. We lost 6 to 4 in the third set. After i made those 3 mistakes I could hardly hit the ball. I told myself relax, relax, and breathe. I also said just go point by point. Don't think about anything else. I tried to laugh and stay positive. I am so discouraged. What positive learning can I take from this? How can I prevent this from happening again?

We played so well to start with and then couldn't finish it off. I CHOKED. I never want this to happen again so please help me."

Here’s what’s important about Sandra’s situation.

I don't think Sandra choked on match point - the choking came AFTER she missed match point. And I suspect it happened because underneath everything Sandra is an intense perfectionist. My guess is that when she makes mistakes, she becomes so ashamed and fearful that a) she can't focus and b) she starts punishing herself by beating up on herself mentally.

On a gut level, Sandra actually doesn’t believe it's Ok to make mistakes, including mental ones.

What Sandra is missing is that perfectionists - people who are defensive about mistakes - are not LEARNING.

I’m here to tell you that mistakes will make you better if you have the right attitude towards them.

When you get uptight about mistakes, you get so emotional that you miss out on what your mistakes are trying to teach you about your skills, your fitness, and your strategy.

I asked Sandra what she might be missing and here’s what she said:

"Thanks Lisa...I think my main problem is not hitting the ball with power. I am so worried about hitting it out of bounds that i tend to just push it over and safely guide it instead of smacking the ball.



Then it usually ends up short and they step up and hit it hard which puts us on the defense. At some point I need to have the courage to just hit the ball rather than push it. I need to focus on putting the topspin or backspin on it to keep it in the court."

Here’s what I told Sandra:

Sandra, the RIGHT FOCUS you need is simple. Hit the ball (don't push it). If it lands out of bounds, identify exactly HOW FAR OUT the ball landed - to the inch.

Get really good at this, and you'll naturally start hitting the ball inside the court without trying to. To pull this off, you need to get CURIOUS about where the ball lands when you hit it out. Genuine curiosity will tell you why you're hitting it out and how to correct it.

For example...

Are you trying to hit a winner and overdoing it? Is your stroke unsound? Why? Are you swinging too soon or too late? Or are you thinking about your follow through so much you're becoming clumsy?

What's happening?

You'll learn a ton about your game, your strokes, and other things that you haven't noticed because you've been wrapped up in your perfectionism for so long."

Again, to be a confident champion and create breakthrough confidence for yourself, you need to be committed to learning.

You’re not trying to be or look perfect out there. You’re simply setting a really specific goal for yourself and making every effort to reach it.

Creating A Winning Self-Image Using GAME FACE 2.0 In Session Two you learned about the concept of developing a persona for sport, which is a self-image or vision for yourself that is much more majestic and grand then how you see yourself now.

In fact, I asked you to envision yourself TEN TIMES better than you are right now. I also asked you to invent a BELIEF (statement) and repeat this statement in every warm up before practices, games, or competitions. This exercise was the beginning of creating a new self-image for yourself as an athlete. Why Your Self-Image Matters In Session Two, you learned why your self-image matters.



Map of Reality We all have a map of “reality” in our mind and we operate as though our map is actual reality.

You have a map of reality in your mind about everything: about how your sport works, about how a person makes money, about how a relationship is supposed to work, and even how subjects such as how math works, how English essays work, how music works – everything.

A GOOD Map = A Good Trip A BAD Map = A Bad Trip The better and more complete your map, the better your trip will be. That’s another way of saying that the better model of reality you have in your head, the better you will be at dealing with everything from math to money to relationships to your sport.

Your Map of YOURSELF In addition to having a map of your sport and how it works in your head, you have a map of yourself. This map is called your self-image.

When you create a new, positive self-image and continually reinforce it, you start to ACT differently. The Law of Congruent Behaviour This is called the Law of Congruent Behaviour according to Dan S. Kennedy, author of No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy.

According to Mr. Kennedy, to succeed, our behaviour must be Congruent.

Congruent with what?

“Congruent with the behaviour of people already achieving goals you want to achieve,” says Kennedy. “Consider a goal to lose 40 pounds. Dropping by a doughnut shop every morning is incongruent behaviour. Taking the elevator to the second floor instead of walking is not congruent. With regard to wealth, if you get your behaviour congruent with whatever your wealth goals are, and congruent with the behaviour of others who’ve achieved your wealth goals, it is an absolute certainty that your wealth will come flowing in.”

When your actions start to conform to the NEW vision of yourself the Universe has no choice but to reward you with success in your sport, and you smash through old mental barriers and create a new reality for yourself.

When Li Na beat Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 7-6 to win the 2011 French Open, she broke every barrier imaginable.

She broke a race barrier: Na is the first Chinese player to win a Grand Slam singles title.



She broke an age barrier: At 29, Na is not the oldest player to win a Grand Slam, but in professional tennis terms she's no spring chicken.

She broke a training barrier: Na did not start playing tennis until the age of nine, late for most professionals.

She broke a typical player history barrier: at 20 she retired to become a journalist, saying "I didn't think I would become a good player."

She broke a conditions barrier: growing up she never played on clay because in China they have sand courts, which are radically different to play on.

And finally, Li broke a pressure barrier: during the final over 40 million Chinese fans watched her compete for the title.

How did she do it?

By BELIEVING and trusting her true self, not holding herself back with self-limiting beliefs such as, "I'm too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too slow, too fast..."

After the match, Na said, "In those last few points I just said to myself, trust yourself. Believe in yourself."

In fact Na's team were all wearing a yellow t-shirt with the Chinese version of the words "Be yourself" on it. The good news is that you don't have to be controlled by an outdated or negative self-image.

You can take control of it using GAME FACE 2.0.

GAME FACE 2.0 GAME FACE 2.0 (the advanced version of GAME FACE) is your detailed, step-by-step pre-competition routine that sets you up from the beginning of your event to be a fearless, confident competitor.

In GAME FACE 2.0, you ‘ramp up’ your mental programming to make a radical leap in performance and results. Rather than try to make 5% or 10% improvements in your results, you set yourself up for a quantum leap in performance using your pre-competition routine.

GAME FACE 2.0 is the pre-competition routine that installs your new vision of yourself and makes it so real in your mind that your actions change. Your GAME FACE routine should have the following components:

1. A Physical Warm Up



2. A Positive Affirmation 3. Emotional Visualization The first element, your physical warm up, is unique to your sport and we will leave this up to you. You created the second element, your positive affirmation, in Session Two. You will want to KEEP repeating this positive affirmation in all your warm ups until you no longer feel it is inspiring you to new heights. The third element is E.V., or Emotional Visualization. If you’ve taken any of my other programs, you know that Emotional Visualization is the technical term for mentally rehearsing success in advance. Emotional Visualization: The Power of Positive Feeling

Visualization is the technical term for mentally rehearsing success in advance. Here is what Sylvie Bernier, the diver, had to say about it:

My mental preparation for the Olympics was really different from the preparation of other athletes in my sport. That year I didn’t dive as much as everybody else. I didn’t train 6 hours a day in the pool. I probably did 2 hours a day…So I had to work on my mental preparation a lot. I did my dives in my head all the time. At night, before going to sleep, I always did my dives. Ten dives. if I was actually there. I saw myself on the board with the same bathing suit. I started with a front dive, the first one that I had to do at the Olympics, and I did everything as Everything was the same I saw myself in the pool at the Olympics doing my dives. If the dive was wrong, I went back and started over again. It takes a good hour to do perfect imagery of all my dives but for me it was better than a workout. …It took me a long time to control my images and perfect my imagery, maybe a year, doing it everyday. At first I couldn’t see myself, I always saw everyone else, or I would see my dives wrong all the time. I would get an image of hurting myself, or tripping on the board, or I would “see” something done really bad. However, visualizing is not enough. You need to do it with emotion to create confidence.

Many athletes visualize, but without emotion. Their visualization may help them develop new



skills, but it won’t give them the unshakable confidence they are seeking. They are not harnessing the ‘power of positive feeling.’

Emotional visualization is the art of ‘seeing’ the performance you want and connecting

with the positive feelings it evokes in you. As you continue to visualize success with emotion, you will gain more and more access to your confidence. Emotional Visualization On Steroids Today I would like you to take your E.V. to the next level and start practicing emotional visualization on steroids in order to create a new self-image for yourself as an athlete, because we are attempting to create a quantum leap in your results and performance this season. For this, you will need to abandon your logical, “realistic” mind and engage outrageous thinking and dreaming. In Do Less, Achieve More, author Chin-ning Chu tells the story of Gary, who completely re-programmed his thinking about money and success using E.V. in his waking and sleeping dreams. Here is Gary’s story: “Gary came from a working-class family. When he was ten years old, he told his grandparents that when he grew up, he would have a very large mansion…His brother went directly home and told what Gary said to his father. When Gary arrived home he received a terrific beating from his father for being an unrealistic dreamer. By the time he was 45 years old, due to relocation and job changes, he had bought and sold many residences, but none had ever come near to the grandeur of the mansion he, as a youth, had described. Gary felt frustrated. His small computer business was a good business, grossing over a million dollars a year, but not good enough to manifest his dream. His net yearly income was only three hundred thousand dollars. The desire for having his dream mansion was so strong that he started to dream about houses…he even dreamed about a gigantic castle in whose living room he could put his grandfather’s house. But in every dream, the houses were not his…At the end of his dream, he would have to walk away from his dream home. Eventually, Gary realized there was a pattern to his dreaming. He saw outrageous houses, but at the finish he would always realize that he could not afford them. He felt powerless to obtain any of the magnificent homes. Then a brilliant spark of intuitive insight came to him. He questioned, “I wonder if I could direct



my dreams to dream that I CAN afford the house and that I DO make three million dollars a year?” Gary started altering his dreams. First, because he was a scientist, he was very realistic and logical – how could he jump from $300,000 in income to $3,000,000,000? There had to be a way to jump out of the strictures of reality into the realm of unreality. Being a scientist provided Gary with the insight that the subatomic particles that make up matter leap from one realm to the other. In other words, the electron does not move from one place through space and then land in the new place; it just disappears from one level and instantaneously reappears at another. Gary thought this could be applied to the macro-world of human matters. He discovered that the strata of wealth and social class were akin to different orbits electrons occupy and that movement between them often came by leaps and bounds rather than steady, plodding, predictable fashion. Gary decided to alter the logical nature of his mind. He abandoned his rational mind, his realism, his limitation thinking and embraced wild outrageousness. He saw that placing realistic limitations of thinking on life itself was ultimately unrealistic on his part. Next, Gary decided to live his dreams while he was awake. Gary discovered that whatever dreams he wished to experience at night, he had to think and live them in that state during his waking hours. He no longer let his dreams dictate his own content, because whatever occupires your thoughts during the day will effect what you dream about at night. Instead of acknowledging the current reality of his financial situation, he decided to create his own quantum reality: He would see that he was already earning three million dollars and owned his dream house. Gary engaged the battle between his habitual mind of realism and his newly adopted mind of outrageous quantum thinking. Whether working, playing, or speaking, part of his mind was always watching the other pat to make sure that whenever his thoughts fell back into his “real” reality, he would put that old, linear thinking out of his consciousness and reestablish his thought of quantum reality—that he possessed gorgeous homes everywhere, that he made ten million dollars. At first, this exercise was not easy, but he persisted in correcting himself. He believed throughout this painful struggle of self-correction that one day, somehow, his old mental patterns would break and just like the electron, out of nowhere, it would collapse and take a quantum leap for the new realm.



Eventually Gary’s dreams began to change. He began dreaming he bought a particularly beautiful house in the town’s finest neighbourhood. Upon awakening, while still lying in bed, the first thing Gary would do was close his eyes and review his dreams. If the dreams were positive, filled with confidence and clarity, he would congratulate himself. If the dreams were confused and powerless, such as having a falling-off-the-cliff dream, he would re-script the nightmare and replay it in his mind until he was happy with the result. Facing the cliff, he would take off and fly in skyward-soaring freedom. Ten months after adopting this strategy, Gary was approached by a business acquaintance who had invented a new concept for computer information retrieval. Three years after that, their sales were sixty million dollars.” EXERCISE - Emotional Visualization on Steroids

Sit in a quiet space where you will not be disturbed. Close your eyes and relax. Focus on

your breathing. Breathe slowly and deeply. Once you are relaxed, go back to a time in your mind when you felt really confident and

powerful in competition and re-create this emotion in your body. Really touch the energy, joy, and power that you felt back then.

Now I want you create an outrageous image of yourself as an athlete that is the very

definition of Thinking Big. If it is helpful, see the image of an athlete you admire and look up to as a model for Thinking Big. See this person’s skills, physique, conditioning, and execution in your mind’s eye. This is the vision that you are striving for. You are striving for your actions to be Congruent with this person.

Now I want you to imagine being able to DO everything this person is capable of doing.

Imagine it right down to the last detail: every skill, every strategy, every move. Feel how it feels to be able to perform at this level. Notice all of the benefits and perks that come with this level of power and skill in your sport.

Now I want you to travel forward in space and time, and take yourself through an important event in your sport using these same skills that you just imagined. Put in all of the detail, all of the strategy, all of the plays. Notice how all of your actions are a complete fit with the vision you have created for yourself.

Bring yourself to the end of this event, feeling grateful that you have been given this mind and this body and can achieve your wildest dreams.

Write a few lines on what you experienced during this exercise. What happened to you?

Were you able to recall a situation? What feelings did you have? If you couldn’t summon any feelings, describe what happened to you emotionally. Feel free to describe your thoughts; however, please make sure that you also describe the emotions you had during this exercise. If



you were not able to access any emotions, please record exactly what you did feel. Describe what did happen.

There are several things that may have happened to you during this exercise. Do not be

concerned if you felt distracted, numb, or even negatively at any point during it. Merely record your experience.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

GAME FACE is a routing you develop that puts you in the mindset of your competing persona. Your persona is your athletic alter ego. It’s your Sasha Fierce. It’s bringing out your sun energy – the force of will. It’s your cocky self. It’s your For The Love Of The Game attitude. It’s getting yourself in the Ideal Performance State and with the right energization level so you can be aggressive. It’s concentrating in the NOW. You are basically saying to yourself, ``What does a superstar act like, think like, talk like, look like, dress like, warm up like, and believe?” and then imitating her. GAME FACE brings out your Confident Self by giving you a sense of control in three ways:

1. You get a better sense of control over your day because you know exactly what`s going to be happening inside in your mind in the hour leading up to your event.

2. You will get skilled at psyching yourself up before playing, which is critical

because success at the highest levels of sport is as thin as a razor’s edge. It’s not the best team or athlete who wins on competition day; it’s the athlete who performs the best who wins.

3. Your GAME FACE routine will remove your negative beliefs and replace them

with positive ones, healing the `wounds` that make you become unglued when stressors show up and making you invulnerable to them.

EXERCISE - Your GAME FACE Psych Up Routine In the space below, put together a 10-30 minute individual GAME FACE routine for yourself that includes the following components:

1. A physical warm up that activates you 2. At least one affirmation



3. Emotional visualization planning ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Remember to record this goal in your Athlete’s Journal and evaluate how you did after the event.

Why Your Competitors Do Not Visualize

Your competitors know about visualization. Some of them even use it. However, because they don’t understand the concepts I have explained in this lesson, they do not use visualization for maximum benefit.

When they start to visualize in any depth, negative emotions and thoughts surface.

They begin to see themselves performing poorly, or they have thoughts such as, “What if my success doesn’t last?” Although this is normal, most athletes conclude that they are not visualizing correctly, and stop doing it.

You, however, are different. You understand how emotions work and can now be one of the exceptional athletes who persist in emotional visualization.

Mark Tewksbury is an inspiration in this regard.

When I first started doing this [visualizing], it was frustrating and exhausting. I would close my eyes and try to picture the race and nothing would come. Sometimes I felt asleep instead of visualizing. Other times I would try to picture myself visualizing and all I could see were my competitors. Even worse, sometimes, when I had successfully pictured myself doing well, I would get in the race and panic when the first little thing didn’t go according to plan….

Of course, I always tried to picture myself winning. In order to do this I had to

imagine others behind me. Sometimes the thought of winning was very frightening. It took a long time to train my mind to see myself being the best. At every level of competition this was the hardest thing to overcome…I was competing internationally for many years before this became possible.

Mark was visualizing correctly, but his confidence triggered suppressed fear—which is why his imagery was “frightening” to him. It is critical that you are aware of these pitfalls and gracefully side-step them on your way to becoming a Confident Champion.

Let’s re-cap today’s Session. You have learned the following:



• Eliminate The Fear of Making Mistakes. Learn the Code of the Samurai, which is the psychology of “winning beforehand” – once you know this formula, it will be like child’s play to take the lead early in competition, putting you in the driver’s seat. This is the specific method for eliminating the fear of making mistakes so you can start off your event excited, aggressive, and ready to take the smart chances needed to win.

• Good Nerves, Not Bad Nerves. What do to when you’re overwhelmed with nerves to become calm and energized, including how to transform “bad” nerves into self-trust and let go out there.

• Becoming Fearless Before You Compete. You discover how most athletes put massive pressure on themselves before competing and the most effective strategy for avoiding this trap to become fearless before you compete.

• Creating A Winning Self-Image Using GAME FACE 2.0. Detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to set yourself up from the beginning of your event to be a fearless, confident competitor so it is easy and automatic for you to handle “rough patches” and sail through the situation.

I’ll talk to you again soon. You friend, Lisa B.


The Confident Champion Session Three Transcript · 2) They work smarter than other athletes 3) They...

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Transcript of The Confident Champion Session Three Transcript · 2) They work smarter than other athletes 3) They...