45. My Highlights From Executive Toughness: The Mental-Training Program to Increase Your Leadership Performance
45. My Highlights From Executive Toughness: The Mental-Training Program to Increase Your Leadership Performance
Hello! I’m Kevin Kruse, founder and CEO of LEADx and NY Times bestselling author of 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management and the forthcoming 11 Secrets Successful People Know About Goal Setting. Welcome to Success & Significance - my take on health, wealth, and relationships (my “3 to Thrive”, read more here). Hit the Subscribe button below to join over 20,000 members who never miss an issue and unlock premium content.
I read recently that some of the most popular newsletters and social media posts out there are ones that just summarize books. Huh, who knew? I read about 50 to 100 books a year so figure this is an easy “value add” to offer you. So here we go…
About the Book: Executive Toughness
People with inborn talent may be good at what they do―but only the mentally tough reach the highest plateaus in their field. And here’s the best news of all: mental toughness is something anyone can learn.
Director of mental training for the St. Louis Cardinals and a top-tier executive coach, Dr. Jason Selk knows everything there is to know about developing the mental toughness required for achieving any goal you set for yourself. In fact, the techniques he outlines in this book are the same ones he used to help the Cardinals defeat the heavily favored Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series.
My Highlights From the Book
I became fixated with Coach Wooden. His trademark “two sets of threes”—“never lie, never cheat, never steal, and don’t whine, don’t complain, don’t make excuses”—certainly reinforced the basics my own parents had taught me.
Coach Wooden would say that leadership isn’t just about leading or coaching others. It is first and foremost about leading yourself and truly leading—rather than following—your life.
MENTAL TOUGHNESS: The ability to focus on and execute solutions, especially in the face of adversity.
Throughout the day the CEO replaces negative thinking with statements like: “I can do anything when I put my mind to it,” or “I am an intelligent and confident leader,” and “I love my family, and I am present and full of energy when I am with them.”
“One mental workout per day keeps failure away.”
The mental workout will take only 100 seconds of your time each day but will inevitably develop your focus, hence improving your execution and consistency, so that you will be poised for championship-level performance.
FOCUS: Focus involves selectively concentrating on one aspect of your environment while ignoring everything else.
The three characteristics of executive toughness are accountability, focus, and optimism.
DEFINE YOUR WIN: Know your purpose and priorities to solidify your ability to win in the important aspects of life.
To define your purpose, ask yourself: What is my purpose in life? What is the overall main reason for my being? Here are a few examples:
A doctor I know has the purpose of serving others.
A client of mine who is a corporate attorney has the purpose of achieving greatness.
The CEO of a major pharmaceutical company strives to live each day with patience, contentment, and generosity.
A gym owner’s purpose is to experience love.
A professional football player I work with believes his purpose is to make the world a better place every day.
Priorities are the second important item to consider before you can fully define your win in life. While your purpose tells you why you are here, your priorities capture what you value. Ask yourself: What is important to me?
Take 30 seconds every day to visualize who you want to be and how you want life to turn out, and dramatically increase the likelihood of achieving your win.
SELF-IMAGE: Self-image is essentially how you view yourself—what strengths and weaknesses you believe you possess and what you believe you are capable of achieving…I eventually found that the power Dr. Maltz ascribes to self-image is, if anything, understated. He writes: You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be. More important, you literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or will-power. This is why trying to achieve something difficult with teeth gritted is a losing battle. Willpower is not the answer. Self-image is internally constructed: you decide how you view yourself. No one chooses for you, and you
Visualization is, in fact, the most powerful vehicle of self-communication. The trick is to transform your words into mental images.
In this way, self-image is like a thermostat. If you set the thermostat at 72 degrees Fahrenheit and the room drops to 71 degrees, the thermostat then sends a message to the heater to get to work. Warm air rushes into the room, and the room warms up to 72 degrees. When the room reaches 73 degrees, the thermostat tells the heater to stop working. All day long, the thermostat governs the temperature in the room and won’t allow the room temperature to rise or drop from the desired temperature for long. Human beings are the same way: we neither outperform nor underperform our self-image for very long.
David Kohl, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech University, has found that individuals who write down their goals will have nine times the success of those who don’t put their goals on paper.
Almost every athlete I work with scripts his or her entire competition day (including precompetition routine, during competition performance, and postcompetition celebration/recovery).
Identify Your Three Most Important Scripts
Even though you have dozens of important interactions every day, you can’t possibly develop and practice a script of each one. Instead, identify the top three most important scripts you will need to elevate your performance to the leadership level and achieve your win.
PREPARE MENTALLY EVERY DAY: Complete a 100-second mental workout every day to dramatically improve your focus and ability to execute consistently.
Until the next issue, remember…
Impact > Income,
Kevin 🙏
If you liked this post, you’d love my books. Consider grabbing 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management or 11 Secrets Successful People Know About Goal Setting or Great Leaders Have No Rules.
