In this motivational monologue, the speaker challenges the common tendency to attribute personal outcomes to external factors—such as scores, injuries, or circumstances—and argues that doing so relinquishes personal ownership and accountability. By stripping away the personal "story" we tell ourselves about events, we can perceive pure, objective reality, which often reveals an underlying abundance and support that is obscured by our narrative lens. The speaker cites Viktor Frankl’s insight that the space between stimulus and response is where we exercise freedom, emphasizing that responses aligned with our goals and values foster growth, whereas habitual reactions perpetuate unwanted patterns. He advises listeners to pause, breathe, and consciously choose responses rooted in their values, while still allowing themselves to fully feel emotions without acting impulsively on them. The overall message is that our internal narratives, not external events, shape our experience, and by recognizing this we can pivot our perspective, make intentional choices, and create a future aligned with our desired values.
Chapters
Merry Christmas everyone! Here to deliver to you a not so Christmassy message but one that might transcend the rest of your 26. So it's very common for people to think that, or my athletes to think that, there are things outside of them that's affecting them. That could be like the scoreline, it could be their injuries, it could be whatever the case may be for them. However, that all that does is give away our ownership, our sovereignty, our position of accountability, responsibility, and essentially It infects our perception to see any different way of changing, only the way to continue perpetuating it. Now, that's not to say that circumstances in our life aren't difficult, challenging, unideal. However, when we strip away the story we experience circumstances from, what we're left with is just what's actually happening. Pure objectivity, I call this, which is, you know, challenging as a human being to get to. But there's varying degrees that you can get to. I haven't even realized I've been speaking with this thing on my, on my head the whole time. I thought I'd see how long I'd get away with doing this video with that in my hair, but it's done. So yes, when we're able to see things that are going on in our life absent from the story of it, what we're left with is just what's going on. In fact, when you get really deep into the layer of what is actually going on, you just see that there is actually a lot of abundance. There are a lot of things happening for your favor. You're well supported. You know, things have deeper context. When you look at, you know, where you've come from to where you are today, how you're being supported by life itself, the oxygen you're breathing, the roof over your head, you just start to see really more of what's truly happening outside of the lens of your story. Now, Viktor Frankl had a great quote here, which I'd like to read to you, which is, between stimulus and response is a space, and in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. Now, this is a beautiful quote because when our response is aligned with our goals, values, then we are always responding from a place of what we're about to create. However, when we are making responses that don't have any definition, you know, they're just reactions from habits and patterns, we're going to create more of that to move into for our future lives. So When we're looking at our circumstances, it's just what's going on. When we remove the lens of a story of what's going on, about what it might mean about who we are, then we take away the emotional charge that might have been interrupting our flow. We take away the perception that we were using that didn't allow us to see another way. And obviously, we also start to have access to actions that we didn't have inside of a story. So it's more accurate to say that nothing's really pissing you off. Things aren't actually affecting you. You're affecting you. And that's good news because that means that you can change and just pivot how you're viewing things. Not to just— how do I say this? Delusion. Not to actually hide from what's going on, but you're actually getting deeper into the reality of what's going on. Our stories are not reality. They're a personal reality. So before we respond or react, take a breath, pause, and realign yourself to respond going forward from the values of your goal. Doesn't mean you're not allowed to feel things. In fact, I encourage you to feel through things so that you can process it, not harbor it and suppress it for it to later come up where you need to, you know, suppress it in the most important moments of your day, of your career, of your match, but actually feel through it. And there's a difference between feeling something and acting from the feeling. We're going to respond from the values of our goal, and this is going to compound and make sure that we're actually creating a future that is based on the values that we want.
