Two athletes, same potential on paper. Player A needs the right environment to build skills. Player B has the skills but avoids intense moments out of fear. The difference is psychological: Player B must learn to stay present in discomfort and turn anxiety into action.
Chapters
Player A, in my experience, is someone who genuinely hasn't developed those strengths and skills. And so putting them in environments where they know they can achieve, which may be easier or underneath their skill level, is going to really help them build their strengths, actually reveal their strengths, because everybody has inherent strengths, right? So that would be a great option. Player B, which might be a lot of you, is And in my experience, these players, they have immense strength. They have all the physical conditioning in the world. Their skills are very high. You know, you look at them on paper and they have everything that they need, but they don't believe that. They don't believe that because they're in a state of avoidance and fear. So when we put them in their ideal environments, they don't perform. They don't perform to the level of their capabilities because they're stuck in avoidance and they're trying to avoid intense moments, trying to avoid feelings, which is the exact that catalyst that unlocks them to learn what to do next and what's available, how to adapt in the moment, right? So Player B, in my experience when I was touring, especially with developing players, junior athletes, someone that is extremely talented, has all the skills, does all the work, but in competition doesn't perform— what we can do with those players is necessarily work more on, you know, getting better or improving their strengths, which are already at a high level, is actually addressing what are you scared of? What are you avoiding? What are you resisting? Why are you resisting that intense moment? Why do you not want to feel that? What is the story behind that? And can we get them to entertain their fears? So the fears are here and they're looking at it and like, I don't want to go anywhere near that. Okay, so now they're too busy avoiding something. And can we actually entertain those fears, live in that world for a second, and then realize there's actually nothing to be scared of, right? These are fictitious events appearing real. That doesn't say— that doesn't mean they're easy to go through, because when you go through a fear for the first time to overcome it, there are intense feelings. They're actually new feelings that you've never given yourself the opportunity to face, right? And this is about facing our fears. And so doing that level of work is going to make that player be more powerful in their center, realize there's nothing to be scared of. And actually, that means I can go through difficult moments and still be present. I can have intense moments of the match. I could even be having unideal moments of the match, but I don't go anywhere. I stay present. There's nothing to avoid here. This is part of the journey. If I just stay present and feel these things, I'm going to transmute those emotions into answers, into opportunities, into what to do next. Right. And this is where
