Chad Silverstein describes how his middle-school wrestling coach taught him "PMA" (Positive Mental Attitude) and how that mindset—combined with the practice of reframing—helps personal performance and leadership. He argues negativity is toxic in teams, recommends self-assessment and seeking others' perspectives, and urges building reframing as a discipline for self-improvement and professional development.
Chapters
When I was in middle school, met my best friend, who I've been close with for more than 30 years. He was my wrestling coach. And one of our first practices, he had all the kids right on their hand. Pma, positive mental attitude. And he just instilled from us from day one just to always be positive, just have that positive mindset. He used to come into practice, he'd say, how do you feel today? And he trained us all to answer with, I feel like a state champ. Ironically, none of us ended up being state champs, but we felt like a state champ. And that helped us be more successful. And it carried over outside of wrestling into our lives. I used to always teach my kids this. Pma, pma. But for some reason, I don't always see my kids always being positive. And that's because the reality is, it's hard. Life is hard. Things happen. It's hard to always be positive. There is some truth to acting as if, even if you don't feel it, it helps you become it. But it is important to what I call reframe and reframing and the ability to, like, stop when something is going on and reframe the way you see things and to build PMA into whatever it is that you're experiencing. That is something high performers do. That is something leaders do. And that is an important quality so that you're not miserable. Because being negative not only will make yourself sick, but it makes everyone around you sick. And they're sick of being around you because you're negative. And I used to fire people at my company when they were just so negative. And they say it's like. It's like a cancer. And it is. It's like a cancer when you have someone negative and they make the environment toxic because they're constantly complaining about something. They're constantly a victim to whatever is happening. And the reality is you're not a victim. You're not a victim. And if you're going to play that role, then you're going to be treated that way, and you're going to feel that way, and you could probably defend yourself that you are a victim, but you have more control over things than you think. And even though you can't control other people, and you may not be able to control the things that are happening in your life, you can control the way you reframe a situation for. From feeling and from the way that you're processing it. And so if you look at anything that you're going through right now in your life and you reframe the way you look at it either you can do that by yourself and if you can't you find someone who's close to you that can help you see things from a different perspective. I always say change your perspective change your life it's true and reframing is a quality that you want to try to build into things and make it a discipline that when things happen and you can self assess your day do an account thing just like you would do of your bank account and see what tees you off, see what makes you upset, see the things that are working well and the things you want to improve upon. You know having the ability to reframe the way that you're experiencing life is a powerful powerful discipline to build and something that I highly recommend you build into your self improvement your professional development. Refrain refrain frame the way you see things and it will be life changing for you and have a PMA written on your hand and stay positive.
