Heroic Chat with Lanny Bassham: Trusting Instead Of Trying

Hey Heroes. Today's episode features a mastery level chat with one of our friends and world class experts sharing how they show up as the best version of themselves. This heroic chat with Brian was recorded live in front of a virtual audience of heroic community members and coaches. To learn more about this series as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to practice to mastery and express the best, most heroic version of yourself. Head to Heroic Us today and if you like this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. Now here's your host, Brian Johnson.

Heroes, it is 1:01pm Central Time and this is the first time I've said that in a long time. I miss you. I hope you're doing great. Happy New Year. Today we have a special guest, Lanny Basham. If you have followed along at all, you know that Lani is one of my absolute all time favorite teachers. Wrote a couple of great books that we profile including look at that when I searched Basham. By the way, Lanny, how cool is that? Troy's book Attainment came up at the top there. But I started by meeting Lanny with after I read With Winning in Mind, which is hands down one of the all time best books on mental toughness, peak performance, etc the Mental Management System is the subtitle. And then I actually learned about Lanny's son's book, Troy's book Attainment, which is also phenomenal. And then we also featured Parenting Champions which is one of my all time favorite parenting books on how to as per the book, Parent Champions. But what every parent should know about the mental game and the ultimate game of life. But before we jump in, I'll just say hi Wayne, if you can just say hi. And I'm going to say hi to everybody. But good to see you sir.

Yeah, good to see you. So what have you been doing?

I've been working hard, Lanny. I launched a book. I've been working hard and just excited to connect. But let me say real hi real quick. I like to kind of go through and just, just see some wonderful faces. Coach Lanny, haven't seen you in a while. I love seeing you online. Tim. Mitch Rocca, I'm still buzzing from our time together. That was fun. Great work, sir. 7th Brigade man, so proud of that. And you and us. Beth, great to see you. Michael, Chris M. Aurelius, nice to see you Sir Anthony, great To see you always. Eladio, Zach, David, Carol, Joe, Stephanie, Norbert, Chris. I'm getting like flashback and I have missed you all so much. Deborah sue, nice to see you. Maria, Ryan and Gene and VICKI ON SCREEN 1. Everybody else, bless you. Timmy D, nice to see you. Sarah, of course, can't resist saying hi some more. So Annie, again, I have so much respect and admiration for you. Your ideas around. So performance in general, but specifically like your needs work frame is one of my all time favorite methodologies of. All right, you missed the target. What needs work? How can I change that? That's like me. Forging a strong self image has been transformative for me and my work and I want to talk about those ideas. But first I just want to learn more about you and your hero's journey as a young Olympian in the first Olympics and then the second. But if you can tell us about your story and, and if you could go all the way back to when you were a kid and the experiences you share with your dad when you might not have been excelling in different sports, then you kind of found something that lit you up, but just really excited to have a fun conversation and learn more about you.

Well, I started out as the worst athlete in school and I can prove it. I played alternate right field and little league baseball. I mean that, that is the bottom, I mean when. And I was slow, short and uncoordinated. And it was a well deserved, unathletic start for me. I'm in sixth grade and we're studying the Olympics in school and the teacher makes a statement in class. You know, it's possible somebody in this class could be Olympic champion someday. I wonder who'd have the best chance. And this little boy sitting next to me jumps right up and says, teacher, I don't know who'd have the best chance, but I know for sure who'd have the worst chance. Lanny. And that, that kind of started me off because I went home and kind of upset that I didn't fit in anywhere. And I, I talked to my dad about it and he says keep, keep trying, keep looking. And my mother hauled me off the library and made me check out books on Olympic athletes. So I think she just wanted me to read. But, but I did and I got inspired and, and the whole idea of the Olympics, I mean for somebody who's really bad at everything athletic to read about people that are best in the world, it just, it just hit a nerve. And so that's, that's what started. And my big problem was Finding a sport I could do. And it wasn't long after that detail.

In the story of becoming an athlete, which for you gonna go dominate. There's so much more we can talk about there, but continue.

Well, what happened was a friend of mine, right, invited me to a rifle club meeting. And I. And I said, well, I don't know anything about shooting or anything like that. And so I said, please. Well, tell me about rifle shooting. Is that it's an Olympic sport. And I said, are you sure? Because none of the books I. I found in the library were about Olympic rifle shooters. And so he says, oh, no, it's an Olympic sport. It's been in the modern Olympiad. And I said, how tall do you have to be to be a rifle shooter? Said, it doesn't matter how tall you are. I was, okay, strong you have to be. How fast you have to be. Well, you don't have to do any of that stuff because in. Rifle shooting is the only sport in the Olympics where you're trying to make the body stop. Well, okay, I found something because I sure can't make it go. So that's how I got started in. In shooting.

Oh, my.

So I go to the raffle club meeting and. And that's. They let me shoot, and that's all I wanted to do after that. And so my father took. Takes me back to the raffle club meeting and they cancel a meeting. And so one of the things I had in common with the books that I was reading about these heroes was that they all had obstacles and mine showed up early. The sport looked like to me, it was closed, the closed door. But my father didn't see it that way. And he says, he said, give me a few days. Let me see what I can do. And he got the keys to an indoor range that nobody was using and made it available to me. And the problem was. And my dad began to teach me how to shoot. But the problem was he was a military officer and he knew about shooting in combat. He had been in World War II, kind of a war hero. And. But he found out a place that there was a marksmanship unit at the. The base that he was stationed at. And so he'd go over there and get information, come back and teach me. And so that's how I got started. And. And so I. My father was such a good coach that it. It. I accelerated pretty fast. And 15 months later, I was national junior champion with a rifle.

Oh, geez, Lanny. There's so much there that just brings tears to my eyes. Everything about that is just truly the definition of heroic. The young hero failing at all the things he wants to succeed in. And then that schoolroom sixth grader I know who's not going to be an Olympic champion. Oh no, poor Lanny. Then you go home and I'm just trying to feel into the energy in your home, you, your dad's attitude, your mom's attitude. And there's so much beauty there of the, the hero having that wise guide and guides that are supporting them. And then the, the story with your friend, the rifle shooting. Tell me more about your, your mom and your dad. I would just love to hear more about them because they clearly were such wonderful people who saw your potential and supported you in that regard.

Now my father was, he grew up in a small town in West Texas, a lot of brothers and sisters and it was at a time in history when young men, when you learned to read and write, that school stopped. So I think he had a seventh grade education and then rest of his time he was a hired hand on his dad's farm. And he was a very educated man, but self educated, you know, starting out like that. And then World War II hits and of course he's signs up and goes to war. And he is in the Anzio beach invasion, which is the second largest invasion in World War II. D Day of course was the largest, but Anzio beach was significant. And he gets a battlefield commission. And so you don't have to have a college education to get a battlefield commission. You just have to be in the right place, the right time and survive. And he shows some leadership ability and he did. And so that's, that's why he ended up in, in the military and coaching me. He, he was, he was well with my, my dad was good at. A lot of the things that you tend to focus on in your, in, in your work are characteristics of successful people. One of the characteristics my father had that I thought, I think was, was stellar is that he was good at building people. He could take a person and give them belief in themselves, motivate them and, and treated everybody like they could be instead of like who they thought they were. And that was as a solution based coach. That was where I learned how to, to think about the solution instead of the problem. And it was a lot, a lot later that I understood that that's how self image is built is when you think about a problem, your self image shrinks, but you think about the solution, self image grows. And I learned that from my father. We just didn't know what to call it. We didn't know to call it self image. But he was so successful at that that he was assigned to the Army Marksmanship Unit at in. And the reason that was important to me in my shooting career was I wasn't, I guess, middle school at the time, but it was on a shooting team. And the reason that was important is the United States of America dominated international rifle shooting at this, at this time in history. And all of our medalists were stationed at the United States arm Marksmanship unit where my dad worked. So I had access to the best in the world and I took advantage of it. I think that's another principle is that find people that are really good and find a way to get to them. And so I just did what, what they all did. I, I went to a college at a shooting sports program. I was a collegiate All American. I took rotc, went in the army, was stationed at the Army Marksmanship unit where the best people in the. And I trained with them and I managed to get in the top four, but I didn't win anything my first three years. I knew something was missing, but I didn't know what it was. And we never once had a conversation about the mental game back in those days. We thought that mental toughness was something you had. It wasn't something you could learn. And so we weren't trying to learn it. And it wasn't until I had a. I actually made an Olympic team in 1972, but I, I had a terrible time at that, at that Olympics, at least at the start, I was just shaken and I, I knew what was, what was missing was I, I wasn't mentally tough and I didn't have a mental process that worked in the Olympics. And I had the skills, but I didn't have the ability, mental ability. And so that's what really started me trying to find the answers to, to a problem that I'm not the only person that has had problems with pressure in tournaments. And, But I wanted to find out. I refused to accept the fact that, that you can, you had, you couldn't learn this, but who are you going to learn it from? And so I decided what I really want to do is, is was I wanted to win. Well, let's start with winners. Back in those days, we didn't have cell phones. We had answering machines. And so I would leave answering on. On world champions. And I knew a couple of Olympic gold medalists in other sports, and so I had their phone numbers. You can get that when you're a Silver medalist. In Olympics you can get gold medalist phone numbers. And I would leave a message. I'm Lanny Basham, I'm a silver medalist in the Olympics and you're a gold medalist. I need your help. Call me back. And they did. And I got good, good at asking questions. And they, they were wonderful to me. They all were very forthcoming and telling me what they knew about the mental game. Nobody had the whole, whole story, but everybody had a piece of it. And I just like a puzzle. I just put them all together and created a system and upgraded to it. Won the world championships, the next Olympics. Won the, won the Olympics. And I've been teaching that system for 45 years. Well actually next year, next year will be 50 years.

Wow, time flies and you're having fun. Oh my goodness. Every single thing about that again is so wonderful. I was thinking of Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers were that mix of passion, ability, opportunity that presents itself, that again the hero seizes. Whether it's Bill Gates, you know, happened to live right next to one of the early kind of supercomputer things would get up at night and do his thing or you, you know, having been blessed with the opportunity with your dad and then these Mark Ben Marks experts, but then seizing that opportunity, such a cool expression of that. So 1972 is the first Olympics. I love how you say you just, you didn't have it. You got a silver. Well done. Congratulations. Not bad for not having what you needed. Then what changed? What so you made all these calls. What was the first set of distinctions you made? And then I want to arrive at the three aspects of your current model.

I made, I started seeing, I started seeing things that I never saw, never seen before. When I was talking to these guys. You see, I thought that performance was, was, was, was, was totally a function of what you thought about and what, and your skill. You know, I, I recognized the fact that there were helpful and harmful thoughts and when you thought about harmful ones, it, it made a difference in your success. And so I, I, I kind of knew that know what the, the most helpful ones were or how to systemize that or put them into a process. But, but I obviously I had the skills and skills come from taking, get, getting good information and lots of sweat equity, a lot of practice. And so I, I could shoot the scores and training. It was when I got into tournaments something was wrong. I was, I wasn't consistent. And so I, I thought that if that, that performance was a function of these two mental processes, conscious and subconscious And I knew that you needed to perform subconsciously, but, but you had to have some conscious thoughts to keep you from thinking, you know, helpful ones to keep you from thinking about harmful ones. But, but I, I knew that something was different was missing, but I didn't know what it was until I started talking to these guys and I realized that they, they were doing some things that are totally different from, from what I was doing to start with. They weren't trying to win. And I thought, I thought that's what you were supposed to do. You're supposed to try to win. Oh, no, no. They told me, you know, when you're competing, you're not trying to win, you're trying to execute. And well, I was trying to win and so I was, I was thinking about the wrong thing. And they weren't trying to win, they were trusting that they would. And there's a big difference between trying and trusting. And I had, I had to learn to trust instead of try. And I was over trying big time. And that's actually pandemic in sport when people, they want to win so they'd over try. And that's a, that's a bad, a bad thing to do. But I didn't know I was doing that. And there was a lot of, of things that I saw and I didn't know what to call this thing that was missing until I read Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. And that book name gave it a name, self image. And so I realized, aha, you know, like, like the old Henry Ford saying, if you think you can or think you can't, you're right. Well, that's self image. That's your, your attitude about whether or not you can do something or not. And that's what was missing was this self image. So now I had a three process model and things started to, to come into focus and I just built a system around it. And then that gave me mental consistency and a lot of confidence. And that was, that was a big, big turnaround. And I think this is one of the reasons why people don't reach the top of their potential because they don't properly use those three processes. They, most people think that all they have to do is, is train, train, train, train, train, train. And that's not true. And you ask any elite performer in any sport today, any PGA Tour player, we work with, auto tour players or, and things like that, Olympic athletes, and you ask them what percentage of your sports mental. They all say my sports are 90, 90, 95% mental. And well, that's not skill. Skill is physical. That's skill is form. And so the, the top people are, are recognizing that the mental game is, is important. And what I'm seeing is as we grow in the, in the knowledge of this is that I think that although I think my, my entry into being a mental coach was probably at the kind of ground level of this, of the attention that the mental performance has, has given. And early on nobody was really talking about it much back in the 70s, but, but every year it's grown until now. It's, it's, it's, it's hard to read an article and a sport magazine that doesn't mention something having to do with how you think. And I hope that someday having a course on how to think will, will, will show up in school. We've actually written a curriculum for high school for elective called what the Winners Know. I would have liked to have had that course.

I would have liked to have that one. Lanny. Oh my.

So we've had a couple of schools pick it up but I think we're, we'll, we'll see. We'll see.

Yeah. That's inspiring. So the three aspects of your mental management system which are represented in the logo, is that right? Are the conscious mind directing our thoughts, the subconscious mind and the self image. Is that accurate?

That's correct.

Can you give us some, some high level tips? And again guys, Nat, if you can put in the, the chat here where people can go. Where's the best place for people to learn more about you, Lanny, Just so they can go there in real time.

Well we're, we're in the process of, of creating a new, a new focus of our, of our, of our website. But you can always find me if you just Google me or, or mental management. You can go to mentalmanagement.com current website and but if you want to see what we're, what what I'm trying to do in the, in the future go to with winning in mind. Kajabi. My kajabi.com haven't switched it over to alive but if you wanted to see that you could, you could, you could, you could begin to see and there's a, there's a special report on that, on that page or I'll, I'll give you the link of how to get that special report. It's free about how I used middle management to win the Olympics and that we just love to send that out if that's fantastic.

So we'll, we'll share that in the chat now. And if you're going to give us kind of the, the Lanny gold medal winner notes on that right now, how would you encourage us to think about it, to move from theory, setting that up, and then the practice toward mastery?

Well, the first thing, there are two major, major concepts that I, that I, that I discovered that made a difference in my life. And a lot makes a difference in everybody. And that's the performance as a function of the three mental process that we've talked about. But also that everything we do in life has three phases to, has an anticipation phase where you're preparing to do something, and it's the action phase where you actually do it. And then there's a reinforcement phase which you think about immediately after you do it. And what's interesting about this is that most people don't pay much attention to the reinforcement phase. And that's unfortunate because the, the self image is that I'm convinced that self image is the difference between good and great. It's the difference between you being okay and you being stellar. You being heroic. Okay? So if that's the case, there's a relationship, a direct relationship between the anticipation phase, action phase, reinforcement phase, and the conscious subconscious and self image. The anticipation phase is a conscious circle issue, the action phase is a subconscious circle issue, and the reinforcement phase is a self image issue. So what you think about immediately after you do a task either builds or breaks your self image, either either causes you to grow or causes you to, to decline based on how you respond to what happened. And, and that's the big difference between the top 5 percenters. The, the guys that do win, 95% of the time. I think that 95% of the winning is accomplished by 5% of the participants. And the reason that they do is because they respond appropriately. So if I could, if I could just throw one. If there's one thing I wish everybody would change, that I've learned is learn how to respond appropriately to what happens. Because most people react now. It takes no mental maturity to learn how to react. You knew how to react when you were born. You come into this world totally capable of reacting. When things are good, you're happy. When things aren't good, you're, you're upset. And, well, you don't need to do that. You should look at everything that happens to you. If it's good, you need to reinforce it. You should think about, what did I do right? How did that work? I mean, why did that work? And think about, I'll reinforce what you do right, that's first. And sometimes it doesn't go right. Well, then what you need to do is learn from that. So, so that's the only two, two things you can do. You either reinforce what you did right or you reinforce what you learned because it didn't go right. So it's in. It's not winning and losing. It's winning and learning. And once you respond appropriately, your self image is always growing. But if you allow yourself to complain, allow yourself to, to reinforce, to beat yourself up about something or to think about anything other than, than, okay, that didn't work. What's this teaching me? What work does it need? And, and as long as you're constantly trying to improve, your self image is going to grow and, and you take advantage of that. And I think, I think top people, performing people are good at that. They tend to learn and they tend to reinforce when they do things right and they tend to learn when they don't.

Hey, Hiro, have you heard the news about Brian's book Activate youe Heroic Potential Head to Heroic Us Book to learn more and get your copy as well as check out exclusive content and bonuses. That's Heroic Us Book. Now back to today's episode.

So good. And just to add some personal context to it, Emerson, my son got into chess over the last year. So it's given me an opportunity to practice this with him. We've been teaching our coaches, you know, the 1, 2, 3 post performance that you encourage parents to do with their kids and any performer to do with, with themselves. But first, celebrate what went well and what was awesome in that performance. Whereas most of us want to go immediately to the thing they want to fix. Celebrate was great, you know, and then what specifically do you think you could, could have worked on then what specifically will you do next time to win or learn? And learning is winning. But I have done this. I don't know how many games Emerson has played in tournaments now, but it's in the hundreds now every single time. And so, you know, after losing, you know, and crying, it's. It's all right. Well, we were here. We're celebrating the fact that we're in a tournament, we're having fun, we're doing this. What specifically happened, you know, at that pivotal point in the game and we now get excited about it. Oh, well, this happened and then that happened. All right, well what specifically can we do differently next time? And there's been enough cycles through where he now sees that when he lost, he learned something which then very shortly translated into a win. So to be able to connect that learning to the winning has been unbelievably powerful to see with him in like real time, you know, so I'm thinking of you every single time I go that loop, go through that loop with him. And it's such a sacred, powerful thing. So much more we can talk about there. Why is self image so important? When you said that you believe the difference between pretty good and truly great and heroic is self image. Tell us what, what you're thinking about when you say that.

Well, I, I believe that, that if, if you take a look at the top 5 percenters that do 95% of the winning and then you take a look at the second 5%, the 5% that just underneath them, they look just alike. They, they use the same equipment, they have the same passion for the sport, they work just as hard. They, they have the same knowledge. They, they, they do everything the same as the top 5%, except one, they don't win. Why? Why? It's, it's because of the kind of things that happen. And when we talk about self image, self, Self image is like, maybe the best way for me to put it, Brian, is let's say that you and I are in a sport together and we're, we get down to where we're, we're the two, two left. We're, we're competing against each other for the championship and we have equal ability, equal skill, equal passion, equal everything. The only difference is you think you can beat me and I think you can beat me me. It's over for me. That's self image. Self image is how you see yourself in, in, in the, in, in the world, in the, in the game. And if you, if you don't believe, if your attitude is, is, is subordinate to your competition, you're giving them a big, a big edge. And you don't want to be arrogant. You want to be, be confident and you want to have justification for your, for, for what you, how you feel about yourself. But, but I do feel like that building self image should be a priority for every competitor. And, and I go into a lot of detail on my books about imprinting, about how to, how to change imprint how to change self image by imprinting. So every time you think about something, it creates an imprint. So, so if, if you're worrying that you're not going to do well, that's an imprint. Your self image shrinks. And if you're, if you're optimistic about, about what you're going to do, if you're looking to succeed, the self image tends to grow. So what you think about when you control what you think about control what you talk about. Most people talk about their problems, talk about their mistakes, talk about the things they don't like about what, what they do. And the top 5 percenters don't, don't really do that too much. They, they tend to talk about what they liked about what they did and that's the reason why their self image grows. So what you think about what you talk about and if you ever have ever took a, tried to keep a performance journal where you actually wrote down what you did right and you, you'll never not do it because it improves. Writing is the strongest form of imprinting in the self image is to write down what you, what you did right and write down what you learned and write down what you want to do. Write down what you're going to do what you're going to do. And I think that to do it in your, in your, in your own handwriting is more effective than typing it out. I'm not saying that typing it out is not effective. I just don't think it's as effective because when you, when you see your own handwriting, it's, it's, it's yours and it's, it's, there's some accountability there that I don't think shows up when, when you type it out. But it might be easier to search, to search for that information. But, but it's, it's. I think keeping a journal is a, is a really important part. So there's other things that cause your self image to shrink like being who you're, who you're around, your environment does, does impact significantly on, on who you, the direction that your self image grows. I personally believe that there are, there's really only that when you're around people that are better than you are at something, you tend to tend to want to tend to move toward to their direction. And if you're around people that are complaining a lot, pretty soon you're complaining a lot.

The average of the five people with whom you spend the most time. Right Again, there's so much there. So one of the phrases in your, in more than one of your books but you'll never outperform a poor self image has been tattooed in my consciousness as well. That how important this is how we cultivate that self image in many of the ways you just described. But go on. I think you were going to say you were going to continue your thinking.

No, I'm just Saying that those three concepts are directly related to the, to the three things that you, you do. I don't care what it is that you're, you're competing in, whether it's competing for grades, competing for a chair in, in the, in the school band or for and to interview for a job or whatever it is. There's don't forget the reinforcement phase that when you finish that task, that attempt whatever that it was that to respond appropriately. I think that respond responding is really a three step process. I ask, you know, you kind of hit on it a little bit. I ask all of my athletes when I do count counseling after, after performances or games or whatever it is that they do, I ask them three questions. I encourage parents to ask their kids 30 questions when they pick them up from the game is first one is what'd you do right? The second one is what'd you learn? And the third one, what do you, what are you going to do about it? Well, reinforcement phase is kind of the same thing is you evaluate what you did right and you, you, you figure out what do I need to do to correct the things that I didn't do right. In other words, focus on the solution, not the problem. When you, when, when you think about the solution, self image grows. When you think about the problem self it shrinks. Oftentimes people are thinking, talking, writing about the problem and never getting to the solution are hoping that well, the solutions. It's, it's the. This problem is not mine to solve. You know, it's, it's not my fault. It's, it's somebody else's fault or it's the association's fault or it's the competition's fault or all that. No, you, you're it, it's, it's more your responsibility to find out what you, you can do to make it better. Because you can control other people. You can't control the association, you can't control the politics of the country. I mean other than vote. But, but you can, you can control or you should be in control of what you're thinking and what you reinforce.

So then let's go to that reinforcement phase. So we, we anticipate, we act and then we reinforce. We either performed at a level that we're proud of, in which case we reinforce or feast on that. That's like me is another phrase that you introduced to my, my mind into our teaching. I don't know how many times I've said that's like me. Every single time I do a set of burpees that's like me. Boom. Literally a little fist bump. That's like me. That's like me. That's like me. That's like me. And then when we miss the mark, quickly going back to the moment when we, we performed suboptimally, replay what we could have done in that moment and understand what we could have done and then let it go was another big insight that you.

I think you need, you need to correct, correct your faults. You know, think about it this way, that making mistake is not a mental error. Making a mistake and learning from it is a requirement to get better. So be happy about your mistakes. I'm not saying that you should go out and make them so that you're going to be happy. You know, I come plenty of mistakes without trying to make them, but, but learning from your mistakes is the difference between it. Having a, A person who learns from their mistakes and gets into the habit of doing that has a shorter time frame to get good at anything and somebody that, that doesn't learn from their mistakes. It's going to take a long time, if ever.

This is Ray Dalio's mistake Learners High. His model is your model of, yeah, I got ambitious goals. I fall short. What did I learn?

Boom.

And literally getting excited about them. And even again, just to use Emerson as an example, last weekend tournament he won two. He learned two. But the two that he won, like, all right, perfect. What do we do? What do we, you know, pre match, during, after, and then afterwards we're literally getting excited for the words. You know, it's like, all right, cool. What, what are you proud of in that game and what are we going to learn and where there's that. Rubbing your hands together, difficult to describe. You know, enthusiasm for the process of knowing that mistakes are, are not only something that you tolerate, but something that is inherently part of the process then the very thing that fuels your growth. So let's get excited about it. Love to hear more thoughts on that.

Yeah, everything that you, you. We were talking a little bit about, about responding and, and talking about that you, you evaluate what you've done. And I think there's really three categories in evaluation. Great. It's about a. I, I've got nothing to say to improve that. I'll take that every time. Okay. Okay. Well, there's, there's only. It's. It's okay. There's a couple of things that I, that we, I could have done better. But you know, everything else is needs work. You know what, what work does it need? You Know, So, so now we're talking about the subject of the, of, of the thought pattern is what work does it need? What do we need to do? That's, that's what, that's what people who learn from the mistakes do. That's how they do it. They, they focus on what they need to do and then once they've determined I, I, I a thing to do, they act on it, but they, they let the mistake go. In other words, I'm not going to repeat that to somebody else. I'm not going to be quick to tell somebody about what, what I did wrong or think about it again. I, I'm, you know, shut the door on that problem. You, you work on the solution and, and let it go and let, let, let that process go. And so once you develop that, we call it reload to this what you're, we have a preload and a reload in our mental system. But the, it's, it's taking some time after everything that you do to, to reinforce what you did right. I'm surprised at how, how many champions that I taught that don't really reinforce what they, what they do right. And they would do it right more often if they did.

How do we do that? Let me just go right there. So what's the main recommended practice or set of practices to reinforce correct behavior that we want to do more of?

Well, I think that you should, after you finish a task or an attempt, whatever it is, whether it's shooting a free throw in basketball or throwing a pitch in baseball or whatever it is, or taking a class in school or taking an exam in school or playing a game or whatever it is that you should take some time to evaluate. First step, there's three step process. First step is to evaluate what you've done and put it, put what you've done into a category. Great. Okay. Needs work and based on what you, what category they were in, now you know what, what to do in the next step is that if it's, if it's great, you want to make sure that you think about that and reinforce that. And I mean that's, that's where that's like me comes in. And, and this is who I do it. This is why I do all this is, this is who I am. This is what I do. And if there's a slight correction, well, what, what would, what would I have liked to have done better? Okay, there's, there's that and sometimes needs work. It is everything else that, that attempt needs work. Well what work does it need and don't stop with the fact that it recognize that it needs work. What work does it need? Come up with a, with a solution based thought and plan and then implement that in your training program and implement that in your goals and then, then let that attempt go because there's a real good chance that you've got another attempt to do today. It's probably not the only time you're going to throw a pitch or shoot a free throw or take a, take an exam in school. Next time you're not going to go back and, and, and beat yourself up over the, a past failure. One thing that I can say of the top 5 percenters that I know, especially all of the dominant top 5 percenters, I mean people that are on the shortlisted the greatest of all time, they never talk about their, their faults. They, they, they don't bring the old stories up of, of their failures. They might have if they've got a story it's when they, when they overcame something or when they succeeded at something and they, that's what they're reinforcing because they don't want problems to, to follow them around. They've had they problems go that's, that's really good advice in any kind of relationship you have within, with, with some, with another person. Yes. You know, it's probably a good idea for you to let some things go.

Run it through the needs work analysis, get clear recommit on the specific thing that is going to get the work and let it go. Is there anything else you want to share? I want to see if anyone has a question, raise your hand. We've got about another 11 minutes with Lanny. If you've got a question, raise your hand. Anything that we haven't discussed that you want to make sure that we highlight?

Well, one of the things that has driven my mind and my heart for the last, probably the last five years is the fact that parents are the most important mental coach that a child will ever have. And I don't think most parents view themselves as being, as being a mental coach but they are and, and they're, they're super important. I think that 75% of a person's self image and their habits and attitudes are crafted while they're at home and when, when you get away from home you there, there are opportunities for you to grow as well for sure but I think that most of the things that you learn, you learn, you learn at home and parents are not, not nobody, nobody goes to parent school. I mean you know the two Two people that are least qualified to, to be a parent as mom and dad, especially with the first child. I mean you learn a little bit after the second child. The second child's in a little bit more in trouble than the first one is. I'm an only child so I, I got, I that my parents always knew who did it. So but I had, we started out with twins so I never knew who did it. I still don't know who did it. They both are going this way.

And what's your number one tip for parents? You talked about what to do after the game, but beyond that. And I am thinking of parenting champions and the, some of the things you teach in there. But what would you encourage our parents who are here to think about as they think about themselves as their, their child's primary mental toughness performance coach?

Well, I think that they're first conversation that they have with them after they do anything good or bad, the first conversation they have. Think about that before. Think about how it affects a person's self image by, by, by, by what you say parents like when, when, when you pick up, pick up your son from a soccer game or daughter from a soccer game and you, you say how'd you do? That's one of the worst things that you can say because how'd you do is an open ended question. And we live in a negatively charged world. Most of their friends are talking about their mistakes. They're, they're being conditioned by, by a negatively charged world to talk about what's wrong. And you, you just asked an open ended question and it would have been much, much better for you to have asked them what did you enjoy? What went well? What, what Direct the question so that they answer. The first answer that they give is talking about what they, what they did right and insta instead of what they did wrong. I think that parents, they're not trying to help to hurt their kids, but they're hurting their kids. I'll give you another example. Your report card comes in and a parent's talking to their child about a report card and they say oh well I noticed that you made a B in this semester and you made an A last semester. What's wrong? So now we're immediately talking about the problem or it can even get worse. Well, are you, are you spending too much time in football that you didn't pay attention to class and, or are you, are you dating too much, are you working too much or you're not sleeping enough and, and that bring up a bunch of reasons why it won't work. And. And they're just trying to help their kids and they. And they're really destroying and dinging their self image when they do that. Parents just don't know the rules. And when people come to training with us, everybody says the same thing when they finish the training we do is, I wish I'd known this sooner. Well, when is sooner? Sooners. As. As soon as you start learning skill, you should learn some mental training skills. And. And that's the reason why I think that the parents who love their children, I need to. Need to. To. To learn how to build self image in their kids. And because they are doing it anyway, they just may not be doing it as effectively as they could. And that bothers me. And the word keeps me up at night is that I can't do everything, but I can do some things. And that's why Parenting Champions was written and why we still. I still. That's a major focus of my life. Is that worrying about your kids?

Yep. It's beautiful. And check out Parenting Champions, the note in the book. And then one of the things we encourage our parents who want to Parent Champions is practice this. Every single example you used in a competitive environment is appropriate in every single moment of our lives. So if I have a. In the example I use in the book to my book to get to the needs work is my. My kids going nuts in the car on the long drive. And I finally lost it. You know, I got impatient. It kind of polluted the rest of the night. Well, I needs work that I go right back to that.

Oh, okay.

Well, what went well. What went well was we had a great family day. You know, it was a wonderful day. It was a long drive back, but it was a great day. And then, you know, what did I learn?

All right.

Well, I learned that after this much time in this, my patients consider. All right, what am I specifically going to do differently? I'm going to take a breath and I'm going to choose to do X, Y and Z just slightly differently. But I have found it so impactful in every area of my life, and I've strived to embody it such that I know what I'm talking about when I train Emerson in these mental toughness things. So, parents, as always, as we discuss your client number zero, let's get to work. I want to make sure we at least get one question in here. Emma really is. I saw your hand go up first. How are you, sir? Good to see you.

I'm doing well, sir. Good to Meet you.

Likewise.

And nice to meet you, sir. Lanny, thank you for, for offering, for, for showing up here. In your book Parenting Champions, you make a distinction between achievement and becoming. And in coaching young learners and teenagers, those who aren't going for a long term athletic career or so let's say they're falling short of achievement right now. They're, I see them as winners. They're making that effort towards winners. How would you coach their mindset afterwards? I, I know going through 1, 2, 3, what went well, what needs work and what are we going to do for next time? I have an idea in my mind, but I wanted to see your, your answer for those who are falling short of that achievement yet I want to cultivate that becoming.

Well, okay, so let's, My, my point, my favorite word in that we've come up with over the years is attainment. And I think there's a difference between attainment and accomplishment. Accomplishment always has a number associated with it. And yet so accomplishment is really important because that's where all the medals are taken. Accomplishments, ABCDF and school, first, second, third on the leaderboard. Gold, silver, bronze in the Olympics, how much money you make, all, all that stuff. And, and you can, you can separate people by, by easily by accomplishment because there's always this number. And when your number is bigger than my number, well, then it's easy for you to, to get a higher grade or higher, higher award or higher reward. Well, but it's interesting. If accomplishment is so important, why whenever I ask a parent what's more important to you, what your kids accomplish or who they become, they always say who they become. Well, wait a minute. The world, it doesn't care so much who they become. But the reason why becoming is not rewarded is because it's hard to measure. I mean, how do you measure trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerlead, thrifty, brave, clean and Reverend how do you. I was a boy Scout. I still remember those, those things. But what, what I'm trying to get coaches and parents to see. By the way, parenting champions could just as easily. I probably will write another book called Coaching Champions and, and, and I'm going to use the same album on because it's the same, it's the same story for, for a coach. But are you building the person based on, on who they become in the process? Are you, are you focusing on character? Are they focusing on character? They see the value of character. You see this all the time in, in, in, in famous coaches like John Wooden is My best example of, of this where he, he, he says I'm not, I don't care if they can play basketball so much as, as if I can build build a player. I can always teach them how to, how to, how to how to play basketball. And so it was, it's. His book is phenomenal, a little bitty book, and it's great. But it is one that if you're having trouble with with motivation, make sure that the motivation is not your motivation and not building their motivation. Because there's a lot of people that are in, that are in sports that are there not because they necessarily want to be. Or, or maybe another way to say that is that there are a lot of people whose, who, who are just perfectly happy to participate, not to excel. And what that is showing you is their level of passion is not high enough. And I don't think you can teach passion. I think people have it or they don't have it and sometimes it goes away and sometimes it refer resurfaces. And a coach has got to be really careful about demanding passion or a parent demanding passion. They are passionate about it, but the, but the athlete's not passionate about it. I think it goes back to honestly evaluating what their goals are. And now you can definitely sweeten the pot in the tense that you can, you can say, you know, if, if you want this and you're going to have to to do more if you want to go to this level. One of the, one of the most phenomenal organizations that, that does this all the time is, is karate, where they've got the belt system. So it, it's, it's just like, you know, when, when somebody is, has a color that's higher than your, your, your color, well, more is demanded of a person when they, when they move up. And so it's like junior varsity and varsity. You don't demand the same things of a junior varsity player than you do a varsity player. But it's the choice of a person to, to want to want to go to want to be at, at that level. And, and once they make that choice now you hold, you can hold them accountable and, and so you have leverage as a coach. I don't know, I probably confused you now.

No, no, no. What, what I heard was find their intrinsic motivation and then give them evidence and examples of that effort, even if they don't achieve it on that becoming of their growth. So we're looking there at their growth.

I think another thing that I would love to see parents and coaches do more of Is, is reward becoming?

Yes.

By saying, you know what I appreciate about you? You're always, you're always here on time. You know what I love about you? You're, you're, you're, you're always helpful. When, when I tell you to do something, you do it right away. I mean this, this is, you're, you're making it so easy for me to coach you. You're. You, you are a fantastic person.

On, you know, if, if, if to add to that, it's bringing their awareness to what they're doing. Well, and that's actually what we do individually and heroic. Like, that's like us. The parent is saying, that's like you. And you're bringing their awareness.

That's right. And the difference between accomplishment and attainment is, is that I'm not against winning and I'm not against accomplishment. Attainment is becoming plus accomplishment or accomplishment plus becoming. In other words, always thinking about who is this causing me to become as well as what I'm accomplishing. But I think far too many people are, are totally. Well, you've got to make A's. You got to make A's. You gotta make A's. Oh, come on. That's. That, that's, that's not nearly as important as who the person becomes in process.

Us.

Beautiful. And the way we frame it, objective number one, know the ultimate game and then the game of rifle shooting, the game of chess, the game of fill in the blank becomes just the context through which we can attain and become our best selves. And then again to Lenny's point, it's not that accomplishment doesn't matter. The udaimon in the ancient Greek and Stoic ideal does achieve the things they set out to achieve. That's important. Important. But the ultimate game is one of building character. And the byproduct is the wins. It goes back to the. Your Olympic champions when you interviewed them. You know, I'm not trying to win, I'm trying to execute. You know, and then the byproduct becomes the greatness that we all so desperately seek at times and, and trip ourselves up in the process. Wouldn't of course give me full effort and a positive attitude. Let's let the score take care of itself. You know, full effort is full victory. So Gandhi put it. Yeah, I mean we could talk for a weekend and we're not too far apart now that I'm in Texas, so we ready to find an opportunity to do that. But Lanny, I so appreciate you taking the time and spending 50 years more than 50 years now of your life dedicated to this practice and sharing so much of your wisdom and you know how your family shows up. I think of you often, you know, with your sons creating together now as my kids kids get older. So just deeply really appreciate you and appreciate you taking the time to be with us today. And I appreciate all of you for being here and it was great to see everybody in that. I'm going to let you facilitate or now are you still here?

I'm here.

Wonderful. I am going to let you people want to connect with one another. You may connect with one another. Lanny, bless you again. Thank you. Have a great rest of your day and I look forward to seeing everybody else soon. Until then, I good to see you too now wish you a wonderful day.

Well, thank you very much, Brian, and goodbye. Take care.

Thank you. All right, have a great day now. I got you.

Yeah, I'm here.

There you are. All right, do your thing, please.

Yes, you got it. Thank you. Great to see you. Missed you. All right.

Likewise. How's it 2024? How are we almost halfway through January already. What?

All right.

Love you all. See you soon.

Hey, Hiro. We hope you enjoyed this heroic chat to learn more about this series as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to practice to mastery and express the best, most heroic version of your head to heroic us today. And if you liked this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button on your platform of choice. Have a fantastic day.