Q & A I Work Hard

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome back to another episode. And today we're going to do another Q and A. And I have a young athlete that sent me an email. And the question is, I work hard all the time in my sport. I don't really want to mention the sport, but you know, we do. Everything's confidential with who we work with. And I did not ask this individual if we could use his name. So I work hard in the sport. I'm doing everything I can to get better. I feel like I'm just not getting ahead. Can you give me any tips so I actually can tell you a story? And this might resonate with you and it may not. And it may resonate with some of the listeners out there. So the story goes like this. A lot of, well, first of all, a lot of what we do, we work hard. We all work hard. You know, sometimes you people work harder than others. But, but what does that mean? Could somebody please tell me what does that mean to work hard? I mean, outwork the person across from you. That's one thing you could do in sports or even if you're in corporate America or no matter what you do. But I'm going to go a little bit deeper and maybe this might resonate with some of you, but I'll share a story. This is not my story. I've heard this story before from a friend of mine who actually works for a major bank and he had a Navy SEAL come in, talk to many of these higher executives at a big bank here in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I thought this was a great story. And the story goes like this. There was this Navy SEAL that lived in, it may have been Texas. And every morning this Navy SEAL would be up early and running and training and people knew on the block that this individual was a Navy Seal. And one day there was this young 17 year old kid, student waiting outside and just staring at the Navy Seal. So the Navy Seal went over to the young 17 year old and said, hey, can I help you? And the kid was in awe. He goes, well, I'm very shy, but just to talk to you, I have a dream of being a Navy seal. Oh really? What is your dream? I would work at it I would do anything I can, I would do anything to learn how to be a Navy seal. I'll give my right leg to be a Navy seal. I like to train like a Navy seal. And one thing the Navy SEAL pointed out, while it's more than training, we use our mindset. We are mindful with what it is that we're doing. We have a process, we just don't. It's not just about training, it's about mental toughness and handling adversity. And there's a lot more to become a Navy seal. I said this earlier, even before I heard this. The Navy SEAL makes his bed the first thing they do in the morning. So there's a lot more than becoming a Navy SEAL than actually just the physical training. But the Navy SEAL said, if you want it so bad, we're going to start tomorrow at 6am and you can come over to my house, knock on the door and we're going to get out the whiteboard and I'm going to give you a little lesson of the basics of a Navy seal. So you come over when you think you know you're ready. And we're going to start at 6:00am well, the next day comes and the Navy SEAL is in his house and this young 17 year old knocks on the door at 5 to 6 in the morning. Navy SEAL opens the door and says, how can I help you? Well, we met yesterday. You told me that I can come over and I really want to learn how to be a Navy seal. You told me we start at six. That is correct. You're way late. Five minutes to six isn't going to cut it. I'm going to give you one more chance to come back tomorrow. So the kid's dumbfounded. He didn't. What did I teach? What he's probably thinking, what did I do wrong? He told me I need to be here by 6am I'm here early, I'm here at 5 to 6. Well, the next day comes and now he shows up at 5:45am a little bit more respectable. And the Navy SEAL opens the door and says, you're still late. But I'm going to give you one chance. This is your last chance. What do you mean I'm late? Well, if you really want it bad, you would have been here at least by 5 in the morning and an hour before to prepare. We just don't prepare 15 minutes before. So if you really want something bad enough and you really want it in your heart and you really want this so bad that you could Taste it, then you have to show it. So that's just a quick example of really what it takes to make it. And I work with people all the time. One thing I can't stand as a self promoter, you know, I see these in the hockey world. There's a, you know, people that train hockey players and they put in their, in their brochure. Somebody sent this to me and asked me about somebody. I'll never bring up names, I won't even tell you where this kid, this person's from. But the person said, I see things that nobody could see. Well, really, you know, this kid's 25 year, 20, maybe 9, 30 years old. He teaches hockey players. He maybe ran a couple clinics with a couple of pro guys once. And you know, sometimes I remember in pro hockey they would, we would have people show up just to put us through drills. We wanted to train. But to say and really self promote to see what nobody else could see, I don't buy into that. So, you know, when I'm really looking for somebody that has been there, I want to know someone that, who's actually been in the trenches. What does it take to me in this, in the hockey role, the Scotty Bowman is a person that if he says, I see things that you don't see and I would understand that, but so be careful of the self promoters out there. I felt like I had to throw that in. One thing I know I'll never do is I'll never try to be something I'm not. And I'll be the first to tell you, you know, I'm not very good at that. Seek out a professional who is, but make sure they have a background in it and they're not just trying to make it a transactional event like most people do. But I thought I'd throw that in there. It's very important. But as you know, a Navy SEAL has a lot of credibility because that Navy SEAL has been there, they've experienced it in the trenches. They were inside situations that we can only imagine. I couldn't even imagine that with sometimes what a Navy SEAL goes through. So my young message to this young athlete is if you want something bad enough, go get it. It's one thing to say you work hard and I respect that. I'm not taking that away from you. Yes, work hard, that's great. But it comes down to it a little bit more like maybe one question I'll ask you is if you have a game the next day, when do you start preparing? Think about it. If you Have a game. When are you preparing for that? For that game? Are you preparing just when you get to the facility where you are? I almost gave it away. I almost said, the type of facility are you preparing the night before? If my, my answer would be, I would be preparing the night before. I'd make sure that I'd have a meal, a healthy meal. I'd make sure that I would get my sleep. I would make sure that I'm thinking about what I need to do, maybe journaling things that maybe I haven't done too well lately and what I could do better. Try not to overthink it. And also try not to ramp up all kinds of energy so I can't sleep. That's another thing. That's a whole other podcast. Expending your energy. You don't want to do that. You don't want to think about the game all night in your head, because by the time you. You get to the facility to play your sport, you'll be exhausted. So start preparing a little bit earlier for what it is that you're doing within your sport or even within your company. I highly recommend that. To answer the question here, always outwork everybody and then grade yourself. How did you do? Just because you outwork somebody across from you, let's say you're a football player, you could be bigger and stronger. What does that mean? Because you beat this person, but did you really outwork them? Did you go the extra, extra mile? These are these things on really what it takes to be at the top. And in my next podcast, I'm going to share some stories of people that have been at the top and how they did it. They were champions in their own life and actually learned from them. I'm going to get into that. But be focused on what it is you're doing. Don't think Rome wasn't built in a day. Right? All these cliches, we hear them all the time. We've heard them for years. But you got to ask yourself, okay, so how am I doing right now? And what can I do to get better? And then maybe ask, okay, where do I see myself in one year? And one thing I could bring up to you as well is let's say you are going to play a college sport. That's your dream, to play on a college team. You're 17, you're not going to play the next year, are you? No, probably most likely not. The 18, that's kind of young as well for the sport that you're in, or even maybe 19, you may not. I mean it might, might be around then. So you do have time. So you have to ask yourself, where do you see yourself in one year and how can you get better every month? Where do you see yourself in three years and where do you see yourself in five? Even though the career might be done, but where do you see yourself? Do you see yourself giving it your best all the time talking about your smart goals that we talked about, really understanding the specific, measurable, achievable, realistic time based goals that I've talked about in some of our other podcasts that we could do this. You know, we talked about that measurable goal because it's not measurable to. Okay, I'm going to. I want to play college for. I want to play my college sport for the University of, let's say, Michigan. It's not that easy. So I hope I've answered your question. If you really want it bad enough, you could do it. I'm a total believer in that. If you really want it so bad, put your mind to it, put your focus to it. Use the tools that we give you. And if you have a hard time, I have a new program that we're actually donating money back to Mental Health of America. But there's any families that cannot afford my program in the app, just reach out to me through our website. You could fill out under the contact area at hartman academy no.com and say, hey, I listen to the show. I can't afford your program, but I would love to have the app and I'll make sure I'll work it out. Everything doesn't have to be transactional. I've said this many times on the podcast. I hope I answered the question. Have a great week and looking forward to helping you more. And we have more good podcasts and Q and A down the pike.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Mike Hartman Show. If you're enjoying what you've heard so far, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast listening platform. We really appreciate that effort. We'll catch you in the next episode of the Mike Hartman Show.