In this brief motivational talk, the speaker reflects on a recent Zoom session about mental performance and pressure. He challenges the common view that pressure is undesirable, arguing that pressure simply signals caring about the task. He emphasizes that emotions such as fear or confidence are merely internal states that do not determine outcomes; a person can succeed while terrified or fail while confident. Consequently, the speaker advises shifting focus from trying to control emotions to concentrating on concrete actions and behaviors. He defines courage as the willingness to act despite fear—courage arises from the heart and is not the absence of fear. The core message is to nurture opportunities for courageous action rather than attempting to eliminate fear, thereby enabling effective performance under pressure.
Chapters
Good morning, everyone. Here is your moment of yes for Wednesday, July 27th. Here we go. So last night I did a live Zoom talk on mental performance and pressure, and whenever I do a talk like that, it gets me thinking about ideas, how I want to clarify different things. And I had this key insight that came by sort of just kind of working through how I wanted to message some of these things. And it's this idea of pressure when we talk about pressure. And, you know, usually we would think like, oh, I would want to— I don't want to feel pressure because if we feel pressure, we tend to think that's stress or anxiety. But I believe that pressure, when you feel pressure, just means you care about what you're doing. So if you're feeling nervous or afraid, that's actually okay. Because I would say, what's the— what is the opposite of fear or being nervous? The opposite would be confidence. I'm feeling confident instead of feeling nervous. But here's the thing. Here's the kicker. Those are both just emotions, and emotions don't decide, define, or predict the result. I can be supremely confident and still fail. I can be scared to death and still perform at a high level because they're just emotions. And so when we focus so much on trying to change emotions, it's kind of wasted energy. What we need to be focused on instead Is actions and behaviors. So what am I thinking about? Am I thinking about whether I feel confident or feel nervous, or am I thinking about the actions and the behaviors that are going to allow me to be effective? Because think about this, we should not try to get ourselves or kids to be less fearful. We should just provide them the opportunity to be courageous. What is courage? Courage is from the heart. Courage without fear is not courage. So what we want to nurture is the ability that even when we're afraid, we're still able to take action. That's courage. To take action even when we're afraid and try to do the right thing, that's courage. So we're not eliminating fear. We're trying to build up that belief that by, by focusing on what needs to be done, that allows us to do To take action even when we're afraid. That is what true courage is. So all this energy spent on how do I feel and why am I afraid and I shouldn't be afraid doesn't matter. It's focusing on the action, the behavior, which allows us to take that next step and allows us to demonstrate courage at the same time. Does that make sense, or am I way off? Let me know. That's your moment of yes for today, everybody. Have an awesome day.
