One of my favorite podcasts is Founders. The creator of the podcast has come up with a number of maxims from all of the books that he has read and summarized to draw inferences that apply across the lives of many Founders.
One of them is belief occurs before ability.
After listening to numerous episodes and observing successful people I have come to believe this as well. Their confidence is not arrogance, but a quiet knowing that they will somehow, someway be successful. Their brains, energy, ingenuity, leadership, and determination will allow them to steer the ship to prosperity no matter how stormy the seas.
Last week we had our annual planning meeting in Austin. Each year we assign a book for participants to read. This year’s recommendation was one I suggested and it was The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zinsser.
The author focuses the book on achieving what Sun Tzu called First Victory, which is coming out of the gate with strong and powerful beliefs such that you are victorious before the battle even begins. Of course this is much easier said than done but the author’s contention is that anyone can achieve a First Victory mindset with the right training in which the ultimate goal is the cultivation of a confident mind.
Zinsser says that we are most effective when we are in a flow state and carry out tasks without much analysis or thought.
No matter how complex the skill may be (and indeed the more complex the skill, the more important this is), the execution of that skill proceeds more smoothly and more effectively when analysis, judgment, and all other forms of conscious, deliberate thought are momentarily suspended.
Since the book is called The Confident Mind, he deemed it critical that he define confidence.
This is his definition:
[A] sense of certainty about your ability, which allows you to bypass conscious thought and execute unconsciously…Getting to that certainty is what Sun Tzu meant by the phrase “the First Victory.”
Zinsser is a strong believer in building up a psychological bank account in which we make many more deposits than withdrawals.
“Deposit” into that bank account memories of past successes, memories of progress or improvement, and thoughts about future improvements and accomplishments, and the “balance” grows. “Withdraw” from that account by replaying past setbacks and difficulties, or by fixating on possible future setbacks and difficulties, and the “balance” shrinks. Gaining confidence, protecting confidence, and performing with confidence—winning that First Victory—is all about managing your psychological bank account.
One would think that the highest achievers in any field are the ones who are fanatically driven perfectionists. This turns out not to be the case. Rather, they have moderate degrees of perfectionism while “those with the highest levels of perfectionism are only moderate achievers, because the anxiety they feel over making mistakes prevents them from taking timely action.” Rather than taking risks and understanding that failures and setbacks may occur and using those mistakes as learning experiences, the perfectionists are often consumed with anxiety triggered by the perceived consequences of making mistakes that they are more risk-averse as a result.
“When you treat your mistakes and imperfections as limited in scope, you acknowledge them and then cordon them off, leaving them locked down in the single place where they occurred. This will help you to execute all your other tasks with more certainty.”
One can never grow in any aspect of life without taking on new challenges and risk not succeeding in the short run. It is not unusual to feel great trepidation when embarking on something challenging, especially in front of others. Rather than letting this stop us, however, one should embrace such opportunities and realize that the anxiety and nervousness we’re feeling are actually very healthy responses to the novel situation.
“That racing heart, those jittery muscles, and butterflies in our stomach—the very sensations that you identify as the reasons why your “mind starts going a million miles an hour,” the very things that tell you that you are “nervous”—are in fact signals from your body that it has tapped into some high-octane rocket fuel and is now ready to perform. If you are experiencing any of these signals, it simply means your body is doing something to help you do something that matters to you. At this moment of truth for your First Victory, then, what will you think when the rocket fuel kicks in? Remember Pillar #1—your thoughts drive everything. Will you think, Something natural and marvelous is happening to help me be great, so let’s see how great I can be and engage the success cycle? Or will you think, Uh-oh, I’m freaking out, this is really bad and fall back into the sewer?”
Reframing the situation as a sign of deep caring and importance was very eye opening and helpful for me. There have been many times I have played in tennis tournaments and, much to my surprise, I felt quite nervous and I couldn’t really understand why. After all, they’re just matches and have nothing to do with my career or success in life. And, yet, I would still feel this way. Now, I can just do my best to accept and honor it because it means I’m embarking upon something that I really care about and want to do my best. Of course this applies to my business career as well, particularly when presenting to a large group of people where it’s understandable to be nervous.
Returning to tennis, there are times when I get frustrated because I feel like my progress has slowed or even stalled. Of course this leads my mind to start catastrophizing that I’ll never get any better and what if this is the best I’ll be for the rest of my life? Careless self-talk like that can rear its ugly head. After reading the book, however, I now have a completely different attitude towards reaching a plateau. This is what Zissner says about this very important aspect of growing and cultivating a confident mind.
“Knowing that learning has been going on all along will help you remain focused and upbeat while on one of those many plateaus. The changes in your nervous system, the processes that produce the desired improvements, take place while you are on the plateau. With this understanding, plateaus need not be dreaded or merely tolerated, but instead should be valued. Just as you can value the precompetition jitters as evidence of a beneficial energy boost, plateaus can be valued as your own “improvement factories.”
To further elaborate on how beneficial plateaus are in setting the stage for long-term growth Zissner goes on to say the following.
“The chaining, the building, the growing, the actual development we seek through practice happens while we are on the plateau itself, not during the bursts of improvement. What we have come to value most in our present-day world of immediate gratification is the breakthrough experience, that moment when all those small, imperceptible changes reach a critical mass and explode into a palpable advance. But true development happens on the plateau. Leonard concludes: “To love the plateau is to love the eternal now, to enjoy the inevitable spurts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them. To love the plateau is to love what is most essential and enduring in your life.”
The rubber meets the road when it comes time to dealing with disappointment and your results fall short of your expectations. He recommends different approaches to help train oneself in the moment and upon reflection to keep the bank account full. He recommends reflecting on those parts of your day where there was:
(1) a feeling of pride in having given a good effort, (2) a feeling of accomplishment, and (3) a feeling of having made progress?
And while doing drills or competing in a sport he recommends continuously returning to the shots or aspects of the drills in which you did your best so that you can create a constructive thought that will result in a deposit to your psychological bank account. The way to get more of something you want is to consistently think about what you want more of and this approach is the first step in getting more of it.
He then recommends turning to affirmations to continue to strengthen your confident mind. These statements should be written in the first person, present tense, positive, precise, and have powerful language. They should be phrased “as if you already have that quality, already take that action, and have already achieved that desired outcome.”
From there he now has the reader work intently on creating powerful visualizations as if he is the director and producer of his own movie. These should be vivid, detailed, and full of feeling and emotion. The goal is to help make the reality of the experience much more smooth and effective as if you have already gone through it. It’s also designed to make further deposits into one’s mental bank account. This is not easy for most people and is sometimes met with skepticism as well. In fact, one of the constant retorts of the people he works with is that his system at times can almost feel delusional and they wonder whether they are just fooling themselves. He says, “Yes, you are fooling yourself. But it’s precisely by fooling yourself that you make real change.”
He is such a big proponent of visualization that he thinks that most athletes and determined professionals focus far too much on training and should allocate more of their time and energy to visualization.
While there are many dedicated athletes and determined professionals in all walks of life who are willing to study or practice three, four, five hours a day, only a few, I have found, are willing to spend fifteen minutes a day vividly envisioning their most cherished dreams. That’s a different kind of effort, a different kind of discipline, but it is the kind of discipline that separates the champions from the rest of the field.
I’ll end with the Shooter’s Mentality which for any basketball fan is really amazing to witness. No matter how cold Steph Curry may get, he will keep on shooting. He never loses his faith or confidence. What is his Shooter’s Mentality that allows him to operate that way even under the most pressure-filled situations? This is what Zissner has to say about it.
That’s the Shooter’s Mentality—misses just make hits more likely, while hits just make more hits more likely. No, it isn’t logical at all, but it contributes to that all-important sense of certainty at the moment of truth, and that certainty will always give you the best chance of succeeding.
So there you have it. Start working on filling up your psychological bank account and do your best to limit withdrawals. Amplify this with strongly worded affirmations and powerful visualizations and you are on the road to achieving First Victory.
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