Athlete Winning Quotes

If you want to find the real competition, just look in the mirror. After awhile you'll see your rivals scrambling for second place.

Athletes are born winners, there not born loosers, and the sooner you understand this, the faster you can take on a winning attitude and become sucessful in life.

I believe ability can get you to the top,” says coach John Wooden, “but it takes character to keep you there.… It’s so easy to … begin thinking you can just ‘turn it on’ automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you’re there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, ‘More than ability, they have character.'

I honor you for every time this year you: got back up vibrated higher shined your light and loved and elevated beyond —the call of duty.

Athletes need to enjoy their training. They don't enjoy going down to the track with a coach making them do repetitions until they're exhausted. From enjoyment comes the will to win.

Anyone can start something; very few people can finish.

You don’t have to love it. You just have to believe it’s worth it in the end.

The smell of the sweat is not sweet, but the fruit of the sweat is very sweet.

Excellence can be achieved only today—not yesterday or tomorrow, because they do not exist in the present moment. Today is the only day you have to flex your talents and maximize your enjoyment. Your challenge is to win in all aspects of life. To reach that goal, you need to set yourself up for success by winning one day at a time. Procrastination is no match for a champion.

I think it is just terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance Armstrong, especially after what he achieved, winning seven Tour de France races while on drugs. When I was on drugs, I couldn’t even find my bike.

I saw many people who begun their marathon races lately, but they eventually came up as top winners. I believe that your "lateness" does not account for your "lastness". It's not too late for you to make a start... Begin it now! No further delays!

Boxing is a glorious sport to watch and boxers are incredible, heroic athletes, but it's also, to be honest, a stupid game to play. Even the winners can end up with crippling brain damage. In a lot of ways, hustling is the same. But you learn something special from playing the most difficult games, the games where winning is close to impossible and losing is catastrophic: You learn how to compete as if your life depended on it. That's the lesson I brought with me to the so-called "legitimate" world.

In any case, if it is true that men are superior at sports, why is it that transgender athletes tend to win more medals after they transition to female?

Champions realise that defeat - and learning from it even more than from winning - is part of the path to mastery.

Losing teaches you how to win; winning teaches you how not to lose.

Athletic success is the result of knowing what to do, the willingness to do it, and the drive to continually improve at it.

Testosterone also increases confidence and optimism, while decreasing fear and anxiety.5 This explains the “winner” effect in lab animals, where winning a fight increases an animal’s willingness to participate in, and its success in, another such interaction. Part of the increased success probably reflects the fact that winning stimulates testosterone secretion, which increases glucose delivery and metabolism in the animal’s muscles and makes his pheromones smell scarier. Moreover, winning increases the number of testosterone receptors in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (the way station through which the amygdala communicates with the rest of the brain), increasing its sensitivity to the hormone. Success in everything from athletics to chess to the stock

Hornergy' is Zen's term for the indomitable athletic edge powered by sexual restraint. The basketball, baseball and football teams haven't had a winning season in years. The table-tennis team, however, is undefeated.

... to pause is to win & to rest can actually be part of the victory.

No wrong in aiming or applauding the win but always agnize one's efforts.

Champions play to win. Failure is just feedback. There’s everything to gain by trying your best.

Forget turning out like my dad, a measly professional athlete. Or my mother, a mere award-winning songwriter. I was going to be Stanley Cup and rule the fucking world. I can’t remember who burst my bubble. Probably my twin brother, Wyatt. He’s an unrepentant bubble burster.

My punishment lasted a month. Knowing I could push through pain and succeed has lasted a lifetime. Pain was just something I became accustomed to as part of life. If you’re an athlete and want to win, something always hurts. You are always dealing with bruises and injuries. You’re testing how far you can push the human body, and whoever pushes it the furthest wins.

Anybody can throw a basketball toward a hoop. But only a relative few can exercise the athletic prowess of dribbling down the court, account for and surpass a variety of obstacles, and actually get the ball into the hoop consistently and repetitively contributing toward an ultimate win for the team. In the same way, anyone can open an investment account with M1 or Acorns or Robinhood or Cashapp… or even with the big guys like Ameritrade or Fidelity or Charles Schwabb or Morgan Stanley… but only a relative few can navigate an ever-changing economic paradigm, overcome various financial, legal and social obstacles, maintaining alignment with values, and achieve substantial growth and profits - contributing toward an ultimate win for the team. It’s better to hire a professional investor if you expect professional results.

Due to Jade's fortresslike manner, which, like any well-built castle, made access challenging, girls found her existence not only threatening but flat-out wrong. Although Bartelby Athletic Center featured the latest advertising campaign of Ms. Sturd's three member Benevolent Body-Image Club (laminated Vogue and Maxim covers above captions, “You Can't Have Thighs Like This and Still Walk" and "All Airbrushing"), Jade would only have to swan by, munching on a Snickers to reveal a disturbing truth: You could have thighs like that and still walk. She emphasized what few wanted to accept, that some people did win Trivial Pursuit: The Deity Looks Edition, and there wasn't a thing you could do about it, except come to terms with the fact that you'd only played Trivial Pursuit: John Doe Genes and come away with three pie pieces.

Kay Cannon was a woman I’d known from the Chicago improv world. A beautiful, strong midwestern gal who had played lots of sports and run track in college, Kay had submitted a good writing sample, but I was more impressed by her athlete’s approach to the world. She has a can-do attitude, a willingness to learn through practice, and she was comfortable being coached. Her success at the show is a testament to why all parents should make their daughters pursue team sports instead of pageants. Not that Kay couldn’t win a beauty pageant - she could, as long as for the talent competition she could sing a karaoke version of ‘Redneck Woman’ while shooting a Nerf rifle.

Armstrong was perfect for their goals—an extraordinary combination of athletic talent, drive, ambition, and ruthlessness. And once he began winning, he became the chairman and CEO of the business of making himself rich and famous.

I have to admit," I said when he finished a lengthy discussion on the types of drivers, "I've been golfing and it's about the most boring thing I've ever done. Old men drive around in golf carts pretending they're sporty and getting grouchy if there's any noise. It's like the nursing-home Olympics." Nick's mouth dropped open. "It takes great athletic ability to know how to aim and drive the ball that far." "I get more exercise shopping at the mall," I joked. "I don't come home and tell everyone I won at shopping." Although those red shoes I got on sale the other day felt like a win.

I wish I could discover why people quit. I’ve often wondered if it’s because of how they were raised. Among the college athletes I’ve worked with, I’ve seen too many who simply weren’t mentally tough. They had all the natural gifts in the world, but they were lazy.

In Paul's day, instead of giving gold medals for winning first place in an Olympic event, a crown of olive or laurel leaves was placed on the winner's head. By the time the athlete went home that night, the wreath would already be wilting and falling apart. Think of that. All that energy expended for a wreath that didn't last beyond a day.

Many think that the mark of a great champion is the nature and margin of their victories and the peaks they scale and reach. That’s only part of it. The mark of the greatest of champions is how they react and respond to defeat. That is when they become enshrined in our hearts and minds – as they rise again and into the immortal pages of history.

We all want to win. Every athlete wants to succeed. But the ones who do are those who separate wanting from being willing to make the sacrifice that winning demands.

Nothing stands between us and success but our will to win.

An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.

If athletes could think of SM as sports, they'd understand the acceptance of pain, but they'd always want to know who was winning.

The athletes and coaches are the team, but the parents and families make it a program.

When you attend the games, do not get emotionally invested in the rivalry. Wish only that the best team or athlete wins. Avoid the extremes of elation at a win and devastation at a loss.

There is no downside to winning. It feels forever fabulous. But there is no teacher more discriminating or transforming than loss. The great secret of athletics is that you can learn more from losing than winning.

If what’s up to us is the playing field, then what is not up to us are the rules and conditions of the game. Factors that winning athletes make the best of and don’t spend time arguing against (because there is no point).

There are athletes who believe God helps them win—against opponents who would seem, on the face of it, no less worthy of his favouritism. There are motorists who believe God saves them a parking space—thereby presumably depriving somebody else.

Problem?” Eric asks. And is he flexing his pecs at me? “Did I spill something on my shirt?” My face burns as I drag my gaze up to meet his. “No spills. But I’m not sure that fits you. Consider sizing up.” “No way.” He gives me a slow smile. “This shirt is lucky.” “Oh.” All the athletes I know are superstitious. “You mean you win games after you wear it?” “No, I mean it’s lucky to be wrapped so tightly around me. I wouldn’t want to deprive this shirt of that privilege. Wouldn’t you agree?

Look, girls. It is important to all of us that we win this game, right? Well, when it comes to athletics, boys are simply better suited than girls. It’s a fact of nature that no one can change. I’m sorry, but maybe you can play next time when it’s less crucial.

But an athlete’s job is not just to win—it’s also to be someone we can cheer for. Soto puts no effort into courting public opinion at all. I guess I want to know why we all have to walk on eggshells to pretend Carrie Soto isn’t the exact thing she clearly enjoys being?

Chemical cheating will be decisively routed when fans become properly repelled by it. They will recoil in disgust when they understand that athletes who are chemically propelled to victory do not merely overvalue winning, they misunderstand why winning is properly valued.

Mr. Wonderful was probably taking his sweet time, right?” “No, it was actually my fault this morning. I was busy with…paperwork.” “Oh. Well, that’s alright. Don’t worry about it. What kind of paperwork?” He smiled. “Nothing important.” Mr. Kadam held the door for me, and we walked out into an empty hallway. I was just starting to relax at the elevator doors when I heard a hotel room door close. Ren walked down the hall toward us. He’d purchased new clothes. Of course, he looked wonderful. I took a step back from the elevator and tried to avoid eye contact. Ren wore a brand new pair of dark-indigo, purposely faded, urban-destruction designer jeans. His shirt was long-sleeved, buttoned-down, crisp, oxford-style and was obviously of high quality. It was blue with thin white stripes that matched is eyes perfectly. He’d rolled up the sleeves and left his shirt untucked and open at the collar. It was also an athletic cut, so it fit tightly to his muscular torso, which made me suck in an involuntary breath in appreciation of his male splendor. He looks like a runway model. How in the world am I going to be able to reject that? The world is so unfair. Seriously, it’s like turning Brad Pitt down for a date. The girl who could actually do it should win an award for idiot of the century. I again quickly ran through my list of reasons for not being with Ren and said a few “He’s not for me’s.” The good thing about seeing his mouthwatering self and watching him walk around like a regular person was that it tightened my resolve. Yes. It would be hard because he was so unbelievably gorgeous, but it was now even more obvious to me that we didn’t belong together. As he joined us at the elevator, I shook my head and muttered under my breath, “Figures. The guy is a tiger for three hundred and fifty years and emerges from his curse with expensive taste and keen fashion sense too. Incredible!” Mr. Kadam asked, “What was that, Miss Kelsey?” “Nothing.” Ren raised an eyebrow and smirked. He probably heard me. Stupid tiger hearing. The elevator doors opened. I stepped in and moved to the corner hoping to keep Mr. Kadam between the two of us, but unfortunately, Mr. Kadam wasn’t receiving the silent thoughts I was projecting furiously toward him and remained by the elevator buttons. Ren moved next to me and stood too close. He looked me up and down slowly and gave me a knowing smile. We rode down the elevator in silence. When the doors opened, he stopped me, took the backpack off my shoulder, and threw it over his, leaving me with nothing to carry. He walked ahead next to Mr. Kadam while I trialed along slowly behind, keeping distance between us and a wary eye on his tall frame.

They throw cash at programs and expect results. And if they don’t get them, the money stops. There’s a real question as to who is actually running these programs: the school’s athletic director or the wealthy few writing the checks. All you need to do is google “T. Boone Pickens” and “Oklahoma State University” to get the general idea.

Win the day.” This means you should take advantage of the opportunity that each day brings to be the best athlete you can be. “If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse” is a winning philosophy that must be embraced to reach personal excellence and competitive greatness. Peak performance is the daily strike zone we are aiming for.

It’s a key responsibility of the leader, in any field of endeavor (athletic team, military, or business) to assure the successful continuity or ability of his organization to carry on should he die or become incapacitated. It’s his duty to plan for such a contingency out of loyalty to his people and, if in a business endeavor, loyalty to his customers and, clients.

The sole reason I work out like I do isn’t to prepare for and win ultra races. I don’t have an athletic motive at all. It’s to prepare my mind for life itself. Life will always be the most grueling endurance sport, and when you train hard, get uncomfortable, and callous your mind, you will become a more versatile competitor, trained to find a way forward no matter what.

to have a physical body and to work with it and to work with the forces of nature to mold it into the highest expression of joy, and to keep it always by using it to learn how to overcome disease, impairment and as today’s cutting edge, non-funded, objective, purposeful science says, one day, even death?   What if short-term excitement and intensity created by the overblown desire to win at all cost could be replaced by a more durable excitement in an intensity springing from the heart of the physical athletic experience itself?  It would soon be discovered that sports and physical activities reformed and refurbished with integrity, not buy-offs are the best possible path to personal enlightenment and social transformation for this new millennium.

Some air-conditioning systems are set at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Others are set at twenty degrees. Human happiness conditioning systems also differ from person to person. On a scale from one to ten, some people are born with a cheerful biochemical system that allows their mood to swing between levels six and ten, stabilising with time at eight. Such a person is quite happy even if she lives in an alienating big city, loses all her money in a stock-exchange crash and is diagnosed with diabetes. Other people are cursed with a gloomy biochemistry that swings between three and seven and stabilises at five. Such an unhappy person remains depressed even if she enjoys the support of a tight-knit community, wins millions in the lottery and is as healthy as an Olympic athlete.

The point to remember is that the issue is not nature versus nurture. It is the balance between nature and nurture. Genes do not make a man gay, or violent, or fat, or a leader. Genes merely make proteins. The chemical effect of these proteins may make the man's brain and body more receptive to certain environmental influences. But the extent of those influences will have as much to do with the outcome as the genes themselves. Furthermore, we humans are not prisoners of our genes or our environment. We have free will. Genes are overruled every time an angry man restrains his temper, a fat man diets, and an alocholic refuses to take a drink. On the other hand, the environment is overruled every time a genetic effect wins out, as when Lou Gehrig's athletic ability was overruled by his ALS. Genes and the environment work together to shape our brains, and we can manage them both if we want to. It may be harder for people with certain genes or surroundings, but "harder" is a long way from pedetermination.

It wasn’t enough for him to have had first-hand experience of the methods of Cruyff, Robson, van Gaal, Mazzone or Capello, so he travelled to Argentina to deepen his knowledge. There, he met Ricardo La Volpe (a former Argentine World Cup-winning goalkeeper and the former coach of the Mexican national team), Marcelo Bielsa (the much admired former Argentina and Chile national coach, and Athletic de Bilbao manager) and ‘El Flaco’, César Luis Menotti (the coach who took Argentina to the World Cup in 1978) to talk at length about football.

Ambrose Bierce’s witty definition of the verb ‘to pray’: ‘to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy’. There are athletes who believe God helps them win – against opponents who would seem, on the face of it, no less worthy of his favouritism. There are motorists who believe God saves them a parking space – thereby presumably depriving somebody else. This style of theism is embarrassingly popular, and is unlikely to be impressed by anything as (superficially) reasonable as NOMA.

sin attacks and degrades our humanity. It makes us less human, not more.2 By not sinning, Jesus is more human than we are. He’s less like an athlete using steroids, and more like an athlete who never ate Twinkies. Less like an adult competing against kindergartners, and more like an adult who actually trained because she enjoys the sport—while we sat around all year, watching TV, eating potato chips, and didn’t even bother to show up to the race. Jesus doesn’t use a superhuman advantage to win; he refuses the inhumanity we all participate in.

Stoics will aspire to be neither generals, nor corporate executives, nor heads of state, nor music stars, nor movie stars, nor star athletes, nor plutocrats, nor anyone else who wields political, social or economic power. Stoics want freedom, specifically, the freedom to be happy. And the way to be free is to be good. Stoics compete against themselves to become better persons than they were yesterday. If your contest is to become better than you were yesterday, then you have the power to be invincible and to win, day after day. This is the road to freedom.

Remember Ambrose Bierce’s witty definition of the verb ‘to pray’: ‘to ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy’. There are athletes who believe God helps them win—against opponents who would seem, on the face of it, no less worthy of his favouritism. There are motorists who believe God saves them a parking space—thereby presumably depriving somebody else. This style of theism is embarrassingly popular, and is unlikely to be impressed by anything as (superficially) reasonable as NOMA. Nevertheless,

At some point toward the end of the 2016 Australian Open, a nurse asked me to pee in a cup. There was nothing unusual about this—it’s just another part of the procedure, performed by the ITF, the International Tennis Federation, to drug-test athletes and keep the sport clean. I was twenty-eight years old. I’d been peeing in those cups for more than a decade, and I forgot all about the test the moment after it happened, my mind quickly returning to the matter at hand: the next leg of the tour, the next match I’d have to win to get where I still needed to go.

billionaire Jeff Hoffman recently spoke at one of the Quantum Leap Mastermind retreats that my business partner, Jon Berghoff, and I cohost, and of the many takeaways that I wrote down, the following stood out most: “You can’t win a gold medal at more than one [sport].” Let that sink in for a minute. Most Olympic athletes spend their entire lives focused on developing themselves to be best in the world at one thing. And remember what we learned in the last chapter, that when you choose and commit to one mission, achieving your other goals will become more probable, because you will be living in alignment with your highest priority.

Nobody is ever made happy by winning the lottery, buying a house, getting a promotion or even finding true love. People are made happy by one thing and one thing only – pleasant sensations in their bodies. A person who just won the lottery or found new love and jumps from joy is not really reacting to the money or the lover. She is reacting to various hormones coursing through her bloodstream and to the storm of electric signals flashing between different parts of her brain. Unfortunately for all hopes of creating heaven on earth, our internal biochemical system seems to be programmed to keep happiness levels relatively constant. There's no natural selection for happiness as such - a happy hermit's genetic line will go extinct as the genes of a pair of anxious parents get carried on to the next generation. Happiness and misery play a role in evolution only to the extent that they encourage or discourage survival and reproduction. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that evolution has moulded us to be neither too miserable nor too happy. It enables us to enjoy a momentary rush of pleasant sensations, but these never last for ever. Sooner of later they subside and give place to unpleasant sensations. (...) Some scholars compare human biochemistry to an air-conditioning system that keeps the temperature constant, come heatwave or snowstorm. Events might momentarily change the temperature, but the air-conditioning system always returns the temperature to the same set point. Some air-conditioning systems are set at twenty-five degrees Celsius. Others are set at twenty degrees. Human happiness conditioning systems also differ from person to person. On a scale from one to ten, some people are born with a cheerful biochemical system that allows their mood to swing between levels six and ten, stabilising with time at eight. Such a person is quite happy even if she lives in an alienating big city, loses all her money in a stock-exchange crash and is diagnosed with diabetes. Other people are cursed with a gloomy biochemistry that swings between three and seven and stabilises at five. Such an unhappy person remains depressed even if she enjoys the support of a tight-knit community, wins millions in the lottery and is as healthy as an Olympic athlete (...) incapable of experiencing anything beyond level seven happiness. Her brain is simply not built for exhilaration, come what may. (...) Buying cars and writing novels do not change our biochemistry. They can startle it for a fleeting moment, but it is soon back to the set point.

Mentally practice two or three times each week for about 10 to 15 minutes per rehearsal. Select a specific sports skill to further develop, or work your way though different scenarios, incorporating various game-ending situations. Examples include meeting your marathon goal time, striking out the side in the bottom of the ninth, or making the game-winning shot as the final buzzer is sounding. Mental practice sessions that are shorter in length are also beneficial. Good times include during any downtime in your schedule, the night before a competition, as an element of your pregame routine, and especially as part of a preshot routine.

Yes, there is an endurance in faith; “When Gideon came to the Jordan, he and the three hundred men who were with him crossed over, exhausted but still in pursuit” (Judg. 8:4). From a particular standpoint, “fatigue” can improve our performance. Just as athletes draw on that hidden well of strength, past the point of normal tiredness, to finish the game, to make the score, to win the race; we, too, by the help of the Holy Spirit can experience a spiritual “second wind” to finish the task before us. We move from a point of reason, to a point of instinct. For us, like Gideon’s three hundred, we have no other choice but to continue pursuit.

It could produce the most extraordinary consequences, as the life of C. B. Fry demonstrates. The son of a chief accountant at Scotland Yard, he had played in the FA Cup before he left Repton School in 1890 and appeared for Surrey county cricket team in the time between school and university (Oxford, inevitably, and the top scholarship at Wadham College). By the time of his graduation, he had represented the university at cricket, soccer and athletics, tied the world long-jump record at 23 feet 6½ inches, and only missed playing wing three-quarter for the Oxford rugby team because of injury. He managed, in passing, to win a first in classics.

Some scholars compare human biochemistry to an air-conditioning system that keeps the temperature constant, come heatwave or snowstorm. Events might momentarily change the temperature, but the air-conditioning system always returns the temperature to the same set point. Some air-conditioning systems are set at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Others are set at twenty degrees. Human happiness conditioning systems also differ from person to person. On a scale from one to ten, some people are born with a cheerful biochemical system that allows their mood to swing between levels six and ten, stabilising with time at eight. Such a person is quite happy even if she lives in an alienating big city, loses all her money in a stock-exchange crash and is diagnosed with diabetes. Other people are cursed with a gloomy biochemistry that swings between three and seven and stabilises at five. Such an unhappy person remains depressed even if she enjoys the support of a tight-knit community, wins millions in the lottery and is as healthy as an Olympic athlete. Indeed, even if our gloomy friend wins $50,000,000 in the morning, discovers the cure for both AIDS and cancer by noon, makes peace between Israelis and Palestinians that afternoon, and then in the evening reunites with her long-lost child who disappeared years ago - she would still be incapable of experiencing anything beyond level seven happiness. Her brain is simply not built for exhilaration, come what may.

Behind the Serenity Prayer is a two-thousand-year-old Stoic phrase: “ta eph’hemin, ta ouk eph’hemin.” What is up to us, what is not up to us. And what is up to us? Our emotions Our judgments Our creativity Our attitude Our perspective Our desires Our decisions Our determination This is our playing field, so to speak. Everything there is fair game. What is not up to us? Well, you know, everything else. The weather, the economy, circumstances, other people’s emotions or judgments, trends, disasters, et cetera. If what’s up to us is the playing field, then what is not up to us are the rules and conditions of the game. Factors that winning athletes make the best of and don’t spend time arguing against (because there is no point).

Comparing marriage to football is no insult. I come from the South where football is sacred. I would never belittle marriage by saying it is like soccer, bowling, or playing bridge, never. Those images would never work, only football is passionate enough to be compared to marriage. In other sports, players walk onto the field, in football they run onto the field, in high school ripping through some paper, in college (for those who are fortunate enough) they touch the rock and run down the hill onto the field in the middle of the band. In other sports, fans cheer, in football they scream. In other sports, players ‘high five’, in football they chest, smash shoulder pads, and pat your rear. Football is a passionate sport, and marriage is about passion. In football, two teams send players onto the field to determine which athletes will win and which will lose, in marriage two families send their representatives forward to see which family will survive and which family will be lost into oblivion with their traditions, patterns, and values lost and forgotten. Preparing for this struggle for survival, the bride and groom are each set up. Each has been led to believe that their family’s patterns are all ‘normal,’ and anyone who differs is dense, naïve, or stupid because, no matter what the issue, the way their family has always done it is the ‘right’ way. For the premarital bride and groom in their twenties, as soon as they say, “I do,” these ‘right’ ways of doing things are about to collide like two three hundred and fifty pound linemen at the hiking of the ball. From “I do” forward, if not before, every decision, every action, every goal will be like the line of scrimmage. Where will the family patterns collide? In the kitchen. Here the new couple will be faced with the difficult decision of “Where do the cereal bowls go?” Likely, one family’s is high, and the others is low. Where will they go now? In the bathroom. The bathroom is a battleground unmatched in the potential conflicts. Will the toilet paper roll over the top or underneath? Will the acceptable residing position for the lid be up or down? And, of course, what about the toothpaste? Squeeze it from the middle or the end? But the skirmishes don’t stop in the rooms of the house, they are not only locational they are seasonal. The classic battles come home for the holidays. Thanksgiving. Which family will they spend the noon meal with and which family, if close enough, will have to wait until the nighttime meal, or just dessert if at all? Christmas. Whose home will they visit first, if at all? How much money will they spend on gifts for his family? for hers? Then comes for many couples an even bigger challenge – children of their own! At the wedding, many couples take two candles and light just one often extinguishing their candle as a sign of devotion. The image is Biblical. The Bible is quoted a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. What few prepare them for is the upcoming struggle, the conflict over the unanswered question: the two shall become one, but which one? Two families, two patterns, two ways of doing things, which family’s patterns will survive to play another day, in another generation, and which will be lost forever? Let the games begin.

However, after 1930 Liddell never competed again in public in a major athletic meeting. Did he ever regret missing the 1928 Olympics and the chance of winning at least another gold medal? Did he lament trading fame and glory for a life of obscurity and hardship? He gave clear and unequivocal answers to these questions when interviewed in Canada at the end of his first furlough in 1932. ‘Are you glad you gave your life to missionary work? Don’t you miss the limelight, the rush, the frenzy, the cheers, the rich red wine of victory?’ probed the interviewer in rather florid prose. ‘Oh well, of course it’s natural for a chap to think over all that sometimes,’ replied Liddell. ‘But I’m glad I’m at the work I’m engaged in now. A fellow’s life counts for far more for this than the other. Not a corruptible crown, but an incorruptible one, you know.

Understanding the narcissism epidemic is important because its long-term consequences are destructive to society. American culture’s focus on self-admiration has caused a flight from reality to the land of grandiose fantasy. We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athletes (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and YouTube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), a phony national economy (with $11 trillion of government debt), phony feelings of being special among children (with parenting and education focused on self-esteem), and phony friends (with the social networking explosion). All this fantasy might feel good, but unfortunately, reality always wins. The mortgage meltdown and the resulting financial crisis are just one demonstration of how inflated desires eventually crash to earth.

Athletes train 15 years for 15 seconds of performance. Ask them if they got lucky. Ask an athlete how he feels after a good workout. He will tell you that he feels spent. If he doesn't feel that way, it means he hasn't worked out to his maximum ability. Losers think life is unfair. They think only of their bad breaks. They don't consider that the person who is prepared and playing well still got the same bad breaks but overcame them. That is the difference. His threshold for tolerating pain becomes higher because in the end he is not training so much for the game but for his character. Alexander Graham Bell was desperately trying to invent a hearing aid for his partially deaf wife. He failed at inventing a hearing aid but in the process discovered the principles of the telephone. You wouldn't call someone like that lucky, would you?Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Without effort and preparation, lucky coincidences don't happen.

Great athletes practice, train, study, and develop. So do great learners. As students empowering ourselves with knowledge, what can we learn from Olympic-caliber athletes about success, and how to achieve it? 1. Preparation = Success! “If you fail to prepare, you're prepared to fail.” —Mark Spitz, Gold Medalist, Swimming 2. Learning is lifelong “Never put an age limit on your dreams.” —Dara Torres, Gold Medalist, Swimming 3. Failure is opportunity "One shouldn't be afraid to lose” —Oksana Baiul, Gold Medalist, Figure Skating 4. The only person who can stop you is yourself “This ability to conquer oneself is no doubt the most precious of all things sports bestows.” —Olga Korbut, Gold Medalist, Gymnastics 5. Learning is fun! “If you're not having fun, then what the hell are you doing?” —Allison Jones, six-time Paralympian 6. You have to be in it to win it “Failure I can live with. Not trying is what I can't handle.” —Sanya Richards-Ross, Gold Medalist, Track & Field There are always new skills to learn, new challenges to overcome, new ways to succeed. The only guarantee of failure is if you don’t get started in the first place.

Four Steps to Combat Bullying 1. BE CONFIDENT. Never lose sight of the fact that God made you in His image, therefore you are amazing. You see greatness and promise in the mirror every morning. Go out into the world with your head held high and armed with self-assurance. Bullies target weakness. Your confidence disarms them. 2. SET BOUNDARIES. There is a line no one should cross, including you. Distance yourself from hostile environments and situations and avoid conflict at all cost. There is never a need for unnecessary confrontation. It will never be worth it. If you don’t give a bully an opportunity you diminish their power. 3. ARM YOURSELF WITH INTELLIGENCE. Be the smartest in the class and among your friends. Be a leader in your community and the superior athlete. Be the light. Build such a reputation of greatness, you become the blueprint everyone wants to follow. Bullies fear anyone smarter and more popular than they are, because they know that they can’t compete. 4. PROTECT YOUR ENERGY. Pay attention to the people who laugh when others make you the butt of the joke. Note the ones who do not cheer you on when you win. Be aware of the person(s) fueling the negativity, egging the bullies on, creating discord. Those people are not your friends.

I realized that all of them—like me, like everyone—make mistakes, struggle with their weaknesses, and don’t feel that they are particularly special or great. They are no happier than the rest of us, and they struggle just as much or more than average folks. Even after they surpass their wildest dreams, they still experience more struggle than glory. This has certainly been true for me. While I surpassed my wildest dreams decades ago, I am still struggling today. In time, I realized that the satisfaction of success doesn’t come from achieving your goals, but from struggling well. To understand what I mean, imagine your greatest goal, whatever it is—making a ton of money, winning an Academy Award, running a great organization, being great at a sport. Now imagine instantaneously achieving it. You’d be happy at first, but not for long. You would soon find yourself needing something else to struggle for. Just look at people who attain their dreams early— the child star, the lottery winner, the professional athlete who peaks early. They typically don’t end up happy unless they get excited about something else bigger and better to struggle for. Since life brings both ups and downs, struggling well doesn’t just make your ups better; it makes your downs less bad. I’m still struggling and I will until I die, because even if I try to avoid the struggles, they will find me.

Cohen continued to struggle with his own well-being. Even though he had achieved his life’s dream of running his own firm, he was still unhappy, and he had become dependent on a psychiatrist named Ari Kiev to help him manage his moods. In addition to treating depression, Kiev’s other area of expertise was success and how to achieve it. He had worked as a psychiatrist and coach with Olympic basketball players and rowers trying to improve their performance and overcome their fear of failure. His background building athletic champions appealed to Cohen’s unrelenting need to dominate in every transaction he entered into, and he started asking Kiev to spend entire days at SAC’s offices, tending to his staff. Kiev was tall, with a bushy mustache and a portly midsection, and he would often appear silently at a trader’s side and ask him how he was feeling. Sometimes the trader would be so startled to see Kiev there he’d practically jump out of his seat. Cohen asked Kiev to give motivational speeches to his employees, to help them get over their anxieties about losing money. Basically, Kiev was there to teach them to be ruthless. Once a week, after the market closed, Cohen’s traders would gather in a conference room and Kiev would lead them through group therapy sessions focused on how to make them more comfortable with risk. Kiev had them talk about their trades and try to understand why some had gone well and others hadn’t. “Are you really motivated to make as much money as you can? This guy’s going to help you become a real killer at it,” was how one skeptical staff member remembered Kiev being pitched to them. Kiev’s work with Olympians had led him to believe that the thing that blocked most people was fear. You might have two investors with the same amount of money: One was prepared to buy 250,000 shares of a stock they liked, while the other wasn’t. Why? Kiev believed that the reluctance was a form of anxiety—and that it could be overcome with proper treatment. Kiev would ask the traders to close their eyes and visualize themselves making trades and generating profits. “Surrendering to the moment” and “speaking the truth” were some of his favorite phrases. “Why weren’t you bigger in the trades that worked? What did you do right?” he’d ask. “Being preoccupied with not losing interferes with winning,” he would say. “Trading not to lose is not a good strategy. You need to trade to win.” Many of the traders hated the group therapy sessions. Some considered Kiev a fraud. “Ari was very aggressive,” said one. “He liked money.” Patricia, Cohen’s first wife, was suspicious of Kiev’s motives and believed that he was using his sessions with Cohen to find stock tips. From Kiev’s perspective, he found the perfect client in Cohen, a patient with unlimited resources who could pay enormous fees and whose reputation as one of the best traders on Wall Street could help Kiev realize his own goal of becoming a bestselling author. Being able to say that you were the

For a team facing a 12-run deficit, the game is all but over. Almost always. Three times in major league history, though, a club has come from down by a dozen to win. The Chicago White Sox were the first in 1911; fourteen years later, the Philadelphia Athletics duplicated the feat. Then seventy-six years would pass before it happened again. Enter the 2001 Cleveland Indians, battling for their sixth playoff spot in seven years. Hosting the red-hot Seattle Mariners, who would win a major league record 116 games that season, the Tribe found themselves trailing 12–0 after just three innings. In the middle of the seventh, Seattle led 14–2—at which point the Indians began their historic comeback. Scoring three in the seventh, four in the eighth, and five in the ninth, Cleveland forced extra innings. In the bottom of the eleventh, utility man Jolbert Cabrera slapped a broken-bat single to score Kenny Lofton for one of the more remarkable wins in the annals of baseball. On August 6, 2001, not even a 12-run deficit could stop the Cleveland Indians. Those of us who follow Jesus Christ can expect even greater victories. “I am convinced,” the apostle Paul wrote, “that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39). If you’re deep in the hole today, take heart. As God’s child, you’re always still in the game. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. HEBREWS

Why are we as helpless, or more so, than our ancestors were in facing the chaos that interferes with happiness? There are at least two good explanations for this failure. In the first place, the kind of knowledge—or wisdom—one needs for emancipating consciousness is not cumulative. It cannot be condensed into a formula; it cannot be memorized and then routinely applied. Like other complex forms of expertise, such as a mature political judgment or a refined aesthetic sense, it must be earned through trial-and-error experience by each individual, generation after generation. Control over consciousness is not simply a cognitive skill. At least as much as intelligence, it requires the commitment of emotions and will. It is not enough to know how to do it; one must do it, consistently, in the same way as athletes or musicians who must keep practicing what they know in theory. And this is never easy. Progress is relatively fast in fields that apply knowledge to the material world, such as physics or genetics. But it is painfully slow when knowledge is to be applied to modify our own habits and desires. Second, the knowledge of how to control consciousness must be reformulated every time the cultural context changes. The wisdom of the mystics, of the Sufi, of the great yogis, or of the Zen masters might have been excellent in their own time—and might still be the best, if we lived in those times and in those cultures. But when transplanted to contemporary California those systems lose quite a bit of their original power. They contain elements that are specific to their original contexts, and when these accidental components are not distinguished from what is essential, the path to freedom gets overgrown by brambles of meaningless mumbo jumbo. Ritual form wins over substance, and

For years before the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps won the gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he followed the same routine at every race. He arrived two hours early.1 He stretched and loosened up, according to a precise pattern: eight hundred mixer, fifty freestyle, six hundred kicking with kickboard, four hundred pulling a buoy, and more. After the warm-up he would dry off, put in his earphones, and sit—never lie down—on the massage table. From that moment, he and his coach, Bob Bowman, wouldn’t speak a word to each other until after the race was over. At forty-five minutes before the race he would put on his race suit. At thirty minutes he would get into the warm-up pool and do six hundred to eight hundred meters. With ten minutes to go he would walk to the ready room. He would find a seat alone, never next to anyone. He liked to keep the seats on both sides of him clear for his things: goggles on one side and his towel on the other. When his race was called he would walk to the blocks. There he would do what he always did: two stretches, first a straight-leg stretch and then with a bent knee. Left leg first every time. Then the right earbud would come out. When his name was called, he would take out the left earbud. He would step onto the block—always from the left side. He would dry the block—every time. Then he would stand and flap his arms in such a way that his hands hit his back. Phelps explains: “It’s just a routine. My routine. It’s the routine I’ve gone through my whole life. I’m not going to change it.” And that is that. His coach, Bob Bowman, designed this physical routine with Phelps. But that’s not all. He also gave Phelps a routine for what to think about as he went to sleep and first thing when he awoke. He called it “Watching the Videotape.”2 There was no actual tape, of course. The “tape” was a visualization of the perfect race. In exquisite detail and slow motion Phelps would visualize every moment from his starting position on top of the blocks, through each stroke, until he emerged from the pool, victorious, with water dripping off his face. Phelps didn’t do this mental routine occasionally. He did it every day before he went to bed and every day when he woke up—for years. When Bob wanted to challenge him in practices he would shout, “Put in the videotape!” and Phelps would push beyond his limits. Eventually the mental routine was so deeply ingrained that Bob barely had to whisper the phrase, “Get the videotape ready,” before a race. Phelps was always ready to “hit play.” When asked about the routine, Bowman said: “If you were to ask Michael what’s going on in his head before competition, he would say he’s not really thinking about anything. He’s just following the program. But that’s not right. It’s more like his habits have taken over. When the race arrives, he’s more than halfway through his plan and he’s been victorious at every step. All the stretches went like he planned. The warm-up laps were just like he visualized. His headphones are playing exactly what he expected. The actual race is just another step in a pattern that started earlier that day and has been nothing but victories. Winning is a natural extension.”3 As we all know, Phelps won the record eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. When visiting Beijing, years after Phelps’s breathtaking accomplishment, I couldn’t help but think about how Phelps and the other Olympians make all these feats of amazing athleticism seem so effortless. Of course Olympic athletes arguably practice longer and train harder than any other athletes in the world—but when they get in that pool, or on that track, or onto that rink, they make it look positively easy. It’s more than just a natural extension of their training. It’s a testament to the genius of the right routine.

What would be the natural thing? A man goes to college. He works as he wants to work, he plays as he wants to play, he exercises for the fun of the game, he makes friends where he wants to make them, he is held in by no fear of criticism above, for the class ahead of him has nothing to do with his standing in his own class. Everything he does has the one vital quality: it is spontaneous. That is the flame of youth itself. Now, what really exists?" "...I say our colleges to-day are business colleges—Yale more so, perhaps, because it is more sensitively American. Let's take up any side of our life here. Begin with athletics. What has become of the natural, spontaneous joy of contest? Instead you have one of the most perfectly organized business systems for achieving a required result—success. Football is driving, slavish work; there isn't one man in twenty who gets any real pleasure out of it. Professional baseball is not more rigorously disciplined and driven than our 'amateur' teams. Add the crew and the track. Play, the fun of the thing itself, doesn't exist; and why? Because we have made a business out of it all, and the college is scoured for material, just as drummers are sent out to bring in business. "Take another case. A man has a knack at the banjo or guitar, or has a good voice. What is the spontaneous thing? To meet with other kindred spirits in informal gatherings in one another's rooms or at the fence, according to the whim of the moment. Instead what happens? You have our university musical clubs, thoroughly professional organizations. If you are material, you must get out and begin to work for them—coach with a professional coach, make the Apollo clubs, and, working on, some day in junior year reach the varsity organization and go out on a professional tour. Again an organization conceived on business lines. "The same is true with the competition for our papers: the struggle for existence outside in a business world is not one whit more intense than the struggle to win out in the News or Lit competition. We are like a beef trust, with every by-product organized, down to the last possibility. You come to Yale—what is said to you? 'Be natural, be spontaneous, revel in a certain freedom, enjoy a leisure you'll never get again, browse around, give your imagination a chance, see every one, rub wits with every one, get to know yourself.' "Is that what's said? No. What are you told, instead? 'Here are twenty great machines that need new bolts and wheels. Get out and work. Work harder than the next man, who is going to try to outwork you. And, in order to succeed, work at only one thing. You don't count—everything for the college.' Regan says the colleges don't represent the nation; I say they don't even represent the individual.

Making the most of an experience: Living fully is extolled everywhere in popular culture. I have only to turn on the television at random to be assailed with the following messages: “It’s the best a man can get.” “It’s like having an angel by your side.” “Every move is smooth, every word is cool. I never want to lose that feeling.” “You look, they smile. You win, they go home.” What is being sold here? A fantasy of total sensory pleasure, social status, sexual attraction, and the self-image of a winner. As it happens, all these phrases come from the same commercial for razor blades, but living life fully is part of almost any ad campaign. What is left out, however, is the reality of what it actually means to fully experience something. Instead of looking for sensory overload that lasts forever, you’ll find that the experiences need to be engaged at the level of meaning and emotion. Meaning is essential. If this moment truly matters to you, you will experience it fully. Emotion brings in the dimension of bonding or tuning in: An experience that touches your heart makes the meaning that much more personal. Pure physical sensation, social status, sexual attraction, and feeling like a winner are generally superficial, which is why people hunger for them repeatedly. If you spend time with athletes who have won hundreds of games or with sexually active singles who have slept with hundreds of partners, you’ll find out two things very quickly: (1) Numbers don’t count very much. The athlete usually doesn’t feel like a winner deep down; the sexual conqueror doesn’t usually feel deeply attractive or worthy. (2) Each experience brings diminishing returns; the thrill of winning or going to bed becomes less and less exciting and lasts a shorter time. To experience this moment, or any moment, fully means to engage fully. Meeting a stranger can be totally fleeting and meaningless, for example, unless you enter the individual’s world by finding out at least one thing that is meaningful to his or her life and exchange at least one genuine feeling. Tuning in to others is a circular flow: You send yourself out toward people; you receive them as they respond to you. Notice how often you don’t do that. You stand back and insulate yourself, sending out only the most superficial signals and receive little or nothing back. The same circle must be present even when someone else isn’t involved. Consider the way three people might observe the same sunset. The first person is obsessing over a business deal and doesn’t even see the sunset, even though his eyes are registering the photons that fall on their retinas. The second person thinks, “Nice sunset. We haven’t had one in a while.” The third person is an artist who immediately begins a sketch of the scene. The differences among the three are that the first person sent nothing out and received nothing back; the second allowed his awareness to receive the sunset but had no awareness to give back to it—his response was rote; the third person was the only one to complete the circle: He took in the sunset and turned it into a creative response that sent his awareness back out into the world with something to give. If you want to fully experience life, you must close the circle.

I run. I am made for running. Because when you run, you could be anyone. You hone yourself into a body, nothing more or less than a body. You respond as a body, to the body. If you are racing to win, no goals but the body's goal; no thoughts but the boy's thoughts. You obliterate yourself in the name of speed. You negate yourself in order to make it past the finish line.

When athletes go for the glory, they’re really going for God.

President Teddy Roosevelt argued that organized athletics could be the means for instilling the character and values deemed necessary to make America a global power in the century to come. Sports could breed a sense of hard work, self-discipline, and the win-at-all-cost ethic of competition. Roosevelt once said, presumably while swinging a big stick,

An athlete's goal is to win the race. A pianist's goal is to win the heart.

Before athletes take off to win a race, they have to stretch their muscles. They have to lean in to the uncomfortable tight places of their bodies, places that may be a little stiff and unworked, but that’s the only way for them to function at their maximum potential. In a way, we’re all athletes. We need to stretch. It’s good for us, and it will prepare us to do, to the best of our ability, what we’re created to do.

I see myself a rock star. I play hard to win. I see myself a warrior. I battle the challenges ahead. I am the renegade. I walk through the sleepless nights. I am a legend. A legend you want to be. A legend you want to follow. I am an athlete.

positive impact on my recovery. (It also helps you sleep if used before bed.) Warning: Start slow. I tried to copy Amelia and did 20-plus minutes my first session. The next day, I felt like I’d been put in a sleeping bag and swung against a tree for a few hours. Rolling your foot on top of a golf ball on the floor to increase “hamstring” flexibility. This is infinitely more helpful than a lacrosse ball. Put a towel on the floor underneath the golf ball, lest you shoot your dog’s eye out. Concept2 SkiErg for training when your lower body is injured. After knee surgery, Amelia used this low-impact machine to maintain cardiovascular endurance and prepare for the 2014 World’s Toughest Mudder, which she won 8 weeks post-op. Kelly Starrett (page 122) is also a big fan of this device. Dry needling: I’d never heard of this before meeting Amelia. “[In acupuncture] the goal is not to feel the needle. In dry-needling, you are sticking the needle in the muscle belly and trying to get it to twitch, and the twitch is the release.” It’s used for super-tight, over-contracted muscles, and the needles are not left in. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t have this done on your calves. Sauna for endurance: Amelia has found using a sauna improves her endurance, a concept that has since been confirmed by several other athletes, including cyclist David Zabriskie, seven-time U.S. National Time Trial Championship winner. He considers sauna training a more practical replacement for high-altitude simulation tents. In the 2005 Tour de France, Dave won the Stage 1 time trial, making him the first American to win stages in all three Grand Tours. Zabriskie beat Lance Armstrong by seconds, clocking an average speed of 54.676 kilometers per hour (!). I now use a sauna at least four times per week. To figure out the best protocols, I asked another podcast guest, Rhonda Patrick. Her response is on page 7. * Who do you think of when you hear the word “successful”?

on a seagull poo–like texture when mixed into cold water. Amelia saved my palate and joints by introducing me to the Great Lakes hydrolyzed version (green label), which blends easily and smoothly. Add a tablespoon of beet root powder like BeetElite to stave off any cow-hoof flavor, and it’s a whole new game. Amelia uses BeetElite pre-race and pre-training for its endurance benefits, but I’m much harder-core: I use it to make tart, low-carb gummy bears when fat Tim has carb cravings. RumbleRoller: Think foam roller meets monster-truck tire. Foam rollers have historically done very little for me, but this torture device had an immediate positive impact on my recovery. (It also helps you sleep if used before bed.) Warning: Start slow. I tried to copy Amelia and did 20-plus minutes my first session. The next day, I felt like I’d been put in a sleeping bag and swung against a tree for a few hours. Rolling your foot on top of a golf ball on the floor to increase “hamstring” flexibility. This is infinitely more helpful than a lacrosse ball. Put a towel on the floor underneath the golf ball, lest you shoot your dog’s eye out. Concept2 SkiErg for training when your lower body is injured. After knee surgery, Amelia used this low-impact machine to maintain cardiovascular endurance and prepare for the 2014 World’s Toughest Mudder, which she won 8 weeks post-op. Kelly Starrett (page 122) is also a big fan of this device. Dry needling: I’d never heard of this before meeting Amelia. “[In acupuncture] the goal is not to feel the needle. In dry-needling, you are sticking the needle in the muscle belly and trying to get it to twitch, and the twitch is the release.” It’s used for super-tight, over-contracted muscles, and the needles are not left in. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t have this done on your calves. Sauna for endurance: Amelia has found using a sauna improves her endurance, a concept that has since been confirmed by several other athletes, including cyclist David Zabriskie, seven-time U.S. National Time Trial Championship winner. He considers sauna training a more practical replacement for high-altitude simulation tents. In the 2005 Tour de France, Dave won the Stage 1 time trial, making him the first American to win stages in all three Grand Tours. Zabriskie beat Lance Armstrong by seconds, clocking an average speed of 54.676 kilometers per hour (!). I now use a sauna at least four times per week. To figure out the best protocols, I asked

People are confounded when a football player puts Bible verses in his eye black or kneels to pray in the end zone. To non-believers, it seems like a kind of spiritual flamboyance or pushy proselytizing when athletes publicly acknowledge God as the central pillar of their game plan. What these spectators rarely consider is why this spiritual orientation is so effective, on and off the field—why it works, and feeds on itself. Instead of “I’m the king of the world if I win, and a failure if I lose,” and the crushing pressure that entails, the spiritually rewired athlete’s internal logic is this: I’m a child of God; that’s my primary identity. God loves me regardless of what happens in this competition. God has given me these talents, these amazing gifts, and it’s my responsibility to use them as best I can, to perform and succeed to the utmost of my ability. But it’s not for personal glory, or to feed my towering ego. Rather, every burst of speed and power is a testament to a higher power whose love transcends any kind of earthly success. The competitive results are not part of that higher reality. But the effort is. The leap toward perfection of effort, a kinetic hymn, is a connection to God. It’s sacred, the way prayer is sacred. And at the same time it is exquisitely concrete. It has mass, speed, position, trajectory, in the now of a throw or a catch or a weight that needs to be lifted. It’s where physics meets the soul. This transcendent frame of reference doesn’t take away competitive pressure. But it takes away the emotional pressure that degrades performance and locks an athlete up. Faith eliminates a lot of psychic gear grinding and inefficiency. For a well-prepared, well-trained athlete, it’s a winning formula. And it was a winning formula for Rich Froning in July 2011.

Pat Riley called this our “disease of more.” Across his career, where he racked up eight NBA championship titles as a coach or GM, he noticed that championship teams across sports usually fail to win again the next year. “Success,” he wrote, “is often the first step toward disaster.” At first, pro athletes just want more wins. But once they win a championship, “more” shifts. They begin to focus their attention on a newly perceived scarcity. They now want more sponsorships, more playing time, more money, more individual recognition.

I was developing what I would call an "athletic" approach to hospitality, sometimes playing offense, sometimes playing defense, but always wanting to find a way to win. ... The point is to keep the dialogue open while sending the message: I am your agent, not the gatekeeper!

His psychiatrist told him that he had triumphed back then by adopting mental strategies that professional athletes used routinely—setting clearly defined goals, visualizing themselves performing flawlessly, and repeating affirmations that crowded out all doubts and fears until they were replaced with unshakable self-belief.

A couple of players who ask not to be identified say Solo had broken team rules about curfew more than once. They remember a specific incident during a tournament where Solo spent the night with her boyfriend instead of in her assigned room. These players say they told Sundhage, who chose not to punish Solo rather than turn it into an ordeal. On the flip side, Hope Solo was the greatest goalkeeper in the world. Sometimes what makes an athlete so great on the field can be the same thing that causes them problems off the field. Could you have Solo, the top goalkeeper, without Solo, the troublemaker? With a few months until the World Cup, there were more pressing questions at the moment, though. What if prosecutors revived Solo’s case and she was convicted? What if she got into trouble again? Would the federation have to suspend her? Could the USA win a World Cup without Solo?

We’re talking about them as athletes, rather than some of the conversations we had in ’99: My god, who are these women? They’re kind of hot!” Julie Foudy said. After the team won in 1999, the players turned into one-of-a-kind heroes, pioneers, and role models overnight. Many people rooted for them as a larger statement about women in sports. But by 2015, the players of the national team were athletes that America grew to love simply as athletes. If fans were going to be jubilant about a victory in the 2015 World Cup final, it wouldn’t just be because of some deeper meaning or greater impact—it would be because fans knew these players and wanted them to win. It was evidenced by Alex Morgan’s almost 2 million followers on Twitter, Hope Solo’s autobiography becoming a New York Times bestseller, and Abby Wambach appearing in Gatorade television ads on heavy rotation. No longer did the players need to show up at schools and youth clinics to hand out flyers, like the 1999 team did. The word about the national team was already out. In the team’s three May 2015 send-off games, they sold out every match, drawing capacity crowds at Avaya Stadium, the StubHub Center, and Red Bull Arena. Consider what Foudy told reporters in 1999 after the World Cup win: “It transcends soccer. There’s a bigger message out there: When people tell you no, you just smile and tell them, Yes, I can.” By 2015? Players like Carli Lloyd were talking about world domination. It was all about the soccer—and that, in and of itself, was something special and powerful.

Sustained strength is different from short-burst strength. Sustained strength is an athletic attribute particularly prized by wrestlers, boxers, mixed martial artists, football, basketball, hockey and lacrosse players. The common thread is participation in athletic events of long duration where last minute flurries make the difference between winning and losing, between 1st and 8th.

Why should we care so much about a mere £700,000? Let’s be clear on this point: Vote Leave’s scheme was the largest known breach of campaign finance law in British history. But even if it wasn’t, elections, like a 100-meter sprint in the Olympics, are zero-sum games, where the winner takes all. Whoever comes first, even if it’s by just a few votes or milliseconds, wins the whole race: They get to sit in the public office. They get the gold medal. They get to name your Supreme Court justices. They get to take your country out of the European Union. The only difference, of course, is that if you are caught cheating in the Olympics, you get disqualified and lose your medal. There are no discussions of whether the doped athlete “would have won anyway”—the integrity of the sport demands a clean race. But in politics, we do not presume integrity as a necessary prerequisite to our democracy. There are harsher punishments for athletes who cheat in sport than for campaigns that cheat in elections.

Athletic hospitality” meant always looking for a win, whether you were playing offense (making an already great experience even better) or defense (apologizing for and fixing an error).

Win the day.” This means you should take advantage of the opportunity that each day brings to be the best athlete you can be. “If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse

Your behaviors before bed are coded into your long-term memory.1 While you’re sleeping, your brain processes everything you experienced that day. But not everything equally. This is why top-performing athletes—like Michael Phelps, the most winning Olympian of all time—create visualizations of success just before they go to sleep.

Athletes with a growth mindset find success in learning and improving, not just winning. The more you can do this, the more rewarding sports will be for you

In one Globetrotter’s skit, it involved Globetrotter’s Captain Meadowlark Lemon collapsing on the ground, and Wilt threw him up in the air several feet high and caught him like a baby. Lemon weighed 210 lbs. Lemon, and other people including Arnold Schwarzenegger, said that Wilt was the strongest athlete that ever lived. On March 9, 2000, his number 13 was retired by the Globetrotters. Wilt’s NBA Career Accomplishments On October 24, 1959 Wilt finally made his NBA debut. Wilt played for the then, “Philadelphia Warriors.” Wilt immediately became the league’s top earner making $30,000 topping Bob Cousy who was making $25,000. The $30,000 is equivalent to $263,000 in today’s currency as per the year 2019. In Wilt’s 1959-1960 season, which was his rookie year, his team made the playoffs. The Warriors beat the Syracuse Nationals then had to go on to play the Eastern Conference Champions, the Boston Celtics. Coach Red Auerbach strategized his forward Tom Heinsohn to commit fouls on Wilt. When the Warriors shot free throws, Heinsohn grabbed and pushed Wilt to stop him from getting back on defense, so quickly. Wilt was a prolific shot blocker, and this allowed Celtics to score quickly without Wilt protecting the basket. The Warriors lost the series 4 games to two after Tom Heinsohn got a last second tip in to seal the win of the series for the Celtics. As a rookie Wilt shocked Warriors' fans by saying he was thinking of retiring from basketball. He was tired of being double- and triple-teamed, and of teams fouling him very hard. Wilt was afraid that he would lose his temper one day which he did in the playoff series versus Boston. Wilt punched Heinsohn and injured his hand. Wilt played for The Philadelphia Warriors, who then relocated to San Francisco, The Philadelphia 76ers, and The Los Angeles Lakers. He won one title with the 76ers then one with the Lakers. First NBA game Wilt scored 43 points and snatched 28 rebounds. Grabbed his rookie career high of 43 rebounds in a win over the New York Knicks.

The lieutenant was secretive and kept a low profile—given his past, it was for a good reason. But he confided in Haffenden, whom he trusted, and respected. Treglia was short, with an athletic build full of muscle.16 Treglia was a first-class officer, and Haffenden was happy to have him not only because he was an Italian-American, had expertise in the underworld, and was smart, but also because he was one of the only actual seamen in his command.