I'm so glad you did. You made it to Wednesday. Not just any Wednesday, my friend. You made it to Win It All Wednesday. Hump day, the day we get over the hump. Together, this is the sweet spot. We're in a series called How You Stand Under Pressure. This is episode three of seven, where we talk about holding your ground when it gets loud. Good morning, beautiful souls. Good afternoon. And good evening if it's evening time that you're listening to this. Welcome back to the sweet spot. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. As you know, I'm a board-certified psychiatrist. I work with athletes, executives, first responders, and people who are asked to perform and endure when the noise is real and the stakes are high. And like you, I've had some seasons when winning didn't feel very close, where winning felt very far away. So let's anchor where we are. On Monday, Making Moves Monday, we talked about the difference between stress and pressure and how stabilizing your stance keeps panic from deciding your next move. If you did not hear Making Moves Monday, I invite you to take a few moments and listen. Yesterday we talked about doing one responsible thing, then pausing. Because pressure is managed by sequence and not speed. Knowing your sequence. So today is Win It All Wednesday, and today we need to correct something that most of us get wrong. Winning. Winning does not start with confidence. I know there's a lot of literature and it's quite popular to say the winning starts with confidence, but in my experience, it doesn't. Winning does not start with confidence. Winning starts with belief that we can hold when the confidence shakes. Do you get what I'm saying? The winning starts when the belief is shaken and it doesn't move. That's the idea. Belief is unshakable. Do you get it? Confidence will shake. Oh yes, it will. It can be shook. Confidence is emotional. It rises and falls with results, with feedback, with health, with how loud the environment gets. All of those things will affect confidence. But belief, a deep held belief, is different. Belief is structural. It determines how much ground you can stand on when things feel unstable. And here's the thing, my friend: pressure doesn't destroy belief. Pressure reveals it. Yes, when the noise gets loud and the criticism rises, the losses pile up, the illness won't go away, the disappointment has come. The grief. The shame, whatever it is, the silence, the doubts. When those things get loud, that's when belief can show up in one quiet moment. And ask the question: Do I stay upright or do I collapse inward and redefine myself by this moment? This is where stabilizing your stand, stabilizing your stance becomes the difference between surviving now and winning later. When you stabilize your stance, my friend, you are sending a clear signal to your nervous system. You are saying to your amygdala, the threat center, you are saying it out loud to the PFC, your prefrontal cortex, I am still here. The moment might be loud, but it does not own me. I'm gonna say that again because I need to hear it for me. I am still here. This moment might be loud, but it does not own me. That's what I believe. That's why I want you to believe it too, because that signal matters, it keeps your body from slipping into helplessness, it keeps the mind from turning temporary pain and temporary setbacks into a permanent identity. This is not you. And the ancient wisdom names this kind of steadiness with uncommon honesty. Oh boy, and my dad in his Bible had this circled. Philippians 4, I think it was verses 11 and 12. Philippians, he had this circle, and I want to share it with you because it fits with what we're talking about today. The idea that you've got to stabilize your stand, and what do you stand on? And what does that mean to have this mental stability, this mental resilience? Here's what the ancient wisdom tells us. I've learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. Wow, that's a whole lot that the ancient wisdom is trying to tell us. I've learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. What circumstances are you in right now that we have to teach you and I have to teach me to be content? Do we know how to live and how to stand stable? Whether we have a lot or a little, whether we're rich or poor, whether the stomach is full or empty, whether we're alone or we're with someone, whether we're happy or sad. The word in this scripture is learned. I have learned to be content. You know what happened to me when I read this? I kept focusing on content. I want to be content. I want to be happy. I want to be happy. I do, I like being happy. But the word learned, I bypass. We've got to learn this. Paul isn't saying that this stuff comes naturally. I didn't get that at first, that I had to learn some things. He isn't saying that faith erases hardship either. He isn't saying that circumstances improved. What he is saying is this. He's saying this was trained, this attitude that I have was trained under pressure. Notice what he does not say. He doesn't say he stopped wanting relief. He doesn't say the pain disappeared. He doesn't say loss didn't hurt. He's real. What he changed was his outlook. What he changed was his mindset. What he changed was his stance. He learned how to stand under pressure. Paul learned how to remain internally upright even when life was externally unstable. Are you in a situation or have you been in the situation where life was shaky, where it was hard? Let your belief go to work. And belief here doesn't mean pretending things are fine. That's not what I'm talking about. That's some other level of Christianity that I'm still trying to figure that part out. Belief here doesn't mean pretending things are fine, it means refusing to let your situation become your identity. That's what I'm picking up. Refusing to let this situation or any situation that comes my way become my identity. When Paul talks about contentment, he's not talking about comfort, he's talking about inner stability, being stable. And I've watched my parents be that, be really stable. I've watched my aunts and uncles, my elders be that. I've watched people I've admired, my dear beloved, belated pastor, Pastor Sam, and Pastor Tony. I've watched them be that. The ability to say, this is what I really believe, this is what mental toughness is. The ability to say, this is painful, but it's not all of me. It's not gonna own me. The ability to say this chapter is real, but it's not my whole story. I'm more than what I'm losing right now, I'm more than what I'm experiencing right now. Greater is the thing in me than the thing that's in the world. That's what whatever is coming at me. And that's why your stand and your stability in your stand matters so much. If you feel like you're losing, if you feel like something is unfair, stand, stand against it. Let's make it real. I think about a person living with a debilitating illness, something that's really hard. The body has changed, the energy is unpredictable, the pain is is real, the plans are smaller. When the unstable stand wants to come at you, it'll say something like, This is who I am now, I guess I have no future. No, the stabilized stand is this is what I'm carrying, but it's not who I am. The belief doesn't erase the illness. What it does is it keeps despair from defining your future or my future. We're not gonna let it define what the future is. If you're an athlete and you lost your starting spot, maybe it was public, maybe it was painful, maybe the coach yelled at you in front of the cameras and that went viral. The unstable stand is, well, I'm done, I'm toast, nobody, you know, uh-uh, I'm a laughing stock. Well, guess what? The stabilized stand it goes against that. The belief has to be look, my role change, not my worth. You see, belief keeps effort clean instead of bitter. If you're feeling invisible, like nobody's noticing your effort, that the you're feeling like you don't matter, the stabilizing stance argues against it. It says, I matter even when I don't get affirmation from other people. I've been fearfully and wonderfully made every hair of my head account for. I matter. I'm the head, I'm not the tail. I matter. The belief keeps you standing when validation is absent. That's the power of real belief. And this is the truth we don't say enough, and then we're gonna close. Winning is not about how you feel right now. Winning is not about how it feels right now. You know what winning is? Winning is about whether you stay upright long enough for the next chapter to arrive, and it will arrive. So stabilizing your stance gets you ready for the next chapter. It doesn't make you confident, it makes you durable. And durability, my friend, is what belief gives you when circumstances are crazy, when circumstances are overwhelming. You're going to be durable. You can be a winner even when things feel shaky. If you refuse to let this moment redefine who you are. We're too deep to go back. It's with it all Wednesday. We're in. Tomorrow is Trust Yourself Thursday, and we're gonna connect belief to trust. Especially when doubt is present, when doubt is present, and and the outcomes aren't guaranteed. That's where trust and belief have to join hands. And you gotta choose uh check it, check in with me tomorrow because we're gonna we're gonna go deeper on that. So, my friends, beautiful ones, sweet winners, if this spoke to a place in you that feels worn down or unseen, or you've just been grinding through, please subscribe. It's absolutely free. And more than that, if someone you love feels that they're like losing it right now, I want you to share this with them because sometimes it's just hearing a word from somebody else who's a fellow traveler with them that can make all the difference. You don't win by never being shaken. You win by learning how to stand while you are being shaken. We're building this together, and I'm gonna see you tomorrow. Dr. Sweet Out.