Okay now, it is Win It All Wednesday, and I don't know about you, but I'm sure glad that I woke up a winner today. And if you're not feeling like that, let me remind you: the fact that you woke up this morning, the fact that you're listening to the sweet spot. You are already a winner. You're in this to win it. And trust me, you are already a winner. Just say it to yourself: I am already a winner. Yes, yes, sweet spotter, you are a winner. And I just want to remind you about that because sometimes you need to say it out loud to remind yourself that listen, I've got life, I've got some strength, I can hear, I can sort of make a move today, I can reorganize myself today. If it's not working, I'm can I can say to myself it's not working yet. And that is why you're listening to the sweet spot on Win It All Wednesday today. And that is why you're in this series called Hold the Line that we've been running all week. The idea of holding the line. Today's episode is entitled Compete Without Shrinking. Stay big. Stay big. Don't back down. This illness is not gonna overtake you. This financial pressure is not gonna uh throw you back so you can't get it done. You're gonna fix this. This relationship, we're gonna figure it out. We're gonna figure it out. This problem or challenge, whatever it is that you're facing. Are you facing a test? Are you facing something that is so big that it feels like you may not win? I'm here to tell you, sweet spotter, sweet dreamer, you most certainly can win. You were born to win. You are already a winner. Let's reset the ground. This is hold a line. Monday we established the line. We said this is the ground we're not backing down from. Tuesday, we moved without waiting for the mood to be right. Remember, we're not gonna wait for a good mood to get it done. We're gonna take action. We're gonna hold our ground and we're gonna take action. Very simple. We can advance it 10 minutes if we can't advance it 10 months. We don't have to worry about 10 months from now. We have to worry about right here, right now. And I'm telling you, sweet builder, right here, right now, you have nothing but potential to get it done. This is Win It All Wednesday. And Wednesday is where pressure can show up. Because once you start advancing, resistance is going to push back. Isn't that true about life? That's what it's all about. The game of life is about the resistances, the challenges, and the obstacles that we're gonna face. Maybe you haven't faced any yet, but trust me, they're coming. They're there. So, to understand this idea that we've been running with all week long, which is hold a line, you have to understand that uh this is from a historical uh when on Monday we talked about this. This was the 17th century, at literally 1631, the Battle of Britainfield during the 30 Years' War. King Gustafus Adolphus of Sweden was facing a very seasoned opponent. Gustafus Adolphus the King was facing a really good opponent in this Catholic League army under Count Tilly. They were they were good fighters, and at that time most European armies used to fight in deep, rigid infantry blocks. They were quite powerful, they were very intimidating, and they were very slow and methodical. But you know what King Gustafus did? King Adolphus did? He did something different. He formed a line, he trained his soldiers to move in thinner, more flexible, linear formations. They drilled, they practiced in these line formations. They worked on their spacing, their timing, they coordinated themselves so that they can reposition and move the line when they needed to move the line. And you know what? When the battle came and some of their uh allies ran and panicked, King Gustafus's infantry did not scatter. The line maintained its formation despite the challenges, despite the obstacles. They repositioned the line deliberately when things shifted, and they continued in a coordinated way. Wow! This is the 17th century. I'm talking the 1600s. They did not shrink under pressure. Gustafus was able to maneuver and ultimately defeat Tilly's forces decisively using this line, and that's where we get this hold the line. Yeah, and that's what you have to do today is hold that line, maintain your formation, reposition deliberately when you have to, continue in a coordinated, structured fashion. That's what matters. The soldiers who hold the line, the soldiers who are able to hold the line win the battle. They didn't invent courage in the moment. They were just responding based on what they had practiced. They revealed their conditioning. Yeah. That's where the neuroscience met the history, right? Because under pressure, the amygdala, remember our friend the amygdala, our threat detection center, you knew I was gonna get here. You had to know Dr. Sweet was gonna tie in the brain to what happened in holding the line. You had to know that. By now you know that. When you're under pressure, the amygdala fires and your adrenaline spikes. You know what happens to your vision? It doesn't widen, it narrows because the vision, your brain is trying to get you to deal with what's in front of you. But you see, as the stress takes over and there's more stress, another brain system enters to help you. It's called the basal ganglia. We've talked about this before. That's the habit circuitry. You see, under pressure, you don't rise to your potential, as people think. You actually default to the patterns that you've been practicing. Just like that army was practicing the holding the line, that was their habit. So when the pressure rose for them, haha, they just defaulted to their pattern. Under pressure, you don't rise to potential. No, no, no, no, no. You default to the pattern. What's your pattern? And that's why this line matters. That's why this line matters from I believe Trevor Mohat. First, you form habits, and then they form you. First, you form your habits, and then they're gonna form you. So Gustavo's soldiers trained formation until it became automatic for them. So, under musket fire, when the guns were going off, the discipline wasn't debated. It was just executed. They weren't scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do. They didn't need a motivational talk, they didn't need to feel anything. They had trained their line, they were holding their line, they had trained their formation until it became automatic. So discipline was not a debate. A discipline wasn't debated. There was no question whether I had the discipline. It was already executed because they practiced enough. So sometimes when coach is pushing you to practice, huh? He wants you to be automatic when the pressure comes. Does that make sense? And this is also true, my friends. Average people become average by doing average stuff. It's just simple. Average people become average because they do average stuff, and I'm not mad at them. Listen, that's what it is. Superior or better skills could become out of better practice. They do if you want more, you gotta do something you've never done. So average people become average because they do average stuff, it's cool. And the neuroscience agrees with me. Repetition wires certain circuits in the brain. Circuits automate your behavior, and then the automation shows up under stress. It's why this athlete performs this way in the last two minutes of the game, and this other athlete comes apart. It's why this businessman or businesswoman behaves this way when the pressure rises and is able to execute and deliver and bring outcomes, and the other type comes apart and you see it under stress. It's why this doctor behaves a certain way in the EER or in the OR, and the other doctor behaves a certain way. Because what happens is whatever the automation is, it's gonna show up when the stress rises. So, winning. This is Win It All Wednesday. What am I saying? I'm saying the winning is not emotional, it's rehearsed, it's whatever you're rehearsing. Yeah, and and and and look, there's a great book, Inner Excellence. I don't know if you've ever read it. It's by a master author, a master performance coach, one of the best in the world, Jim Murphy. He writes that the obstacle, he said that the obstacle is not the moment that you're in. The obstacle is your thinking about the moment. What do you think of this moment? And I love that because if you're in here thinking that, oh my god, it's always too much, I can't do this, whatever. That's what it is. Going back to my my guy Gustafus, the King Gustafus in Britainfield, that battle, you know, that battle in 1631, uh, Britainfield, he didn't win that battle. Brittenfield wasn't won because the battlefield was calm, it was won because interpretation stayed steady. They held the line. When you are under pressure, beloved, I want you to hold the line. Do not back down, do not give up. Hold the line. Like what Jim Murphy is saying here is that the obstacle is not the moment. The obstacle is your thinking about what the moment is. You're not uh alone and exempt from this. You have a role in this this thing, in this moment. Remember yesterday, I don't know if it was yesterday or the day before, we said the obstacle is the way. It's not in the way, it is the way. You're going through this thing, you're gonna get through this. Yeah. Jim Murphy says it this way: someone is going to get what they want. Your job is to prepare and behave so that that person is you. That's it. Pressure is not punishment. If you're under pressure, it means someone cares what you do and somebody's relying on you. At that battle in Britain Field with King Gustafus, thousands were depending on the formation integrity. You know, you might be under pressure today, you might be feeling something, but I guarantee you it's tied into something that other people are depending on you for. So you're in a great place to handle this pressure by not backing down, by holding your line. Pressure means responsibility. And if you're one of the stoic type individuals who love stoic philosophy, Marcus Aurelius puts it best: you have power over your mind, not over outside events. This is how you hold the line, recognizing that you control your mind and your thoughts. Realize this and you will find strength. That is what Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations 1236. He says that you have power over your mind, no one else's mind. You don't have it over outside events, but and once you realize that you will find strength. You cannot control the fire, the incoming fire that's coming in. You cannot control what outside is gonna bring to you, but you can control your line, you can control your formation. Absolutely, you can. Message Bible puts it this way in 2 Timothy. God doesn't want us to be shy with his gifts, but be bold and loving and sensible. That's what it says. I love it. It's just so straightforward. He doesn't want you to be shy. Be bold, be loving, be sensible. Bold and sensible, not reckless, not timid. Those are important points because that's how you hold your line. You're sensible, you're bold, you do it with care. You don't have to become uh an idiot, uh a clown, you don't have to become the evil emperor to do this. No, you can still be your loving self and still be bold and still be sensible and still be strong. Absolutely, you can. And the Dhammapada, if you're in one of these Buddhist moods, says it this way: Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. You know what that means? You can be you. If this is your line, that you are a line for love, you're a line for forgiveness, you're a line for what is right. It doesn't matter if this world is showing you all kinds of disgusting, horrible, terrible acts, you hold your line. Stand your ground. Because when you stand, you win. Composure under competition. The game always gets down to the sort of the last few minutes, the last quarter, right? That's where you stand, that's where you hold the line. So this is your Wednesday strategy. Audit your defaults. When pressure rises, do you rush? Run an audit. Do you withdraw? Do you start freaking out? Do you overcompensate? Do you hesitate? What do you do when the pressure rises? Do you even take a deep breath? Do you relax? Do you step back? Do you say, hey, this is the ground that I'm protecting? Do you understand that? Do you do you have a plan to hold your line? Because once you have that, you're already a winner. So today, pick one performance habit, one breath before your response, one posture cue that you're gonna do, one repeatable ritual. Train it in a calm way. Train yourself to be who you want to be and how you're gonna hold slime under pressure. So that biologically, with your breathing, because you're gonna control your breathing and you know how to control breath, taking deep breaths and resetting yourself. You know what you're doing? You're strengthening automatic performance pathways. Yes. So that when pressurizes, you go back to your breath. Psychologically, you're expanding your identity. I'm the kind of person that holds a line under stress. That's what I do. I'm gonna hold the line. That's what I do. This is who I am. You know what? That's a psychological stand. That's a psychological line. Biologically, you breathe and you reset your nervous system. Psychologically, you have an identity. And socially, you connect with others. You're not afraid to ask for help if you need it, you're not afraid to configure yourself, to conspire with someone, to figure out what is the next thing that I need to do. Do you have some wisdom you can share with me? You go get the help because it makes you stronger. And spiritually, you don't back down. You honor the responsibility attached to the pressure, and you align yourself with your values, and you hold the line. So that's it. That's what that's that's what it is. And here's your affirmation. Here is your affirmation. I don't shrink under pressure. No, no, no. I don't shrink under pressure. I default to discipline. I stay big. I stay big. I stay strong. Because I know that greater is the thing in me than what's in the world. Amen. Amen. You have been listening to The Sweet Spot. It is Win It All Wednesday. I didn't say win it some, I said win it all Wednesday. You deserve it. Alright now. This is Dr. Derek Sweet. If this sharpened you today, share it, subscribe, it's totally free. And if it if you if it if it um sort of got you so motivated that you wanted to share it with somebody else, please do. Because this is building community, it's building a community that competes without shrinking. That's who we are, that's our identity. We don't shrink, not at all. We hold our ground. And let me leave you with this pressure isn't a sign that you're failing when you feel it. It's a sign that you matter. You're feeling pressure, you matter. Stay big, stay strong. Let's hold a line for science, for soul, and for success.