Welcome & Series Context

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Greetings and welcome. Welcome. I don't know about you, but I'm sure glad it's Wednesday. And it's not just any Wednesday. Here on the Sweet Spot, it's Win It All Wednesday. This is when we go in on the Sweet Spot. So thank you for joining me. Thank you for being a part of this wonderful series we're doing.

Recap Of Agreement One

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We're looking at a book called The Four Agreements, and we're unpacking it all week. So this is our third of seven episodes we're going to be doing on this book called The Four Agreements. And yes, yes, sweet spotter, we're in it. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. I'm a board-certified psychiatrist. I work in sports and high performance. But more than that, I love being your teammate here. I love being your teammate in this game, the game of life, where we are winners, where we were born to win. Literally, when we were born, we already won. We had already won the sperm egg race, okay, to be here on the planet. So you woke up a winner today, and we're gonna go to sleep a winner today, no matter what happens. This book, The Four Agreements, is good for us because it helps us confront any little agreement we have that might stop us from winning. What can we learn? Monday we talked about the agreements running quietly in the background. Remember that? The ones that were installed before you and I had a save when we were just little kids or just growing up and we just made little agreements with ourselves that might still be running today. Yesterday, Take Action Tuesday, we cleaned up the words. Our word. We talked about what you say to yourself when no one's watching, how you have to be so careful about that. What you say in the group chat, what you say in the mirror. All of those things matter. We talked about that. If you didn't hear what we talked about in terms of guarding your word on Take Action Tuesday, I invite you to go back.

Defining Winning Versus Losing

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Today we go deeper. It's Win It All Wednesday, and we're going in. Because today is about what happens when the world claps back. That's right. When the world has something to say. We talked about our words yesterday, but what about when the world has something to say? What about when the world is speaking? Yeah, let's talk about that and how it affects winning. I'm not just talking about titles and trophies when I say winning, I want to go more than that, right? There's an agreement that you and I have made somewhere, sometime, about what winning means. And more importantly, what you decided and I decided about losing. And what losing says about you. This is really important, right? Because you don't get to climb and be the best if you can't figure out losing and winning. And some places are still freaked out about that, they're still focused only on losing. That's so yesterday. That's not us. Most of us don't just hate losing. Here's the problem: we become the loss. The missed shot becomes, I always miss under pressure. I can't make a good shot under pressure. A bad review becomes, oh man, I suck. I'm not good enough. Somebody doesn't answer your email or return your call. Ah, they don't like me. You get some criticism, the coach gives you some feedback. That coach doesn't like me. You see, when we make a story up, we're not really thinking about losing, we're making agreements with ourselves. These are agreements under the losing, under the perception. And that agreement, not the setback, not the losing, it's the agreement that we have with it, and the interpretation is what's slowing us down and taking us out of the winning lane. Don Miguel Ruiz,

Agreement Two Introduced

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the author of the four agreements, the book we're looking at this week, he put it plainly. Nothing other people do is because of you. Nothing they say is because really of you. Even the feedback they're giving you and the judgment they're rendering on you is a projection of their own reality. Even when it's about you, it's not really about you. And you have to be able to separate the information they're giving you from the judgment that you're feeling because they're giving it to you. Listen, I'm not saying you don't accept the feedback, you do, but you don't take it personally, and that brings us to the second agreement. This book is called The Four Agreements. Yesterday we looked at agreement one, which was be impactful with your word. Today, sweet spotter, we're looking at the second agreement. Don't take anything personally. It's a tough one. I've had to work on that. I've had to come back to this second agreement several times in my life. And I'm sure there'll be more opportunities for me to practice the second agreement. Yes, even when you hear it and it's about you, it's not really about you because we inherited a different agreement. We were taught that criticism is a verdict, and that's the issue. That feedback is somehow a grade of who you are, and that's the issue. That other people's reactions are the scoreboards on what your value is, and that's the issue. So we are walking around worried about what other people think and what other people say and what other people's value of us is, and we are fusing the feedback with our identity, and we're having a problem. And so we walk into every room already defending ourselves against judgment, being defensive for stuff that hasn't even happened yet. Or we're taking everything so personally when in fact it's just feedback. And listen, we're not criticizing anybody here, it's just how the brain works. Remember, yesterday we talked about parts of the brain that were involved in this. I want to revisit that.

The Brain’s Self-Relevance Filter

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Do you know that in your brain there is a place, a processing center that's always asking the question, what does this mean about me? Yeah, there's this brain region, it's it's the it's in your prefrontal cortex, the PFC. Remember the CEO of the brain we always talk about? Yeah, there's a medial section. The medial prefrontal cortex, it's a self-referential sort of processing center, is the part of your brain that's always asking this question. What does this mean about me? What does this mean about me? And that region of the brain activates immediately when something feels like an evaluation. It's your brain filter. Every piece of information incoming to you runs through this filter. Is this a threat to how I see myself? Is this a threat to how others see me? It's not saying it exactly like that, but it trusts me, it's running a filter. And if the brain detects that this might be something about you that you don't like, or it's really getting a little odd for you, or it's feeling like a critical evaluation, you have some weird agreement about it, even if it's just a raised eyebrow from the coach, or it's just a line from the trainer, or maybe your spouse says something, your system responds as if the threat is real. And your body registers, your body sort of registers it way before your mind or your you can even say anything. Oh, yeah, your defenses go up, you're not thinking straight anymore, you kind of just focus on what was just said or what the feeling is, your heart rate's kind of slightly up, you're not being dramatic, you're just being a human being. But look, that's the filter, and that's why we have to be in awareness, and that's why this second agreement don't take things personally is so important. Because when we run everything through the filter of I take this personally, we are gonna have a really hard time. You can end up with high blood pressure, you can end up with like depression, anxiety, discomfort, just awkwardness. So much can come through this filter of I take everything personally. But you know what? Here's the good news, sweet spotter. Here's the good news. You and I can learn to work through this filter. That's what this book is about. You can work through the filter, you don't have to be in that filter. Think about what happens in a locker room after a loss, right? The player who recovers fastest isn't the one who feels it the least, it's the one who feels it fully and the one who is able to metabolize it. Okay, it happened, okay. We lost. This is not good, it sucks, I feel terrible. But I'm gonna move on because there's tomorrow. We have another game. They're able to separate the performance from the person. We lost, it's information, it's data. You know, there's a big difference between we lost and I'm a loser. You see, we lost is information, I'm a loser is an agreement. That's an agreement we're making with ourselves and with our brain. And there's a world of difference between those two sentences. One of them lives in the past and it helps you prepare for the future.

Information Versus Identity

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The other lives in your identity and follows you everywhere. If you're gonna go, if you say I'm a loser, I suck at this, that's gonna live in your identity, and it's gonna follow you everywhere. So you could be a medical professional, you miss something on a shift. You're a nurse, you're a doctor, you're an intern, you're a med student, you miss something on a shift. You can learn from that, or you can carry it home, sleep in it, and get up the next day and take it with you everywhere you go and make it your identity. That's what this agreement stuff is talking about. We've got to be careful. Maybe you're a student, you failed an exam. You know what? You can adjust the approach, or you can confirm the story that you've been telling yourself since middle school that I never can win, I'm gonna always fail and be scared all your life, right? Not judging you, just saying we've got to be aware and we've got to understand that we have options. You get tough feedback from the coach, don't be mad, don't be defensive, get curious. What is he or she saying to me? Don't shut down, don't disengage, get curious. What is this trying to tell me? And separate the data, the information, from the personal stuff. More than likely, the person is not talking about your identity, they're talking about your performance, and you're confused. A lot of us are confused because we attach, myself included, sometimes. Look, I'm doing the sweet spot. Sometimes people don't like what I say, and I get that feedback. But you know what I tell myself? You can't please everybody. You just gotta be you. You've gotta be honest, do your best work, right? And Derek Sweet, Dr. Sweet, don't take it personally. Because when you do that and you make your identity a performance, you're gonna suffer every time. Talent rarely limits performance, it's the story that we tell ourselves after the loss, after the criticism, that does the damage.

Kobe, MJ, And The Inner Edge

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And you know, you can learn from people like Kobe Bryant, the Mamba, right? From Kobe was cold-blooded, he had cold-blooded composure on the on the basketball court. Jordan has had a relentless cold-blooded drive after every setback. These are two of the greatest winners in all of sport. You know what their superpower was? And I'll I'll add in some of the top executives and and performers that I've worked with. You know what the superpower of these folks are? Or was that they didn't take things personally, they had an ability to separate what happens to them from who they are. That's the message today about the second agreement that we're talking about. Don't take things personally. Yeah, separating what happens to them from who they are was their superpower. You know, in that gap between the trigger and the identity, they found their edge. Remember, we talked about the edge, I think it was a week or two ago, we were talking about the edge, the inner edge. Yeah, Kobe didn't go cold because he didn't care. He went cold because he refused to let the moment become him. MJ didn't chase championships because losing didn't hurt. He chased them because he mastered the space between hurt and response. You see, that's the we live between hurt and response. And that's where the edge that we talked about, the inner edge has to be sharp. That space is trainable, and one way you train your inner edge between the hurt and the response is to not take things personally, to live by the second agreement. Kobe did it, MJ did it. Some of the best players on on teams do it, like your closers on teams are usually like this. They just not doing it. Coaches that have won championships, they don't they don't fold. They understand the second agreement, they're not taking it personally. Does that land? Does that make sense today? Yeah, winners don't take things personally forever. I'm gonna say forever because they can. And they do at times, but they don't they don't live in it and they don't judge themselves. I think that's even a bigger thing, right? They don't judge themselves. I don't want to skip the self-judgment part because some of us don't even need an outside critic. We are pretty darn good at criticizing ourselves. We don't need somebody else to tell us what's wrong because we're doing it every day. We do it to ourselves. Before anybody says a word, we walk into the room already, having cast a verdict of guilty, terrible, I'm not good enough to ourselves. We pre-reject ourselves so we don't have to even submit an application. We pre-reject ourselves so we don't even take the shot in the game. We pass the ball. We pre-reject ourselves so we hide in the back, we don't say anything. None of this is humility. That's an agreement with inadequacy, fear, dressed up as caution, being afraid of this, having to ask a thousand questions before we do anything. Listen, it's not a bad idea to ask, it's not a bad idea to consult. But if you've gotta have absolute assurance from a thousand people before you move, that's an agreement that you've made and it's worth checking out. Yeah, you gotta figure out how you handle judgment. When people mock you, when they misunderstand you, and they betray you,

Self-Judgment And Pre-Rejection

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what do you do? WWJD, I just came to me. What would Jesus do, right? I mean, we listen, the ancient wisdom always has an answer for us. The ancient wisdom always tells us what to do. You know, Jesus was mocked, Jesus was misunderstood, Jesus was betrayed and never defended himself in the way we'd expect. He never slapped somebody upside the head or pulled out a Uzi or something and off the whole room. Hey, there was that moment in the temple though, where he did he did kind of um, you know, handle his business. So I'm not saying be passive. Jesus was grounded, his identity wasn't constructed from other people's verdicts. He was definitely not taking things personally. And he didn't waver when the crowd turned on him, he didn't back down from the cross. Right? In Colossians, it says, you know, don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, but don't shuffle around, don't look up, be alert, okay? See what's going around, God. That's that's where the action is. See things from God's perspective. This is in Colossians 3, verse 2. It's right there. Don't shuffle along with your eyes to the ground, absorbed in things right in front of you. Look up, square your shoulders, be alert, and see what's going on around Christ and take action. That's where the action is. You know what that is? The ancient wisdom is telling us there that we have to have an elevated perspective. That we we we should zoom out from time to time and take a higher look at what's going on and not just be caught up in our feelings all the time. Because you'll recover faster. Alright, all right, let's do it this way. You're not into the ancient wisdom. The Stoics called it the same thing, they said, take the view from above. Same principle, just a different tradition. When Marcus Aurelius faced criticism from the Roman Senate and they were on him, he wrote to himself, you have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. I want that to land. Make that make sense. You have power over your mind, not outside events, controlled controllables. That's your mind. When you realize this, you will find strength. Not because the criticism didn't sting or didn't hurt, of course it does. But because criticism is not a verdict on your soul. That's what Marcus Aurelius was saying

Ancient Wisdom To Stoicism To Drake

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when he said, you have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength. Because he understood that criticism was not a verdict on his soul. Another way to say that is agreement two of the four agreements that we're unpacking today. Don't take things personally. Alright, you know, all right, all right, you know what? The stoics don't work for you. Alright, Marcus Aurelius is like he's from the past. The ancient wisdom is, you know, we even sing the word are ancient. How about Drake? Started from the bottom, now we're here. I'm just grabbing a line from one of his lyrics. Started from the bottom, now we're here. You know, people quote that line like it's about a rival, but listen to what it really requires to go from the bottom, right? The bottom to the top, you had to do something. You had to let go, you had to stop letting the bottom define you. You had to take every doubt, every dismissal, every door shut in your face, every criticism. All the people that told you you can't make it, you can't do it, this is not gonna work. You had to decide that that is not personal for you. You are going to have your say, you will have a final word. This is not the final word about me. You didn't take that's about not taking it personally. Use that stuff as fuel. When when when you when people take those things personally in the right kind of way, they use it as fuel without letting it become their identity. The edge that we talked about a couple of weeks ago or whatever, the edge, the inner edge. I'm borrowing from another series. You gotta go listen to the inner edge. The inner edge belongs to the person who can receive hard information without drowning in it. And that's the kind of person you and I have to be. You're gonna get feedback, you're gonna get criticism, you're not gonna get it your way every single time. That doesn't mean you have to drown. Because feedback is data, it's information. Criticism is data. When you lose, it's data. A bad review is data. I don't silence, no. Talking to you is data, data, data, data. Everything is information. You know why I'm saying this, beloved? Because data tells you something about a moment, a decision, a system, a pattern. That's all the data tells you. It doesn't tell you about your worth. The data does not define your ceiling and it does not know your story. The moment you confuse data with your identity, the moment you confuse information from a feedback or a criticism with your identity, you stop learning and you start defending. And you're in a completely different place. Remember, the amygdala will come back on, all right? The insular is gonna come back in, the ACC, all the brain legions I've been teaching you about survival will just kick in. And that's why you want to be sure you understand that you're just not gonna allow your information to be your identity. You're not gonna do that. You're not, and because you can't grow from being defensive all the time. Alright now, so let's do three moves.

Data Over Drama

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All right, this is the Win It All Wednesday. We're going in after your next piece of criticism or feedback, anything that comes your way that's negative before you respond. Sweet spotter, ask yourself one question. Is this information that I could use, or is this a verdict that I'm putting on myself? Is this information I can use, or is this a verdict that I'm accepting? You don't have to agree with every piece of feedback. But you should separate the data from the story before you react or before you dismiss it. Because sometimes the feedback is information that can make you better. Just take that and keep it going. I remember my mom told me once when I was getting a little bit twisted in medical school, I think it was something like have put a hole in one of your back pockets, not a literal hole, but I think she was speaking metaphorically. Put a hole in the back pocket for some comments to go out. Keep the ones that you need. Great advice, mom. I think I finally get it. Yes. So yeah, you know, that's the first thing, right? Ask yourself the question: is this information I could use or is this some kind of a verdict? I'm not gonna turn this into a verdict. Then the next thing is name your loss agreement, right? Every one of us has some kind of agreement we've made with ourselves. What do you tell yourself when you don't win? Just write that out for a second. Think it through, look at it, and then when you see what you tell yourself when you lose, ask yourself,

Three Practical Moves

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who taught me this? Because you didn't make this up alone. And the good news is you don't have to keep that. Yes, you can choose a new script. And then remember, we talked about the zoom out, and we're gonna close here. We talked about the zoom out, right? The next time judgment from somebody hits you, or you start judging yourself, ask yourself this question. In five years, in ten years, in five will this matter? I'm not saying deny anything here, but actually ask yourself, will this matter in five years? Because feedback again is not your identity. A loss is not your legacy, and criticism is just a moment. It's not a measurement of your it's a moment in your time, it's not a measurement in your worth or value. That's the thing, right? The second agreement is gonna protect you. Don't take things personally because the second agreement is saying to you, look, it's not that I don't care, it's that I just can't collapse in this. I'll feel what you're telling me, I'll process this, I'll learn from it, but I am not going to let it take me down. So for science, for soul, and for success, I am not taking anything personally today or tomorrow. I'll see you Thursday for trusting

Closing & Teaser For Thursday

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yourself. Because listen, the person who can take the hit without becoming the hit, that's the one. That's the one. See you tomorrow.