Ask The Winner Question

Give Each Moment Its History

One Thought Slot And Pacing

Behavioral Goals And Chunking Wins

SPEAKER_00 0:06

I don't know about you, but I'm sure glad it's Wednesday. And not just any Wednesday, it is Win It All Wednesday here on the Sweet Spot. Hey everybody, I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. I'm your broad certified psychiatrist here as your sports psychiatry specialist working in high performance. And more than that, I'm your teammate. Yes, your teammate in the game of life. And together we're going for the win. Here on the sweet spot, we don't call Wednesday any old Wednesday, we call it Win It All Wednesday. It's about science, it's about soul, and it's about success here on Win It All Wednesday. And here's what I want you to understand about winning. Most people think winning is the scoreboard at the end, the title, the result. And yes, those things do matter. But in this book that we've been reading all week, the book called It Takes What It Takes by Trevor Moad, the author Trevor Moad has a definition of winning that is more useful than anything a scoreboard can tell you. Oh yes, winning is what you do in this moment. That's right. This moment, this one right here. That's what the author says. When you make the right choice here, and you make it here and here, and in every moment, the scoreboard takes care of itself. So Monday, as you remember, as we read in the book, we went into neutral thinking. On Tuesday, we talked about the governor. We governed our words and we took action anyway. Today, on Win It All Wednesday, we run to win. We don't run to finish or to survive, we run to win. So we're gonna get right into it with a couple of concepts that I want you to understand. And the first concept is what would a winner do here? Moad, the the author, builds the entire framework for winning around one question that he writes. And the question is neutral thinking is about gaining as much clarity as possible, reclaiming as much control as possible, and then asking, what would a winner do in this situation? Hmm, that's the question that you want to ask yourself no matter what you're involved in. You want to be a winner? You ask yourself this question: What would a winner do here? It's not a rhetorical question, it's a decision-making tool. When you ask your prefrontal cortex, your brain's CEO, this question, oh, you're requiring an honest answer from yourself. So when the author, Trevor Moad, says, Hey, what would a winner do here? What would a winner do in this situation? Ask yourself that. Get clarity and reclaim control by asking that question. Do you realize that when you ask yourself that question, you have already framed everything for yourself? Just get present to what I'm saying. When you just look in the mirror and you just say, hey, what would a winner do here? What would a winner do in this situation? You're facing a big decision, you're facing a big moment, you're in the game. What would a winner do just by framing it that way? Oh my goodness, you're already deep in win it all Wednesday, aren't you? So, yes, and then the author follows it up with this. Winners only win when they behave like people who win. We talked about this yesterday in Take Action Tuesday, didn't we? That winners only win when they behave like people who win. So they don't, it's not about feeling like a winner, right? It's not about when your circumstances are favoring you winning. No, no, you have to behave like a winner, you have to act like a winner. Behavior is the identity. And in any given moment, sweet spotter, are you in a meeting? Are you in a conversation? Are you in a game? Are you at practice? Are you at home making lunch or breakfast? Are you making a decision anywhere? There's a winning behavior that has to be part of your identity. And the question is whether you're asking the question or whether or not you're even in the mindset of asking the question. And the author gives you three operating principles to stay in that. You have to be aware of the past, that's one. You have to be grounded in the present, that's two. And the third thing is that you have to be in control of the next behavior. One is to be aware of the past, two is to be grounded in the right here, right now, in the present, and three is to be in control of the next behavior. So, look, this thing about being aware of the past isn't about being defined by your past. Right? You have to be aware of it, learn whatever you have to learn from it, put it in the past where it belongs, and then be grounded in the present. Don't be too far ahead, don't be into tomorrow. Be right here, right now. That's something we talk about a lot in the sweet spot. We have to be in the moment. The sweet spot is in the moment, right here, right now. So that's the second of the three-part operating principle. And the third, obviously, is to be in control of the next behavior. Ask the question, like we talked about on Monday and Tuesday, right? What do I do next? Not how do I feel about it? What do I have to do next? So that's the concept I want you to get into your head today. You want to be a winner? You want to really like get into uh win it all Wednesday? Ask yourself the question today. What would a winner do in this situation? How am I behaving? Am I what would a winner do in this circumstance? What would a winner do faced with this problem? What would a winner do in terms of responding to this person? Ask yourself the question. It changes your prefrontal cortex, it changes your neural wiring, it changes you and your your concept. And the second concept, which is another cool one from this book, the book that we're unpacking this week, is Trevor Moad's, It takes what it takes. And here's the second concept. Give each moment its own history. And this idea is unlocking when it all went at its deepest level. The author writes, staying in the moment, giving each moment its own history, and reacting to events as they unfold, that's the key. Staying in the moment, giving each moment its own space, its time, its history, and then reacting to the event as it unfolds. So what this means practically is this the moment that you and I are in right now is not obligated to carry every moment that came before it. In other words, the rough start to your to the week doesn't determine how Wednesday is gonna go. The loss last month is not evidence about what today is gonna look like for you. We're not gonna live in the past. We're gonna put the past in the past where it belongs, and we're gonna stay grounded in the present. You see, most of us drag our full history into every moment we're entering. And our brain, which we learned yesterday, absorbs negativity seven times faster than positivity, registers all of the accumulated past weight as if it's in the present tense and it weighs us down. It's as if we have a file that belongs in a file cabinet that's labeled past, and we bring the past file into the present file where it doesn't belong. Absolutely. So Moad, the author, uses a marathon runner to make this even clearer. He writes, she has to run 26.2 miles, but she's thinking about the finish line when the race starts. No, not good. That's too much. You don't do that because then all of a sudden, you're not in the right moment, you're not here, you're not right now. You should be thinking about your pacing for the first mile. So, whatever you have to do today, stay in the moment. You see, the author writes, at any given moment, our minds can sustain only one thought at a time. One. So the only question is: what are you giving your one slot to today? If you're bringing every single thing from the past to this moment right now, well then you're way down, you're bogged down. Or if you're so far in the future, you're miles ahead of what you should be doing, you're missing the moment, and you're not paying attention. Yeah. So you cannot win the whole season today. You cannot win the race, the whole race, before you even run it. You gotta take one step. But you can win this moment. You can win this rep. You can win this conversation. You could take this moment and make it really matter. And when you win moment by moment by moment, it compounds itself. Yeah, it begins to compound itself. And so the way the author put it is that when you plan to win and you take an action in the moment to win, you're building and stacking winning and winning and winning by moment by moment by moment. And you have to have that as a mindset. That's gotta be the plan. I've worked across many sports, multiple sports, with athletes and performers and uh who sustain excellence because they set a specific kind of goal. A goal that helps them win the moment. And that's called a behavioral goal. It's not an outcome goal. It's not saying I want to win the game. Of course, anybody wants to win the game, but they don't make that the only goal. They make it, they have a behavioral goal. I will pay attention to how I play defense, I will do the best I can in this moment, I will give my very best. The ancient wisdom backs this up. In 1 Corinthians, it says, run in a way, run in such a way as to get the prize. Not just run, run in such a way that you get the prize. You see, the intention beh inside the behavior matters. So you want to win, look at your process, look at whether or not you're winning the moment. That's the key. Give the moment its history. And then also ask yourself the question: what would a winner do here? How would a winner behave? Would a winner get up early and go to practice? With a inner, would a winner eat the right foods? Would a winner go to sleep at the right time? Those are the kinds of questions you want to ask, right? That's the idea. Yeah. Because the brain is listening. The neural circuits in your mind are listening. And when you take one action and you stack it with another action and you stack it with another action, neuroscientists call this chunking. It's an actual term. And it is exactly what the author is describing when he says this in his book. It takes a plan to achieve anything of value. Where you plan, you identify an end goal, and then you chart out your neutral behaviors that can help you reach the next goal. Remember, with neutral thinking, it's not how I feel, it's what do I do next. And what do I do next? It's what do I do next. So you plan to win, not just get through it. You plan to win it. And you do it in the moment. You win the moment. And you constantly ask, What would I want to do here? What would I want to do here? That's the key. So you're running it away as such to get the prize. Here's your move on Win It All Wednesday. Before anything else today, here's how you do it. Come say this out loud. If I win today, it means that I, and then I want you to complete that sentence with something that's in your control. Something that you know that you can do, a behavior. If I win today, it means that I, and then you figure out the behavior and the action that you want to do. Do you get that? And when you complete it, you give a check mark next to it. Let the brain take in the win. Because if you move straight to the next thing without acknowledging what you just did, you deny the brain the signal it needs to understand that you have literally accomplished it moment by moment. You know, Nas, the legendary Queen's British rapper who built one of the most decorated careers in hip-hop history, he said it simply in one of the most iconic lines he ever wrote. You know what that line is? Whose world is this? The world is yours. But guess what? Trevor Moab, the author of this book, puts it this way: You have more power over yourself than anyone else does. Whose world is this? This is your world. And guess who has the power? You. And you know what the ancient wisdom says? Greater is that which is in you than what's in the world. Same truth from different voices. And then this, one of my favorite lines in the entire book. And this is a line that I've given to so many performers that gets them through the toughest games. And this is the quote, and I want you to write this one down. What happened, happened. Period. Okay, fine. What happens next has nothing to do with that. I'll repeat it. What happened, happened. Okay, fine. What happens next has nothing to do with that. That's how you take on the identity of a winner. Yeah, it happened. So it happened. Okay, fine. It happened. But what happens next has nothing to do with that. Define today's win, sweet spotter, and go win it. You see, it takes what it takes to win. And today on Win It All Wednesday, what it takes is the question. What would a winner do here? What would a winner do in this circumstance? I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. You're listening to The Sweet Spot. You're in Win It All Wednesday. And you are unpacking science, soul, and success. If you enjoyed this series, if you're enjoying this episode, please share it with someone that you care about. Also, if you haven't signed up, today is a great day to be a winner and join us here on the Sweet Spot. It's absolutely free. So tomorrow, Sweet Spotter, tomorrow is Trust Yourself Thursday. And we're gonna go into future self. Yeah, future self. Who you're building toward, and what person you're becoming. I'll see you tomorrow. Take care.