February 19, 2012

"Everybody's got a game plan, until they get hit!"

-Mike Tyson, Former Boxing Heavyweight champion

Getting hit by Mike Tyson is sure to throw anyone's game plan into disarray. In the 80s and 90s Mike Tyson was the most dominant boxer on the planet. He was the undisputed heavyweight champion, uniting the WBC, WBA and IBF titles. Nintendo even named a videogame named after him. (I figure getting a video game or a Saturday morning cartoon named after you to be the pinnacle of sports achievement). In my hood in the Bronx a “Tyson blow” was synonymous with getting hit really, really, really hard. Ask Trevor Berbick.  The victory over Berbick gave Tyson his first belt.  But it started even earlier. Ask Joe Cortez.  They fought in the Junior Olympics and Tyson knocked him out in 8 seconds.  He was still an amateur!  Ask Michael Spinks.  He got knocked out in the first 91 seconds of his fight with Tyson. Bam!  Ask Larry Holmes. Tyson was the only man to knock Holmes out in 75 professional fights.  (We must remember Holmes danced with Ali and didn’t get knocked out)!  Ask Carl “The Truth” Williams, another first round knockout. Tyson garnered a total of 44 knockouts in his career with many of them occurring in the first or second rounds.  I remember purchasing the pay per view for some of those fights.  I didn’t actually appreciate PAYing $40 for about 2 minutes of VIEWing.   Looking back, I have to say Tyson did give plenty of “bang” for the buck. Sorry, I couldn't resist that pun.

How does this week’s quote apply to you? Have you ever gotten "hit"? It could be a divorce, the death of the spouse, the loss of a job, a serious illness or a car accident. Anything like those can be devastating like a “Tyson blow” and but you can't let it throw you off of your game plan. Such serious challenges can be even worse for us if we had no game plan to begin with. Can you imagine going into a fight with Mike Tyson with no game plan in mind?  Tyson was the most feared boxer of his day so I have to wonder what went through the minds of the opponents he faced in the years 1985 to 1992 when he was at the peak of his professional career.  I hope they had a plan. Even with a plan most of them, however, had never been hit by a fighter who punched as hard as Iron Mike Tyson.  The shock and trauma that results from that kind of punch can definitely cause us to forget whatever well laid plans we might have made in the days and weeks leading up to such a fight.

Mental coaching stresses goal setting. Part of having a goal like being heavyweight champ means having a plan.  Do you have a life plan? What is it that you want to do? Where is it that you want to go? How are you going to make it happen? May be you've got a plan for your business.  Maybe you've got a plan for something more low-key like your next vacation but have you planned for life's hard hits? Have you planned for the unforeseen circumstances that can strike without warning? The great thing about fighting with Tyson in the 80s was that if you could weather the storm of the first one or two Tyson blows and make it through to the second round then you might actually have had a chance. Unfortunately, in the ring of real life the hard hits don't necessarily come in the first round.  They can come at any time.

I once coached a client who was a marathon runner who was also planning her wedding.  Sharon was a very organized person and had very detailed lists of all the things that she needed to do leading up to her wedding day and many of the tasks that needed to be done were being handled by her parents. Her mom and her dad were very supportive and had the finances to give her a very beautiful wedding.  What she didn’t foresee was the strain that the wedding would place upon her parents relationship.  For reasons that I never learned, her parents “suddenly” separated after 25 years of marriage just weeks before her nuptials.  Although the wedding did go forward, the fact that when her father walked her down the aisle, Sharon no longer had the sense of certainty of her parents’ 25 years of successful marriage.  As a result, she lacked that sense of confidence and assurance she expected to have as she entered into married life. While it isn't realistic that she could have anticipated something like this happening, it's important to know that the only thing in life that is constant is change.  Being able to adapt, flow and adjust is the hallmark of a mentally tough competitor whether in sport, business or the game of life.

Today, make it a point of reviewing your game plan. Make sure that you have one and make sure that the game plan anticipates heavy hits. Make sure that your game plan takes into account the possibility of severe financial setbacks or the loss of key logistical or emotional support. Getting into a motorcycle accident and breaking your leg the day before the Olympic trials could be considered an extreme stroke of bad luck but that's one of the reasons why successful competitors avoid high-risk activities in the weeks leading up to such an important event. Freak accidents aside, bad officiating, lost luggage, power failures and poor weather conditions are things that most seasoned athletes have encountered once or twice. For some competitors, it is the multiple hits and not a single hard hit that take them out of the game. Using mental skills like goal-setting and visualization can increase your mental toughness and solidify your resolve to overcome any and all challenges in the pursuit of your goal. Make your plan thorough and do your best to anticipate and overcome the difficulties that are inevitable when pursuing of anything significant like earning a black belt, starting a business or completing a degree. When the “Tyson blow” comes, as it often does, completely unseen, mentally shake it off, use some positive self-talk and go right back to your plan of action. The best fighters in mixed martial arts are able to stick to their plan even after they get knocked down by a “Superman punch”.

Ajamu Ayinde, C.M. Ht., A.C.H., Certified Sports Hypnotist & Creator

M.E.N.T.A.L. Games ™ sports enhancement system
Sports success begins in the mind. ™
Connect with me on FB: www.facebook.com/ajamu.ayinde
Visit our website: http://advantage-enterprises.yolasite.com  
Subscribe to our weekly sports psych blog: http://mentalgamestraining.blogspot.com
Contact Us: 845-240-6470 and on Skype@ Sambamindman ajamuayinde@gmail.com

February 12, 2012

“You could be the world's best garbage man, the world's best model; it doesn't matter what you do if you're the best.”

-Muhammad Ali, former heavyweight boxing champ

The desire to be the best pushes athletes in every sport. What is required to be the best? Is it how strong you are? How fast you are?  Is it the championship titles or Super Bowl rings you have? Muhammad Ali is nicknamed “The Greatest” and has an incredible record of 56 wins with 37 by knockout and only five losses.  Boxing experts list Ali as the greatest fighter of any era and the only other fighters who come close to commanding the same level as of respect are Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Lewis. Ali did what no one had ever done, he won the heavyweight championship on four separate occasions. However, some of Ali's prime years as a fighter were spent idle.  He was denied a boxing license due to his status as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. 

Part of being the best is making tough choices and facing the consequences.  The Vietnam War divided our country.  So many people were against it and so many young men saw it as their duty to support the government's role in Southeast Asia. It's not so different from today.  Many are critical of the war in the Middle East. Ali made a choice not to fight because of his religious convictions.  My father fought in Korea and my older brother served in the Viet Nam era. You may or may not agree with Ali’s decision but I hope you can respect that he made a decision based on his principles and he paid the price for it.  Refusing the draft in Vietnam hurt Ali as a boxer and financially. However, it probably helped him as a person. Part of growing up is finding your voice, discovering your values and morals and doing everything you can to live your life based on those things. 

Hard work is a virtue. Discipline is a virtue. These are the keys to being the best.  Yet so many people find it difficult to work hard and be disciplined.  At the same time they say they want to be the best.  Sporting activity can be very different from work. In the world of work sometimes the effort that we do is not seen to directly benefit us. In sport it’s a completely different story.  All your effort and hard work go into making you a better athlete. Your team may not always win but at least you know you've done your part to make a victory much more possible. 

When you're given a job by your coach or supervisor do you drag your feet?  It's pretty common. Sometimes it's because we don't understand why were asked to do a certain job.  Sometimes it's the way we were asked to do it.  It can be hard to get beyond that but it's an important step in your growth as a player.  Always do the task you are given to the best of your ability.  If there are several other people involved in the task, make sure that you're the strongest link in the chain.

 “Jive” is a word I used to hear a lot in my home growing up. It was a word that my mom used all the time when she was describing her coworkers. “Jive turkey” was a very popular expression in the ‘70s but it faded out after a few years. The problem is the behavior hasn't gone anywhere. These days we use different words to describe the same behavior.    A jive coworker has no interest in being the best they can be.  Since I was a kid I have always wanted my finished product to be excellent and not judged as “jive”.  My mom had very high standards for herself and I know I inherited that from her.

Why are there so many jive turkeys everywhere?  I don't really like to describe people as lazy.  I just think some people have different standards of effort and excellence. We see it every day when cleaning a room, completing a job at work or working out in the gym.  What is your standard of effort?  How do you personally define excellence? Where did you learn your standards?

The only way that it possible to be the best at anything is to have high, exacting standards.  We can never guarantee the outcome of our actions but we can't guarantee the effort that we put in. Muhammad Ali came from a strong, stable home and could have made very different career choices.  He didn‘t need to fight his way out of poverty.  The fact is at a very early age he found out he was very good at boxing.   When we demonstrate success at something we enjoy, it instills a desire to get even better.  This is especially true when the activity seems fun or easy to us.  Ali made it look easy when he won his first Golden Gloves match 1958.  He won on the local level and then on a state level and that could've been the end of the story. To be the best boxer in your weight class in your entire state is a tremendous accomplishment.

Ali’s next step in his quest to be the best was to become an Olympic champion and represent his country. It was at the Olympics in 1960 that Ali won the gold.  However, being the best amateur boxer in the world didn't exempt him from racial discrimination in his home state of Kentucky.  As terrible as racism is everyone has some kind of hurdle to deal with, some kind of challenge that is completely unfair but necessary to overcome. Having an unfair boss or coach can cause some to quit.  For those who have the heart of a champion, that unfairness can cause them to work harder than ever in order to master the skills necessary to change the situation for the better.

Whatever your sport is find a model of excellence. Find out how hard they train and know that you must train even harder. Being the best is about more than just physical skills. Who you can look up to as a person? Ali has many accomplishments inside the boxing ring but he has placed a great deal of importance on character development, spirituality and his humanitarian mission since he retired.  Your religious path may be different but Muhammad Ali’s commitment to the religion of Islam certainly helped him to find his moral compass and avoid the negative behavior that destroys more fighters than the hardest punches ever could.  In order to resist the vices of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling you must master your emotions and win the “war within” to be the “greatest” in your sport.

Ajamu Ayinde, C.M. Ht., A.C.H., Certified Sports Hypnotist & Creator

M.E.N.T.A.L. Games ™ sports enhancement system
Sports success begins in the mind. ™
Connect with me on FB: www.facebook.com/ajamu.ayinde
Visit our website: http://advantage-enterprises.yolasite.com  
Subscribe to our weekly sports psych blog: http://mentalgamestraining.blogspot.com
Contact Us: 845-240-6470 and on Skype@ Sambamindman ajamuayinde@gmail.com

February 3, 2012

“You have to dream big and go for it. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and ignore those who try to bring you down. Never give up, no matter what-- overcoming obstacles makes you stronger!”

-Shannon MacMillan, US Olympic and women's national soccer champion

February is Black history month. This month I wanted to focus specifically on quotes from black athletes in my blog post. I have a pretty large database of quotes from athletes from all races, sports and genders. I look through my database daily and I post different ones on my Facebook page.  At the end of the week I choose one that really speaks to me and develop my weekly blog post around it. I looked at some great quotes in preparing this week.  I examined quotes from Tiger Woods, Flo Jo, Magic Johnson, Venus Williams, and Michael Jordan, arguably from some of the greatest Black athletes of the modern era. And they had a lot of great things to say but you know sometimes it's really not about race.  It's really about the message not the messenger.  I found a quote from a White athlete that many of my readers may not know who really has something to contribute and that's why I chose Shannon Macmillan.

Most non-soccer people probably have never heard of Shannon Macmillan. I know I had not heard of her before I got involved with providing mental coaching services to high school soccer players. She’s an Olympian and a legend in the world of women’s soccer.  However, soccer is not the most popular sport in the US.  To make matters worse, women athletes tend to get relegated to second-class status in virtually every sport. But one of my reasons for writing this blog is to highlight principles, ideas, and mental strategies from high-level achievers in all sports and the performing arts.  Part of my mission as a mental coach is to break down barriers between sports, races and genders. I've listed this as a goal in my company's mission statement. Largely, barriers exist between different groups because of the lack of knowledge. I hope this blog post will educate more people about soccer, women, and champion thinking in order to outgrow some of their prejudice.

Cross training first became popular in the 80’s. Athletes like distance runners who normally relied solely upon exercises that would build their cardiovascular endurance started to adopt weight training. Athletes like football linebackers that would normally dedicate many hours to weight training started getting on exercise bikes and treadmills and upping their cardio. It was a good thing. In the 70’s and 80’s I remember reading articles in Sports Illustrated about football players who took ballet classes or martial arts classes in order to increase their flexibility and agility. What can a ballet dancer learn from a football player? What can a football player will learn from a ballerina? We never know until we sit down and have a conversation.

Today's conversation is not about physical skills that one can learn from a different sport, it's about the mental skills.  There is a universal language of champions that cuts across generations, genders, races and sports. Shannon Macmillan’s quote is ideally suited for any athlete or peak performer to study. Shannon is encouraging us to keep several principles in mind in order to be your best. The first is “dreaming big”.  The world is filled with people who don't allow themselves to dream at all.  If and when they do start to dream, they choose very small, conservative dreams that don't allow them to really stretch or reach their full potential. Other people have no problem with dreaming big but it falls flat because they fail to act on those dreams. I’ll give an example.  I have clients come to me when they want to make a breakthrough. I met Joseph about five years ago.  He had a good job as a social worker making decent money with health insurance and job security but he was longing to make a bigger contribution and start his own business. That was his dream before we met and like most people he read books, attended seminars and listened to recordings all designed to help him to achieve this dream. The problem was that Joseph was unable to take any action. He had everything he needed to go for it but was unable to take the leap. My coaching helped Joseph to release his brakes by reprogramming his subconscious beliefs about starting his own consulting practice.  He is now a successful IT consultant, changing the world one client at a time.

I think what makes sports so exciting to watch and read about and participate in is that it's about action. It's not an intellectual pursuit. However, there is a great deal of mental activity that goes on behind the scenes. It is the dream or mental image of getting a soccer ball in the net, sinking the basket in basketball or crossing the finish line in a race that propels the athlete to take decisive action.  Without the big dream there is never any action but without the action the dream remains just a wish. Athletes can dream and achieve on a higher level than they ever thought possible by reading the biographies and exploits of other athletes in their field and outside of their field. For example, a tennis player who learns about the endurance regimen of a marathon runner could significantly improve her performance. A golfer significantly increases his performance output by adding weight training to his golf regimen.  Tiger Woods led the way by showing other golfers the importance of strength training.

The second thing Shannon talks about is surrounding yourself with the right kind of people.  When you have big dreams and are taking action it can be scary to some of the people that are around you who may not be big dreamers. Your family, friends or coworkers may not be action-oriented. As a result, they may shoot down your dreams and may cause you to hesitate in taking action. The right kind of team produces an environment that is conducive for the growth of all the athletes involved. The right kind of coach dreams big and takes massive action and encourages the team to do the same. In my opinion, the coach helps the athlete to find her dream but it's her responsibility to take action on it. It's always an inside game.  As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink.  When I was a schoolteacher in New York City, I saw many students with incredible potential. My job was to help them recognize it but unless those students were ready to release that potential nothing changed. Hypnosis takes students who have the potential to do well academically to the top of the honor roll and Dean's list. I'm living proof of this and I've helped many of the students in my care do the same thing by teaching them self-hypnosis.

Birds of a feather flock together. It's hard to soar like an eagle when surrounded by turkeys. These expressions are popular because they have a ring of truth to them.  In order to reach high levels in any activity like sports, sales, performing arts, or academics it's important to be around people who believe in you and who are possibility thinkers on the road to high achievement. So many bright young people in inner-city schools never excel academically because the peer group discourages intellectual pursuits. “Don't waste your time studying for a test.” “Don't join the math team.” “Don't try to learn to play chess.” Those things are for nerds, right? When I was in junior high school I was a bit of a nerd. Surprise, surprise!  My jokes didn’t go over so well and I didn't have designer jeans and shell-toe Adidas like the cool kids but I could dance and I could fight and that helped me survive.

Nothing is ever accomplished without persistence. That's the third message within Shannon’s quote.  Never give up. It's easy to say but hard to live.  The secret to persistence is found in the other elements that we've alluded to in the blog post. The dream that we hold in our minds helps us to keep going and be relentless. Having taken action we’re in motion and because we ARE in motion, it’s easier to keep going. An object at rest tends to remain at rest and an object in motion tends to remain in motion. These are scientific principles. When you're dreaming big and taking action on a regular basis, it's easy to keep taking steps in order to reach your destination. The problem occurs when we lose our momentum. Maybe you've stopped going to the gym for a while.  Maybe you've got out of the habit of eating salad with each meal or something as simple and healthy as drinking enough water each day. Because you “stopped" it may seem hard to pick up that habit again. Let's go back to the third element in Shannon's quote, “Surround yourself…” Surround yourself with people who are like-minded. If all your friends go to the bar and drink after work how likely is it that you'll do the same thing?  Conversely, if all your friends go immediately to the gym after work how likely is it that you'll do the same thing? Having the right kind of people in your life who are health conscious, fitness conscious or motivated toward high levels of performance in some sport or activity, tends to assist you to be a little bit more disciplined in your pursuit of excellence.

The last element in Shannon’s quote has to do with the way that champions see obstacles. They see them as necessary for growth. Let's substitute the word “problem” for “obstacle”. How do you feel about problems? The attitude that we have toward these problems or obstacles makes all the difference in whether or not we surmount them. What are the questions that come to you when the obstacle shows up in your life? “Why does this always happen to me?” “Why me?”  “What have I done to deserve this?” We need to change these questions because they don't lead to good results.  Ask a better question and you're likely to get a better result.  For example, if you asked yourself what can you learn from this or how can you solve this challenge and enjoy the process you're more likely to not give up. Obstacles and challenges are fundamental to sport.  If there were no “hurdles” it would be far too easy. Challenges are built into games like golf in order to allow humans to develop skill as well as the mental muscles of persistence, concentration and calm under pressure. Shannon Macmillan has offered us a great quote this week that can be taken and applied by athletes of every single sport without respect to age, nationality, gender or even race. It's such a pleasure to be involved in the field of applied sports psychology and be able to spread the championship wisdom of the practitioners of various sports especially the lesser known ones.

Ajamu Ayinde, C.M. Ht., A.C.H., Certified Sports Hypnotist & Creator
M.E.N.T.A.L. Games ™ sports enhancement system
Sports success begins in the mind. ™
Connect with me on FB: www.facebook.com/ajamu.ayinde
Visit our website: http://advantage-enterprises.yolasite.com  
Subscribe to our weekly sports psych blog: http://mentalgamestraining.blogspot.com
Contact Us: 845-240-6470 and on Skype@  Sambamindman ajamuayinde@gmail.com