5

REDIRECTING PERSISTENT BEHAVIORS

Your beliefs become your thoughts.

Your thoughts become your words.

Your words become your actions.

Your actions become your habits.

Your habits become your values.

Your values become your destiny.

—Mahatma Gandhi

Our habits are powerful engines that create results, and the five trades in this section will help you identify persistent patterns of behavior that work against you—in ways you may not realize—and replace them with rituals that align with your purpose. It’s hard work to change from an ingrained behavior to a new habit that will serve as an engine for fearlessness and growth.

You may not even recognize the role of fear in unhelpful behaviors. Most of us are comforted by routines, and change is hard. Those two factors are enough of a deterrent to keep us in a rut. The patterns we seek to identify and change are those that keep us in a state of fear. We have to alter these persistent behaviors, one small moment at a time, to build a fearless mindset.

“To overcome an irrational fear, replace it with a habit,” author Seth Godin says. “If you’re afraid to write, write a little, every day. Start with an anonymous blog, start with a sentence. Every day, drip, drip, drip, a habit. If you’re afraid to speak up, speak up a little, every day. Not to the board of directors, but to someone. A little bit, every day. Habits are more powerful than fears.”

Leadership and assertiveness are so important to this process. Not only do we need the desire to achieve persistent patterns of fearlessness but we also need rewards for positive change. We can create a new voice of authority and leadership within us that is calm and assertive, not fearful. That big difference starts by practicing less fear in the small moments.

Trade Routine for Ritual

The NCAA Final Four, the Masters, the NBA Finals—I watched my clients perform in the great pressure cookers in sports, and in those big pressure cookers, I noticed how much routine matters. No athlete, team, or coach gets to this level without consistent patterns of warming up, of preparing for a shot, of running a play—all of those are locked down at this level.

Ritual is more than routine, and it taps into a more powerful sense of identity and purpose beyond the moment. Routines are secure, whereas rituals are centering. Routines can be mindless. Rituals are always mindful.

Rituals are intentional behaviors that often take place away from the spotlight. They are not as much a substitution for routine as an elevation of it. Completing your ritual signals that you are ready for your fullest absorption in your task.

Before I do a keynote, I always do a workout. It’s my surefire way of cutting through the clutter and keeping my mind sharp. My ritual centers me. What starts as energy often turns to anxiety if we don’t channel our emotions positively, and that’s when the ritual is a small moment that makes a big difference. When pressure gets big, the best performers think small.¹ A go-to routine helps you practice success; the most effective ritual exterminates fear.

Rituals are not necessarily religious, but they do feel sacred. Without your ritual, you are not quite yourself. A ritual primes you for a state of flow. Notice that ritual is singular; I don’t suggest you take on multiple rituals. A ritual can be as simple as reading a book such as The Hunger Games (that’s what LeBron James does before big games²).

An effective ritual quiets the noise around you and in your mind. A ritual is different for each person, and it’s most effective when focused on what you want to achieve, not what you are trying to avoid. I have been practicing what my friend Tommy Newberry calls the early morning success ritual (EMSR).³ Tommy is a success coach and author who works with many top executives, and the EMSR kick-starts your day with confidence. You write down three specific events or details that would make the day great. Then you write: “Today, I will be. …” The EMSR is a small ritual that helps me wake up with optimism and focus, which are necessary for my peak performance.

No matter what habit you choose to make a ritual, calling it a “ritual” instead of a “routine” makes a difference to how you (and maybe others) internalize this action.

A ritual often has an element of visualization. It’s powerful to look through your mind’s eye to imagine the fulfillment of your purpose and the goals along that path. This deep, deep rehearsal taps into brain circuitry that activates as if you are not just thinking about an action but actually doing it.⁴ A ritual that incorporates visualization sets you up for the right mental messaging, so you focus on your optimal outcome.

How you envision success is up to you. For a big league pitcher, it’s sitting down the next batter. For you, it might be walking out of the room with a handshake agreement on a deal.

Golfers use a preshot routine before every shot as a psychological ritual. Doing the same thing every time cues the body and mind to execute under pressure. It’s as if they can absorb, even enjoy, intense scrutiny and make themselves relax. In this state of flow, they appear fearless, and in a way, they are. Their rituals help them reframe the pressure and almost eliminate it.

Rituals are especially important if your fear threatens to stifle the creative work you are required to do. “[Creative] blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you’ll never write a line” said author Erica Jong.⁵

Her ritualized approach is to produce a first draft with the thought that no one will ever read it. The ritual tricks her mind into ignoring her innate fear. Nice trade!

Trade Selfies for Reflection

If you want to be fearless, don’t hang out with people who are fearful. Don’t go where they go. This fact is the reason for mindful use of social (and all) media, especially what’s in your pocket, on your tablet, or wrist. If you are serious about fearlessly pursuing your purpose, you need to take stock of how much time you spend in what stress expert Pamela Rutledge calls “an anxiety hub where people are trying to dispel their anxiety. … We see all of this stuff, and we start to feel like the world is a very scary place.”⁶

Don’t freak out. This trade isn’t about giving up social media for good. I use it a ton in my career and to stay connected to people, so I would never say that people should give it up completely. My point is to become aware of how our digital news feeds exaggerate worries and chaos, creating fertile ground for fear to take root.

Social media is a persistent habit. The 1.6 billion users of Facebook and Instagram spend an average of 50 minutes per day on those platforms.⁷ Social media is distracting us from reaching our work-related goals too. A 2014 Pew Research Center Study revealed that 56 percent of workers who use digital platforms for work-related purposes agree that this habit distracts from the work they need to do, with 30 percent agreeing strongly.

Feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, envy, and depression can incubate via social media, which, despite its name, can increase isolation at the same time it promotes competition to keep up with what everyone else is doing. The selfie culture, by definition, nurtures narcissism.

A great alternative is reflection, which turns your attention inward to your goals and what your best next steps should be. Reflection is a way of checking in with yourself. Instead of scanning your screen without thought, take Rutledge’s advice and set the alarm on your watch or your phone to beep hourly for a moment of reflection.

“Stop and say, ‘I’m grateful it’s a sunny day. I’m grateful for this cup of coffee. I’m grateful for these nice shoes,’” Rutledge says. “Whatever small thing shifts your brain, you will be shocked at the end of a few days at how great you feel.”

Pausing from the selfie culture can be incredibly powerful. In negotiating $500 million in contracts for my sports clients, I learned the power of pausing between the ask and the answer to allow myself to process both emotions and facts, to reflect on the next best move.⁸ It sure can be hard to pause when we start drinking from the social media fire hose, but when you are committed to fearlessly pursuing your purpose, the pause for self-reflection can be a huge tool of empowerment.

Reflection, for me, goes hand-in-hand with gratitude. If you struggle with a scarcity mindset (that you never have enough or are never good enough, which is a prevalent message on social media), reflection built around gratitude can help you do a 180. It is claiming the measurement of your life and environment as your own. You’re not comparing what you can do, be, or have. That’s fearlessness.

Reflection helps ground you in what is here and what matters. This is vital to remember when unexpected events, crises, and loss inevitably occur—the kinds of things social media exaggerates and often makes worse. Reflection can reveal a true path to resilience; it doesn’t stop at offering an inspirational quote for you to like. Reflection has been transformative for me, and I have seen it transform others.

Fearlessness is informed by how you look at the world around you. It is shaped by an understanding of your internal landscape. Reflection is that shift to your own needs and desires amid the recognition that time is passing—and with it, opportunities big and small. Without this sort of reality check, it’s awfully easy to succumb to mindless surfing.

In the sport of competitive gymnastics, fear can lead to poor performance and sliding self-confidence. It even causes some young gymnasts to quit the sport entirely. One research study found that a common and effective antidote to this fear was replacing negative thoughts (“I’m scared” or “I can’t do this”) with a cue such as “Just do it.”⁹ The cue effectively puts the gymnast’s body on autopilot to attempt the exercise or routine.

You don’t have to be a gymnast to adopt a consistent practice of trading external fears for confident self-talk. You do need to commit to reflection to determine the thought patterns and messages you are giving yourself that are keeping you in fear. The best part about this habit is that you can practice it anytime through visualization. Fearlessness takes focus, one moment of reflection at a time.

Trade Grudges for Gratitude

Every moment is a moment of grace.

—Elie Wiesel

The world heard these powerful words when Elie Wiesel accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. As a boy, he had survived the Buchenwald concentration camp, and American soldiers were his heroes. He felt gratitude for them the rest of his life. “Gratitude is a word that I cherish,” he said in 1999.¹⁰ “Gratitude is what defines the humanity of the human being.”

To endure the horrors of Nazi Germany and to ultimately lead a life of inspiration and courage, as an author and speaker, he made a powerful choice: he would build a wonderful life from the persecution he had suffered because it had given him tremendous insights into what it means to be human. He had every reason to remain in anger and bitterness, but he made a different choice. While acknowledging what had happened, he went forward in life through a lens of gratitude, becoming a role model for generations.

That’s fearlessness.

I share his story as an extreme example of the power of choosing gratitude. Our daily lives cannot be compared to the atrocities of the Holocaust, but we certainly can draw inspiration from the lessons of history to live our best lives today.

We don’t exert ultimate control over our lives. Unfortunate and unplanned events happen to us on our way to achieving our goals. What story do you tell yourself in the small moments when you feel under personal attack? Do you say, “This always happens to me”? Or “Why me?”

This mindset can be persistent and pernicious. It goes beyond the glass-half-empty outlook. It is a default setting that automatically puts you in a defensive mode. The victim mindset is rooted in fear, excuses, and the perception that control is outside of yourself. It takes courage to own your life, your actions, your mistakes and failures.

In 2009, I experienced a relevant moment with one of my ballplayers. Jeff Francoeur was living his dream playing for the Atlanta Braves, his hometown team. Four years after an amazing rookie start, Francoeur was battling a slump. One evening he called me upset on his way home from the ballpark.

Bobby Cox, the Braves’ manager, whom the players loved, had summoned Francoeur into his office to break the news: the Braves had traded him to the New York Mets.

Francoeur was devastated. He was deeply disappointed in himself personally, in himself as a teammate, and in every way that you can imagine someone would feel if he or she were deposed from the pinnacle he or she had dreamed about his or her entire life.

Francoeur was at a fragile point, and his choice of how to face this bad news started that night. Would he get wrapped up in fear and hold a big grudge against the Braves? That kind of thinking does motivate some players.

I wanted to see him go in a more positive direction. We talked about the gift that comes from a fresh start. I tried to help him look forward, not back. Francoeur decided to take the high road.

He said good-bye to the team, acknowledging how special it was to have played for them.¹¹ “I’ve had nothing but great experiences,” Francoeur said. “Nobody can ever take that away from me.” He expressed his anticipation of the challenge of playing in New York, and he put negativity aside as he headed north.

When he got to the Mets’ clubhouse, he stayed open to finding something good for himself. He enjoyed the amazing clubhouse meals prepared by a mother-daughter duo. He got a fresh start at the plate and in the field. By deciding not to carry a grudge, he ultimately wound his way through a couple of Major League teams and, in 2016, back to the Braves.¹²

Grudges start with “you” and “they” language. Shifting from this mindset begins when you focus on “I” and “me.” You begin to own what has happened, to see your role in it and your options. The more quickly you can make this pivot, the more quickly you can make the best of it. That’s where gratitude comes in.

Sonia Thompson is a reinventor who faced many obstacles when she founded TRY Business School, where she helps business owners find the right strategy and mindset to build and grow their businesses. A year after she had traded the security of corporate life for the uncertainty of entrepreneurship, a crisis hit her:

I got sick and ended up in the hospital. My recovery took months, and I wasn’t able to work during that time. When the dust settled, I was left with a mountain of debt.

That experience and its aftermath was the realization of my worst fears coming true when it came to being an entrepreneur. I went through a range of emotions and felt like a failure. I wondered why this happened to me.

That’s a perfect description of a victim mindset. We’ve all been there. Who hasn’t said the words, “Why me?” Thompson knew that she didn’t want to remain a victim. She kept trying to find a way forward:

Eventually, I landed in a place of thankfulness. I realized how blessed I was in spite of a few difficulties. I was thankful that I knew that even though life may decide to hit you with a truck, it doesn’t have to be the end of you or your dreams. It’s only the end of the story if you let it be.

At the end of that emotional roller coaster, I felt powerful. And the lessons I’ve learned throughout this journey have transformed the way I view challenges in my business and my ability to overcome them.

So now, if things don’t go quite the way I want, I recognize that I have the power to make them different. All I have to do is identify the root cause of the issue, seek out solutions, implement the ones that are right for me, and make adjustments as I get new information. The changes may not come instantaneously, but if I’m diligent with my plan of action, I will see positive change.

Her story affirms this conclusion: the antidote to victimhood is gratitude. Here’s my related ritual. Every morning I write down three things I am grateful for and three things that would make the day great. The act of writing solidifies my personal mission statement and emphasizes the responsibility I have to my decisions and actions. It’s one thing to think that the sky is beautiful on a morning walk, but it becomes even more real and personal when I put my gratitude for that in words on paper. A tool like The Five Minute Journal makes it easy to stick to this simple act as a daily ritual.

Those words reflect small moments that foretell a big outcome. Thankfulness refreshes my best perspective on the things that happen that I don’t control.

When we start with gratitude in small moments, we can easily turn to what our response can be instead of focusing on fear and blame for what others might have done or not done. Gratitude opens the way to fearlessness.

Trade Gossip for Influence

Fearlessness doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires a great deal of trust in yourself. Some people call this “confidence”: the belief that you can do what you tell yourself is possible. Trust is so important that it may be impossible to achieve fearlessness without it.

One of the most powerful forces that can instantly tear down trust is gossip. When you gossip, you break down boundaries of trust on several fundamental levels. If gossip is a persistent habit for you, my goal is to help you see how detrimental this is to living your fullest purpose.

Let’s take a typical scenario:

Person A, who trusts you, shares a confidence.

You share that information with Person B, and it becomes gossip. It’s not your story to tell. In this small moment, you have betrayed Person A and proved to Person B that you are someone who doesn’t value trust. Perhaps worst of all, you have proven to yourself that you are untrustworthy.

Whether you start it or take part in it, gossip is a lose-lose-lose situation. Trust is “not just about the fact you hold my confidences, but in our relationship you acknowledge confidentiality,” says author and researcher Brené Brown.¹³ She points out that we often trade information as gossip because we want to “hot-wire” our relationship with Person B. Or we recognize Person A as a dislikable third party, and we share gossip to create “common enemy intimacy.” The result is not real trust; true intimacy can’t be built on hating the same people.

Gossip, in my experience, comes from a mindset of false competition in which we see ourselves as independent individuals who don’t or shouldn’t need to rely on anyone else. When we are Lone Rangers, other people don’t matter as much, and it’s easier to cut them down in our words or actions. Those small moments of gossip chip away at our influence in the lives of those we hold closest. We’re not tearing other people down. We are tearing ourselves down.

Trust is built in small moments when we make the choice to build or betray. Brown pointed to the work of noted marriage therapist John Gottmann, who for decades has studied how and why couples stay together. His research has noted that over time, the choice not to connect in the small moments results in a big outcome: emotional betrayal.¹⁴

Turns out the high road is paved with wonderful brain hormones. Choosing to connect positively—instead of giving in to the impulse of selfishness, gossip, or criticism—releases oxytocin, which makes us feel bonded. We are part of something bigger, and from this base we feel confident and fearless. Those closest to us have our backs.

Another reason for gossip can be insecurity and a lack of attention.¹⁵ If you are baited into gossip by someone with these issues, you need to exert your influence for good. Try politely and professionally saying, “Why are you sharing this information with me?” Directly confronting the gossip takes some satisfaction out of it. Asking for facts and the reasoning behind the gossip can also stop it.

As powerful as gossip is, trading it away opens up a huge amount of positive space to practice fearlessness. We can access so many moments to connect and have influence with the people in our lives.

Influence is leveraging the difference we can make in our daily interactions in those small moments. We matter when we connect to our purpose and to those who trust us and whom we trust. Most people don’t recognize or tap this power to its potential.

Too often, we choose gossip as a toxic way to grab power and instill fear in others. I experienced this in an office environment, and maybe you have too. A supervisor would usher me into his office, close the door, and dish on my colleagues about poorly executed projects, client relationships, or their inability to sell.

For various personal and professional reasons, he criticized everyone but me. His words created a false sense of connection, that I would be OK as long as he was happy.

Of course, I figured out that this treatment was far from special: he was doing this to everyone! He could have leveraged that opportunity to provide mentorship or otherwise positively influence us and our morale. Instead, he made the opposite decision. The main takeaway that stuck with me is how to never manage people that way.

Gossip drives a wedge between people because when they no longer trust you, fear can grow. Trust is the backbone of fearlessness. With trust comes influence. The choice in the small moments to connect or betray reveals your character and determines the amount of trust that others put in you.

Make each moment—in the spotlight or not—count toward your purpose and best self.

Trade Complacency for Ownership

As a teenage tennis player, I hit a frustrating plateau. I needed to be more aggressive. Even younger players were more fearless in going to the net and finishing the point.

Growing up in Michigan, I was a long way from any ocean when my coach taught me the “sharks game.” I’ll never forget the heat of humiliation rising in me as he explained this seemingly childish game to me.

“Behind the baseline are sharks in the ocean! If you step behind the line during this point, you will lose the point and get eaten by sharks!”

To avoid stepping behind the line and thereby win the point, I had to move to the net and hit a shot that would take my opponent off balance. These moments formed a powerful realization that I could literally step toward what I wanted in life—or I could wait and let it come to me. When I waited for something to come to me, sometimes someone else stepped in and I lost my chance to achieve what I wanted. I realized that being my best self was about cutting off the angle—taking the meaningful action now instead of later.

As every graduating college student can attest, life comes at you fast when the real world beckons. After four years at Michigan State University, it was time for my next chapter.

Staying in East Lansing was a safe and tempting option. I would have the continued support of my family and friends. I had enough relationships there that I could find a job and be comfortable. But what I really wanted to pursue was a career in the sports industry, and I had to be realistic. That opportunity wasn’t going to land in my lap in East Lansing.

Fresh out of school, it was time for me to take ownership of my life, which before that moment had always unfolded in a steady, predictable fashion without much intention on my part. This step would be different. I sat on the living room floor of my parents’ house with my two best friends. Between us, we spread out a huge map of the United States.

Where would I start my next chapter? The map, filled with places I’d never been before, was at once exhilarating and terrifying. After much discussion, I settled on my choice.

A red pushpin marked the spot: Atlanta, Georgia.

I chose Atlanta because it was ripe for opportunity in the sports space. The Super Bowl and the Olympics were both coming to the city. And to further solidify my choice, I had a friend living there who had offered up a spot on her couch until I could land on my feet.

With $2,000 in my pocket, I packed up my Honda Accord and kissed my parents good-bye. Not many tears were shed because they were both pretty certain I’d be headed back up 75 North when my money ran out.

In my 12-hour journey south, I drew on lessons from the sharks game. Before I learned to go to the net, why had I felt comfortable on the baseline? I had a fear of looking like I didn’t know what I was doing. A real fear that I did not belong near the net. The sharks game taught me to claim my power and place. No one could give that to me.

I felt comfortable on the baseline partly because I feared I did not belong near the net. But imagining the sharks near the baseline had forced me to learn that by cutting the angle, I got to the ball faster. Every I time had executed it during a match, I had become a better player. Going for it taught me that with risk also came reward.

Now it was time to apply that tennis lesson to life. If I wanted to land a job in such a competitive industry, I had to make it happen myself. I had to cut off the angle and go for it.

That’s exactly what I did. Knowing I needed to stretch my money, I negotiated a deal with a nearby apartment complex to waive my rent. How? I knew there was a position as a tennis pro opening up at the complex, so I approached the manager of the complex and inquired about teaching at the property. I found ways to add value so that I could leverage the position for free rent. I persuaded a neighborhood pizza shop in Atlanta to provide discounted pizzas for residents and free pizzas for our clinics. I leaned on my long-term relationship with Wilson Sporting Goods to provide freebies such as gear and rackets for residents who participated in the tennis clinics. I even wrote tennis tips for the resident newsletter. All these little gestures turned into nine years of living rent free in that apartment complex. Small moments, big outcomes!

Eventually all those small moments added up, and I landed my dream job in sports. But what got me to that point was learning to trade complacency for ownership. Just as my tennis coach had taught me, great things happen when we anticipate and take a calculated risk to go for it.

Fearing less comes from choosing to take ownership of your life—what matters to you, your purpose in life. Don’t wait on the baseline for life to come at you. Step forward and make it happen. Trade complacency for ownership, and tap into your fearlessness.