Today’s Dadly Daily Declaration comes from Chapter 3 (titled #1. When You’re a Cleaner, You get into the Zone, shut out everything else, and control the uncontrollable.) of Tim Grover’s book, Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable. In this chapter, Grover posits that our mental focus and concentration, our ability to control our environment and the heartbeats of others determines whether we succeed or fail. He expounds on controlling emotions and learning to conquer those emotions to be able to succeed.
He writes, “When you feel fear, you recoil and put up a wall to protect yourself. If you stay behind that imaginary wall, you fail. When you feel rage, you lash out. When you lash out, you’re usually irrational. Now you’re out of control and lost all sense of focus. Without focus, you fail. When you feel jealousy, you shift all your attention and energy to whoever is making you jealous. You’re thinking about something other than what you’re supposed to be doing. And you fail.”
Another gem in this chapter is this paragraph: “Emotions pull your focus and reveal that you’ve lost control, and ultimately they destroy your performance. They are you think about how you feel…you’re supposed to be so well prepared that you slide into the Zone and perform with grace and purpose. Not possible if your mind is on other things.”
So, here is what I discovered today from this chapter:
Think about that intense moment when you’re on the top of a roller coaster, right before it sends you into that wild free fall. You know what’s coming, you know it’s supposed to be scary. Do you scream? Do you panic? Or do you stay calm and fearless because you know you can handle whatever happens next? The difference is what sets you apart from those who give in to the fear and can’t control how they feel.
While others are getting heated up, I want you to start cool and stay cool, because anything that starts too hot can only get cold. When you want to preserve food and keep it fresh, what do you do? Refrigerate it. Keep it cool. Make it last longer. As the lights get brighter and the place gets hotter, you should be feeling darker and cooler, pulling deeper inside yourself. This is your Zone, all instinct; you can feel your way in the dark while others have to see and hear and watch what everyone else is doing. You go with what you feel.
