In a basketball game between two evenly matched teams, the outcome often isn’t decided until the last two minutes of the game. The team that’s behind plays with a little desperation and makes a run, and it’s up to the team that’s ahead to handle the surge. Crunch time, when the game is close, is what defines champions—the teams and players we remember long after they’re done playing.
In terms of this book, we’re now in crunch time. The coach has called a time out. There’s two minutes to play—and one chapter to go. The goal is to take what you’ve learned since halftime and integrate it into an end-game plan.
Before you move on to the last chapter, “Become Abnormal,” go through the same process with the main discussion points of these three chapters that you did with Chapters 1 to 4. Pick the one main point that resonates with you (or choose one of your own), and pass it along as a teacher to one of your friends, relatives, or colleagues. Remember, when you teach it, you learn it.
CHAPTER 5: EVALUATE CORRECTLY
1. Learn to recognize the done-wells. People have a biological tendency to dwell on the things that aren’t going well and that which you focus on expands.
2. Focusing on your level of effort, on your commitment to a process, and on what you’re doing well overall is far more effective than evaluating yourself through the perfectionist lens.
3. Learn to give yourself mini-evaluations throughout the day. Status reports like this will give you time and information to make necessary adjustments.
4. ______________________________________________
CHAPTER 6: LEARN HOW TO TALK TO YOURSELF
1. Become more aware of how you talk to yourself—the goal is “no more negative self-talk.”
2. Completing the Mental Workout regularly builds mental toughness—and thought control. This will give you the mental toughness needed to become much more positive and much less negative.
3. When you visualize, you prepare your mind and body for positive growth and action.
4. ______________________________________________
CHAPTER 7: LEARN HOW TO TALK WITH OTHERS
1. Know your material by writing a script.
2. Slow down and breathe.
3. Nail the presentation by spending three separate three-minute practice sessions per day in the three days leading up to your event (the success triangle).
4. ______________________________________________
Coach Wooden and Charlie Munger have been two of the most influential thought leaders in our professional lives, and they both emphasized many of the same basic philosophies. One of their core values was the idea that nobody—no matter how much they had achieved—should stop learning.
When you embrace the idea that you should always be learning, you’re deciding to live a life open to information and experiences. You’re not only giving yourself the chance to reach your own full potential, but also fully engaging in the world and the people around you.
Think about it. When you’re on a team or in a group, and one of the other people doesn’t want to hear any of the information you want to share, what is your inclination toward that person? We all respond much better to people who are open to hearing and learning. That works both ways.
As you go through the process of teaching one of these key points to somebody else, don’t hesitate to make some notes here or on any other page. Coach Wooden devoured books on many subjects during the off-season, always looking for information that could help him coach and mentor his players. And you could always tell which books were his, because he filled the margins with notes and reminders.
It’s a great habit to get into.