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Welcome to Coach Traub's Newsletter #5!!!

Mental Skills Training = Performance Enhancement and Personal Growth

My mission is to over -deliver value on goods and services designed to help you

'win' the mental side of the game.

This issue's theme: KEEPING IT SIMPLE

Contents:

Article: Keep it Simple to Release Your Talent

Think Like Champions Think

Inspirational True Story: Louis Pasteur

Today's Mental Skills Tip- KEEP IT SIMPLE. Keeping it simple is a pre-requisite for releasing talent. I wrote a book with a bunch of pages, and I can talk to athletes for hours about thinking DOs and DON'Ts. This leads some to think that they should avoid mental skills training because they don't want to make the game too complicated. A primary goal of mental skills training is to help athletes keep it simple when it's time to perform.

Simple means manageable. Simple means controllable. Simple often means singular. But simple does not mean easy. Simple and easy are NOT synonyms; the athlete's job should be simple, but it is never easy because approaching potential is never easy. Communicating mind-to-muscle is challenging because an athlete's mind is capable of processing so many distracting thoughts simultaneously. Keeping it simple allows athletes to spend their energies in useful ways instead of spinning their wheels.

Control is a huge factor in keeping things simple and manageable. Know your job to do your job , and make sure you're defining your job in 100% controllable terms. Trying to control the uncontrollables, including winning, leads to frustration, worry, and a lack of attention to the things that can be controlled. Rather than trying to win, try to give yourself and your team the best chance to win by doing What's Important Now. That's controllable. It's simpler. Example: what is a pitcher's job? It's to "Throw the ball aggressively through the target." That may take longer to say than "Get outs," but it's a simpler concept. The former defines precisely what to do, regardless of how things are going. The latter leads to lots of guessing about things outside of the pitcher's control and many worries about irrelevant details when anything starts to go wrong.

"Overheard" from the Minds of some Great Athletes:

'Normal' Self-Talk can be transformed into
Ideal, Simple Self-Talk

Change: I'll be a hero if I... to
Just do my job by giving my best effort.

Change: If I get this outcome, I'll get this reward. to
Just do my best. The rewards will come.

Change: That was awful, I've got to fix it, maybe starting with my stance... to
Trust it and see it big.

Change: I'll make up for that mistake by... to
Just do my job. Not more, not less.

Change: If I lift my elbow slightly higher and earlier, then twist my wrist... to
Trust it and let it happen.

You can bring Coach Traub straight to your team!

Quote-of-the-Day: "It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away" -Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Inspirational True Story: A schoolmaster in France was once very discouraged with one of his students, and wrote of him: "He is the smallest, the meekest, the most unpromising boy in my class." That boy eventually solved the mysteries of rabies, anthrax, chicken cholera, and silkworm diseases, and contributed to the development of the first vaccines. He set the stage for modern biology and biochemistry. Fifty years after the schoolmaster's evaluation, an election was held in France to select the greatest living Frenchman. By popular vote, Louis Pasteur, now known as the founder of modern medicine, was chosen. A national holiday was declared in his honor. He said: "The future belongs not to the conquerors, but to the saviors of the world."

Size and disposition are not requisites to be successful. Success comes from confidence and a willingness to work for what you believe in.

Coaches Reminder: "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

May your hunt for excellence be fruitful and never-ending.

May you not only hold on to the dreams you've had, but also dream greater dreams

than before. May you not only enjoy this land and its wealth, but also

make it a better place to live by giving and loving generously.

God bless.

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