High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 293: Play To Win

Episode Date: December 3, 2019

“Adversity causes some men and women to break; others to break records.”  William Arthur Ward High performers play to win. They take risks, have courage and put themselves out there. They talk to themselves powerfully and embrace the 3 C: challenge, chances, and confidence.   Power Phrase this Week: “I play to win in my life and sport. I go for it – challenging myself and believing in my ability to be successful.”

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. A little post Thanksgiving high performance mindset with Sindra today. Good morning, Sindra. Good morning.

It's great to be here. Well, it seems like it was the last day I was here for an extended Wednesday was the seems like that was a long time ago. Last Wednesday. I just hope everyone feels more relaxed.

Right. The whole holiday weekend now, as far as Thanksgiving goes, is done and behind us. And then we have a very short three weeks to turn around and we have the Christmas holiday. So today's topic, if you're heading out the door and thinking about, well, I got to get me those great Cyber Monday deals. I got to get to the store. It's time to play to win. And play to win is our topic today. We start with a quote.

What do you have? This is a quote by William Arthur Ward. He said, adversity causes some men and women to break, others to break records. All right. So that's kind of a cool way to look at that. We have an example to start with today, one that I might be a little bit familiar with. So Saturday, we were both at the Maverick football game. And this week, their motto was to play to win. And they had a dominant performance on Saturday against USC Pueblo, winning 35 to 7. And I was prepping the workshop with a team on

Friday. It got me thinking a lot about this concept, play to win, and how it really relates to our life. And it's interesting that you use this as an example because there was some moments in the game on both sides of the field that kind of had you questioning, oh boy, what's going to happen here? We have some weather conditions. Field conditions were as good as they could be, but it was a little bit sloppy. And both teams made mistakes.

This game could have been a 49-14 final. There could have been a lot more scoring that happened in this game. But 35-7, still impressive. They played to win, and they got the win, and they'll host Texas A&M Commerce on Saturday at noon at the Blake. So what we're talking about today is play to win, and this is actually part of your book, correct? Yes, it's part of my book, Beyond Grit.

It's practice number 10, which is choosing courage. And really what I mean by play to win is we're talking not about just sports today, but in business and in life. And to me, what it really means is that you're going for it. You're taking risks. You're having courage. You're putting yourself out there, not holding back by playing to lose, going into situations not believing in yourself

or not believing in yourself or not believing that you have the resources to be successful. All right. So more of a mindset thing kind of game, right? Absolutely. Going into that thinking here, I am playing to win and we're going to win, keeping it that way. So why is playing to win important in our lives instead of thinking of it the other way? So it really does impact our performance. And I have an example in a research study related to soccer, but it really relates to any kind of goal we're going after. And in this one study, they found when the conversion rate of penalty takers where they were kicking the final shot in a shootout in soccer, and they compared that when they found that when missing the kick would cause the team to lose, professional

players only converted 62% of the shots. But when the conversion would result in a win, kickers would be successful 92% of the time. Wow. So 62 to 92%. And so I think what's really interesting is the same kick, same distance, same target, but like 30% improvement when the person was really

shooting or playing to win, not shooting not to lose. So yeah, I'm trying to think if that's the best way to say it. So if you go into it thinking, I'm going to kick this and we're going to win, or I'm going to kick this and hopefully we won't lose. And hopefully we don't lose. There's a 30% improvement on that. Yeah, so it really doesn't matter what you're thinking about.

It's crazy. You believe that the three C's are involved in playing to win. What do you mean by that? So what I mean by that is the first C would be that you want to be challenged and you want to see the situation as a challenge to rise to, not threatened to kind of blow it. And so you want to see it as a situation where you can really learn and grow. So that's the first C, challenge.

The second C is chances. You really want to push yourself to be brave, not hold yourself back or choose comfort. You want to really take the chances even though you're not going to be 100% successful or that's not guaranteed. And the last C is confidence. And that means believing in yourself. And really what you're telling yourself really does matter. How we talk to ourselves matters. So how do we implement the three C's?

I think the key is to not focus on the consequences of failing and instead really see it as a challenge. And just by seeing it as a challenge versus a threat, it's going to have a different response in your mind. And your self-talk does really matter. So thinking like, bring it on. I got this. I can handle anything that comes my way. Or, you know, this is what I do is really key. So what's your final point today? Final point would be just, are you really in your life playing to win or are you playing not to lose? And I think the key is to really go for it.

See situations as challenges, have confidence in yourself and take chances to really go for it towards your goals and your dreams. That's pretty awesome. I'm still just trying to grasp that 30% goals and your dreams. That's pretty awesome. I'm still just trying to grasp that 30% thing you talked about. It's pretty wild, isn't it? Yeah, I was thinking of at the end of the, as much as I hate to give the guy credit, but it is his birthday, at the end of the Green Bay game yesterday

when quarterbacks were greeting each other at midfield and Green Bay had won. The young guy for New York's name is escaping me at the moment, but Aaron Rodgers came up and said, hey, good game, man. Learn from this one and the good ones, too. And then he walked away and I was like, yes, that. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you learn. I love that.

Exactly. Love it. And having that positive mindset, regardless of the outcome, is what's going to get you to where you're going. So how do we summarize today's play to win topic? I'd say high performers, they play to win. They take risks, have courage, put themselves out there. They talk to themselves powerfully and embrace the three C's, giving themselves a challenge, taking chances and having confidence in themselves. Awesome. And how does the power phrase land for us this week?

I play to win in my life. I go for it. Challenging myself and believing in my ability to be successful. Awesome. If we want to learn more about this topic out of practice number 10 in Beyond Grit, or would like to listen to the podcasts or any of the other useful information that Sindra has available, how do we get in touch? You can head over to DrSindra, so just D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com, and you can find it all over there. All right. Always good stuff. Thanks, Sindra. Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you liked today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend, and join the conversation on Twitter at

Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to receive Cinder's free weekly videos, check out DrCindra.com.