The Playbook with Colin Jonov

20 Lessons From 100 Conversations With the Highest Performers in the World

Colin Jonov

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 36:20

Send us Fan Mail

I share the 20 strongest lessons distilled from 100 conversations with world-class performers, from identity and courage to preparation, chaos training, and leadership. The goal is simple: build proof, narrow your worst days, and fall in love with the process so trophies become byproducts.

• identity over motivation as the base
• confidence as evidence and prediction
• courage as the starter habit for growth
• compounding small wins into belief
• conviction outperforming perfect plans
• pairing bold belief with self-awareness
• regulating the nervous system for output
• curiosity and obsession driving mastery
• chunking massive goals into checkpoints
• embracing the unglamorous grind
• using emotions and pressure as resources
• learning more from failure than trophies
• building skill through free play and chaos
• designing identity beyond achievement
• leadership through alignment not authority
• preparation as the confidence hack
• saying no to protect the right yes
• periodizing life across seasons
• curating your inner circle intentionally
• loving the process so the scoreboard follows

Check us out at athleticfortitude.com
Download the podcast
Go to our YouTube channel, subscribe
Let’s get that subscriber base going
Download the new Elite Performers playbook. It is out now. Please download it. You will benefit from it. I can assure you
Five stars only, baby

Support the show

Subscribe, Download, Rate 5 stars only baby! Follow @ColkyJonov10 on all social media platforms.

Setting The Stage: 20 Lessons

SPEAKER_01

The 20 best lessons from 100 interviews with the highest performers in the world. So, what I did, guys, is I took the top 20 lessons that I've learned through all the amazing interviews with the amazing guests that I've had. And some of these solo episodes can be some of my most fun because I get to sit and reflect on all the amazing things that my guests have brought to the table, you know, over the last couple of years. It is a change of pace having to be the one that talks the entire time. Normally I like asking the questions, not necessarily bringing all the answers. But so these have become really fun for me, and I'll get right into it. And one of my personal favorites, lesson number one, is identity beats motivation every single time. You know, I I frequently talk about motivation is necessary. Motivation pulls you in certain directions. But motivation is also fleeting. And identity is a decision. Who you are is a decision. The behaviors and actions that you take are a decision. And they are all downstream from identity, and then they confirm what your identity actually is. Not what you say, not who you say you are, but who you actually are. And so when you lean into the process of engineering who you are and who you want to become, that will always outlast motivation. Motivation is a feeling, it comes and goes. Like I said, it is important, it is necessary, but identity is going to be what keeps you going. Identity is everything from a behavioral action standpoint, both downstream and confirmation of who you are. And so when you can lean into the identity, it is based on evidence. It is not based on affirmations, it is not based on what you want. Identity is based on the actual actions that you take. Lesson two, confidence is earned, not given. If you look at the actual science of what confidence is, it is your ability to predict an outcome that happens. And if you give yourself enough evidence, enough proof that when you go and do something, a certain outcome is expected, then you can be confident. And this has been no more true than with some of the draft prep group that I work with is if you have a lot of variability between your best 40 time and your worst 40 time, it is really hard for you to be innately confident in what that outcome will be because you don't know which version of you is showing up that day. And the best in the world and the best of the best, the gap between what their best is and what their worst is is super small. It is a narrow gap. So with a great degree of confidence, can they predict what their outcome will be on any given day? Because they've proven it to themselves over and over and over again that this is the type of athlete I am, this is the type of competitor I am. Here's all the evidence, here's all the receipts, here's all the data that confirms that I am who I say I am. And then you can have confidence. You can have that irrational belief in yourself because you've proven it over and over and over again. Number three, courage is the keystone habit. Now, this has been a really popular conversation on recent episodes is courage and the willingness to take that step, in the willingness to, when everything is screaming inside of you to pull back, to push forward, to take that next step, to take on that risk, to be willing to compete when others would run and give up. And most people, it becomes a cycle of confirmation. You take that leap of faith, you take that step, and you get some type of feedback loop. And then once you realize when you take that step of courage, you can do something, you are capable, and then it increases your ability to take another step. And then that encourages you to take a third, and so on and so forth. And so the hardest part is just taking that initial step of courage. It is something that is hard to teach and can only happen if you're willing to do it. You have to be willing to take that step and engage and embrace that fear that may come with it, that you are in a different space that you may have not been before, or that you're taking a really just a willingness to choose something that you feel a calling to do that you may have not done before because of, you know, label the different fears that have prevented you from doing so. And to be able to fight that resistance and be willing to do those things is really going to be what separates you on each rung of that ladder of achievement of success. Because if you can solve for courage and you can be willing to look stupid, you can be willing to fail, you can be willing to make a mistake, it'll help you learn that one, failure and mistakes aren't as bad as you inherently think they are. But two, when you do get that reward feedback that you can do this, that you are capable, you're going to continue to take bigger steps forward within that courage realm. Number four, small wins compound into unshakable belief. Now, you can't really build belief from nothing, but you can, along the lens of courage, build belief with a singular step. And as you begin to take baby steps, those will compound into bigger steps. One of the favorite quotes that, you know, Sahel Boom said on my podcast is everything above zero compounds. And so if you just take a step every single day and move in the right direction, eventually you're going to get somewhere. You are going to find yourself moving in a direction closer to where you want to go. And if you can build that consistency, now obviously we want to operate with an element of speed, we want to operate in direction, we want to eventually take bigger steps, but you can't make a massive jump with your first step. And I always use the parallel with working out. If you are new to working out and you just start benching the bar, you cannot put 225 pounds on the bar and expect to move it. But if you incrementally increase your weight and your capability, then eventually you will get to 225 and it will feel light. And that is synonymous with our problems don't become easier. They actually become harder, which we just become more equipped to handle them. And that starts with taking small baby steps. And eventually you will earn that unshakable belief in yourself. Number five, conviction beats the perfect plan. And this was a unique perspective that I had not really looked into before was Nicker Kay, pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, is he would rather throw the wrong pitch with full conviction than maybe throw the right pitch and be hesitant. And that goes back to that competency factor with confidence, right? You earn the right, because I know I've done this so many times. I have proof, evidence, and conviction in this pitch, in this ability, in this skill set, that it really doesn't matter what else is going on. I know that I'm going to be able to execute this a hundred out of a hundred times or 98 out of 100 times. And that, hey, if you beat me on one of those two out of a hundred times, great. I tip my cap to you. You were the better man this day or better, you know, woman this day. But the perfect plan does not beat conviction. And having that conviction in who you are and the ability to execute is so much more important than what the plan is. To quote, you know, the famous Mike Tyson quote, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. And to have that conviction in who you are and what your skill set is, is because you've proven it to you. You have the evidence, you have the receipts. And it becomes much easier to execute when you have the proven process. Number six, delusional belief paired with self-awareness is a superpower. To know that I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to, but also being hyper-aware of all the strengths and weaknesses I have that could either help me get there or prevent me from getting there. Because then it is this eloquent tension between the two. Because I always say the best version of yourself isn't the, oh, I can do anything version. The best version of yourself is the disciplined, willing person who's going to do the hard things, who's going to wake up early in the morning, who's going to go to sleep at night instead of going out with their friends and having the extra drink, who's going to study the film, who's going to read the book, who's going to meet with their coaches, who's going to surround themselves with the right people. And so you can't build those things unless you have self-awareness around yourself. But you also have to have that just irrational belief that no matter what life throws at you, or no matter what the task is in front of you, you are capable of not only taking it on, but gracefully overcoming it or gracefully winning because we all are more capable than what we realize. And you have to tap into that inner level of irrational belief, regardless of what anybody says. One of my favorite downstreams from this is, you know, to be misunderstood is a compliment. If everyone understands you, you're probably, you probably don't have high enough goals. And to strive for those and to have the belief that you can achieve them is super important. But to also have that self-awareness of where you currently stand and what could prevent you from getting there or what could get you there is equally as important. One without the other, they do not operate operationally. And you have to have them together. Number seven, your nervous system is the foundation of performance. And so this is when I had Dr. Sean Drake on. And the body cannot express speed, strength, focus. If the body itself does not feel safe, if it does not trust itself to execute a task, if it does not operate under the lens that it believes that it can jump high, run fast, swing a bat, swing a club, throw a punch, take a punch, whatever it is, the nervous system has to be regulated in a sense that is priming its body for performance. That was a really eye-opening conversation about the different ways that we can regulate our nervous system. We can use breathing, we can, you know, use emotional clearing. We can use hands-on massage work, we can use different, you know, fear implementing tactics, whether you're afraid of heights or spiders or injury or whatever it is, putting yourself in those space to operate or unlock a new level of your nervous system and to regulate it and prime it for performance. That was one of my favorite conversations just because it was not a conversation I was astute to having, and it opened up my eyes to this new level of performance that exists. Lesson eight. Curiosity is the core trait of great performers. Whether you're an NFL quarterback, whether you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a golfer, that deep, innate curiosity to where you are just constantly seeking, learning more. How can I learn more about my craft? How can I get better? How can I improve my mindset? How can I improve my body positioning? How can I improve my strength in the weight room? How can I improve my knowledge of the game? How can I improve my knowledge of life? How can I improve my relationship with my faith? Whatever it is, just that deep, innate curiosity of constantly seeking more information, constantly seeking how to get better. That is across almost all of my interviews and a lot of the studies that you read is just that innate desire to want and yearn for more. And if you have that, you are on a path to greatness. Whether you realize it or not, if you have a deep curiosity in a domain of life in sport, you are positioning yourself well above your peers. And I relate it close to obsession. If you have obsession, you have curiosity, it doesn't feel that hard to you in the sense that a lot and what feels like a lot of hard work to others feels natural and like play to you. And when you have that, it is a, it is, it's hard to beat you. Because they are constantly looking for new advantages, new edges, new information to beat people like you. And if you don't have that, you're your SOL. You know, talent will get you so far, but those people who are curious that are obsessed, you just can't beat them. They are winners. They find a way to win. That is a function of who they are. They become worthy of being a champion, they become worthy of winning because of their obsession, curiosity. And all those actions and behaviors are in that right. Number nine, break massive goals into eight station chunks. And so if you look at whatever your next checkpoint is, if you want to run a 100K race, if you want to become an NFL quarterback, you're not going to be doing it in one big step. You're not going to get 10 years worth of work in one day. So break it down, small steps, and do it just for today. Find a system and an operation process that can help you microdose it just for today and then increase checkpoints along the way. Have weekly checkpoints, monthly, quarterly, yearly, five year, 10 year checkpoints. Am I moving in this direction? Am I moving towards mastery? Am I moving towards full understanding? Am I building that skill set that is capable to endure what I'm seeking to that I'm what I am seeking to accomplish? And you have to have systems and processes in the micro that are going to get you to the macro. Always keeping that macro aligned and tying it back to the micro, but understanding in the short run, I have to have systems that are going to keep me going. Because if I have an insurmountable goal and I'm constantly comparing where I am today to that insurmountable goal, that'll feel too obtuse. You will not feel like you can achieve that. It will feel too far away. So you have to create small processes in the meantime that are going to keep you going, that are going to keep you attracted to growth in enhancing who you are on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis. Because even in those short time periods, you will see a massive difference. And if you can become addicted to that feedback loop of constant progress, then eventually you'll look back in five, 10 years and say, I've become a master. Look how far I've come. I can do a 100K race. I can play at, you know, I can play in the NFL at this level. I can play in the NBA or MLB or on PJ tour at this level because I've taken all this time to do it over and over and over again and woke up with that same mindset, that same hunter attack mindset mentality. Number 10, the grind is unglamorous. And that's the whole point. If you talk to and listen to the podcast on anyone who's really achieved ultra successful things, is the journey is the essence of it all. And this is, you know, uh Chris Williamson talks about on teachable lessons. You talk to anybody who's achieved the pinnacle or at the peak of the mountaintop, they will talk about how the journey is unglamorous. That's the point, and that's where the most joy occurs. Because you are learning so much about yourself. You are creating a version of yourself you never thought possible. And then when you get to the peak of the mountain, you get to the top, what you think about most is everything that it took to get there. And if you think about any type of goal chasing, the best feeling is not when you get to the goal or achieve the achievement. It's that anticipation of knowing that you're about to get there. In that last, so you look at the last little bit of a race, whether it's a sprint, whether it's a marathon, whatever it is, your internal body compass is at its highest. Joy is at its highest, is when it's at the anticipation of the race is about to finish. I can see the goal. I can see it and I'm about to achieve it. That is a better feeling than when you actually achieve it itself, than when the race is over, when the championship is won. It is the highest moment of achievement or the highest feeling of achievement is right before you actually achieve it. And that goes back to the unglamorous part of the journey, the late nights, early mornings, the, you know, training perspective where you feel like you cannot touch another weight, where you cannot get up, where you cannot physically push yourself more. You think about all the losses that set you up for the success. You think about all the defeats, the failures, the things that feel like they break you in the moment. What the reality is that it's teaching you a different level of yourself. It's showing what you can come back from. It's showing what you can rise from. And that's what is so amazing about the journey and how unglamorous it is. And that's not to glorify suffering. It's just that each stage of those moments where you didn't feel like you could continue and you found a way to continue, you are showing yourself that you can really handle difficult things in life. And you can handle the adversity that is coming because it is coming. Whether you want it to or not, it's coming. And so having that ability to live in those unglamorous moments, the extra film study, the years, days, months, weeks of sitting in uncertainty, and you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders because you just don't know if you'll be able to continue, if you'll be able to accomplish the thing that you that you sought out to accomplish. And that is where it is truly earned at the highest levels is all of that that leads to the accomplishment, the achievement. Because the reality is, and we have to know the games that we're playing, the achievement itself, it's just gonna be another goalpost. And then you're gonna find another goalpost after. And so finding the true meaning in that, that suffering and in the, you know, unclamorous journey that you're gonna go through is really we get to focus on engineering the type of identity and person that you want to become. 11. Anger, emotion, and pressure are resources. They're not problems. You know, we we too frequently look at emotions, and I've I've talked about this before. We're too enamored with trying to feel happy all the time. And we demonize different emotions like frustration, anger, sadness. But the reality is they are part of the human condition and they give us agency. They are what makes us humans and not just robots or just sedentary beings. We are highly complex personalities, people, and systems. And using anger, using emotion, and using pressure are resources at our disposal. You know, they're features, not bugs. We have the ability and capability to use all these things to our advantage to give us a leg up, to enhance adrenaline, to capitalize on these, to actually perform better. And you can't understand that if you're always trying to demonize and mitigate these emotions. It'll put you in a constant state of self-judgment, self-frustration. And you cannot, you cannot operate. You cannot live that way. That's like thinking that you're gonna eat one meal and be full the rest of your life. It doesn't work that way. It's like asking it for it to be sunny every single day with no clouds, no rain, no, no other types of inclement weather. You begin to lose appreciation for the good times. You begin to lose appreciation for all the things that factor into being a human and human performance itself. And if there's one thing that I get so frustrated with, it's that we demonize and we create antagonists out of certain emotions. And you have to learn to live with those. You have to learn to control them, you have to learn to use them for your benefit. You also have to learn to understand that you are human, you are going to make mistakes. Cannot live life in perfection. But it's how do you utilize the emotion for your benefit? Couldn't care less about the emotion. I care how we utilize the emotion because we're all humans, we all have different levels to which we feel certain things, and we're all different and unique in that perspective. We all have different experiences and we all view life through a different lens. 12. Failure is a better teacher than trophies. And so I categorize this as a trophy that's not earned through hard work and dedication teaches you nothing. A failure paired with hard work, dedication processes, systems is going to teach you more. Because if something comes easy to me and I am constantly winning without tons of effort, and we see this with athletics all the time. That's why a lot of athletes peek plateau at younger ages, because they just don't know what adversity feels like. It was easy for them. And when they first get adversity, they haven't built that skill set to handle it. And failure is one of the best teachers. Now, it's not always going to teach you. Sometimes you lose and it sucks, and there's really not a ton of lessons in there. But if you have a if you have the proper systems in place when you do have a failure, you have the ability to go back and check and see, hey, where did I maybe miss the beat? And using that in that same parallel, if even in success, if you have the right environment around you, you have the right processes and systems, you have the right identity, you can always go back and see what did I do well, what can I do better, what was outside of my control. And when you can answer those three questions objectively and honestly, it's going to give you a blueprint of things to look at to get better as an athlete that you can have a scorecard, you can measure tangibly what am I optimizing for? What am I trying to be good at each competition, each level? And then I can go back, I can review, and I can find a way to enhance and get better. Lesson 13. Free play and chaos develop real skill. And we live in an era where we are trying to create the conditional athlete. We are trying to operationalize and make every condition perfect for our athletes and for kids in this era, and even for adult athletes as well. When in reality, the only thing that you can bank on is that your level of competition is going to be chaotic and unpredictable. And you cannot play in perfect conditions because perfect conditions do not exist. And so every single time that we're trying to create perfect conditions for our athletes, the perfect training, the perfect work, the perfect environment, it doesn't work that simple. And sometimes you need to just go in free play. You need to go play wall ball. You need to go play baseball with a stick and a bottle cap and a quarter. You can't just hit in your perfect T work all the time. You can't go outside and run routes on air all the time. You have to add some type of adversary. You have to add something that is going to put a wrinkle in what you expect. You have to train in the rain. You have to train in the heat. You have to train in the snow. You have to put yourself in the conditions that you could potentially face yourself in. It's the same thing with training. It is not always going to be a perfect box squat. It is not always going to be a perfect deadlift. You have to put yourself in different types of, I don't know if compromised positions is the right word, but chaotic conditions that's going to prepare your body and your mind for impact. And if you don't have those conditions and you don't know how to train with free play and chaos, then I challenge you to seek out from a curiosity standpoint your own research because there's a number of different ways that you can include chaos and adverse events into your training that still manages to keep you healthy as an athlete. Lesson 14, winning can feel empty, engineer your identity beyond achievement. And anyone who listens to me knows that this is one of the biggest conversations we always have is engineering identity beyond achievement, because the curse of competence is real. As you begin to reach each goalpost, you begin to move the goalpost to something else. And the better that you get, the more you normalize success. And the more you normalize success, you create a standard to where you feel that if anything falls below that standard, that you aren't worthy anymore. When in reality, if you looked five years ago, 10 years ago, you would where you are today is what you've prayed for. And if you don't have that lens of gratitude, and if you don't have the ability to have your identity beyond specific achievement, you will eventually fall. And it does not matter how skilled or competent you are, if you do not have that lens of gratitude, and if you do not have the ability to engineer who you are separate from your achievements, you will crumble, you will fall, and you will never feel fulfilled in your work, no matter how good you are. And so to create the processes and the behaviors that give you an identity outside of sport, outside of achievement, is ironically the same identity that you can use to help yourself achieve more. And the parallels between who you are as a person and who you are as a performer, as an athlete, as an entrepreneur, there are parallels between those two, and you use evidence from each domain of life to confirm the other. And when you are in that level of space, you're in that curse of competency, you have to be able to separate who you are from what you do. Because if what you are, or if who you are is what you do, everything in that lens that could threaten your identity will cause you to protect, will cause you to go into survival mode, and you won't be able to compete freely. You won't be able to go out with a hunting mindset. Everything will be protection and it will cause you to inhibit your performance because everything is tied to that outcome. That outcome now defines you. And so being able to separate who you are from what you do and the achievements will help eliminate that emptiness that even when you win is still there. You have to learn to fill your cup with who you are and build that foundation of your home and then build the structure from there. Lesson 15: leadership is about alignment, not authority. Great leaders don't just recruit talent, they build cultures where feedback is freely or flows freely and everyone is aligned in the same mission. Authority commands compliance, alignment commands commitment. And there are multiple different modes and operations of leadership. But when it comes down to alignment versus authority, there is a lot less friction. Not that all friction is bad, but there is a constant, free-flowing, moving machine operationally moving in the same direction together. Not everything is debated. There's not a fight every single day. There's not an argument every single day. It is you, it is your team operating with the same mindset, the same mission, looking to get to the same place. And it is easier to put ego aside and put everything about the company, about the organization, about the team first because you guys are in alignment of what you want and where you want to go. And when the leader can demonstrate that, and he or she can live that out, and then the rest of the team and bringing in the right people and finding the right personalities that fit into the different demographics of what you need as a team, and you guys can work together, that is harmonious as an organization, as a team. Lesson 16: Preparation is the ultimate confidence hack. You know, I talked a little bit about earlier confidence. It's your ability to scientifically predict an outcome that's about to happen. Okay. The best way to do that is be the most prepared person possible. If you're an interviewer, if you are meeting, if you are being interviewed for the first time, knowing absolutely everything that you can about the person you're interviewing, or knowing everything you can about the topics that you're about to be interviewed on, you are going to go into that with a reasonable predictability of how this conversation will look. If you're an athlete and you're a football player and you have a game, how much time are you spending in the film room? How much time are you spending outside of practice, a meeting with your coaches in the trainer's room, extra recovery work? If you can go through and you can have the perfect allotted time for you and what you need and understand that on a weekly basis, you then can prepare at the utmost opportunity to know exactly what you need to do. I hate pointing to Tom Brady and Bill Belichick all the time, even Josh McDaniels when they went and won Super Bowls together, Bill O'Brien. But if you listen to Tom Brady talk about how they would go through entire game plans the day before the game and then make certain adjustments because they know in a red zone they may get this look a couple of different times. Maybe two times they could see an entire game. They're going to put a play specifically for that look. The day before game, weeks, months of practice, years of practice, and even on the day before game, reflecting on all the different film that they've watched, they're going to go in and make an adjustment on that last day and put in a brand new play. You just can't fake preparation. You cannot lie to yourself in those moments and say you're prepared when you're not. And so the easiest way to have confidence, have competence is to be the most prepared person in every room that you walk into. If you can reasonably cross your I's dot your T's or cross, cross your T's, dot your I's and say, I've done everything to prepare, I've paid the price for greatness, you innately are going to have that confidence because you've proven it to yourself. Lesson 17, say no to protect your highest leverage yes. The most successful people in my podcast had clearly defined what they were willing not to do. And saying no isn't a weakness, it's discipline that keeps you operating at the highest level. You don't get distracted by bells and whistles. You don't get distracted by every ask. You are focused on doing only things aligned with you and your mission. And saying no is a superpower because it keeps you honest. It keeps you true to what you want and who you want to become. And so learning how to say no without judgment to yourself, and learning how to say no without feeling bad to others. And maybe most importantly, learning that saying no doesn't make you a jerk or a bad person or selfish. It just means that something is not in alignment with you. And people talk about self-love. There is not a bigger vote of self-love or self-care than saying no to something that is out of alignment with who you are and what you want. If you can say no to those things that are temptations and keep going, you will have so much pure joy in who you are by being able to stay in constant commitment with what you want. And those are that is why people at the highest level achieve so much success because they can say no and not feel bad about it. 18, periodization applies to life as well, not just sport. And the people who say work life balance, I aim to operate away from those people. Because I don't think you're ever in balance. You're constantly in a state of imbalance. And when I'm with my family, I'm with my family. When I'm with my daughters and my son, I'm with my daughters and my son. When I'm with my wife, I'm with her. Now there's periods of time where there may be some overlap. When I'm with my family, I may look at an email or two. But for the most part, I am fully with them and giving them my attention when I'm with them. But when I'm working or when I'm competing, I am fully there as well. I'm fully present in those moments. And there may be times, there may be months at a time where I'm out of alignment again, where I am fully where I'm spending more time with my work than with my family. And then there's going to be periods of time when I'm with my family more than with my work. And that's okay. Anything that when you are chasing anything meaningful in life, there will be, there will be required moments of imbalance. And if you are not willing to accept those moments of imbalance and be able to periodize, then your competition will run by you. And you have to accept that. If you don't, if you're not all in and committed where your feet are, you will get run by and you will not be happy with yourself.

SPEAKER_00

There will be discontent with yourself internally if you cannot learn to periodize.

Fall In Love With Process

Closing And Resources

SPEAKER_01

Like I said, it doesn't mean it's always going to feel good or everyone's going to be happy with you. But you will periodize time to learn how to operate and fill different buckets in your life. Lesson 19, your inner circle is a performance variable. Surrounding yourself with the right people, the right information, the right music, the right wording, the right vocabulary is all part of your inner circle. Your inner circle is not just people. It's the music you listen to. If you're, you know, if you're religious, it's the type of scriptures you're you're reading, it's the type of sermons that you're that you're hearing. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to surround yourself with the people going in the right direction and knowing which person serves which role in your life. You need to have someone who's going to be honest with you. You need to somehow have someone who's going to create belief in you. You need to have someone who is going to give you a hug when you need it. You have to have different people in your life to serve different roles. If you need to laugh, don't go to your friend who's not funny. If you need someone to tell you the truth, don't go to your mom. Unless your mom is, you know, really truthful with you. I don't I don't know too many moms that are able to just be brutally honest with their kids. You know, it's important to have roles for different people in your life. And understanding when do you just need a friend versus when do you need a coach? When do you need advice versus when do you need someone to listen? And making sure that you have the right environment that's going to get you going in that direction. Lesson number 20. Again, going back to this the journey is the destination. The performance who lasts, who can sustain excellence for a long period of time, who can have impact and joy in what they do, they're the ones who fall strictly in love with the process. You know, I hate to end it on a cliche one, but the journey is where everything is built. The destination, again, is just a goalpost. And know the game you're playing again. You are constantly going to be moving goalposts. Once you get to one goalpost, you'll look for another one. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. You should be able to do that without judgment, without frustration. But that comes from loving the journey, loving the process, and just falling in love with the boring, mundane steps that come with it. Not everything is glamorous, not everything is super exciting. Sometimes the most beneficial thing that you can do is spend an extra 30 minutes stretching, spending time in that discomfort of sitting on a lacrosse ball, you know, to help loosen up some of the muscles that you have tension in, to spend time writing, to spend time watching the same film over and over again, to look for any competitive advantage, to spend time writing in your journal, to wake up and train again and again and again and do the same thing over and over and over again without a ton of different variability in the exercises that you're doing. But the people that can do that consistently and wake up and do it with enthusiasm are the people who are going to succeed. I should not be able to tell if you are excited. I should not be able to tell that you are not excited to train today. You should show up every single day and I should know, or I should have no idea that you don't want to train today because all your actions suggest that you are enthused and you're so excited and you can't wait to train today. And the pros, the best in the world, can do that emphatically. Sure, they take time, they take breaks, but they show up every single day with intention and they fall in love with that process. The scoreboard becomes a byproduct. Appreciate you guys. Tune in next week. Check us out at athletic42.com. Download the podcast. Go to our YouTube channel, subscribe. Let's get that subscriber base going. Check us out. We are getting a download the new Elite Performers playbook. It is out now. Please download it. You will benefit from it. I can assure you. Appreciate you guys. Five stars only, baby.