What Mental Toughness Actually Means

In this episode, Coach John Williams introduces The Champions Code, his book distilling over 20 years of coaching across elite athletes, high-level coaches, and multiple domains — sport, business, and academics. He previews the five attributes covered in the book and begins with the first: mental toughness.

John cuts through the vague, overused definition of "mental toughness" to offer a specific one: the ability to stay composed and resilient under pressure, and to control your mindset before you try to control your outcomes. He gives concrete, real-world markers for spotting it — and its absence — in yourself and the people you lead.

Transcript

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Your ability to hold focus means I'm placing my attention here and I do not want my attention to leave this place. That place should be on your process. Okay. If you do not have the ability to hold focus, then you do not have the ability to control your attention. And that means that every shiny object that blows past is going to take your eyes and your attention with it. Every noise is going to be a disruption. Every outburst is going to be irritant. All of these things that are beyond your control, you are trying to control. But in fact, they are distracting you and controlling you. Whereas if you are able to maintain focus, if you are able to direct and control where your attention is placed, now these things don't affect you. They don't knock you off. They don't disrupt your balance. They keep you in the game, playing it the way that you want to play. We're going to talk about the significance of clarity, consistency, commitment, composure, coachability. And with each attribute, I'm going to try to give you an idea of what that looks like in real-world practice, whether it's in the context of a sporting environment or in the business world or even academics. So without further ado, let's jump right in. The Champion's Code, the Five Attributes of Winners available on Amazon, is a book that I take a great deal of pride in. I released it about a year or so ago. And it's kind of a culmination of what I've observed over 20 plus years of coaching, the myriad of athletes that I've worked with, and the myriad of high-level coaches whom I respect greatly, that I've had the ability to share courts with, share fields with, sometimes just share lunch with. So without further ado, first attribute of a champion, mental toughness. This expression has been overused for decades now. Mental toughness. What is mental toughness? What's the definition of mental toughness? You ask 10 people, you'll probably get 10 different answers. For the sake of brevity here, the specificity of what I mean by mental toughness will just general give a general overview. And what I mean by mental toughness is it's the ability to remain composed and resilient in the face of pressure, being focused when the stress level rises, and to be able to control their or your mindset before you look to control your outcomes. That to me is what I define mental toughness as. And what does that look like in practice? Well, situations and circumstances that are beyond your control. Are you still trying to control them? Are they controlling you? Meaning things don't go your way. Are you upset as a result? Are you getting frustrated? Are you blaming, whining, complaining, making excuses? If any of those things are taking place, then you are not displaying, demonstrating, or living mentally tough. Let's talk about attribute number two, physical fitness. Physical fitness is a prerequisite for elite level performances. Why? Because if you don't have the endurance to be able to think, if you don't have the stamina to be able to continuously move, then your physical limitations are going to hijack your thoughts and ideas. It is going to become a fight for survival, and your body is always going to minimize the physical output necessary in order to keep the brain functioning. This shows up in when fatigue sets in, you get irritable, you get short with your team, your staff, your family. When fatigue sets in, your ability to hold focus and concentration starts to diminish rapidly. That shows up in your inability to stick with the plan, to stay the course, to keep executing your process, to even identify and remember what your process is. If your physical fitness doesn't allow you the endurance and the stamina to be able to do those things, then your performance will suffer. Number three, discipline and focus. Let's talk about focus first and then I'll touch on discipline. And they they go hand in hand. Focus, as I said in number two, as it relates to physical fitness, is super important because focus means that's where your attention is being placed. Your ability to hold focus means I'm placing my attention here, and I do not want my attention to leave this place. That place should be on your process. Okay. If you do not have the ability to hold focus, then you do not have the ability to control your attention. And that means that every shiny object that blows past is going to take your eyes and your attention with it. Every noise is going to be a disruption, every outburst is going to be irritant. All of these things that are beyond your control, you are trying to control. But in fact, they are distracting you and controlling you. Whereas if you are able to maintain focus, if you are able to direct and control where your attention is placed, now these things don't affect you. They don't knock you off, they don't disrupt your balance, they keep you in the game, playing it the way that you want to play. Discipline. The discipline part comes in in doing the things that you don't want to do, even though you know you need to do them. Doing the things you do not want to do necessarily, but doing them anyway because you know you need to do them. Mike Tyson is quoted by or credited by with the quote Discipline to him is doing the things you hate, but doing them like you love them. I could buy into that. I could buy into that. I am not a big fan of interjecting emotion in processes. I think that corrupts the data set, but I like where he was going with that. Moving on, number four, goals and planning. I think the ability to create clarity through purposeful planning and goal setting is an extension of organization. And that level or ability to organize gives you peace because you have thought three, four, five, ten steps ahead. You have mapped out all the places that things can be great and things can be not so good for you. Hopefully, you have placed and planned contingencies, and that level of thoroughness should give you some peace and allow you to be able to operate from a serene platform, not a reactive one, but a proactive one. And when it comes to behaviors of champions, those that execute that well, those that have spent a great deal of time doing the work in the area of goal setting and strategic planning, they don't drift because their intentions lead them toward their goals. Their processes focus their energies into moving the needle in the direction of their goals. Number five, leadership and team building. This is largely overlooked by athletes and terribly neglected by coaches. Typically, coaches look at team building as a way to offload responsibility. I'm going to say that again. In my experience, team building is looked at by majority from coaches as a way to simply offload responsibility. I don't want to be responsible for X. Therefore, I'm going to bring somebody else in to do this. Now, you could listen to that and say, well, that's kind of the way it should be. If you're operating outside of your wheelhouse or your area of expertise or training or professional skill set and capabilities, then you definitely should it's your responsibility, your obligation to bring someone in to fill that void, if the void needs to be filled. I don't disagree with any of that. What I'm simply saying is when we talk about responsibility, if I'm bringing a physio in to work on one of my athletes or a player, I am responsible for the physio, which means I'm responsible for the physio understanding what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, when it needs to be done, the manner in which it is to be delivered, what is not to be done, what is not to be discussed, what kind of energy and environment is essential to maintain in order to facilitate success and growth. All of these things are my responsibility as the leader. I cannot just let the athlete or the client relay this information because they may not understand it all yet. They may not have complete and total clarity of the small picture, the medium picture, and the larger picture at play. Therefore, it is my responsibility as the coach, as the leader, to make sure that this information is communicated in an effective and clear fashion to not just the player, but to everyone else on the team. So semantically playing around, it is my responsibility. I never want to offload that responsibility. I can offload the work, but not the responsibility. So those are the five attributes of champions, and I encourage you to grab the book, take a look at the detail in which I go into them. I give exercises, I give examples, there are some stories in there. But I I wrote that as kind of a field manual. And it's not a large book, it's a very easy read. And I want to encourage each and every one of you to kind of keep it in your back pocket, keep it in your backpack, keep it in your duffel bag. If you're a coach or a leader, pull it out, assess what principles are you seeing applied? What attributes have you identified in the people that you work with? How are you cultivating growth in those areas? If there are attributes that are not showing up, but you need them to, how are you addressing that? I give you some tools and tactics in the book to be able to answer all of those questions. And I hope the feedback continues because thus far we've had incredible feedback from coaches and leaders who use this book almost every day, use it as kind of a primer before going into sessions or going into meetings so that they are clear on what the objectives are and how to move their team or their individuals that are within their charge forward and closer to elite level performances in whatever domain they're operating. So I hope this helps you as well. Um thanks for tuning in, and we will see you next time. Until then, I encourage you to keep elevating.