Rotella, Mack

How Champions Think -- Bob Rotella

Exceptional people, I have found, either start out being optimistic or learn to be optimistic because they realize that they can't get what they want in life without being optimistic.

[E]xceptional people tend to have a laser-like focus in nearly everything they do. I have a friend for instance who's very successful in real estate. We have traveled together to play golf, and he doesn't doesn't really care much about what courses we play. He's too busy noticing the kind of development that surrounds the golf course. Real estate is his consuming interest. Exceptional people tend to not care too much about what most people would consider balance in their lives. They don't allocate time equally to each aspect of their lives. Like most people, they would say their priorities are health, happiness, and success. Under the heading of happiness, like most people, they would put the quality of the relationship with family and friends, but they devote what most people would consider a disproportionate amount of time to their work, whether that work is sport or some other endeavor. In fact, if they find that they can no longer muster that single-minded devotion, athletes can regress.

[Some great coaches limit the amount of time their teams practice but make them practice especially hard, to their breaking point.]

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Mind Gym -- Gary Mack