Change Your Self-Image. A Pre-Game Speech for the Elliott Lake Red Wings

Focus is one of the most valuable things we have.

People out there are paid millions, and companies are paid billions to take your focus away.

Protect that shit fellas!

Be very particular with where you direct your focus. What we think about we focus on. Does not go the other way around…

Buckle up with this one and take in my every word.

Where you direct your focus creates habits.

Your self-image and habits reflect one another.

Some of your self-images in this room are not where they should be. Start with successful habits and that will change.

E.g a person that habitually makes a lot of money, has a self-image of a high-income earner. Just like someone who believes they will be a high-income earner one day will jump on opportunities in life to do so.

This is the Baader-Meifholf Phenomenon.

You will see opportunities pop up when you think about em.

Remember, what you think about you focus on.

Author Maxwell Maltz calls this the self-image ceiling. That ceiling will move up and down throughout life, but nobody can break through it, they can only move it higher and lower.

Let us take the Janitor, God bless Janitors, may have come from the projects, and believed that getting out of the hood was success, which was their highest potential.

In this case, being a janitor is exactly what they are capable of. They just set their self-imagine ceiling.

At some point, Astronauts believed they could do it, otherwise they would not have.

I know, you are thinking “Zev, I could believe I'll be president of Egypt until the cows come home, but it isn’t going to happen.”

Yes. Just because you believe something does not mean it is guaranteed.

However, I would argue y’all would not be sitting here in this room if you did not believe you could be great.

Saying you believe something vs. feeling it, are completely different.

Now, at first an astronaut may have only believed they could study for the exam, but not pass it. Then only after studying, believed they could pass it. Then only after studying their physical tests, they believed they could practice it. Then only after practicing they believed they could pass.

And this cycle goes on until the day before they must go into space.

Belief is cyclical and acutely progressive.

Meaning you muster up increasingly self-esteem as you go.

You will not get to the peak of the mountain if you twist an ankle because you had your sights set on the peak instead of the next step.

Do you understand?

For the astronaut, it might have been one minute before takeoff when the astronaut genuinely believed they could do it, but it is the law of life, you will not do anything you do not think you are capable of doing. The astronaut not capable, would turn around a foot from the door and stop himself from getting on.

Key word, stop himself.

It is you vs. you fellas.

To think you are against others is a fallacy.

Our inner world, the world in our heads consisting of perceptions, beliefs and stories based on our senses, creates a rippling affect in our outer world, the world we can actually apply our senses too.

So, by working on how you perceive, believe, and narrate your season, it will change how you sense the season. Hopefully, your positive inner world, creates a positive outer world, aka a positive season. This becomes a feedback loop. We gather more intel on the tangible outer world and use it to create the inner world which then projects itself back onto the canvas of your life which we call reality.

Failing is good. Yes, I said it. And this is not just another cliché on failure.

Allow me to explain: Failing is inevitable. So, when we do it, we have gotten the inevitable out of the way. Meaning we have moved closer to our desires.

You should be glad a failure has happened because it means that lesson has adjourned. It’s gone, you are a new man because of it. This applies to matter how big or how small the lesson.

You may be thinking “But Zev, what if it’s the last time Ill ever get that moment or chance!?”

My message to you, is I am sorry you are grieving that loss of a past, hypothetical, potential outcome that only existed in your head.

1. You will get another chance this season or in your career to redeem yourself, so prepare for it.
2. If it was truly the last time you’ll have the chance, you must serve others who have a chance to fill your shoes. Mentor and lead those who will get that chance. Be a fucking teammate. Inexperience is not a fault nor malicious. Self-deprecation is.

Well fellas, there is way more where that came from, but ill save that more future talks, and let you process this stuff.

Here is your takeaway. It’s time for y’all to sharpen up your fucking self-image. You do that with your habits & routine. If you habitually fuel your body right and sleep 8 hours, you will create the self-imagine of a well prepped, bulletproof player. Here are two tools I’ll give you to create habits:

1. Tie em’ to preexisting ones. For example, I tie my Spanish lessons to when I eat. Since I have a habit of using watching YouTube while I eat.

2. Change your damn environment. I put a foam roller on the floor of my bedroom, so I don’t have to go walking around looking for it. I eliminate that barrier/decision by having it out. Make one decision to eliminate hundreds of future decisions. We call that a system. That is for another day.