Why Not Create Your Own Reality?!

A Story To Remember

Great athletes in every sport understand the importance of trusting their technical skills and they do it regardless of the results they achieved on their last attempt.

Stuart Anderson, a University of Virginia football player who went on to play for the Washington Redskins franchise, is one of the best examples.

Upon attending a seminar on ‘Confidence’, Stuart was asked to share with the group what went through his mind when he was thinking confidently.

He replied with a story from his high school basketball career. “I was a fifty per cent shooter from the floor,” he said. “In the first round of the state playoffs I took my first shot and I missed.”

Stuart kept missing. In fact, he had the worst shooting night of his life in that game. He missed twenty odd shots in a row. His team were on the edge of elimination.

Upon hearing this, one of the group attendees asked, “Stuart, why didn’t you start passing the ball after you had missed, say, ten in a row?” “Because I’m a shooter”, Stuart replied.

As the game went on, his team scrapped and scrapped and managed to stay in it. Then, with just a minute to go and trailing by a point, they stole the ball and called a Time Out.

The coach, reasoning that Stuart was so terribly cold that night, proceeded to diagram a play in order to run 55 seconds off the clock and finish the move with a shot for another player, a junior.

“Wait a minute, Coach!” shouted Stuart, “I want the shot. Give me the ball.”

The junior, as it turned out, didn’t really want the shot due to the huge pressure at that stage. So the coach, against his better judgement, changed his plan and called a play to give Stuart the shot.

Stuart received the ball beside the free-throw line, one of his favourite spots. He turned and jumped, completely confident. His eyed zeroed in on the rim. He let the shot go…

Swish, it went in. Stuart was the hero. Fans carried him off the floor and the next day the paper’s headlined his game-winning shot.

Upon hearing the end of the story, another of the attendees asked, “how did you stay so confident after you had missed all those earlier shots?”

“Well you have to understand, I’ve always been a fifty per cent shooter”, replied Stuart. “After I missed one, I figured the next one was likely to go in. After I missed two, I was overdue. By the time I’d missed five, I figured the next shot absolutely had to drop. Every time I missed, I figured the odds were increasing in my favour.”

“Okay”, the attendee said. “If that’s how you think when you miss your first shots, what do you think if you make your first six or seven in a row?”

“Well that’s totally different”, Stuart said. “You decide that tonight’s your night, you’re hot and you’re going to make everything you look at.”

“That’s ridiculous”, the attendee replied. “You can’t have it both ways.”

“Of course you can”, Stuart said.

A Game Changer says…

The simplicity and brilliance of Stuart’s final comment reveals everything we need to know about high level performers and the way their minds operate.

They simply create their own realities.

So, whatever your profession in life, remember to think however is necessary to maintain your confidence and get the job done. Always ‘train to trust’.

At the end of the day, we all create our own realities. You just have to pick the right one!