#4 (Slightly shortened)

Mental Toughness Secret #4
Champions are driven by emotional motivators.

The masses are primarily motivated by extrinsic motivators such as material possessions and money.
The world class is motivated intrinsically, by their dreams, desires, and passions.
External motivation is short lived, while internal motivation is nearly impossible to exhaust until the goal is achieved.
World class leaders know the secret to motivating themselves and others is discovering what they will fight for when the going gets tough.
The great ones move from logic based motivators to emotion based motivators. They know the key to finding the true power of the individual lies in the deep recesses of the psyche.

When a performer begins to experience physical or emotional pain in the heat of battle, the brain, whose primary role is self preservation, asks the question: Why must I suffer? The champion while answer the question with a vision they have carefully constructed, and they will continue to fight. Since the masses lack this mental clarity and have no reason to suffer, they quit as soon as the pain kicks in.
Developing a world class vision is the secret to world class motivation.

Action:
Ask yourself these 5 critical thinking questions:

1. What am I willing to fight for?

2. What values do I hold dearest to my heart?

3. What values would I be willing to die for?

4. If I could achieve a single thing, what would my all my hard work worth the struggle?

5. If I had 30 seconds left to live, what would I tell my children are the 3 most important things about how to live a happy life.

Your answers to these questions will tell you a lot about what drives you emotionally.

More Mental Toughness

I decided not to type out the whole thing, and just put the one-liner and the action step. And yes, #2 would seem to come after 1 and before 3, but it didn't seem so relevant so I skipped it.

Mental Toughness Secret #3
Champions have an immense capacity for sustained concentration.

Action:
Write down the single most important goal you want to achieve in the next 12 months and make a commitment to concentrate on achieving it no matter what it takes.

177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class

by Steve Siebold
--The thought processes, habits, and philosophies of the great ones.

My hopeful plan is to be able to post one of these every day or so. Obviously I haven't mastered these yet, but I plan to, and for anyone else who finds it helpful or interesting...hope you enjoy. From what I've heard of this book so far, it's pretty tough stuff.

World Class Secret #1
The World Class operates from objective reality.
In 20 years of competing, coaching, and working with performers from various fields, I've discovered most amateurs suffer from mild to severe delusion in relation to their efforts and competencies. In other words, most people delude themselves into thinking they are working harder than they are, and that they're more competent than they actually are.
Of the five major levels of conscious awareness, which are poverty, working, middle, upper, and world class, my experience has been that performers of the middle class levels of consciousness suffer the grandest delusions. The poverty level is barely surviving and living in a very harsh set of circumstances. The working class is punching a mental time clock and counting the days until retirement. They're usually not expecting much, and no one around them expects much either. They're typically not concerned about climbing any higher. It's the middle class that is most incongruent with reality. They're operating at a high enough level of awareness to understand that higher levels exist. Although they don't expect to get there, the thought crosses their minds from time to time. Because of their low expectations, their actions are incongruent with their desires. In other words, they want to live the life of the world class, but are unwilling to pay the price. Since this reality is too harsh to bear, they delude themselves into thinking they're doing everything in their power to get ahead. Of course, they're not. They'll tell you they're putting in far more time than they are. They'll swear they're thinking about their vision all the time...but they're not.
The World Class is brutally honest with themselves. And they tend to look reality in the face. They err on the side of over practicing and over preparing.
Champions know that to ascend to the top you must first be operating from the mindset of objective reality. Self deception and delusion have no place in the professional performer's consciousness.

Action Step:
Make a commitment to check delusion at the door. Be honest and ask this critical thinking question: Are my habits, actions, and behaviors congruent with the vision I have for my life?

Thanks it for today. BTW...I have this on audio book, not paper book, so I hope it's of some benefit after all my transcribing work. In any case, it'll be good typing practice I guess, and maybe it'll help me get it more ingrained.