Weaponize Your Mind

After I retired from racing, I did about a year of CrossFit.

I want to be clear: it was hard. Not "tough workout" hard. Hard hard. The kind of hard where you're lying on the floor afterward questioning your life choices.

But the physical suffering wasn't the most interesting part.

What I didn't expect was what I'd learn watching the other people in the room.

Every class had a wide range of athletes. Some were experienced, some were brand new. Some were strong, some were fast, some were neither. And it wasn't always the strongest or fastest who posted the best workouts. Not even close. The athletes who consistently rose to the top were the ones with the sharpest mental game — the ones who stayed composed when things got ugly, who didn't unravel when a movement went sideways or the clock felt endless.

You couldn't tell by looking at them. That's the thing. Mental toughness doesn't show up on the outside.

CrossFit coach Ben Bergeron — who has coached some of the fittest athletes on the planet — gave a TED talk that I keep coming back to. His core message: we're thinking about mental toughness all wrong. The real skill isn't white-knuckling through adversity. It's learning to identify the small number of things you actually control — and deliberately letting go of everything else.

That's a sports skill. But it's also just a life skill.

The weather, the traffic, the bad luck, the competitor who has a better day than you — none of that is yours to manage. What is yours: your preparation, your attitude, your focus, your response. Narrow it down to that short list, and suddenly things get simpler. Not easier — simpler.

Here's the thing Bergeron says that sticks with me most: "No-one will coach you more than that voice in your head." The question is whether you're letting it coach you well — or just letting it run the show.

Worth 15 minutes of your time: Your Mind is a Weapon — Ben Bergeron, TEDxSantaBarbara

See you next week,

— Steve