Month: February 2016

he Mental Zone of Success

The mental zone of success enables us to live in the present moment, work stress free, and perform from a higher mental level.

From 1998-2001, Jason Williams was the starting point guard for the Sacramento Kings.  The February 15, 2001 Sports Illustrated cover featured Williams along with teammates Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Doug Christie, and Peja Stojakovic.  The caption read, “The Greatest Show on Court.”

As the point guard, Williams was the axle of the wheel.  He brought the ball down the court and initiated the plays.

Williams did things so quickly and that were so unorthodox that he dazzled the fans and confused opponents.

In one instance, he hopped three feet off the floor while dribbling down the court at full speed.

The referee called “traveling.”

The hop happened quickly.  It was confusing.  I am not sure what the referee thought he saw, but it wasn’t traveling.  Traveling would mean that Williams had held the ball for two or more steps.  Williams had simply hopped while dribbling down the court.

This play, dubbed “the dribble hop,” became part of Williams’s unconscious arsenal, which also included the elbow bump pass, the behind the back pass to himself, and countless variations of the no-look pass.

Is Jason Williams intelligent?

I remember sitting next to a Sacramento Kings fan watching a game during Williams’s second year on the team.  The fan commented, “Jason Williams won’t last long in the NBA.  He isn’t smart enough.”

I didn’t know what to make of his reference to a player’s intelligence when that player’s performance was raising the performance level of his entire team.

But is he intelligent?  To me, the question is irrelevant, because of the level of Williams’s play.

From what I have read of him, I doubt that he really cares about what people think of his intelligence.  He is intelligent enough to learn the schemes, formations, and plays of NBA teams, and to play in the NBA from the 1998-1999 season through the 2010-2011 season.  In 2006, he was a member of the Miami Heat team that won the NBA championship.

He played ten more years after the person sitting next to me made that comment that Williams was not intelligent.

What Jason Williams did was more of a mental flow than conscious decision-making.  Chris Weber once referred to Williams as a real “gym rat” who took a basketball with him wherever he went.  The things that Williams did came from an enormous natural ability refined through thousands of hours of playing basketball.  In practice, Williams and his teammates worked hours to come together as a team.  On the court, they weren’t thinking.  They had done all their thinking in practice.  The team may not have even been aware of their surroundings.  There was no crowd, no coach, nor clock.

They were playing in the zone.

What happens when we leave that zone and start analyzing what we are doing?

For me, the results have not been good.

I played high school football.  I remember a flair pass play that my team ran.  The play was very simple.  One of the running backs would slide out of backfield for a short pass beyond the line of scrimmage.  I would throw a short pass to that running back.

As a quarterback, I had thrown flair passes hundreds of times.  Quarterbacks often throw flair passes when the team is warming up.  If the receiver is open, the completion is nearly a given.

I say “nearly a given.”  In one game, my coach called a timeout and had me come over to the sideline. He told me to throw a flair pass to the right halfback. After telling me what play to run, he looked me in the eye and said, “Thread the needle.”

I asked, “Thread the needle?”

The next thing that happened was the coach was explaining the metaphor.  “Yeah, you know.  Throw the ball precisely to the receiver.  Put it right in his arms.”

I started thinking about how to throw a pass that I had thrown hundreds of time.

When I dropped back to throw this flair pass, I failed to lead the receiver.  He had to reach back for the ball.  He dropped it.

Some people spend their lives in the mental zone of success.

Everyone has the ability to play in the zone.  From chess players to typist, high performance people find themselves working intuitively.  They are not analyzing their actions.  They are above alert.  They are working in the present moment.

Highly successful people do many things that make them successful.  Here are four traits that enable them to keep a clear head, make better decisions, do more, and have a well-balanced life.

Highly successful people focus on solutions.

They don’t obsess about things that worry them.  Worry helps us by calling our attention to the problems that face us in the future.  Successful people don’t allow themselves to ruminate over the future.  They see opportunities, solutions, and success.  They create plans.  They take action.  They are too busy becoming successful to spend time worrying.  They are highly effective in focusing on solutions.

This is a lesson that I have to teach myself from time to time.  When I find that I am rolling the same painful thoughts through my head and come to no solution, I know now that I am worrying and that my worrying is stealing my success.  I turn to the things in front of me on my desk and work on the next right thing.

Highly successful people pause when they feel panicked.

They know to pause when they feel that urgent need to fight or flee.  They pause and clear their mind.  They take a deep breath.  They step away from the problem.  They bring in other people to help them make wise choices that lead to success.

They don’t dash off text messages that make problems worse.  They don’t become embroiled in arguments that ruin relationships.

Sometimes, I write out things I want to say to people in an email and send the email to myself.  This exercise alone allows me to prevent my fear or anger from controlling my actions.

Highly successful people get in and get things done.

I worked with a recruiter who would drop her kids off at school, go straight to her office, and work until 3:00 PM.  She would then pick up her kids, drive home, and prepare dinner.  Where many recruiters work forty to fifty-hour hours a week to fill twenty jobs a year, she would fill seventy-five to one hundred jobs a year and work thirty-five hours a week.  I examined her routine very carefully, and she did very few things different from other recruiters.  She just did them more quickly.

Highly successful people don’t work around the clock.

Highly successful people live a balanced life.  They work hard.  Sometimes they push themselves to finish a project, even weeks at a time.  But they know to take breaks.  They take time for their family.  They take time to give to their communities and their causes.  They make wise choices in the food they eat.  They take time to exercise.  They take time to rest. They take time for recreation and entertainment.

Now that I have a virtual office, I find that it is far too easy to stay at my desk.  The way I break away is to decide that I will step away from my desk to do one simple thing.  When I have finished that task, I am often able to do other things away from my desk.  Also, I schedule things with people outside my work–my family or my friends.  These appointments enable me to do those things that help me to have a balanced life and be more productive when I am working.

Correcting people on the Internet feels so satisfying while I am writing my comment.  But is it good for me to judge others and police the Internet?

By trying to correct people who post an article, I draw attention to the article.

On LinkedIn, when I comment on an article, my comment makes the article appear in my activity feed and in the activity feed of all the people who follow me.

Then, if people comment on the article in my LinkedIn activity feed, the article appears in their activity feed and in the activity feed of all the people who follow them. The article spreads likes the flu.

Not every activity feed reposts articles the way that LinkedIn’s activity feed does.  However, even on activity feeds that don’t automatically repost articles, I draw attention to an article I don’t like by simply commenting on it.

Policing the Internet can cost me relationships.

As much as I want to fix what we see on the Internet, the effort can backfire.  Nobody likes people who think they know everything.  Not only do I risk burning a bridge with the person I am correcting, I can burn bridges with people who read my comments.

There are better ways to solve the problem than trying to fix people.

There is little chance of changing the opinion of people who like an article.  We all tend to see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe.  On social, religious, and political issues, our feelings override our judgement.  When people argue, they end up more convinced of their own beliefs than before they started discussing the problem.

• I try to think the way successful people think when they are making good decisions. I back away from things that anger me.
• I stop following the people who annoy me.
• Sometimes, I write my rant on a blank document and then close the document without saving it.  I release the tension without getting involved in the problem and making it worse.
• If the article has an important point, I talk with people whose opinion I value instead of dealing with the issue in public.
• And I write an article about the things that I have learned and post that article on the Internet.