Rob Bell's Blog, page 30

The Rusty Hinge

If you ever listen to a creaky door or gate, it’s not the door or gate at all. It’s the Hinge! So ,what happens when the Hinge becomes Rusty? Chances are that we got away from what got us here, our focus and confidence changed. The Hinge connected, but we let it get rusty…

Here is a 3-minute video on how to prevent the Hinge from getting Rusty! 

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter…

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology coach. DRB & Associates based in Indianapolis works with professional athletes & corporate athletes, coaches, and teams building their Mental Toughness.  His 2nd book is titled  The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness . Follow on twitter  @drrobbell   or contact  drrobbell@drrobbell.com

Check out the new film & e-book, NO FEAR: A simple guide to mental toughness 

NO FEAR: A Simple Guide to Mental Toughness

When I left the university as a professor and I began my Sport Psychology company, I used to give tons of free talks. I have thankfully been able to stop this practice (although, I still get asked to provide free talks). I literally could speak to groups and teams every day of the week if it was free….

One talk I would give was titled: NO FEAR and I told my wife and business partner that I was retiring the talk. “I want people to understand and capture their HINGE moment!” No sooner had I spoken those words, that a dear friend wanted me to speak to his men’s group. Okay, LAST TIME!

Maybe it was the emotion of the men or the atmosphere of the room, but several, okay three, said that they loved it and I should write a book and make a video about the talk….my reply  “ Yeah, no thanks. Here is my 2nd book called The Hinge, check this out.” However, one of the guys stayed on it and hence, the next project…

NO FEAR: A SIMPLE GUIDE TO MENTAL TOUGHNESS. 

This project will consist of an 18-minute film based on the skills needed for mental toughness. NO FEAR- is an acronym and each letter represents a specific mental skill. Simple, but not easy. More importantly, these are the skills needed to capture our Hinge moment!! Accompanying the film will be an e-book designed for you or your team to not only work on your game, but also yourself!

Release date will be in January! We only have 1 sponsorship opportunity left, so stay tuned for pre-orders.

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter…

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology coach. DRB & Associates based in Indianapolis works with professional athletes & corporate athletes, coaches, and teams building their Mental Toughness.  His 2nd book is titled  The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness . Follow on twitter  @drrobbell   or contact  drrobbell@drrobbell.com

 

 

A Huge Myth About Trust…

The best part about sports is that it is NOT like life. Life has tons of ambiguity, whereas sports has little ambiguity.  In athletics, A team or player won or lost, period.  Wash and wear.

Life is not that way, there is a lot of gray. It is not ALL or NOTHING. Addicts think that way, ALL or NOTHING. I am either the best ever, or I am a horrible loser and no one is there for me.

Trust is the most important mental skill. (e.g., confidence). It impacts all the other mental skills, but we automatically think in all or nothing terms…We have trust or we don’t. There’s the myth!

Trust is a continuum, It’s not ALL or NOTHING!

I trust my pastor, but not for him to cut my hair. I trust myself with helping high-performers and athletes, but not for me to fix my own deck or garage door.

It’s not a question of if I trust, it’s a question of how much do I trust?

Trust is a process… HOW MUCH do we trust our coaches and loved one’s?  To offer painful advice and to continue to love unconditionally. Trust affects everything because the more we trust and have confidence, the better focused, relaxed, and honest we become. Think about it, if we give a task to someone and know that it will be done, it frees us up to focus on something else.

How much do we trust our gut, and our own instincts?

Life teaches us that we are going to struggle and also be under pressure moments. When we mess up, how much of our trust and confidence is left, and how do we continue to build and work on it.

Proverbs 3:5-Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter…

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology coach. DRB & Associates based in Indianapolis works with professional athletes & corporate athletes, coaches, and teams building their Mental Toughness.  His 2nd book is titled  The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness . Follow on twitter  @drrobbell   or contact  drrobbell@drrobbell.com

 

How do you lay your cable?

I really had little clue of the importance of details.  I’ve heard it and lived it many times, but it finally hit home. I am shooting a mental toughness film titled No Fear- A Simple Guide to Mental Toughness. Did you know that if one can accurately roll the A/V cables, then you’ll have a job in the movie/video/MTV business. That’s it, and always show up 15-minutes early.

Media production classes even have rolling up AV cable as part of the final. It’s that important. The cables are 2k a piece (on the low end) and in the midst of tons of expensive equipment, the cables can’t ever be compromised. Any kink in the cable can cause the slightest volume fluctuation or disruption. It all starts and ends with how they are rolled up. In large moving sets, the cables must be thrown out so that they will roll successfully and fast.

Now, I take great pride in everything I do, but I admit, I neglected the rolling up piece. I know how my christmas lights are stored away and even my ear buds in my gym bag. I run into kinks all the time!

I know how we finish is important, like stretching, writing out to-do lists, cooling down, and checking over our work for errors. But when you’re finished, it doesn’t matter until you start again…Maybe that’s the key, finishing strong and going over the details helps us when we start again, because there is no finish line.  If it made a significant difference, would we actually pay attention to it or just hope for a job in the movie industry?

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter…

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology coach. DRB & Associates based in Indianapolis works with professional athletes & corporate athletes, coaches, and teams building their Mental Toughness.  His 2nd book is titled  The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness . Follow on twitter  @drrobbell   or contact  drrobbell@drrobbell.com

(VIDEO) The 2nd most difficult mental skill…

Dr. Rob Bell

The 2nd most important mental skill is also the 2nd most difficult. Can you do it on your own, or do you need the help of coaches?

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter…

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology coach. DRB & Associates based in Indianapolis works with professional athletes & corporate athletes, coaches, and teams building their Mental Toughness.  His 2nd book is titled  The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness . Follow on twitter  @drrobbell   or contact  drrobbell@drrobbell.com

The one skill ALL coaches want

A baseball player goes 3/4 one game and 0/9 the rest of the series.

A sales associate puts up amazing 1st quarter numbers, receives a new company watch, and then goes flat the rest of the year.

A player misses their first shot or drops a pass, and they are done for the rest of the game.

drrobbell@drrobbell.com

What happens when you lose Notre Dame Football Tickets?

The weekend was planned, Friday night, my family and I went to the Notre Dame football pep rally, visited the locker-room (touched the famous sign) and went on the field. Friday was incredible!

Saturday, we were going to the Notre Dame game versus North Carolina. All set! Now, my children are 6 & 4 years old, not exactly pre-game connoisseurs and we were staying on a lake about 30 minutes outside of South Bend. So we planned to arrive at 1:00 (game is at 3:30), watch the player walk, listen to the band & the trumpets play in the main hall, visit the grotto, etc.  All awesome traditions.

We parked, walked about 15 minutes and arrived in time to settle in & watch the player walk! I spy a guy selling tickets and then it hits me! I FORGOT THE TICKETS!

One rule I think in life, is that you don’t forget the tickets!!!! It’s basically the only thing you need to remember going to a game.

MY REACTION(S):

ANGER was my initial reaction, it always is when I mess up. I hate it. I frankly despise that part of me. But, it was my reaction, not my response!  My reaction is usually incorrect, because it is filled with emotion. Our response on the other hand is often correct.

BLAME was my 2nd knee-jerk reaction. I turned to my wife looking for someone to blame. I stopped this pretty quickly, because I knew it wasn’t her fault. Although I did mention earlier that she should be in charge of the tickets.

DECISION-MAKING time followed and quick. There was honestly no time to waste! Do we all walk 15 minutes back and then drive to get the tickets, or do the wife & kids stay? Very quickly, we decided. Let’s all go, stay together, we are a team.

STAY COMPOSED I thought.  Now, when one has kids, everything is magnified. Travel, messes, and especially stress levels. As a parent of two, the stress levels automatically increase a notch in general because there are just more things to take care of. At this moment, I was extremely aware of my kids! I must maintain composure because I do not want to model the behavior of losing it in front of them. I threw my son on my shoulders and tried to enjoy the walk back, while FUMING inside!

ANGER returned soon thereafter and this time it was directed inward. This emotion lasted much longer and manifested itself with my own verbal self-talk OUT LOUD! I (for some reason) needed to have this verbal boxing match out in the open and not just inside my own head. We are driving back and I am berating myself out loud (the kids have their headphones on watching a movie).

Here is a sample of some of the kind words I spoke: “You piece of shit”, “what is wrong with you”, “how could you be so stupid” “You call yourself a human being”? All top-notch affirmations!

After 10 minutes, I asked my wife, “Do you have anything to offer to this conversation I am having with myself?” She said, “what would you tell your athletes or coaches?”

I said  “Do the next right thing”, “Let it go”,”Re-focus”  and “rely on the fact that this happened for a reason”!  After that I was good, almost completley back emotionally. We arrived back to the stadium just in time to walk in and watch our 1st Notre Dame game. Now, I don’t know the reason why I forgot the tickets, maybe it prevented an accident? We will never know because “what-if” never happened. 

What did I learn? 

It reinforced that we are human, we are going to make mistakes. It’s all how we respond to the situation and not how we react. People often fear the blame more than the actual mistakes as well! The situation and reaction all taught me more about myself and how I can grow as a person and as a coach. “That which hurts, instructs.” – Ben Franklin

Lastly & most importantly- What if it had been my wife who forgot the tickets? Would I have been able to extend grace and compassion onto her, or would my anger have been directed outwardly? Coaching and loving on others requires grace, sometimes extra grace is required for ourselves.

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter…

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology coach. DRB & Associates based in Indianapolis works with professional athletes & corporate athletes, coaches, and teams building their Mental Toughness.  His 2nd book is titled  The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness . Follow on twitter  @drrobbell   or contact  drrobbell@drrobbell.com

 

The Importance of Models for Mental Toughness.

One shot is the reason why the LPGA is currently dominated by Korean golfers. The Hinge moment was by Se RI Pak during the 1998 U.S. Open and she became a model for others, namely Korean girls.

Click on the picture for the video…

 

 

What confidence doesn’t do!

How many of us have been driving in an unfamiliar place,  following our GPS, and we suddenly sensed that we were not quite in the right spot? So, we turned at corner or drove straight ahead disregarding the map. (I sometimes believe that the GPS takes me past businesses so I’ll have to stop.) 

We all have a built-in GPS system. It’s called confidence! The belief that our needs will be met, and the ability to trust in our decisions, and those closest to us.

Trust is our gut, our intuition. It’s another reason why confidence is just a feeling. 

The GPS just points us in the direction we are supposed to go. It’s our decision whether or not to trust our gut. Even though, if we don’t trust it, we will often be incorrect.

To date, I’ve never had the GPS ask me “How did you get here?”  “Why are you in this part of town?” “Are you going to be late?” 

Confidence doesn’t judge! It never asks questions like “how did you get in this situation”? This should be over, “why are you even here”? “Are you really good enough”?

Confidence is the ability to re-focus, to let go of mistakes, and to listen to our gut, our inborn GPS. Confident people can do THIS skill. 

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter…

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology coach. DRB & Associates based in Indianapolis works with professional athletes & corporate athletes, coaches, and teams building their Mental Toughness.  His 2nd book is titled  The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness . Follow on twitter  @drrobbell   or contact  drrobbell@drrobbell.com

 

 

Stay in Touch with The PAIN…

 

“The Hangover,” distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

I once fell off an 80-foot cliff and lay at the bottom until the EMS unit craned me out. I had a broken wrist, my head was gashed open, and my lower back was in an extreme amount of pain. I had to take a daily regiment of Hydrocodone and still could only make it through half the day.
At another low point, I was in a car accident and struck the windshield so hard that it broke my jaw and my collarbone. They had to wire my jaw and 8 weeks later removed the wires from my mouth. It felt like razor blades slicing through my gums.
As a sophomore in high school, I was the starting second baseman and made an error to lose a game. I felt like such a loser that my head was in my hands the entire bus ride home. I ended up losing my starting position.
As a caddy, I even dropped a golf ball during a professional event and cost my player two shots during the tournament!

These four instances surfaced as either physical or mental pain. However, no physical pain is without mental pain. In all of these, I had messed up, and although the physical pain soon passed, what remained were the beliefs and feelings about myself. The residue of not feeling good enough weighed more heavily than any trophy.

If you have broken a bone or failed, then you understand how bad it hurt at the moment. However, the most interesting part about pain is that it fades… that pain becomes generalized. One cannot go back and recreate just how bad or painful it precisely was, we just remember that it hurt. That is why they say, “time heals…”

Now, time does not heal completely. Pain leaves scars. But, we have a choice in how we move forward; we can choose either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

Hold onto that pain. Yes, we must move on, but try to never forget that pain completely. Addicts call this remembering their rock bottom! Mental Toughness means being able to stay in touch with the pain and still not be consumed by it.  Pain can help us with our gratitude, because we realize we are no longer in that state. It also assists with our focus and motivation. We are now driven toward another goal and way of being.

Click here to subscribe to my Friday Mental Toughness newsletter…

Dr. Rob Bell is a Sport Psychology coach. DRB & Associates based in Indianapolis works with professional athletes & corporate athletes, coaches, and teams building their Mental Toughness.  His 2nd book is titled  The Hinge: The Importance of Mental Toughness . Follow on twitter  @drrobbell   or contact  drrobbell@drrobbell.com