Think Like a Warrior: The Five Inner Beliefs That Make You Unstoppable (Sports for the Soul Book 1)

by Darrin Donnelly

That’s twenty-eight seasons of basketball, nearly three decades of coaching, before we ever won it all.”

ever known—never complained.

He told me and my brothers: ‘Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal. Don’t whine. Don’t complain.

Don’t make ex...

Even when our family lost everything, he never cursed, complain...

“It’s not right,” I said.

“It wasn’t your fault or your dad’s fault.

It’s not fair.”

“It’s not right. It’s not fair!”

“Things aren’t always going to go your way.

They think everything should always be fair. But that’s not the way this world works.

“It’s actually quite liberating when you accept this fact,” he added.

“Libera...

Therefore, you can stop wasting your time worrying about the things outside of your control.

“How freeing it is to stop stressing over things you can’t control. It frees you up to give your full attention to the things you can control. And how you handle the things you can control determines whether you’re successful or not.”

“I’ve heard you say you feel like a failure. What would it take for you to feel like a success?”

“Winning.

If I start winning games, all my problems will disappear.

winning cures everything.”

“Unfortunately, a lot of people would agree with you and I think that’s what keeps them from achieving their dreams, whether it be as a coach, as a parent, or as a businessperson.”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “you are correct that coaches are judged by the outside world mostly on our win-loss record.

The scoreboard matters and we all want to win.

“The problem, however, occurs with focusing only on wins and losses because that’s something you can’t control.”

you’re focusing on that you don’t have total control over: whether you win enough games and whether you get fired.

your boss could fire you for any number of reasons that don’t have anything to do with wins and losses.

Coaches with winning records get fired all the time.”

“You shouldn’t waste time focusing so much of your attention on results because too often you don’t have control over those results. And neither do your players.”

change the way you’re teaching your players.”

“What I’m saying is that those wins were a result of me and the team’s relentless focus on only the things we did have control over.

Winning was not something I or my players could completely control, so we tried not to focus on it.

team I ever coached came closer to achieving their full potential than that 1962 team.

Not even the undefeated teams that would follow.

I hated losing. Losing hurts.

I’m not suggesting that you pretend that it doesn’t

It’s good to set big goals and drea...

It feels good to win. I’ll never de...

To be honest, I rarely even talked about the opponents we were facing.

did this because I wanted to keep the focus on only what we had total control over.

We focused on ourselves, doing what we had to do, gettin...

They did the most with what they had. They took what they could control—their effort—and gave their very best.”

I kept our focus on only what we could control: our effort and our attitude in the present moment.

I should never try to be better than someone else.

that I should never stop trying to be the very best that I could be.

‘You have control over that,’ he said. ‘You don’t have co...

Success could only be measured by whether you put in the maximum effort.

be successful if you gave your absolute best effort.

only you can know if you’re successful because only you can know if you truly did your best.

“By focusing on only the things you can control, it also forces you to think, live, and act in the present moment.

thinking about past mistakes or worrying ab...

there’s nothing we can do about the past ...