“‘These are my dreams! Why live if I abandon them in difficulty? That is when they need me the most.’ Have you ever said those words? Have you ever accessed the victorious spirit within? Because here’s the secret: it’s resting within you, right at this very moment.”
Bert R. Mandelbaum, MD, via The Win Within (Page 35)
“No one invites adversity into their lives, and while you can’t always be as prepared for it as you would like to be, the victorious spirit enables you to turn this bad luck into opportunity. Adversity is never the end, but rather a catalyst for you to push yourself further than you may have even thought possible. You simply need to unlock the victorious spirit.”
Bert R. Mandelbaum, MD, via The Win Within (Page 24)
“People often ask me about the behind-the-scenes mechanics of my work with elite athletes. They want to know the mysterious process that motivates the extraordinary among us. How do they reach such high levels of performance? And how do they go from a devastating injury to return-to-play? How do they stick it out when they suffer a setback that would put others out of the arena for good? The short version is this: They marshal their inner victorious spirit—a resource that is inside all of us—to push through setbacks and perform at peak levels, physically and mentally. They capitalize on the genetic legacy of survival and perseverance that’s part of our collective history, using their biological drive not just to survive, but to thrive.”
Bert R. Mandelbaum, MD, via The Win Within (Page 1)
The Win Within: Capturing Your Victorious Spirit [Book]
Book Overview: As an orthopedic surgeon, a finish-line physician, and a USA team doctor at the World Cup and the Olympics, Dr. Bert Mandelbaum has witnessed the trials and triumphs of elite athletes from a vantage point few of us get. And over his twenty-plus years of experience, he’s identified a common character trait that every elite athlete relies upon for success: it’s what he calls the ”victorious spirit.” In The Win Within, Mandelbaum reveals that any of us–no matter our age or physical condition–can capture that same spirit in our own lives. This inner drive to win resides in all of us, he argues, hardwired into our DNA by ancestry dating back millions of years. You’ll learn how to view life the way a top-performing athlete does: relentlessly, tenaciously, positively, and focusing less on the finish line of the marathon and more on the 26.2 miles that precede it. With narrative support ranging from the lessons of our early ancestors to Mandelbaum’s stories of our modern-day gladiators (both household name and lesser known), The Win Within will give you a greater understanding of how and why we’re all hardwired to win–and you’ll come away with no shortage of tactics and motivation to capture your own victorious spirit.
“I know that sometimes, persistence is not a virtue. I would trade my other abilities to be an exceptional songwriter. I gave it a serious enough try to know that I don’t have the knack, for years, and I’m not interested in being publicly mediocre at the performing arts. My life is incalculably better for having let the dream go. The world will be happiest with a certain range of behaviors from you—life will be easier if you find a place in that range where you’re content. David Whyte calls this the conversational nature of reality, and he is correct about the importance of this concept.”
Sasha Chapin
“Don’t be distracted by anything. The work is what counts. There are a lot of things that can get in your way, that take up your time and your emotional and intellectual energy; none of them account for anything. They mean nothing. The only thing, in the final analysis, at this stage of the game, that really counts, is the work. The work is everything. The years that I spent in advertising I saw an awful lot of people who had the potential to be good lose a lot of their ability to distraction, to politics, to fear, and to who has the bigger office. You’ll get the bigger office; you’ll make the money. Anything you want will happen, but sometimes it’s hard for people to see that when they’re in the middle of it. It looks like it’s incredibly complicated. Well, it’s not complicated at all. In fact, it’s so uncomplicated it’s amazing. All it is about is the work. Finally, if you do the work people will notice and you will get what you want. That’s it. It’s as simple as that.”
Tom McElligott
“The ability to do hard things is perhaps the most useful ability you can foster in yourself or your children. And proof that you are someone who can do them is one of the most useful assets you can have on your life resume. Our self-image is composed of historical evidence of our abilities. The more hard things you push yourself to do, the more competent you will see yourself to be. If you can run marathons or throw double your body weight over your head, the sleep deprivation from a newborn is only a mild irritant. If you can excel at organic chemistry or econometrics, onboarding for a new finance job will be a breeze. But if we avoid hard things, anything mildly challenging will seem insurmountable. We’ll cry into TikTok over an errant period at the end of a text message. We’ll see ourselves as incapable of learning new skills, taking on new careers, and escaping bad situations. The proof you can do hard things is one of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself.”
Nat Eliason
“They said [Tommy Norris] was too small, too thin, and not strong enough [to be a SEAL]. But, Norris proved them all wrong and showed that it’s not the size of your flippers that counts, just the size of your heart.”
William A. McRaven, Make Your Bed (Page 34) | ★ Featured on this book list.
“If I were to speak truthfully when people asked me how I was doing, I would tell them: ‘It doesn’t matter how I’m doing.’ Because that’s the truth. It doesn’t matter if I feel good or bad or excited or bored or happy or sad. It doesn’t matter. I am going to do what I am supposed to do.”
Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom (Page 105)
“When it just doesn’t make any logical sense to go on, that’s when you use your emotion, your anger, your frustration, your fear, to push further, to push you to say one thing: I don’t stop. When your feelings are screaming that you have had enough, when you think you are going to break emotionally, override that emotion with concrete logic and willpower that says one thing: I don’t stop. Fight weak emotions with the power of logic; fight the weakness of logic with the power of emotion.”
Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom (Page 23)
“I don’t accept that I am what I am and that ‘that’ is what I am doomed to be. NO. I do not accept that. I’m fighting. I’m always fighting. I’m struggling and I’m scraping and kicking and clawing at those weaknesses—to change them. To stop them. Some days I win. But some days I don’t. But each and every day: I get back up and I move forward. With my fists clenched. Toward the battle. Toward the struggle. And I fight with everything I’ve got: To overcome those weaknesses and those shortfalls and those flaws as I strive to be just a little bit better today than I was yesterday.”
Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom (Page 17)
“The irony is that this ‘fake it till you make it’ tactic is the exact opposite of how truly successful people live. They live with authentic vulnerability because they know that the world always connects more with your grit than your shine. They might show up for the shine, but they will stay because of your grit.”
Joshua Medcalf, Pound The Stone
“We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us… The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you are not the result of training at home, by a father, or by masters at school, they have sprung from beginnings of a very different order, by reaction from the influence of everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory.”
Marcel Proust, via The Daily Laws (Page 5)
“When life brings you to the floor, there is a choice: You can allow the worst thing that’s ever happened to you to hijack your remaining days, or you can claw your way back into motion.”
Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 224)
“Cato the Younger had enough money to dress in fine clothing. Yet he often walked around Rome barefoot, indifferent to assumptions people made about him as he passed. he could have indulged in the finest food. He chose instead to eat simple far. whether it was raining or intensely hot, he went bareheaded by choice. Why not indulge in some easy relief? Because Cato was training his soul to be strong and resilient. Specifically, he was learning indifference: an attitude of ‘let come what may’ that would serve him well in the trenches with the army, in the Forum and the Senate, and in his life as a father and statesman.”
Ryan Holiday, via The Daily Stoic (Page 263)
“If you run a marathon, you’re going to get tired. It would make no sense to hire a coach and say, ‘I want you to help me train so I don’t get tired when I run a marathon.’ The only difference between the tens of thousands of people who finish the marathon and those that don’t is that the finishers figured out where to put their tired.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 169)
25 Work Ethic Quotes to Re-Ignite (or Reinforce) The FIRE In Your Belly!
Excerpt: These 25 Work Ethic Quotes will get you FIRED up and ready to tackle the challenges of your life (because there’s never a shortage of those).
Read More »25 Work Ethic Quotes to Re-Ignite (or Reinforce) The FIRE In Your Belly!
David Goggins Quote on Callousing Your Mind and How I Ran A Marathon Without Running Training
“It takes twenty years to gain twenty years of experience, and the only way to move beyond your 40 percent is to callous your mind, day after day. Which means you’ll have to chase pain like it’s your damn job!”
David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me
Beyond the Quote (235/365)
On Sunday, August 23rd, 2020, I ran my second marathon. I didn’t follow any specific running plans and did but only one training run (13.1 miles) leading up to it the week before. The most I had done besides that was a mile or two around my block at any given time in the whole year prior. Why do I tell you this? Because while I didn’t do any official running training for that run, I have been training my body for war for over two decades. And if you start doing the same, your body might be able to perform in ways that surpass your wildest expectations as well.
Read More »David Goggins Quote on Callousing Your Mind and How I Ran A Marathon Without Running TrainingKobe Bryant Quote on Work Ethic and How He Stuck To His Routine Even On The Busiest Days
“My routine was grueling. It involved early mornings and late nights. It involved stretching, lifting, training, hooping, recovery, and film study. It involved putting in a lot of work and hours. It’s—no lie—tiring. For that reason, a lot of players pare down their lifting and training during the season. They try conserving their energy. Not me, though. I found that, yes, this work might be strenuous on the day-to-day, but it left me stronger and more prepared during the dog days of the season and the playoffs.”
Kobe Bryant, Mamba Mentality (Page 42)
Beyond the Quote (217/365)
Not everybody needs to maintain a grueling routine like Kobe did. After all, not all of us are competing in professional sporting events against some of the most intense competition in the world. But, there’s an underlying key mindset here that does apply to us all: Don’t make sacrifices on your routine merely for the sake of conserving energy. Let’s take a closer look.
Read More »Kobe Bryant Quote on Work Ethic and How He Stuck To His Routine Even On The Busiest Days