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INTRODUCTION

A Champion’s Soul with a Winner’s Heart

So YOU WOULD LIKE to become a champion. Following the advice of actor Robert De Niro... “fuhgeddaboutit.” It’s not possible; it doesn’t happen. Having said that, I know I now have your attention. You see, a champion is never something you become... ever. It starts now by acting as a champion, committing yourself to practicing the habits and ways of a champion, choosing to engage in a lifestyle that demonstrates such qualities and characteristics on a consistent, daily basis. This “way of being” is, in the words of scholar Joseph Campbell, a “hero’s journey”—an up-and-down, gain-and-loss odyssey of self-discovery as you become dedicated to exploring the unlimited boundaries of your full human potential, in athletics and life. Along this journey the true champion must ask: Does this journey have heart, passion, and love? If not, misery and failure will result. If so, success will be the by-product.

Champions are valiant fighters and brave warriors. In ancient times, warriors were courageous, focused, visionary, modest, passionate, and completely selfless, working for the higher good of the group or tribe. They were “athletes” of indomitable spirit and iron will who, by believing in themselves, knew that all was possible. These Zen warriors were specialists in defeating an opponent when the true battle had less to do with external events than with the battles raging inside themselves. They were fierce competitors who waged war against their inner fears, frustration, fatigue, and self-doubt, and the rewards for such victory were deeply personal and satisfying. Winning was always the by-product of their victories within.

Although certain physical strengths are needed to excel in athletics, there are additional “ways” and qualities that separate the champions from the near champions, a host of internal, intangible characteristics that I refer to as the “stuff of champions.” One person who exemplifies these traits is distance runner Keith Foreman, who was told by a world-renowned college coach that he didn’t have the “right stuff” to compete at that level—that he essentially didn’t measure up. With championlike qualities of courage, fortitude, determination, and perseverance, Keith went on to become an all-American and only the fifth U.S. runner to break the four-minute-mile barrier. In my mind, Keith possessed the Way of the Champion... his heart and soul were in it. Keith truly was the quintessential warrior.

As with Keith’s experience, a Swiss aerodynamicist once demonstrated by calculations that bumblebees cannot fly. Yet, although the bee has none of the “right stuff” for flight, it seems to be a champion aviator. Like this creature, we all have within us untapped strengths and powers that—once accessed and coupled with proper training and coaching—can enable us to “fly” in our arena of choice.

Yet another example is the legendary racehorse Seabiscuit, considered by the so-called experts to lack star capability. He had none of the traditional earmarks of the truly great horses, yet he ran with heart and became a successful champion. As an interesting sidelight, it is understood in the race-horse culture that only champion horses receive a formal burial ceremony when they die. The heart and head are buried, while the body is discarded, because those intimately associated with the animal know that it became a champion by demonstrating courage (from the French word coeur, meaning heart), tenacity, fearlessness, and the willingness to suffer pain—all qualities of a true warrior. Among people as well, the heart and the head make the champion.

Following a close victory against the University of Notre Dame for his team’s fifteenth NCAA soccer championship, Anson Dorrance, head coach of the University of North Carolina Tarheels, said, “You win these games with heart, and we spend four years working that muscle.” Singer-songwriter Michael Bolton reminds us of this: “To look beyond the glory is the hardest part, for a champion’s strength is measured by heart.”

And let’s remember that participating in athletics is not a prerequisite for entering into the champion’s domain. In fact, most who adhere to the lifestyle of a champion choose other arenas of performance in which to demonstrate these qualities. For example, my wife, Jan, is a true champion in all aspects of her life. I can never forget her dedication, sacrifice, courage, patience, perseverance, fortitude, determination, and bravery during the birth of our children. I thought the grueling pain I experienced during an all-out race, such as a marathon, was remarkable—until I witnessed her courageous efforts during child delivery. Her preparation and training for those events were not unlike the focus of all great champions. Her championlike core continues to carry over to her work as a physician, a runner, and a mother of four vibrant, challenging, active children. Like all champions, she strives to gain positive results, yet savors the process. Her life exemplifies what I call “The Way of the Champion.”

This way of champions in athletics and other arenas of life demands high self-esteem, self-awareness, integrity, and the ability to take the risks to improve while using failure as a teacher on the road to self-discovery. While average athletes and achievers are aware of everything when they think they should be, the champion is aware of all things at all times. Champions focus on consistent preparation and performance, and they know that all outcomes and results are natural by-products of strong commitment to a thorough, intense work ethic. In the words of the philosopher Aristotle, “We are what we consistently commit to doing.” Champions believe in themselves and display a strong desire to do whatever it takes to get it done. They fail, yet unlike the nonchampion, they tolerate such setbacks as natural, inevitable results of entering the competitive arena—in sports and in all walks of life. They are tenacious, fearless, audacious, proud, and confident in their ability to be this way, win or lose. Of course, they want to win on the scoreboard or get that contract in business, and will do all that is necessary to gain that victory. Yet, they know that such a win or outcome is never certain, and if it comes, it is usually the result of their inner victories. Champions distinguish themselves from all others in that they are willing to sacrifice, suffer, and do everything that the nonchampions will not do.

Champions see sports and life as a forum where they can use their opponents as partners. The word “competitor” is taken from a Latin root meaning to “seek together.” When a worthy opponent goes all out, in the heat of a competitive situation or event, you learn to dig deep and discover reserves you never knew existed. Your opponent gives you the distinct opportunity to learn valuable lessons in a condensed period of time. This personal wisdom about winning, and understanding what you are made of, will enable you to live like a champion in the games of athletics and life. How you meet challenges in sports determines how you approach obstacles in your personal life.

Champions fully grasp the difference between what they can and can’t control in an event or life situation, and choose to focus on the former. Outcomes and results cannot be controlled; because of this, one becomes tentative, tense, anxious, and stressed. There are some elements of competition you can control, however, such as preparation, attitude, emotions, work rate, effort, and certain “little things” (see “Little Is Large” in Chapter 9 ), and these help you to relax, stay calm, and focus with intent. Knowing you can control these aspects of your game builds confidence, and as we know, a confident, calm attitude helps you to perform consistently at higher levels. It’s important to realize, though, that even if you control all these aspects of performance, there is no guarantee that the outcome or results will be in your favor; they will, however, enable you to be at your best and feel great satisfaction in the process. Winning, for the champion, is therefore defined as the ability to demonstrate your best on a more consistent basis, by being victorious over those inner demons previously mentioned. Winning, for the champion, becomes a multidimensional experience of winning within, demonstrating personal greatness, and hopefully, achieving favorable outcomes as well.

Thinking about winning in this way takes practice. You do it by means of subtle shifts of the heart and mind. This book, The Way of the Champion: Sacred Lessons for Mental Strength, Leadership, and Winning in Athletics and Life, will train you to become skillful in this regard. To help with these shifts, I use the two thousand-year-old Chinese classic The Art of War, by the strategist Sun-Tzu, as well as wisdom from other ancient Taoist books such as the I Ching and the Tao Te Ching. These books offer principles for mental strength, conscious leadership, and strategic winning, for a more fulfilling, satisfying experience than that of the traditional external victory. Such principles, especially for winning, have been used by martial artists, great warriors, coaches, generals, and successful corporate CEOs worldwide. These are universal ways, or the way things naturally work...the Tao... using strategy, tactical positioning, competitive advantage, and self-awareness based on the laws of nature. I have successfully applied Sun-Tzu’s and other Taoist wisdom throughout my career with athletes and people in many fields of endeavor. What most begin to realize when using this Tao, or paradigm shift, is how clear and natural the opportunity for inner growth and self-improvement becomes, while they discover personal and collective greatness. Here is a way to navigate the journey of infinite potential. The true champion has all of the foregoing virtues as well as what I call the “Winner’s Heart.”

It is important to understand that there are many recognized champions in athletics and professional circles who do not acknowledge the Way of the Champion, philosophically. And by the same token, there are many who live the way outlined within this book yet have never been outwardly recognized as champions. The difference between the two seems to be that by living the Way of the Champion, you are assured that you will discover how great you can be... that you are capable of reaching extraordinary levels of personal best performance. And, in the process of such performance, you increase the likelihood of being on the podium as well. This “way” is a choice, and you have the power to choose to be a champion or to be ordinary.

I know about this way because I have worked with thousands of national and world-class warrior champions in the NBA, NFL, PGA, and Olympics, as well as CEOs in business and others in all arenas of life. During the last seventeen years, I have published eight books on the Tao and performance, while working with some of the greatest collegiate athletes and teams at Duke, Stanford, Maryland, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio State, Columbia, California, and many others. During this time, I have worked with thirty-eight teams who have gone to a Final Four, with eighteen winning national championships. I have learned more from this experience than I have taught.

In addition to this, I have experienced personal victories in numerous competitive sports, including baseball, basketball, track, cross-country, cycling, distance running, tennis, and racquetball. As a coach, a national-class athlete, sports psychologist, teacher, author, and father of several athletic children, I find that the Way of the Champion is present in my life everywhere.

If you wish to take your game to the next level, what I have learned will help you to discover the greatness that lies within you. What I know is that the making of a champion is all about heart. While the champion sees the game as a battlefield against an opponent or clock, it’s also an arena for the battle within, against such demons as fear, fatigue, frustration, failure, and self-doubt. These inner battles are fought with weapons of the heart, or what I like to call “the stuff of champions,” the right stuff. In this sense, being a champion is a spiritual practice of embracing and connecting to the right stuff, sacred virtues such as courage, fortitude, compassion, commitment, patience, perseverance, passion, integrity, responsibility, respect, and self-sacrfice. By learning and applying the right stuff, and absorbing the lessons of champions and the wisdom of Tao, you will live your life with the substance and spirit of a champion and be a true winner in every aspect of the game of life.

The Way of the Champion presents clear, concise, natural, and practical time-honored sacred lessons on how to act like a champion. For example, the personal battle of completing an enormous work project, preparing a meal for twenty-five people, or finishing a twenty-six-mile race can seem overwhelming. At mile twenty of a marathon, I have felt, “I can’t go on; it hurts too much.” This feeling is so intense for many runners that the thought of going six more miles seems problematic at best. However, by going only one more mile, and then repeating that achievement five more times, one learns the ancient lesson: When you divide a seemingly insurmountable task into small, manageable segments, you can achieve a goal. How do you swallow an elephant? One bite at a time.

This Tao lesson, once grasped, is easily applied to all of life’s struggles and can enable you to accomplish extraordinary things in any field of endeavor. Tao lessons, through sports, will help you to witness so much of life in small dramatic ways. Andrew Cooper’s book Playing in the Zone tells us that “sport is a container where passions are channeled and virtues cultivated.” Sport is a spiritual event that can enrich the soul, awakening in all of us a higher sense of self, the true winner within.

This book offers a deeply spiritual, unique, creative, inner approach to mental strength, leadership, and winning that will help to steep your mind and heart in a serene, tranquil, and heightened state of self-confidence. It emphasizes a process of thought as well as trust in your intuitive self—a process that basically conforms to the Zen precept of “doing the right thing.” You will learn how to reach personal and team best performances by clearing barriers and neutralizing the impact of obstacles standing in the way of success, whether these obstacles come from within, are environmentally induced, or derive from other athletes, teams, or personal relationships affecting you in everyday life. According to Sun-Tzu, best performances are achieved not just by knowing all the right moves, but as much by knowing what not to do and when not to do it.

HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM THIS BOOK

S UN-TZU’S ancient treatise on victory, The Art of War, classifies winning into four major categories: Self-Awareness, Strategic Positioning, Competitive Advantage, and Leadership with Team Unity. You will notice that I divide The Way of the Champion into four similar parts. As you reach each major part, my partner, mentor, and friend, Chungliang Al Huang, will greet you with a piece of his beautiful, meditative brush-stroke artwork, capturing the essence and message of that specific section. This will immediately be followed by a relevant quote from Sun-Tzu or other Taoist wisdom, which will set the tone for the chapters within that particular section. Each of the four major parts are subdivided into three chapters, each one filled with pragmatic lessons containing strategies, tactics, quotes, stories, anecdotes, and relevant gems taken from my years of experience with athletes and others, to help you to transform competition, confrontation, and conflict into true art. As a side note, this structure resembles the four seasons and twelve months of the calendar year. In Chinese culture, the cycle of the four seasons represents a complete experience, marking lasting change in habits and relationships. Give yourself this year to create change and establish new habits and relationships in sport and life. When the year is up, begin to read this book again for continued comfort and support in the journey.

At the conclusion of each of the twelve chapters, you will be given a summary of the major lessons to be learned, in the form of usable, practical affirmations. These “touchstones” can be placed individually on 3 x 5 index cards to be referred to throughout the day or week, as gentle reminders and directives to help you stay the course. You can choose all or only those that jump off the page and hit you right between the eyes. All of my clients use this method to help them stay on track, consulting the cards in various situations, such as during the changeover on the tennis court, between hole and tee box on the golf course, at halftime during a basketball game, just prior to a competitive sky dive, while waiting in the start house before a downhill race, or simply waiting for a bus, plane, or train. You can also use these affirmations prior to an important business meeting, before talking to your children after they have misbehaved, and to help you to make changes in unproductive personal or behavior patterns or daily habits.

Following these statements, each chapter will give you two or more questions, the answers to which will guide and direct you forward on the quest in a proactive, integrative way. These “Questions on the Quest” are meditative, reflective, and soul-searching in nature, helping you to access the deeper, more spiritual aspects of yourself and your journey. Like the affirmations, the answers to these penetrating queries can be written on 3 x 5 cards and used as indicators of what must be done in order to keep on track.

I intend that these chapter-ending exercises serve as appetizers for the athletic soul and personal spirit, helping you to expand your lens of perception by focusing on possibilities, on becoming not the best, but the best you can be. By doing so, you come alive and experience more joy, freedom, and profundity in athletics and life. You begin to perform at a higher level and become more successful in all your arenas of performance.

Having said all of this, I strongly advise against reading the book from cover to cover, quickly. I want you to scan the table of contents and see what topics speak to you. Go to that section and slowly “work it.” Digest the morsels, try the exercises, answer the questions, adopt or adapt an affirmation when it fits. Most of us have busy lives, and being on the go makes it difficult to read a whole book. When I read a book of this type, I want to get to the point, learn, close the book, and practice. You may be like this as well. Whether you are a busy athlete, corporate worker, or home manager, I know you can find the time to read the book in this way—perhaps five or ten minutes before bed each day. Give it time during the day to sink in. Little by little, inch by inch, it will be absorbed entirely.

By nurturing and practicing the ways of the champion on a consistent basis, you will develop good habits and increase the chances of performing at more satisfying levels in your life. By being familiar with and entrenched in this way of a champion, by acting-as-if and using these attitudes, precepts, virtues, and lessons, you automatically place yourself in position to realize your potential.

I’m ready... are you? If so, let’s begin the journey, take in the “stuff of champions,” and find out how you can perform and succeed like highly effective athletes, professionals, workers, parents, and people who win in sports and life. This book will come through in the clutch every time, to help you experience more joy, satisfaction, and freedom in any game you decide to play.