🔍 The Book in 3 Sentences

1. In a rush to be the best or have more, we are losing ourselves by focusing only only the outcomes instead of the journey.
2. Self-centeredness is at the root of all problems.
3. Don't play the game to win. Play it to be the best version of yourself while you play the game. Respect your opponent for bringing out the best in you.

💭 Impressions

Why I choose this book

With all the hype around the book, especially seeing a professional athlete reading it in between plays, I couldn't help but give it a try.
I'm glad I did.

👨‍🎓 What the book taught me

💡 How my life / behavior / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book.

• The book reminded me of one of my favorite mantras - "With one eye on the goal there is only one eye left to find the way."

🎙️ My Top 3 Quotes

• "To gain maximum freedom, you must be willing to fail and not be attached to your desires. With no expectations of how things need to unfold, you’re free to handle any obstacle."
• "If it’s stability and security you’re after, you might consider the three meals a day offered within the four walls of prison."
• "We don’t climb mountains to get to the top—we climb to see who we can become in trying to get there."

📒 Summary + Notes

Your heart is where all your hopes and dreams, fears and anxieties fade or flourish. It’s the source of mental toughness and inner strength. (Location 87)

If your heart is built around something temporary that you cannot control, your life will be unstable. (Location 88)

If you search your heart, beyond the desire for any measure of success, you’ll discover, I believe, that what you really want is to feel truly alive, filled with vitality, purpose and meaning—absolute fullness of life. (Location 94)

a life where we’re not constantly shrinking back in fear. (Location 97)

The quality of your life is based on three elements: Your inner world of thoughts and feelings, beliefs and desires. Your frame of reference (mindset) from which you see the world. Your relationships. (Location 113)

The quality of your performance is also based on three elements: Your belief about who you are and what’s possible for you. Your ability to focus and be fully engaged in the moment: heart, mind and body (note: heart and spirit will be used interchangeably). Your freedom to play like a kid, curiously exploring possibilities, excited for challenges that may arise. (Location 119)

Those destined for greatness must first walk alone in the desert. (Location 128)

I realized that the pursuit of extraordinary performance and the pursuit of the best possible life are the same path. (Location 143)

Life is meant to be a journey connecting with others, growing together, discovering new and amazing things, rather than a game of constant comparison and competition, always trying to fit in or be successful. (Location 149)

The best possible life—absolute fullness of life—is one with extraordinary experiences, deep, meaningful relationships, and, most of all: love, joy and peace. (Location 152)

Every circumstance and every person you encounter is here to teach you and help you—it’s (Location 199)

To improve performance (and your life) in a consistent, powerful way, you must change your beliefs about who you are and what’s possible. (Location 204)

Self-centeredness is the root cause of fear. (Location 206)

We don’t climb mountains to get to the top—we climb to see who we can become in trying to get there. (Location 281)

Results are an inconsistent measure of success and failure: you can perform poorly and win, just as you can perform well and lose. (Location 295)

The biggest obstacle we face, in performance and in life, is self-centeredness. (Location 325)

If it’s stability and security you’re after, you might consider the three meals a day offered within the four walls of prison. (Location 345)

Attachment to something you’re not in complete control of makes you needy and brings with it the fear of not getting what you want. (Location 417)

The problem isn’t the components of the virus in and of themselves—the money, achievements, and so forth—but rather putting your trust and identity in something transient and unstable. (Location 437)

As others praise or covet your symbols of success, you get a momentary sense of pride and false sense of worth, which spurs you to chase after more of what you were praised for. (Location 442)

more you want, and the more you have difficulty enjoying what once was really exciting. That striving becomes a sickness that leads to despair as your identity becomes characterized by what you have, what you’ve achieved, how you look or how others perceive you. (Location 443)

What we love most at any given moment controls our lives at that moment. (Location 460)

Winning isn’t the best measure of success because you can’t control or sustain it, (Location 566)

fear stifles our freedom and hurts our performance more than anything else. (Location 633)

The problem is placing your security in things you cannot control. It’s just like with winning: the problem isn’t winning—every champion plays to win. The problem arises when the end result overshadows the process and you lose yourself along the way. (Location 674)

Frustration and anxiety emerge when what we feel has to happen doesn’t happen. (Location 684)

The doubts move from external (I won’t achieve my goal) to personal (I’m not able) to identity (I’m a failure). (Location 685)

When your ego takes over, you become firmly attached to the outcome of your performance and the circumstances leading up to the performance. (Location 750)

Extraordinary achievement calls for extraordinary desire and intense training, especially training your mind to focus on the process, not the result. (Location 755)

Another one of the great deceptions of the Trickster is to trick us into going for lesser goals. (Location 897)

What animates [mountain] climbers is not a death wish, but a life wish, a desire to truly live—fully, intensely, completely. (Location 1022)

To be unirritatable is to be at a place where no person or circumstance can take away your presence. (Location 1139)

To be fearless you must be selfless, otherwise you’ll always fear losing some thing, or some part of yourself. To be selfless you must develop inner strength to walk by faith, not by sight, to end your reliance on stable circumstances or what others think of you. (Location 1192)

Leading with the heart is about unconditionally loving your work, your opponents, your teammates, and yourself. (Location 1206)

If we want to be fearless and live with freedom, the only lasting way is to have love be the driving energy in our lives—that is, to live life with greater energy and purpose than our own well-being. (Location 1428)

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life… have the courage to follow your heart and intuition… Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. —Steve Jobs, Founder, Apple Inc., after being diagnosed with cancer (Location 1500)

If we can accept that suffering is a part of life, and that we will die, perhaps much sooner than we wish, we can start living and get past our fears. (Location 1599)

To gain maximum freedom, you must be willing to fail and not be attached to your desires. With no expectations of how things need to unfold, you’re free to handle any obstacle. (Location 1783)

Assumptions are made in order for us to process information without spending hours in deliberation. (Location 1907)

In other words, what you focus on directs where your thoughts go, and those thoughts become feelings, actions, and results. It controls your life. (Location 1969)

To feel good more often, you need more positive images consistently running through your mind. (Location 1996)

The direct route to a life of deep contentment, joy and confidence is to desire most what is most powerful and stable. So, what’s most powerful and stable? Unconditional love. (Location 2037)

There’s a mantra the samurai recited before going into battle: “Expect nothing, prepare for anything.” (Location 2138)

An anchor is a sight, sound, taste, smell or touch that is linked to a feeling. (Location 2184)

One of the objectives I give every client is to visualize some aspect of their biggest goals and dreams every day, with the aim of really feeling it as if it’s real, so much so that they get a tingling feeling of excitement for at least one second. (Location 2348)

Does that outcome conflict in any way with your values? (Location 2433)

In order to expand your beliefs, it’s important to make sure your goals and dreams align with your true self (i.e., how you want to live and who you’re meant to become). (Location 2438)

Whether you’re anxious or angry, irritated or embarrassed, offended or afraid, those are all emotions caused by a mind caught up in the past or future. (Location 2520)

to the Buddhist it is the process that matters, not the final achievement. It is the attentiveness to each moment.” (Location 2538)

The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or in defeat. (Location 2553)

It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential... to obtain enlightenment means the extinction of everything which obscures the “real” life. —Bruce Lee, martial artist (Location 2560)

If you simplify your life, focusing on one thing that puts the needs of others before your own, you will be present and fearless. (Location 2589)

Let go of what you can’t control. If you are unable to do your routine, that’s how it’s supposed to be on that day. Be meticulous about your routines but never attached to them. (Location 2609)

We cannot control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we respond to it and how we perceive the situation. (Location 2678)

I used to think I would hurry so I could reduce my stress; hurry up and get things done so I could relax and not worry about those things anymore. The reality, however, was that hurrying was the cause of my stress. (Location 2793)

Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” (Location 2814)

In our busyness we lose our true selves with our inability to be present; we eventually become numb to all around us, beauty and everything else. (Location 2819)

There must be gaps in the busyness, ideally every ninety minutes throughout the day, and one full day every seven days—no work, projects, shopping, or anything on the to-do list. And one full year every seven years (I’m overdue). (Location 2836)

awareness, and harmony. Each of these words illustrates the feeling of being fully present. Resonance is most readily available to those who pursue excellence over success (success is always the by-product), mastery over ego, and love over fear; this allows them to be fully engaged, heart, mind and body. (Location 3287)

Dreams are feelings you can control; goals are outcomes you cannot (not completely). (Location 3362)

Mastery is the endless pursuit of self-awareness, self-discipline and personal growth, where winning and achieving are only by-products. (Location 3392)

Will you be present and grateful today in each moment, and see what that moment has to teach you? (Location 3394)

Visualize the events and circumstances of your upcoming performance. Use all your senses to imagine how it will feel. This should be done not just the night before a big game or performance, but every day, ideally for five minutes before every time you sleep (including naps). (Location 3578)

Picture in your mind all the details of what your day is like before and after extraordinary success. (Location 3599)

five pertinent questions: How do I want to feel? What does it take to get that feeling? What keeps me from that feeling? How can I get it back? What am I willing to work for? (Location 3628)

As you become more in tune with how and what you want to feel, you’ll be able to create routines and a lifestyle that will put you in situations where you’ll have the feelings you want. (Location 3632)

whenever you are interrupted or cannot stick to your routine, tell yourself, “This is how it’s supposed to be today.” Accept this interruption as if you chose it. (Location 3636)

To summarize, the most powerful mindset is to expect abundance in your daily life (“something incredible is about to happen”) while letting go of attachments and needs for certain things to happen (“I expect nothing; I can handle anything”). (Location 3659)

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