Relentless Optimism
How a Commitment to Positive Thinking Changes Everything
This is our third Note on Darrin Donnelly and the third of six books from his "Sports for the Soul" series. We'll be featuring the entire series. In this inspirational fable, we meet “Bobby Kane, a minor league baseball player who, at the age of 31, is coming to terms with the fact that his dream of making it to the majors” might be coming to a disappointing end. Then... He meets a wise manager who helps him develop the relentless optimism that helps him... spoiler alert... make his dreams a reality. Bobby, of course, represents ALL of us who face doubts on our Heroic quests. Now...it's time to chat about some of my favorite Big Ideas so let’s jump straight in!
Big Ideas
- Failure Is a L-I-EEnter: Relentless optimism.
- Where’s Your Focus?Take dead aim on what you want.
- Your ONE Single GoalWhat is it?
- Give Your Very BestThat IS success.
- When Dreams Come TrueA Heroic story of a friend.
“Positive thinking leads to positive outcomes. Study after study proves this. Researchers have found that optimistic people live longer, live healthier, have more energy, have more successful careers, make better decisions, are more productive, are less stressed, have healthier relationships, and (not surprisingly) are much happier than pessimists.
However, a lot has been misunderstood about what it means to be a positive thinker and what it takes to maintain an optimistic outlook.
It requires more than repeating feel-good platitudes to make positive thinking work in your life. It takes discipline, commitment, and a proper understanding of what optimism really means in a world that is constantly throwing new challenges at us.
This is a book for anyone who has ever questioned whether positive thinking really ‘works.’
It’s also a book for those who have tried to develop a more positive attitude, but have found it easier said than done when it comes to eliminating the voices of fear, doubt, and cynicism.
This is a book for anyone who wants to put optimism to work in their life with practical, proven techniques.”
~ Darrin Donnelly from Relentless Optimism
This is the third book in Darrin Donnelly’s Sports for the Soul series.
As I mentioned in Notes on the first two (Think Like a Warrior and Old School Grit), I read ALL SIX books in the series in less than a week. They were THAT good.
In this inspirational fable, we meet “Bobby Kane, a minor league baseball player who, at the age of 31, is coming to terms with the fact that his dream of making it to the majors” might be coming to a disappointing end.
Then... He meets a wise manager who helps him develop the relentless optimism that helps him... spoiler alert... make his dreams a reality.
Bobby, of course, represents ALL of us who face doubts on our Heroic quests.
Darrin has a remarkable ability to explain important, scientifically-valid ideas in the context of a REALLY compelling sports story—which makes this book and his series a perfect way to introduce grounded, practical yet super-inspiring wisdom to people who otherwise might not be that interested in and/or willing to invest the time in reading a typical self-development book.
To be explicit: When I type that, I’m thinking of guys who love football and beer and may scoff at these “self-help” ideas. (Hah.) PERFECT.
Get them this book. Trust me. They’ll LOVE IT. Same goes with teenage kids into sports. This is the PERFECT way to introduce them to the science of peak performance.
btw: Speaking of great fiction with great wisdom, have you seen our collection of Notes on the Harry Potter series? We’ve featured all SEVEN of those books as well.
And, now... It’s time to chat about some of my favorite Big Ideas so let’s jump straight in!
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Download PDFTo succeed in baseball, you must learn not how to avoid failure, but how to quickly bounce back from it—with optimism and perseverance. That is what positive thinking is all about. It’s about responding to life’s obstacles with a positive, never-back-down attitude. It’s true in baseball. It’s true in life.
Get the BookFailure Is a L-I-E
“‘Failure is a lie; that’s L-I-E. Failure is Limited, Isolated, and External. It’s Limited to one particular moment, it’s Isolated to one particular area, and it occurred Externally—outside of you.’
With the type of urgency you feel when you learn something new and exciting, I wrote down the words Wally was saying as fast as I could.
‘You see,’ Wally continued. ‘We’re not talking about positive vibes and happy feelings here. That’s not what optimism is. We’re talking about logic.
‘When people experience negative events, they usually lie to themselves. You have to recognize those LIEs and stop them in their tracks. Very few people get this. They feed themselves pessimistic lies after each setback and it creates a vicious cycle of new setbacks—in future events, in other areas of their life, and deep inside of them. It draws them down and whittles away at their self-esteem.’”
Of course, this book is called Relentless Optimism.
Know this: The reason I’m such a big fan of it is because it’s not just a bunch of pom-pom waving feel good, “wishful thinking” mumbo jumbo. It’s grounded in REAL science. In fact, I think this book features THE best practical application of Martin Seligman’s research on optimism. Period.
The foundational book from which Darrin draws his wisdom is Seligman’s classic Learned Optimism. As you know if you’ve read that Note/book, Seligman’s research focuses on the difference between “learned HELPLESSNESS” (which is a one-way ticket to depression) and “learned OPTIMISM” (which is the engine for a flourishing life full of meaning and joy).
Of course, the opposite of optimism is pessimism. Seligman tells us that the primary difference between optimism and pessimism comes down to what he calls “explanatory styles.”
There are “3 P’s” in his explanatory styles. Check out this +1 on How to Learn Optimism for the longer take. Here’s the super-short story.
When something happens (whether that thing is good OR bad), you can think that it will be either permanent or temporary and either isolated or pervasive. You can also think it was because of something you did or something out of your control.
Pessimists tend to think that failures/bad things are PERMANENT (meaning they will last forever) and that they are PERVASIVE (meaning the bad stuff spills over into every aspect of their lives) and they take it 100% PERSONALLY (meaning they can’t see how external factors out of their control influenced the situation). And... They tend to think that GOOD things are the exact opposite—they are TEMPORARY, ISOLATED and not because of something they did.
Their poor, pessimistic explanatory styles make them MUCH more likely to get depressed.
Optimists, on the other hand, take the EXACT OPPOSITE approach to explaining these events. And... That’s where Darrin comes in with his super-practical take on how to apply the science to our lives. He tells us that failure is a L-I-E.
Failure is “Limited” in time. It’s NOT permanent. Failure is “Isolated.” It is NOT pervasive. And, failure is “External.” There were causes outside of your control that influenced the outcomes.
When things don’t go our way, we need to PRACTICE our philosophy and put Seligman’s scientific wisdom to work. And, we need to know that how we choose to explain what’s happening has HUGE impacts on the quality of our lives.
Here’s what Darrin’s guide in the book tells us to do with a failure: “‘It’s a quick three-step process. You have to get in the habit of instantly recognizing those negative thoughts, arguing with the LIEs they try to tell, and then replacing those negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Recognize. Argue. Replace.
Once you realize you’ve made a negative event personal, for example, you have to remind yourself that it’s the other way around. You aren’t a failure because you experienced a failure. You’re a successful person who temporarily failed and is now returning to your natural state of success. … A negative event is a single isolated event that you can stop in its tracks and make sure it will never affect you—or anything else in your life—again.
‘If you’ve made a negative result permanent in your mind, turn it around quickly. You didn’t miss out on your only shot at success. That negative experience will now lead to positive experiences in the future because it has made you smarter and more prepared for the future. You’re now wiser, more experienced, and one step closer to the inevitable success you’ve prepared yourself for.’”
Remember: Failure is a L-I-E. Here’s to your RELENTLESS OPTIMISM, Hero.
P.S. Darrin’s also a big fan of some of my other favorite books as well: How Champions Think by Bob Rotella,The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, and Mind Gymby Gary Mack. Check out all those Notes for more.
You don’t just owe it to yourself to be an optimist; you owe it to everyone around you. A pessimist sucks the energy out of the room. Nobody wants to put up with somebody who’s bitter and cynical all the time. Not your friends, not your teammates, not your boss, and certainly not your spouse.
Optimism won’t prevent negative events from happening; optimism will ensure you respond to those negative events in the most beneficial way possible—a way that leads to positive outcomes.
Where’s Your Focus?
“Wally kept this gaze straight ahead. ‘First, let me tell you what I hear. I hear you telling me all the places you don’t want to go. The trees to the right. The water to the left. The sand and the hill. These are all the places you want to avoid.
‘Me? I look out there and I see a beautiful, soft, welcoming green with a flag pin slightly to my left. It’s a safe landing zone just waiting for my ball. That’s where I want to land. That’s what I’m focused on. That spot andonly that spot. ‘I close my eyes and I feel my club, my grip. I picture myself swinging easily and I see my golf ball landing right in that spot.’
Wally turned to me. ‘Bobby, your destination is determined by what you focus on. You have to be very clear about where you want to go. Once you know where you want to go, you have to visualize yourself getting there and forget about all the places where you don’t want to end up. ‘I want you to focus only on where you want to go for these last three holes.’”
That’s from a chapter in which our baseball-manager-guide, Wally, takes our aspiring Hero, Bobby to the golf course. It makes me think of a number of things.
Of course, the first thing I think about isTargeted Thinking.
If we want to move from Victim to Creator to Hero, we need to quit focusing on (and complaining about!) all the things that aren’t going the way we want and shift our attention to getting REALLY clear on what we REALLY want.
Then I thought of parallel wisdom from Bob Rotella’s Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect.
He tells us: “The brain and the nervous system respond best when the eyes focus on the smallest possible target. Why this is so is not important. It just happens to be the way the human system works. Perhaps it has to do with the evolutionary advantage enjoyed by those cavemen who focused on the hearts of attacking tigers, as opposed to those cavemen who merely looked in the tiger’s general direction and hurled their spears.
It is true in virtually every sport. We teach basketball players to look, not at the backboard, nor even the rim, but at the net loop in back of the rim. We teach quarterbacks to aim, not at the receiver, nor even his number, but at his hands.
The smaller the target, the sharper the athlete’s focus, the better his concentration, and the better the results. When an athlete locks his eyes and mind onto a small target, the ball naturally tends to follow.”
And... I thought of John Maxwell and his wisdom from How Successful People Think.
He tells us: “One time on the golf course, I followed a golfer who neglected to put the pin back in the hole after he putted. Because I could not see my target, I couldn’t focus properly. My focus quickly turned to frustration—and to poor play. To be a good golfer, a person needs to focus on a clear target. The same is true in thinking. Focus helps you to know the goal—and to achieve it.”
All that to say: Take DEAD AIM. It’s Rule #1 of golf and life.
You want to know what your life will look like a year from now? Listen to what you’re saying when you talk to yourself. Your self-talk determines your future.
Your ONE Single Goal
“‘That’s the goal,’ he said as he tapped 50. ‘That’s where you want to go. And remember, if you aim high and fall short, you’re still going to land higher than you’ve ever landed before. But it starts with a big, huge goal. That’s what you need to focus on: fifty. Get obsessed with that number. That’s the number you have to expect to reach.’
‘Talk about raising my expectations,’ I said with an uneasy chuckle.
‘You’ve got to do it,’ Wally said. ‘Ordinary won’t get it done. You have to do something extraordinary. And I believe you can.’
‘Any baseball wisdom for how exactly I’m going to pull this off?’ I asked.
‘By focusing on this one single goal above everything else.’ Wally pointed at my notebook, telling me to write this down. ‘Most people try to be good at lots of different things, but they never become great at any one thing. You’ll see extraordinary results when you stop trying to be good at lots of things and start trying to be great at one thing. You’ll achieve greatness when you sharpen your focus down to one, single, overriding goal.’”
Our aspiring Hero, Bobby, is a 31-year-old minor league baseball player.
He starts the season feeling hopeless and that his dreams of making the Big Leagues have passed him. He gets even more hopeless when he gets demoted from Triple A to Double A. Then he meets his new manager (Wally) who changes his life.
So... If he’s going to make it to the Big Leagues, he needs to do something EXTRAORDINARY. He needs to do something truly great that differentiates him from all the other players while providing huge value to the major league team he wants to make.
To do THAT, he needs to focus on his strengths AND he needs to set a big, hairy, audacious goal THEN he needs to practice his philosophy at the highest possible levels to have a shot at making his dreams a reality. Wally helps him get clarity on his top strength. He’s a power hitter who has the potential to be a GREAT power hitter. The big league team needs a guy like THAT. Perfect. His goal? Hit a LOT of home runs. Period.
When I read that passage I thought of Tom Rath, Jim Collins and Gary Keller.
In his great bookAre You Fully Charged?, Tom Rath tells us: “If you want to be great at something in your lifetime, double down on your talents at every turn.”
At this stage, if you’ve been following along, you know all about Jim Collins’ Hedgehog concept. What do you LOVE? What can you be GREAT AT? What does the world NEED?
InThe ONE Thing, Gary Keller echoes the importance of focusing on ONE BIG GOAL! He tells us: “Anyone who dreams of an uncommon life eventually discovers there is no choice but to seek an uncommon approach to living it.”
And: “If you try to do everything, you could wind up with nothing. If you try to do just ONE Thing, the right ONE Thing, you could wind up with everything you ever wanted. The ONE Thing is real. If you put it to work, it will work.”
Of course, this Idea has nothing to do with Bobby or Wally. It’s all about YOU.
What ONE huge, inspiring goal fires you up? What talents do you need to double down on to have a shot at hitting that target? Is TODAY a good day to get more clarity and go all in?
Never let the odds keep you from doing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.
Without a specific plan for making it happen, a dream is nothing more than a daydream. Having a viable plan for how you’re going to get from where you are to where you want to go is the quickest way to turn your wants into expectations. When you give your mind clear directions, it starts moving that way.
Give Your Very Best
“There comes a time when a man has to let go of the results and just play. He has to let go of the outcome he’s working for. He can’t control it. There are too many variables.
‘What he can control is his effort, his attitude, his focus, and his gratitude for the very moment he’s experiencing.
‘Bobby, give your very best, keep your mind positive, and be grateful for every opportunity you’re blessed with. Do those three things and you will be successful. I don’t care what the scoreboard says or what anybody else thinks or does. If a man does those things, he will be successful. That’s the only definition of success that matters.’
‘I hear you loud and clear, Wally. But there’s a reason we keep score. If I give my best and fall short of my goals, then my best wasn’t good enough.’
‘Your best is always good enough,’ Wally said. ‘Regardless of what the results are, a man can live with the fact that he gave his very best. What a man can’t live with is not giving his best and wondering what would have happened if he had. What a man can’t live with is growing bitter and developing a pessimistic attitude. What a man can’t live with is the regret that he didn’t enjoy and embrace every opportunity he was given to do what he loves because he was so caught up in thoughts about the future or the past.
‘You can’t force outcome. You have to give your very best, live in the moment, be grateful for the opportunity, and then accept the outcome.’”
We set a huge goal, leverage our strengths and go all in. Then what?
Then we remember that the ULTIMATE GAME is played moment to moment to moment. The other “big” games we play are simply a helpful way for us to bring our best to THIS MOMENT.
And... When we do that, whether or not the little “scoreboard” says we’re winning or not, we know that we won. Doing our best? THAT is TRUE SUCCESS.
That’s why, in Gandhi the Man, Eknath Easwaran quotes Gandhi who tells us: “The goal ever recedes from us. The greater the progress the greater the recognition of our unworthiness. Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.”
In his first book in the series (Think Like a Warrior), Darrin shares wisdom from five legendary coaches: John Wooden, Buck O’Neil, Herb Brooks, Bear Bryant, and Vince Lombardi—each of whom shares ONE piece of wisdom with our hero in that book.
What do they tell us? Focus only on the things we have total control over: effort and attitude. Love what we do and attack each day with joy and enthusiasm. Dream big and ignore the naysayers. Be relentless and never give up on our dreams. Choose faith over fear.
When? TODAY.
Give your best—always give your very best. Keep your mind in a positive state and be grateful for the opportunity. Experience and enjoy the present moment. As you do, be proud of yourself. Love yourself. Trust yourself. And then detach yourself from the results. Let go and trust.
When Dreams Come True
“It was the kind of thing that seems so farfetched you don’t even dare to dream it. But like Wally told me, when you aim high, stay positive, enjoy the moment, let go of results, and trust yourself; the outcome will end up better than you ever expected.”
Those are the final words in the chapter in which some dreams may come true for the hero of our story. I’m going to skip the spoiler alert and let you enjoy the book.
But... I will tell you that (and I have goosebumps as I type this), when I read this make-believe story about a baseball player doing the impossible, I thought of my dear friend Brandon Guyer.
Brandon played Major League Baseball. He was once in the minor leagues going through many of the SAME things Bobby goes through in this story. One day, after one of his *worst* performances, his Triple A manager brought him into his office. He was nervous about what he might be telling him. To Brandon’s great surprise, he was being called up to the Big Leagues. The VERY next day he was going to play his VERY first game in the SAME stadium he grew up going to as a kid.
It’s his first at-bat. He steps up to the plate. And you know what he does? He hits a home run in front of his friends and family—the first player to ever hit a home run in his first career at-bat in Camden Yards. IMAGINE THAT for a moment or three. Actually, watch this video to FEEL the power of that moment. Then you know what he does? He strikes out in the next two at-bats. Then you know what happens? He gets sent back to the minor leagues where goes up and down for YEARS before making it stick in the Big Leagues.
And, you know how he navigated that whole process? With exactly the ideas we’re talking about in this Note and that we come back to all day, every day.
Then you know what happened? He made his dreams come true and did things like catch THIS ball in the playoffs and hit THIS double in Game 7 of the World Series against one of the best closers in baseball—not too long after the announcer gave him the nickname La Pinata because he got hit by more pitches than anyone else in baseball.
btw: Brandon inspired me to get my ARETE tattoo. We trade texts with our Oura scores every morning. He’s made me a better human being. And, I’m honored he says THIS about how our Mastery Series/Coach program made *him* a better human being. I’m also honored that he and his wife, Lindsay, are two of our biggest investors in Heroic. (He says THIS about that.)
You can learn more about Brandon here. He’s now the mental toughness coach for the University of Virginia’s baseball team (where he’s a Hall of Famer) and he teaches young athletes how to win on and OFF the field by living with virtue.
He’s all in. Are you? Day 1. LET’S GO, HERO!!!
Anyone can be optimistic when things are going well. Anyone can be positive for a moment, a day, or a week. But it’s a commitment to positive thinking that makes the difference—a promise to yourself to permanently change the way you respond to the endless series of negative events we all experience. That’s what makes the difference. When you commit yourself to positive thinking, everything changes.
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