Intro: A few years ago I had an SAT student who went to a private high school for young elite athletes–specifically skiers. I was so impressed at this student’s ability to turn on her competitive edge and mental tenacity that I couldn’t help but ask her how she did it. She referred me to Olympic Gold Medalist Barbara Ann Cochran, who is now a world class sports psychologist.

These articles were originally targeted for test-takers, but they’re so full of incredible advice that I’ve edited them to be applicable to everyone hoping to develop their mental toughness. You can see them in their original format at Crash Course In Mental Toughness for Test Prep.

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EK: What exactly is mental toughness and mental preparation?

Think about it: are there contests (tennis matches, baseball games, ski races) in which the most skilled athlete did NOT overcome all other lesser skilled athletes?  Of course!  What’s the difference?  Mental preparation – all those things that go on between the ears during a competition – one’s thoughts, beliefs, goals, and attitude – and then ultimately what the body experiences emotionally.  Athletes must learn to focus their energy and perform at peak levels to become the best of the best (or simply to DO their best).  Indeed, the success of a competition is as much determined by the mental readiness of the athlete as the skill level already attained.  In fact, the best trained athlete can fall flat on his face if he is not prepared mentally.

When I competed in the Olympics, I was twenty-one years old. I had been racing since the age of five.  I had been a member of the U.S. Ski Team for six years.  It was my fourth year racing abroad, my first time in Japan.

Yet, for this race I had prepared better mentally than I had for any other race.

Some was accidental; some was part of my routine.

Here’s how I was able to perform my best:

I set goals:

As a youngster, I had set a goal that I wanted to win a gold medal in the Olympics.  I didn’t obsess about it, but it was there, like a planted seed, waiting for the right conditions, waiting to be nurtured, to grow, to blossom.  The goal I focused on was doing my best.  That didn’t mean to be the best, just to do my best.  If I skied faster than any other racer and that was my best, so much the better.  But I also had to accept the times I had performed to the best of my ability and lost.

I chose a positive attitude:

The subconscious mind believes anything you tell it.  So I just told it, “You can do this; maybe not as well as you’d like or as well as someone else, but you can do this!”  With practice, I knew I would get better.  In training, I didn’t worry about the 59 turns that were bad; I thought about the one turn I did well.  I knew that if I did one turn well, I could do more. I concentrated on the skills, not the results.  I could control what I was doing – I had no control over what anyone else was doing.  I also gave myself the freedom not to win.  No matter how the race turned out, as long as I had tried to do my best, I was a good person – I was okay.

I believed in myself:

I believed that if I worked hard enough, anything was possible.  In Sapporo, I knew I had developed the skills to win the slalom and the giant slalom. I also believed that the most important thing was striving to reach my goals.  I learned tremendous lessons through the attempt, rather than through the actual attainment.  The gold medal was the icing on the cake.

I loved competition:

Even when I didn’t think I had a chance of winning, I wanted to compete against the best.  I liked to watch them, to see what they were doing that I wasn’t.  Often my performance improved when I skied with better racers.  I also could judge how much more I had to improve to get to that level.

I visualized myself doing well:

In every competition, I ran the courses in my head before I ever left the starting gate.  I knew where the gates were, where the bumps were, where the ice was, what line I wanted to be on, where I should start my turn, where I could step to gain more speed – I saw myself completing the course, and completing it to the best of my ability.

I reduced the pressure I put on myself:

I allowed myself to think thoughts that actually reduced the pressure.  I told myself, “Just do the best you can.  Work on the skills; let the results take care of themselves.  If the French can win, I can, too!”  At the Olympics, after I was leading after the first run, I did start to get nervous.  I started to think, “What would it be like if I did win?  What if I did win?”  But I realized I had to calm down or I wasn’t going to be able to do anything.  So I told myself, “Okay, you’ve won the first run and not very many people have done that!  No matter how this race turns out, you can always be proud of your first run.”

I thought of my Dad.  Two years before the Olympics, I had competed in the World Championships.  After the first run I was in 6th place.  I knew I could move up and win a medal.  Dad was standing at the top of the course before the second run.  I was nervously waiting for the start.  I confided in Dad and told him I was worried about how I was going to do.  He responded, “I always thought you were the ‘cool cucumber’ in the family!” And I thought, “Yeah, I guess I am!”  I stopped worrying and won the silver medal.  So I thought about that at the Olympics. My last comment to myself was, “You should do all right!

I practiced affirmations:

To reinforce a belief you have or to overcome an undesirable belief, you can use affirmations.  An affirmation is a positive declaration, stated in the present as if the desired result were already happening.  When I was 21, I had no idea what an affirmation was.  It wasn’t until many years later that I became aware of them.  But looking back, I realize now that I had practiced affirmations before the Olympics, simply because I answered the same questions over and over.  Reporters from newspapers, magazines, and television wanted to know how the U.S. Ski Team would do in the Olympics.  They also wanted to know what my chances were in winning a gold medal. My response was the same, “The U.S. has a very good chance of winning medals.  There is a lot of talent on the team.  Both the men and the womenare capable of winning.”  As far as I was concerned, I told them, “I know I have the skills to win.  I don’t know if that will happen on that particular day, but yes, I am capable of winning.”

I controlled my emotions:

Because I did the seven things listed above, I was able to create an inner climate that was calm, confident, focused, and truly loving what I was doing.  Because my emotions were under control, I could do my best.  And my best was good enough!  Before going to the Olympics, I didn’t know if I would win at the Olympics, but I knew I could win in both the slalom and the giant slalom.  I won the gold in the slalom and came in eleventh in the giant slalom.  I believe my gold medal performance was directly related to my mental preparedness.

Click here to find out more about coaching with Barbara Ann Cochran.

This is one in a series of interviews with Olympic Gold Medalist Skier Barbara Ann Cochran. Not only is Barbara Ann a world class athlete, she now coaches young skiers and other athletes to be extraordinary competitors. I’m so excited to share with students Barbara Ann’s insight about the mental and psychological element of competition and achievement. In this section of our conversation we’ll be discussing how to get into and maintain the right frame of mind for maximizing achievement in any arena. These conversations were originally printed on Elizabeth King Coaching to aid students preparing for the SAT. They have been adapted for everyone here.

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Mental Preparation

EK: What percentage of an athlete’s official training time should be spent mentally preparing for competition?

BAC: I believe that working on mental preparation should be a daily task. The time spent on it could be from 5 minutes to a couple hours.  When I was competing in ski racing, I would spend about 45 minutes to an hour memorizing and then visualizing the course I would be running. Sometimes at night when I was in bed before I fell asleep, I would also visualize.  This especially helped me in some of the downhill courses, because I was terrified of downhill. Downhill was the only event I was afraid of–I loved slalom and I enjoyed the giant slalom too.  Interestingly, the best I did in a World Cup downhill was 14th.

EK: That’s incredible! I would never peg you as someone who had any sort of fear of hurtling down mountains. So we can pretty safely assume that if you can be a World Cup athlete in an event that terrifies you, you.

BAC: Absolutely. I believe that the outcome of a performance is based on about 90% (or more) mentality and 10% (or less) skills.  I don’t mean that skills are not important, because they are.  But when you think of most athletes, most athletes are competing against others that—within a small range—have developed the same skills.  So for instance, a high school soccer team player will probably have roughly the same skill level as another high school soccer player, but the biggest factor is the way he thinks and feels, how confident he is in his ability, what he believes about his play and team, etc.

That being said, I believe that most athletes do not work on mental preparation much at all, but if they did, they would see significant improvement in their results.

EK: So once we’re equipped with the knowledge we need to accomplish a task or solve a problem, it’s all a mental game between those who achieve and those who still struggle. I would have to agree with you: I know that when I, for example, take the SAT, I go into the test confident and ready to do well. While we might expect that of me now, even when I was in high school I walked into the test never having seen it before and knew I would do well–and I did.

That being said, what are the top 3 most important things any athlete mentally preparing for an event should do be doing?

See Yourself As Capable

BAC: When preparing for an event, the most important thing is to understand what your beliefs are about that event and how you believe you can do.  If you don’t believe you’re capable of doing well, it’s really important that you change that belief so you do see yourself as capable.

To change a belief, I use affirmations. For instance, if you’re getting ready for the SAT and you don’t believe you’ll do well, you could use the affirmation, “I always do well when I take the SAT!”  You should bombard your subconscious mind with that thought.

I have athletes take 10 to 15 index cards and write their affirmation statement on each card and then put those cards where ever they’ll notice them—on the bathroom mirror, on their bureau, on their headboard, in their car, on their notebooks, etc.  They practice saying the statement aloud 10 to 15 times a day or more.

Visualize the Event

The second thing an athlete can do is to visualize the event. Imagine as closely as possible where the event is taking place, what the conditions are like, who the people are that are around, what the sounds are like, what the smells are like– try to include the five senses: sight, taste, touch, sound, and smell. Imagine yourself competing in that event and finishing first or where ever you can imagine yourself finishing, incorporating as many of the senses as possible for the competition on that day.

Develop a Pre-Performance Thought Routine

The third thing is to develop a routine before the competition which includes specific thoughts just before the start, like at the start or starting line or on the court/field before the competition/race/game begin, (or, in this case, as you’re sitting at your desk waiting for testing materials to be distributed).  I would recommend a routine that you do from the time you get up to the time you’re ready to begin your competition.  At the start, you could have specific thoughts or a mantra. When I was competing, I always gave myself permission just to do my best, so I always thought, “I’m just going to do the best I can!”  A lot of the athletes I’ve worked with use the thought, “This is so much fun!  I love ….” (this event, racing at Smugg’s, playing soccer, batting, etc.)  I also recommend that they smile, because that helps to bring up the right emotions that help an athlete perform well.

EK: I guess this would be an appropriate place for me to interject that I secretly enjoy the SAT and, while I don’t enjoy the act of getting up at the crack of dawn on test day, I do love to see a new test and the challenge of working through it. I think of the SAT as a puzzle that I’m really well prepared to solve, and I thoroughly enjoy the process of being presented with new challenges. It sounds like my secret love of the SAT and ACT really affect my ability to perform well on them.

So, if you choose to use visualization techniques, how long beforehand should the visualization stop before it’s time to execute?

Stop Visualizing JUST Before You Activate

You should stop visualizing just before you execute the skill, if that’s possible.  For instance, a golfer should take the time to visualize the shot he’s about to take, right before he takes it.  Obviously in lots of sports, this isn’t possible, but anytime you have the chance to visualize, you should.

Barbara  Ann, I want to thank you so much for sharing these incredible ideas about mental preparation. Next let’s talk about naturally good competitors/test takers and those who panic.
You might also like Gold Medalist Olympian on Great Competitors and Negativity and Coping with Defeat.

Today is a busy Tuesday!

Here’s what’s going on this week:

Writing a Book with Lou Imbriano

Lou Imbriano and I are happy to announce that we are publishing a book with McGraw-Hill in September 2011. Lou is an incredible marketer and the former Chief Marketing Officer of the New England Patriots; his experience is incredible and unparalleled. I’ve learned so much from Lou already (we’re nearly halfway through the manuscript at this point) and I can’t wait to share our work with you. More details will be coming soon, but we’ve been so anxious to announce the project for months.

New Websites

ElizabethOnline.com

As you can see, ElizabethOnline.com has a whole new look and a whole new purpose. As my work has started to branch out beyond SAT and ACT preparation (with books like the one I’m writing with Lou, my writing about critical thinking at StayOutofSchool, and some other stuff I can’t share yet), I decided it was best to recapture what this site is supposed to be all about: my projects, ideas, and interests. Here you’ll find announcements as they come down the pipeline and other things I find interesting/relevant to the work I do that don’t fit in test prep or at StayOutOfSchool.

ElizabethKingCoaching.com

My test prep company has moved to a new URL! Since we were moving the site we decided to scrub it up to make it even more useful and easier to navigate. It still has the feel of the old ElizabethOnline.com, but it answers a lot of questions and gives more directed guidance to parents and students navigating the test preparation landscape. And, of course, it includes plenty of information about my first book, Outsmarting the SAT.

Looking Forward

I expect these sites to continually evolve, especially as this new site is just getting fleshed out, but, as a certain marketer always suggests, eventually you have to ship. So, we’re launched, moving forward, ready to grow, and ready to announce even more exciting projects in the coming months.

Thanks for being part of it.

This is part of my series with Gold Medalist Olympian Barbara Ann Cochran on sports psychology tactics. We originally formatted these interviews to help students with the SAT and ACT, but we’ve edited them to be useful to everyone. In this article we’ll be looking at overcoming negativity and failure. Let’s jump right in.

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Addressing Negative Thinking

EK: How do you address negativity?

BAC: Negativity is a tough one.  I’m not a psychologist so I probably don’t have the whole picture, but the athlete has to understand that choosing to operate from a place of negativity is a choice he or she is making.  When I was coaching field hockey, I never would let an athlete say, “I can’t do that!”  I always told them, “You may not be able to do it as well as you’d like to, but YES, YOU CAN DO IT!!!” I wanted the girls to begin to believe that they had the skill, and with practice they would improve.  I certainly didn’t expect them to execute skills perfectly—I just expected them to try to execute the skills.  As a coach, I was constantly pointing out the things they could do.

In athletics, it’s important to realize that when we’ve actually improved, often our timing is off which causes mistakes. I want my athletes to know that they still are moving from one plateau level to the next.  Sometimes when you don’t see the improvement, the movement is horizontal.  An athlete still has to move across a plateau of competency before he can move up.

EK: I love that idea… that we have to move across plateaus of competency before we are able to move up again. I see this all the time with my students–there is always a stretch of time between the moment a student achieves competency in any particular area and when he has mastered that skill and is ready to build on it. Great image.

What Makes You So Sure You’re Inferior?

BAC: Right. When I’m looking into an athlete’s negative attitude I also want to know what is it that they believe makes them different—what makes them inferior?  That’s often a deep belief that’s hard to get to.  With a couple of athletes (my daughter being one), I explained that I believe we all have an inner child that experiences our fears.  It’s like there’s the little kid inside of us that reacts to whatever is causing our insecurities.  I try to have them get in touch with their inner child.  The important message is to let that child know that you hear them and are willing to talk to them to find out what is going on with them.  I suggest that the athlete tell them they are ok just the way they are, that the athlete loves them just the way they are, and whatever they do, it is enough. The first time I did it with my daughter, she won her race the next day.

EK: I see. So you’re using a way for someone to separate her competitive self from the scared person within– that’s a great way of empowering the competitive self and putting the nervous self aside. It’s almost like separate personalities, but I can absolutely imagine myself in a stressful situation thinking “Ok! We’re going to get through this!” So, where do you think competitors get the idea that they’re not as good as the next guy?

Why Do We Compare Ourselves To Others?

BAC: When I was racing, I used to think about this.  At first I held the Europeans in such high esteem.  Then I started to think, “what makes them so much better than me?”  When I looked at them, they didn’t seem so different.  I used to picture them getting dressed in the morning and my realization was that I got dressed the same way they did—I put my ski pants on one leg at a time.  It sounds kind of crazy, but that was my way to humanize them and realize that whatever they could do, I could, too.

Ultimately, what I’ve found with negativity is that the athlete has to address it and accept that it is part of them and then they can deal with it.  If they try to ignore it or just change it, the negativity stays with them. Negativity can be connected to their fears, whatever they are, so to release those and start to handle them, they first have to acknowledge that they’re there.  Once an athlete acknowledges the fear, it loses some of its power.

EK: This is amazing advice! So let me ask you about what I always consider the trickiest scenario: what is the main piece of advice you tell someone with natural ability who has had a difficult or defeating season?

How Do We Cope with Defeat?

When someone is having a difficult or defeating season, I remind them that they haven’t lost their skills. They’re still there, it’s just a matter of accessing them.  We explore what may be happening to see what’s changed.  We talk about what they felt like when they performed really well and what they felt like when the results didn’t go so well, especially if they could recall what they felt before they started the competition.

I explain the inner climate and the importance of identifying what emotions they are experiencing as though they were an athlete who had not yet experienced high levels of success.  All emotions have different energy levels attached to them; they also can be pleasant or unpleasant.  So we talk about the emotions they’re experiencing and figure out if it’s high or low energy and pleasant or unpleasant.  The body performs best when the athlete is experiencing emotions that are high energy and pleasant (enjoyment, excitement, loving what they’re doing, having fun, taking pride in themselves, etc.)

I just ask questions to find out what they’re thinking and feeling and maybe what beliefs they have about themselves as an athlete and their performance.  I give them tasks to do (like memorizing the course, visualizing, thinking specific thoughts at the start, etc.)  It’s harder to get nervous when you’re thinking about what you have to do to get a good start or get through the course.  I suspect everyone gets nervous, but if you’re focusing on the skills you need to execute, you can keep the nerves under control.

EK: I think that’s a great last point– if you’re focusing on the skills you need to execute, you can keep the nerves under control. And you’re right, acknowledging the fear is a great way to diffuse some of what we perceive as its control over us. Thanks, Barbara Ann!

Barbara Ann is a Gold Medalist Olympic Skier– find out more about her on her site http://bacochran.com

If you didn’t test well in school, you may also be someone that freaks out on the tennis court or gets deeply nervous during an interview. In this continuation of my conversation with Olympic Gold Medalist and Coach Barbara Ann Cochran we’re going to look at what makes great competitors so darn good and learn how to emulate them.

Naturally Good Competitors

EK: Are there people who are naturally good competitors? If so, what makes them so good?

BC: Definitely, there are people who are naturally good competitors.  What makes them good is that they thoroughly love what they’re doing, whether it’s the sport or the competition.  They’re excited and feel challenged in what they’re doing.  Often, they’re willing to try new things and they evaluate the skills they’re learning.  They’re motivated by the satisfaction they gain from improving a skill.  They are motivated internally rather than by rewards or incentives that they might gain from the outside. They have unbelievable determination.  They’re in control of their emotions.

Great competitors are accountable for their actions and accept responsibility for whatever they’ve done.  They look at the positive side of things and focus on what is working rather than on mistakes they’ve done in the past.  They understand that mistakes are part of learning and are actually a good sign.  They don’t beat themselves up for making mistakes.

EK: This makes so much sense– these people really love whatever activity they’re engaged in and so they thrive while they’re doing it. What really stands out to me here is that anyone can take on this idea that they should feel excited and challenged by the material we’re working on. Not only that, as much as someone may encounter frustration, they find satisfaction and excitement in being able to learn something new and apply that skill: those small victories propel them forward.

If all this is the case, how often do people with better mental performance skills defeat those who may be more naturally talented at the task at hand?

Better Mental Skills have The Edge over Talent

I would always give the edge to the person who has better mental skills. That doesn’t mean that the more naturally talented person won’t ever do better, but his performance can be affected by not having good mental skills.

In the 1950′s my Dad accepted a teaching position at Windsor H.S. in Vermont and started coaching baseball.  He was impressed with a freshman and picked him for the varsity team.  He also was impressed with his hitting and had him batting in the 3rd or 4th position (key positions in baseball).  The player, however, was feeling like he wasn’t sure he had the talent my Dad saw and was nervous throughout practice.  His first time at bat, he struck out and his doubt grew.  The second time he was up to bat, he again struck out.  This time his doubts were even stronger and he was becoming deeply discouraged, so when he went back to the bench, he sat at the far end by himself and dropped his head into his hands.  Dad got up and sat next to him and said these words: “Do you like baseball?  Because it doesn’t look like you do.”

Remember how much fun it is

Once the freshman started remembering how much fun it was to play baseball, his mental skills changed. The next time at bat, he hit a home run.

Some athletes have a natural tendency to create the thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that are necessary to do well.  They seemingly have the ability to not really be aware of mental preparation and yet develop a lot of the skills.  To some people, it may look like if you were born with a natural talent, including a good head, you were the lucky one.  And those who weren’t born with it were just out of luck.  But the truth is that mental preparation is just another skill that can be learned.  With practice, these skills will also improve.

EK: Isn’t that great news? The conversations you and I are having are really bringing to light how even people who are “naturally good” are not, in fact, just super test-takers and competitors; instead, they unknowingly foster in themselves a lot of confidence and concentration building techniques. I see evidence of this not only in my own life, but also in the habits of some of my students. One may learn a new skill that creates a nice shortcut and exclaim “oh, I love that;” others create competitions with their friends to bring motivation and fun to their work.

So, if all of this is so learnable, why do people “freeze up” on game day?

Freezing Up (or “Don’t Choke!”)

The reason people “freeze up” or “choke” on game day is because they have created an emotional inner climate that does not allow them to perform. When I’ve talked to athletes about what is happening and what they’re thinking before the start of their competition, there usually is some sort of fear that has taken over their senses.  Often it comes down to a fear of not being good enough.  There’s a tremendous risk for some people to put everything on the line.  In their eyes, what if they did their very best and that was not very good? What do you do then?

Sometimes the fear could stem from not wanting to get hurt or even to die. (Last year we lost a 16 year-old girl from Stratton Mt. School who was free-skiing, lost control, went into the woods, suffered severe injuries, and died a few days later).

Sometimes the choking stems from a fear that they will disappoint parents, coaches, or even themselves. A lot of times the athletes have figured out where they think they fit in—where they should be finishing (which may or may not be accurate).  Most athletes do not perform close to their potential, but there is always that fear of who might beat them that shouldn’t be beating them.

Sometimes athletes put pressure on themselves because they want to qualify for a certain event and they’re afraid that they won’t come through.

EK: That sounds so familiar! I have so many students who have already decided (and decided long ago) how talented they are, how intelligent they are, and what their skill level is. So they explain to me why they can’t do one thing but can do another and set their expectations on what their peers or mentors do rather than looking to understand their own capacity.

Fear of Success

BC: Right. And, just as there is a fear of failure, some athletes are afraid to succeed, because once they’ve proven that they are capable, the expectation is there that they could and should be able to perform at that level again. So rather than rising to the occasion, it’s safer not to succeed in the beginning.

There’s lots of reasons people “freeze up” usually based on fears that come into play.  Sometimes it comes down to just being able to believe that doing your best is all you can do and that is always good enough.

EK: I think this is a great place to wrap up this topic and challenge our readers to honestly examine, even if only with themselves, what it is that is keeping them from succeeding?

Are you afraid you’re going to disappoint your peers Are you afraid you’re going to impress your peers or mentors and then get hounded about your success forever? Are you afraid of not getting your dream job, or are the demands of possibly setting out to be an entrepreneur or land that big promotion keeping your from working to your potential? Set down and be honest with yourself: write it all out so you can see what’s bothering you and start to address it bit by bit.

Barbara Ann Cochran is an Olympic Gold Medalist and a world class athletics coach. She currently works with some of the United States’ best skiers in Vermont. Find out more about Barbara Ann here.

I just had to get this off my chest:

I was in my parents’ living room yesterday and found myself watching Megyn Kelly’s midday news program. Kelly showed a clip referencing the local Philly station’s coverage of the “alleged” assault at Holy Family University of a basketball coach on one of his players. If you haven’t seen the tape, the short of the story is the team had played really poorly the day before and the coach was intending to light a fire under their butts.

That’s fine. That’s what coaches do.

Evidently this coach does it by beating the living daylights out of players (who, I might add, happen to have the class to not swing back).

You may as well just watch it here so we can cut to the chase:

If you have any remaining common sense, you’ll see that the coach walked up and clocked his player. The whole thing is insane.

But then Megyn Kelly and Jonna Spilbor deliver this little gem of commentary:

|     Megyn Kelly: But to go down to the police station and file a police report?

|     Jonna Spibor: I know! What’s next? Are we going to file criminal reports against every other person on the team? Cuz you can easily get elbowed by one of them.

|     Megyn Kelly: It’s basketball! It is a physical game!

This is the most absurd, ignorant, illogical thing I have ever heard. Since when is unprovoked assault just part of sports?!

Using Megyn’s logic, when I sign up to play squash at college, my coach reserves the right to clock me with the raquet at any time, because after all, I might get hit with a raquet in a match, anyway. Using Megyn’s logic, if my children join the local softball team, by giving my permission to let the kids play I tacitly give permission for the coach to kick the living daylights out of them at will, because there’s always the possibility of getting hit with the bat.

What does she have to gain by playing this side of the argument? If it were her son out there would she be playing devil’s advocate?

This was just so nuts I had to say something. To this, Megyn Kelly, I say “Seriously???”

There’s something specific to the culture of what I’ll call the Creative Achievement set, something particular that elevates our collective experience and our collective output. While each of us is in process and at varying levels of performance at any given time, we tend to recognize each other in character or type almost immediately. We’re all in-process products of our own inherent drive and passion that, while it may ebb and flow, tends to be nothing short of overwhelming when activated. However, it’s our community and connection with each other that let’s us go from performing to thriving.

We’re not thriving simply because we lean on each other, but because of an unspoken rule specific to the Creative Achievers. Creative Achievers are often exceptionally good at supporting and spurring each other on.  Those who know what it’s like to get out there and kick some serious tail, those who know the burden of giftedness or inspiration, know this: you only push someone when they’re down as hard as they would push themselves when they’re really up. They deliver that push with a calculated nuance that may feel like as delicate as a kick in the head.

Nevertheless, there’s specificity in the combination of the inherent risk taker being challenged by another inherent risk taker. We flourish because we care and have the nerve to challenge another with the level of passion that we are sometimes able to lavish on our own ideas and ourselves. In this way, we collectively, creatively, thrive.

As originally posted on Vincent Hunt’s CreativelyThriving.com

Elizabeth is excited to announce she’s joined a group of accomplished education policy thinkers on the Education Debate at Online Schools. She’ll be addressing the topics that she writes about at Stay Out Of School, but specifically how they pertain to K – 12 education.

Her first post, It’s a “Do As I Say, not Do As I Do” Culture is up now. Please subscribe to The Debate’s feed to stay up to date on the opinions of thinkers from all sides of the education reform movement.

I think it’s time we got real about The Secret.

It’s time we sort out the differences between wishful thinking (e.g. The Secret or Law of Attraction) and outstanding personal positioning and decision-making (what Rosalene Glickman aptly calls optimal thinking in her eponymous book).

It seems that the phrase ‘the secret’ has degenerated into a catchall term for feel good goal setting for folks who honestly mean well. In fact, I read a post on Twitter recently that roughly claimed “when someone wants something very badly, the universe will sense that desire and give it to him.” At first it seems like such a nice idea that if one wants something badly enough that “the universe” (whatever that is) will just line up with her and conspire to make it happen. However, I daresay Hitler really wanted to kill the Jews—and did a pretty outstanding job for a while there—and I’d hate to think that my universe got on board with his wholehearted, albeit despicable, desires. (Let’s leave the total depravity of man notwithstanding for now.) Ultimately, The Secret grants our thoughts and wishes omnipotence above our behaviors.

Optimal thinking calls us to decisively weigh out our options, assess the potential outcomes of our actions, calculate the risks, and then pointedly move in a direction towards our objectives.

Indeed, the implementation of optimal thinking feels quite a bit like implementing The Secret in that the thinker similarly sets and focuses on her goals and directives. In fact, some of the things that The Secret suggests probably foster the same sorts of outcomes that optimal thinking would. For example, if I have a “vision board” in my kitchen with some pictures of flat stomachs and words like Mr. Right glued to it, I’m subconsciously encouraging myself to stick to yogurt and celery for lunch and to be receptive to men. My vision board may ostensibly lead me to shed some pounds and find a good date.

However, optimal thinking makes the personal work far more mindful and restores the thinker’s agency: the skinny waist, Mr. Right, those are all objectives, but instead the thinker is held accountable for designing and following up with a plan that maximizes the possibilities of the outcomes of thinness, happy marriage, Godliness, whatever it is she’s shooting for. Rather than “putting it out there” that she’d like to drop a dress size, she takes every opportunity to assess each situation and how she can best move towards losing a few more ounces.

However, it is that same optimization—that calculated risk and energy—which has ultimately propelled good businesses to extraordinary business. Zappos? Optimized. Wine Library TV? Optimized. Apple? Optimized.

I suppose leaving one’s own agency (or one’s power to act within his business) out of the equation can be tempting when one’s confidence is shot; in that case, if the objective was merely a wish and it doesn’t come true, there’s no one to blame but Star Light Star Bright. Ultimately though, I would wager that particularly when we’re working toward those goals that seem like they can’t be achieved without resorting to a flat out wish, we’ll fail without the pointed decision to optimize every situation.

Ultimately, it’s the contagion and universal applicability of optimal thinking that makes it so successful. It motivates us to move and work and it empowers us to interact with and bring value to those around us. We’re unafraid to challenge others when we’re being fearless ourselves. Knowing and designing a thought life that’s optimal is like applying the rules of game theory to all our endeavors on an hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute basis. Indeed, sometimes things seem to fall into place, but optimal thinking prepares us to respond to less-than-ideal situations and get as much out of them as we can. The Secret is safe; optimal thinking requires ownership. However, the thinker finds he has so much more to own when he’s optimized every opportunity.

As originally posted on CreativelyThriving.com

Back when I was writing Outsmarting the SAT (winter ’07/8) I was a recent Mac convert but still reflexively used Microsoft products, I started writing the book in Word. For those of you who have ever written a fairly hefty book in Word that’s full of images (or, in my case, Math Type files) you may be able to guess what happened to me: crashing. Constant crashing. [1. If you’re wondering: no, I had not backed up.] As it turns out, crashing of giant files in Word is sort of commonplace, so if you’re starting to write a book, you may want to think about that.

Anyway, so writing in Word left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then, when I launched StayOutOfSchool.com, I found that I wrestling with an entirely different set of problems. While I was writing shorter posts, the material I was writing was a lot heavier: it was full of research, references, and ideas I’d had in various places that I was knitting together for an even more cerebral goal than the SAT book had been. I find writing for Stay Out Of School to be no piece of cake.
Enter Scrivener.

Now look: it still takes me hours upon hours to crank out a blog post, but now that I’m using Scrivener, it’s a totally different experience. Scrivener is designed around the process many novelists take that involves writing out themes and ideas on 3 x 5 cards, putting the cards in order, and writing from that very physical, easily reorganized outline. Fact: as of yet, I do not write novels. Nevertheless, the ability to jot down little snippets of writing, research links, and ideas for future posts and organize them in a way that they’re always visible and easily rearranged has been priceless.

The truth is that I cannot even begin to tell you how Scrivener is used for novel writing, but people who use it to do so seem to be over the moon about it. All I know is that I knew that I would talk so much about Scrivener and how much I enjoy it that it is currently my one and only sought-out affiliate link not from Amazon. It’s that good.

This is my affiliate link for Scrivener: ________ . I’d love it even if you’d use it, but even if you don’t, go find out for yourself. Download the trial. Mess around with it. It’s the goods. It’ll change the way you write.

I know it did for me.