In this episode, I continue on a theme I started back in Episode 291 (“Why Self-Listen Always Beats Self-Talk”), and I want to move toward “Self-Image.”
In my coaching business, I run into a lot of people who have good intentions, good ideas, but they struggle with how they talk to themselves and who they listen to. They struggle with their Self-Image.
I recently read a book by Lanny Bassham called “With Winning in Mind” — which I highly recommend — that resonated with me — how you talk to yourself, what you believe in, what your comfort zone is, and what makes you act like you. In this episode, I’m excited to share parts of it with you, and I hope it will resonate with you as well.
Full transcript below.
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Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
self-image, attitudes, comfort zone, talk, book, change, subsequent episodes, Lanny, coaching, struggle, executives, person, bowls, episode, zone, perform, heard, act, chapter, futures, Bassham
SPEAKERS
Mike Malatesta 00:16
Hey, everybody, welcome back to another Friday solo episode of my podcast. And today I want to continue on a theme that I started with Episode 291, which I call “Why Self- Listen Always beats Self-Talk. One of the things that I try to do in my coaching business where I work with high-performing entrepreneurs and executives is, I try to get them to get really clear about what they want their futures to be like, and then put a plan together to actually make that future a reality, to make it happen.
A lot of the things that I run into in my coaching business (and in my life, by the way) is people who have great intentions, and they have great ideas, and they have great futures. But they struggle with how they treat themselves, they struggle with how they talk to themselves, they struggle with who they put around them and who they listen to. And most of all, they suffer with self. And I’m always looking for ways to make myself better about self because I struggle with self too. And I came across this book. I heard about it on a podcast. The book is called “With Winning in Mind.” With Winning in Mind; I highly recommend it. It’s by Lanny Bassham. And Lanny is a coach for life coaches, executives, and he also coaches athletes, like Olympic world-class athletes, because he was an Olympian as well, a gold medalist in shooting back in 1976. I hadn’t heard of him until I heard someone mentioned the book. But then when I read the book, it just improved my ability to think about self. And as I said, it kind of goes along with the theme that I started in Episode 291. So, in addition to being the author, Lanny is also the founder of Mental Management Systems. The website is mentalmanagement.com. And his phone number, which is in his book, I thought that was great, is 972-899-9640.
I want to share a little series about this book, and I’m going to share with you today parts out of chapter 13, which he calls Building a Better You. So it takes self-talk and self-listen, and it moves it towards self-image. In this chapter, he’s talking about self-image, I’m going to share with you a little bit of the chapter.
The self-image is the sum of your habits and attitudes. Your attitudes determine whether you feel positively or negatively about an item or concept. Your habits determine how you act. You will do certain things because it is consistent with your self-image. Are these attitudes familiar? I perform great in practice, but when I get in the match, my score drops. If I do well at the beginning, I lose it at the end. I am so busy, but I just don’t seem to get much done. I can never remember names. I can’t sell anything. I’m not that kind of person. I could never speak before a large crowd of people. I’m technically sound in my sport, but I choke under pressure. These are statements I’ve heard from students of mine. They are all temporary self-image attitudes. They can change. In fact, the same people who held these attitudes initially soon began to talk like this. I perform better in matches than in practice. If I start well, I finish well. I am an efficient person who gets things done. I’m good at remembering names. I enjoy speaking before groups. I’m the kind of person people order from. I can count on a good performance, especially under pressure. What accounted for the change? They all experienced the change in self-image. When you shift the self-image, the change is often permanent.
We tend to perform within a certain comfort zone. For example, Bob bowls between 120 and 160. It is like him to bowl an occasional strike. But he has never bowled four in a row. He gets nervous when he bowls three in a row. It’s not like him to hit four strikes in a row. So his self-image executes a correction to keep him in his comfort zone. Here comes an open frame. He’s comfortable between 120 and 160. That’s like Bob. Your self-image makes you act like you. It keeps you within your comfort zone. If you are below your zone, your self-image makes you uncomfortable, and turns up your power until you are within the zone. Likewise, if you are above the zone, the self-image will cut your power dropping you back within your zone. As long as you act like you, the self-image is content and does not interfere. To change your performance. You must change your self-image and elevate your comfort zone.
Controlling the change in your self-image may be the most important skill you will ever learn. You can change any attitude you do not like when the self-image changes, performance changes. The good news is that self-image can change. But I admit it is not easy.
So that’s my sharing for today out of Lanny Bassham’s book, With Winning in Mind. There was so much of that as I read it that resonated with me. How you talk to yourself, what you believe in, what your comfort zone is? And what makes you act like you. I never thought of that before — what makes you act like you. So when I read it, I put all those things together that I just shared with you, and it really started to make sense.
So in the next couple of subsequent solo episodes, I’m going to take you through how Lanny helps you not only recognize these things, but work through them, and I think it’s pretty powerful, and I’m excited to share it with you.
I hope you get some value from this this episode, and I’ll see you on the next one.
