The four principles of my Work On Your Game philosophy come from the mental game tools that I developed as a 9-year professional athlete, and how these principles apply to business sports and life.

Here are the basic explanations of each.

Discipline

Discipline is the most important principle.

If I looked at every principle of success that I've ever used or shared and utilize only one, in my own life and to teach to others for maximum ROI, it’s discipline.

Discipline is your willingness to show up day after day to do the work. Everyone has the capability for this yet many don’t do it.

Discipline is a choice.

Discipline is not a new idea to anyone. The thing is, with our big human brains and today’s  oversaturation of expert information, the simple and easy principles are also the easiest to undervalue and overlook. You’ve been around people who don't have the discipline (or fail to enact the discipline) to deliver consistently (maybe you've been guilty of this yourself, too, at times).

The principle I use to illustrate discipline is called The Third Day.

In anything in which you involve yourself, you eventually come to realize that the job, although fun and rewarding, is not going to be all fun and games: there's actual work involved.

At this realization point, you must make a decision as to whether or not you're going to bring 100 percent of yourself to that work, or if you're going to, as we say in sports, mail it in: while you still show up -- you're not really there, if you know what I mean.

In this sense, The Third Day is a mentality. It's the decision you make about how you're going to bring yourself on a day-to-day basis -- not just in the moment, but every single day.

Discipline is repetitive. Discipline can be boring. And discipline is what separates the professionals from the amateurs.

Your relationship to the Third Day won’t be obvious until it’s obvious.

Confidence

Confidence is the measure of your willingness to put yourself and your work out there -- for public consumption, inspection, possible ridicule and rejection -- boldly and authentically.

The principle I use to illustrate confidence is called The Super You.

The Super You is you, at your highest possible level of confidence with no limitations or hesitation, offering no apologies for it.

The Super You is NOT faking it til you make it. When you decide to take your self-belief to a new level, you’re not faking. This is 100% real.

Through your discipline of consistently doing the work, you have earned the right to raise your confidence level and bring that best version of yourself to your business and to your life.

You’re better off taking your confidence too far than not taking it far enough.

Mental Toughness

No matter how disciplined you are and how much you believe in yourself, your work and your plans, things won’t always go as expected. Life happens.

Mental toughness is a measure of how disciplined and how confident you allow yourself to remain, despite the fact that no success has resulted from you “doing everything right.”

Mental toughness finds out who's really serious about and committed to their goals, and reveals who you can depend on over the long run — those who display the grit to keep believing and doing the job, even when the results they expected are nowhere to be found.

Everyone is confident and willing to be disciplined when everything is working. What about when it’s not working?

Personal Initiative

While all of this mental game stuff sounds great, having it and doing nothing with it will produce zero results.

Personal initiative is the decision you make to go and make things happen instead of waiting for things to happen.

Personal initiative is the spirit of being a go-getter.

Think of a time in your own life when you decided to stop sitting around, hoping for something to happen, and you went and created an opportunity for yourself.

You probably had the same resources available to you when you took action that you had when you were doing nothing. The only thing that changed was the person you decided to be in that moment of action.

Personal initiative is the mental state of playing life consistently on offense, creating your circumstances instead of being subject to circumstances.

What You Get

Put all four of these principals together, and you get Work On Your Game philosophy.

The Discipline to show up day after day and do the work.
The Confidence to put yourself out there, boldly and authentically.
The Mental Toughness to continue showing up, doing the work and putting yourself out there -- even with the success you have expected to achieve has yet to be achieved.
The Personal Initiative that moves you to make things happen instead of waiting for things to happen.

This is the mindset, the method, and philosophy called #WorkOnYourGame.

Also See:
“The Third Day”: What Separates The Pros From The Amateurs
Work On Your Game: Use The Pro Athlete Mindset To Dominate Your Game In Business, Sports And Life

Dre Baldwin’s TED Talks On Confidence, Discipline, and Mental Toughness