Sports for the Soul

What Bill Snyder did at Kansas State is almost inconceivable. In 1989, Snyder took over the worst program in all of college football and turned the Wildcats into a top-10 team within just seven seasons.

The Hall-of-Fame coach has led K-State to more than 200 wins, 18 bowl games, nine seasons with 10 or more wins, six Top-10 finishes, and two Big 12 championships. Shocking success for a school that considered dropping its football program altogether just before Snyder arrived.

Bill Snyder’s turnaround at Kansas State is unequivocally the greatest turnaround in college football history.

How did he do it? What was the foundation for this unprecedented turnaround?

Snyder built his program on what he calls the 16 Goals for Success… [continue reading…]

There are many things we don’t control in life. That’s a sometimes painful fact we all have to accept.

But, as Yogi Berra points out, it’s the things we DO have control over that determine our success or failure… [continue reading…]

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.

The above passage is from my book, Relentless Optimism, and it concisely sums up exactly why the way you talk to yourself is so important.

Self-talk determines your future results and, unfortunately, most of us have an inner voice that is way too negative. We tend to beat ourselves up when something bad happens and it only makes things worse—it only leads to more negative consequences.

But, there is a way to quickly defeat that negative voice and replace it with positive, empowering self-talk, which leads to positive results.

Here’s the simple three-step method as described in Relentless Optimism… [continue reading…]

I’m excited to announce that Relentless Optimism, my latest book in the Sports for the Soul series, is here! This book addresses an important topic that affects every area of a person’s life: attitude.

Specifically, this book tackles the topic of positive thinking…

– How can you use “positive thinking” to change your life for the better?

– Why is so much of what you’ve heard about positive thinking wrong?

– And, what specific positive-thinking techniques have been proven to deliver results in a person’s life?

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. [continue reading…]

The first self-improvement book I ever bought was called, Winning Every Day by Lou Holtz. I was in college at the time and Holtz had recently retired as head coach at Notre Dame. I bought the book more because I was a fan of Notre Dame Football and Coach Holtz and less because I was seeking to change my life.

But that book did change my life.

Holtz’s book forced me to think about what I really wanted to do in life and what kind of sacrifices I was willing to make to get there. It made me realize the importance of every decision I make and it hammered home the fact that success isn’t an accident; it’s the result of positive thinking, hard work, grit, self-determination, and having a clear plan for where you want to go.

Lou Holtz based his book on the ten rules that guided him to a Hall-of-Fame coaching career, which included a National Championship at Notre Dame. I’ve learned that these ten rules are the basis for achieving any goal—as an entrepreneur, as a coach, as a writer, as a parent, in sports, in business, in any area of life. I still refer to these ten rules often to ensure I’m on the right path… [continue reading…]