Episode 1 in my Good to GREAT series released originally Thursday, April 6th on my Youtube Channel. Click the Video below to watch! (If you like to read the text transcribe is below)

Hey guys it's James Silvas, Peak Performance Coach and Strategist.

I'm excited today to share with you the 5 steps that are going to take your performance from good to GREAT and before we get there I just wanted to explain a little background about me and how I got started. Five years ago, I put myself into this "personal development coach arena". I took the leap from my job, making good money and decided to follow my passion and to really help people unleash their potential and understand the greatness that is in them; especially with athletes - really helping them understand how to control their mindset and how to bring their best self to their sport and if I look back throughout my whole life, you know, I've been obsessed with one question - that's HOW CAN I WIN? How can I raise my level performance? How can I raise the standard? What's the edge that I need to know in order to do what no one else is doing.

And the easiest story for me to tell, to kind of exemplify that, is my freshman year at a local high school. Now this high school that I used to go to is very prominent, very well known and nationally ranked, its known four state championships, academics, great athletes; they're fast, they're big, they're strong. People like DeMarco Murray that plays in the NFL (great running back) went to the school and that school is Bishop Gorman. I played football there freshman year and I remember going through freshman year 7 - 1 and having a great season and then being brought up to varsity for the last six games. And for me that was a big deal! Going against these athletes that are huge, that are way bigger than me, way faster than me and so my natural instinct kicked in and I wanted to prove that I could be up there. And show that the coach didn't make a mistake bringing me up to varsity. So I went full speed in every drill and I hit people as hard as I could and I think I upset some juniors and seniors on the team because no one else went hard (in practice) except for me but that's just my mindset.

(2:11) I'm always looking for the edge. I'm always looking how could I get better. Who can I get around? What environments and what team is going to be a part of that? Who is going to make my mind expand? My whole life's been like that. I've always found ways to compete. For example, who could put the dishes away the fastest, who can fold the laundry the quickest, who can go to school and learn the fastest and do their homework and get the best grades. 

(2:38) I remember sitting at the breakfast table and having breakfast and it's called "eggs and focus." My dad would always say focus, focus, focus as we're eating our breakfast and going over your game plan. All right today you got to do push up's, today you gotta do this and you gotta do that. It taught me discipline. It taught me how to look at things differently. It taught me how to find the strategies that work and I've taken those strategies and techniques and implemented them into the teams that I've worked with over the last three years. So gathering these five steps that take your team from good to great is something that I've been compiling over the last three years. (With principles from the book, Good to Great)

(3:15) So what are those steps? What's going to take you from good to GREAT? Whether you're in sports or you're in business, the first thing is you have to be honest.

STEP 1. HONESTY -  You have to be honest with where you are. Where are you on a scale 1 to 10? Where's your performance? At a 5, 6 or 7? What are the things that you need to be better at? What are your weaknesses? What are your strengths? What do you need to spend more time on? Where do you need to maybe cut some time out and delegate somewhere else.

(3:45) A great story that I could tell with (step 1) honesty is having the opportunity to work with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas's Rebel Girls the year they won the UDA National Championship IA Hip Hop (2016 in Orlando, Florida - A prestigious competition that features the Nation's best collegiate dancers).  

Video from my sports performance training with them (https://vimeo.com/151352984)

 

 It was a great experience I'll never forget it. Working around those dancers is something that you just admire. What they do is not easy! Tons and tons of hours go into their practices and being in that environment and watching how they interact with each other; one thing that stood out was how they were confronting each other with these brutal facts. HONESTY. The (head) coach would say "Hey, you're not here, you're not at this level yet - you're not making this move go out, fix it and come back." And the athletes would do the same with their peers. You know a certain dancer wouldn't be able to the move so that person would go out and work on it and come back. And in any athletics you know it's not easy hearing that you're not good at something or you're not where you need to be with something right? Because as an athlete you want to be perfect! You want to be at the top already! You want to be there NOW already! So as the athlete you think you're here and our coach comes in and says no, no you're right here. You can't help but get frustrated, right? 

(4:52) But high performers take that honest feedback and they utilize it. They use it to MOTIVATE themselves to work even harder. That's the first step, get honest with yourself.

STEP 2. FEEDBACK - (5:09) Second step is feedback as an athlete you're (internally) involved in what you're doing. You're completely engulfed in the sport at the moment and you can't see everything that's going on and that's the benefit of having an outside perspective; a coach who cares! A coach is going to tell you the TRUTH regardless if you want to hear it or not, because that's the truth - that's going to set you free. That's going to get you to the next level. So if that's your sports coach, your sports psychologist, or if that's your performance coach whoever it is that you trust - make sure that they tell you the truth. Make sure that they're going to give you the information that you need that's going to elevate your game. 

STEP 3. STANDARDS - (5:45) What's the third thing? The third thing is raise your standards. In life we only get what we think we deserve and consciously we have standards and subconsciously we have standards and it's our job to become aware of what those standards are. We have a standard for how many hours we think we need to go to the gym for. We have a standard for our relationships, in life we have a standard for what we think we're worth financially, where we think we should be in sports, what team we should be on etc. All of these standards affect our areas of life; and our quality of life. Until we become aware of them and until we raise the ante and up the game we're going to continue to get what we always got and that's not a way to perform at a high level. We have to learn to raise our standards. Become aware of where you are and what standards are controlling your life. When you are constantly raising them and raising them - that's how we get better.

STEP 4. PEOPLE - (6:42) Fourth thing is people. You are who you surround yourself with. You are who you surround yourself with! The people that are around you also have standards for their life and if you're an exceptional athlete that wants to be the best but you're surrounded by people that don't want to grow and don't want to challenge themselves, your standards are going to go from here (middle) and they're slowly going to drop because you care about them (lower achievers), you care about your teammates, you care about your family, you care about the ones who support you but if those people don't want to grow and aren't going to give you HONEST (step 1) FEEDBACK (step 2) then you're slowly going to lower your standards (unconsciously) and 'overnight' - it's going to feel like overnight, you're going to wake up and say what happened? You're going to end up in a position that you don't want to be in. So put yourself in the environments that are going to sharpen you. Put yourself around people who are going to push you, who are going to get you out of your comfort zone. "Iron sharpens iron" so put yourself in the same environment with the people who have the same mindset so that your growth just skyrockets! Put yourself around the same people that think like you, that act like you.

If you're a coach, create the environment where people are constantly out doing their best!

STEP 5. IMPLEMENT - (7:57) Fifth thing implement. It's one thing to get the feedback, it's one thing to get the honesty, another thing to know what people you need to hang out with and what standards need to change but if you don't do anything about it and you don't know how to implement it (ie. take action) and you don't have a plan for that then you're just going to keep at the same spot you've performing at. If you're a peak performer, if you're a high performer you're going to want to constantly out do your best!

REVIEW Ask for feedback. How? You have to be honest with yourself. What kind of questions can ask yourself? Really get clear on what you need to get better at. All these questions are going to help you with clarity and they're going to get you on the path that you need to be on; that takes you where you want to go. So what are the 5 STEPS - 1. Honesty 2. Feedback 3. Raise your standards 4. People and 5. Implementation. Go do these, the more clear to get on them the faster you can get results!

(8:58) Ironically, I was talking with an Olympic Athlete today; a gold medalist and he's talking about some of these principles that we're talking about now! At that level (olympic level) it's the mindset! You have to have a strong mindset; that's what separates good athletes from GREAT athletes. Anyone can learn the mechanics (20%) and anyone can learn how to play the sport, but it's the person who shows up (mentally) to the sport that makes the difference, right!?

So go out there! Raise your level of play, raise the ante, challenge yourself and see what else you're capable of and see what happens! Thank you for your time I look forward to diving in deeper with you guys next week! 

- James silvas

Peak Performance Coach