“177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class” by Steve Seibold

30 Secrets for Mental Toughness of the World Class

The Thought Processes, Habits And Philosophies Of The Great Ones

Parker Klein ✌️

Published in

TwosApp

18 min readOct 24, 2024

These 30 secrets come from the book “177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class” by Steve Seibold.

If you’d like to read all 177 secrets, check out this list.

If you’d like to save these secrets for future reference, save this list here.

1. World-Class Wealth Begins With World Class Thinking

“Wealth is the product of a man’s capacity to think.” — Ayn Rand

The middle class trades time for money. The world class trades ideas that solve problems for money.

Money flows like water from ideas.

Action Step for Today: Ask this critical thinking question: “At what level of monetary success do I feel most comfortable? a) poverty class b) middle class c) world class.” Where you feel most comfortable reflects your self-image, and most likely, your current status. If you want to become wealthier, begin by raising your self-image by upgrading the self-talk you use regarding money and finances. If all you do is chase more money, you are simply attacking the effect. The cause is how you think, and if you improve the cause, the effect will take care of itself.

Read You Were Born Rich by Bob Proctor

2. Champions Have An Immense Capacity For Sustained Concentration

“Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all of your energies on a limited set of targets.” — Nido Qubein

Champions are famous for concentrating their energy and efforts on what they want and blocking out anything or anyone who threatens that focus.

When the goals are set, champions put mental blinders on and move forward with dogged persistence and ferocious tenacity.

Action Step for Today: Write down the single most important goal you want to achieve in the next twelve months and make a commitment to concentrate on achieving it — no matter what it takes.

3. The Great Ones Know They Are Unaware

“Everyone is operating and running their lives at their current level of conscious awareness.” — Carlos Marin

Average people have a world view that says being comfortable with who and where they are in life is the key to happiness. The great ones have a world view that says happiness is learning, growing and becoming.

Action Step for Today: Ask yourself this critical thinking question: Am I growing or dying? If your answer is dying, make the decision today to become more aware and begin growing.

Read The Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Jeyes Jr.

4. Champions Evolve From Competing to Creating

“Creative people rarely need to be motivated — they have their own inner drive that refuses to be bored. They refuse to be complacent. They live on the edge, which is precisely what is needed to be successful and remain successful.” — Donald Trump

Knowing that creativity and fear cannot co-exist, these people are competing only with themselves with the objective of being better today than they were yesterday. The Playing to Win philosophy is rooted in a spirit-based consciousness operating from thoughts of love and abundance. Fear and scarcity have no place at this level of thinking.

These performers are fearlessly seeking what Dr. Abraham Maslow referred to as Self-Actualization, or becoming all that one has the potential to become. The most powerful belief performers operating at this level possess is that they cannot fail; they can only learn and grow. With their potential in front and their fear behind them, champions are able to move beyond the boundaries of competition and create what the masses believe is impossible.

5. The World Class Never Bows To Criticism

“You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.” — John Wooden

Amateurs are shocked when they are criticized, and many are emotionally wounded. Professional performers expect criticism as a part of being a champion and are rarely rattled by it.

Professional performers rarely criticize other people — they’re too busy working and practicing to get wrapped up in other people’s business. They don’t deal in personalities; they deal in ideas. Professional performers aren’t surprised by criticism from average people.

Action Step for Today: Decide to separate your emotions from other people’s criticism of you. Refuse to talk about other people or gossip about their behavior. Focus only on ideas that can help you fulfill your vision.

6. Professional Performers Don’t Require Immediate Compensation

Champions believe every effort performed with good intention yields some form of compensation at some point.

People become champions by perfecting their competencies until other people label them ‘champion.’ In most cases, this label took years of hard work and sacrifice to achieve, with little or no apparent compensation along the way. Many of the great ones were ridiculed and criticized for investing so many hours in the development of their core competency. Not swayed by amateur opinion, they pushed forward aggressively. This delayed gratification set the stage for all future battle plans for achievement in the minds of champions.

Action Step for Today: Ask this critical thinking question: “Am I more interested in pleasure, or gratification?” Amateurs focus on pleasure-based activities that deliver short and sweet payoffs. Professionals focus on gratification-based activities that take longer to achieve but deliver long and deep payoffs. Into which category do you fall?

7. The Great Ones Are Masters Of Their Work/Rest Cycles

“Recovery is an important word and a vital concept. It means renewal of life and energy. Knowing how and when to recover may prove to be the most important skill in your life.” — James Loehr

The great ones know (or are trained to know) when to exert maximum effort and when to let their mind and body rest.

Action Step for Today: Give yourself a life balance checkup. Are you investing the necessary time and energy in the important areas of your life? What areas are you over-stressing? What areas are you under-stressing? Think about your current stress and recovery cycles and make any adjustments you think are necessary for peak performance and maximum happiness.

Read Stress for Success by James Loehr

8. Champions Are Decisive

“If I had to sum up in one word what makes a good manager, I’d say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.” — Lee Iacocca

Even the best leaders are uncertain about their decisions in an environment of unprecedented change. The difference is their willingness to make a decision and take full responsibility for the outcome.

The great ones know mistakes will be made and can be corrected.

Action Step for Today: Take a decision you have been putting off for a while and decide on a course of action within the next 24 hours. Decision-making skills are like muscles: they can only be built through use.

9. The Great Ones Choose Discipline Over Pleasure

“With self-discipline anything is possible. I believe discipline is the ultimate key to success as it determines your approach toward every day. Discipline keeps you focused and keeps you performing at a world-class level.” — Roger D. Graham Jr.

The great ones will tell you discipline is more of a decision than it is an active skill. It’s the ability to stay the course and complete promises you’ve made. The fulfillment of these promises builds confidence and self-esteem, which eventually leads the champions to believe almost anything is possible.

“It’s easier to act yourself into good thinking than it is to think yourself into good action.” — Bill Gove

Action Step for Today: On a scale of 1 to 7, 7 being most disciplined, how disciplined are you in the different areas of your life? Categories include business/ career; family/friends; money/finances; recreation/fun; health/diet/exercise; faith/spiritual; social/cultural; and personal development.

10. Champions Dedicate Their Lives To Greatness

“To succeed in life, one must have determination and must be prepared to suffer during the process. If one isn’t prepared to suffer during adversities, I don’t really see how he can be successful.” — Gary Player

While amateurs are dedicated when things are going well, champions are always dedicated. In other words, it’s not what they do, it’s who they are.

While the masses seek perpetual pleasure, the great ones focus on achievement. The irony is that professional performers tend to experience great pleasure as a result of their achievements. Such feelings of accomplishment and fulfillment are an additional benefit only the great ones enjoy.

Action Step for Today: Ask this critical thinking question: “How much am I willing to struggle and suffer to make my vision a reality?” Is it a little, a fair amount, a lot, or whatever it takes?

11. The Great Ones Are The Most Enthusiastic People Alive

“All we really need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” — Charles Kingsley

Champions are driven by an enthusiasm that fires their soul and keeps them on the practice field long after everyone else has gone home.

Action Step for Today: Make a list of the five activities in your life for which you have the most enthusiasm. Next, ask this critical thinking question: “Does anyone make a living doing this?”

Read Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow by Marsha Sinetar

12. The World Class Is Obsessed With Their Goals

“There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.” — Napoleon Hill

Only 3% of Americans have clearly defined written goals, and less than 1% can identify their primary goal and objective in life.

Action Step for Today: List your ten major goals for this year every morning when you wake up. This habit will ingrain your major goals into your psyche. This is one of the most important habits you can develop enroute to a world-class mindset.

Read Goals! How to Get Everything You Want — Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible by Brian Tracy

13. A World-Class Attitude Leads To World-Class Happiness

“I have a one-word definition of attitude: life. Attitude is the difference maker in life. It’s the treasure that lies within you. A positive attitude is the key that jump starts your life. Attitude dictates whether you’re living life or life is living you. Attitude determines whether you are on the way or in the way.” — Keith Harrell

While the masses try not to have a bad attitude in their struggle to survive, champions have a positive attitude and always try to improve their mental approach to life.

The better the attitude toward life, the happier people seemed to be.

14. The Great Ones Are At Peace With Themselves

“The foundation of mental toughness is to always be at peace with yourself.” — Jerry Zimmerman

The peace of mind experienced is an indirect result of knowing that all possible physical and mental resources have been exhausted in the process.

Average performers are all too aware they are not giving it 100%, so peace of mind continues to elude them.

Action Step for Today: Ask these critical thinking questions: “Am I at peace with myself? Am I satisfied with who I am as a human being? Do I feel I am enough just being who I am, or do I define myself by my successes and failures?” Be honest with yourself, and then make a commitment to bring more peace into your life. Remind yourself that you already have everything you need to be at peace with yourself. You were born with it, and your greatest successes and worst failures can’t ever change this universal truth.

Read Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather

15. Champions Know The Power Of Persistence

“If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get off the floor saying, “Here goes number seventy-one!” — Richard M. DeVos

What looks like Herculean persistence to the outside world is really just the manifestation of world-class mental clarity in action.

This winning expectation is the fuel that drives the champion to persist until they succeed, no matter how much pain they have to endure.

16. The Great Ones Are Aware Of Their Limitless Potential

The most common regret mentioned by residents in nursing homes is, “I should have tried more things and taken more risks.”

Most people fall by the wayside because they simply want too many things half-heartedly. The great ones make a decision, build a team and shake the world.

Action Step for Today: Ask five people who really know and care about you to give you a list of your five greatest attributes and talents, and why they believe you are so gifted in these areas. You may be surprised at how others perceive you, and these lists may inspire you to tap some of the talents that you didn’t even realize you had. Be sure to make a copy of these lists and put the originals in a safe deposit box or some other safe place. These lists will be a source of motivation and inspiration for you for the rest of your life, especially during times of doubt and despair.

17. Champions Take Risks

“I don’t want to find myself in a nursing home someday, thinking that all I did was play it safe.” — Charlie Eitel

The pros take risks — not because they are necessarily more courageous — but because they believe they can get back anything they lose.

Champions have always been risk takers, because they have come to understand that business and life are about learning and growing. How can you learn and grow when you never step out and try something new and exciting?

Action Step for Today: Learning to be comfortable when taking calculated risks is an acquired skill. The only way to develop it is to begin to take risks. Decide today to take a small risk on something you’ve been thinking about doing. Feel the fear, and do it anyway. If this process is new to you, rest assured — you will feel less fear with every risk you take.

18. The World Class Has Tremendous Self-Respect

“A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Respecting others is directly related to respecting yourself.

“You cannot give what you do not have.”

Action Step for Today: Ask this critical thinking question: “What single habit, action or behavior could I upgrade or change that would increase my level of self-respect?” Next, make a commitment, in writing, to make this upgrade or change in the next thirty days. Do the same thing every month for the next twelve months, and watch your life transform.

19. Champions Know Revenge Is For Amateurs

“The middle class broods and vows revenge when they feel cheated. The upper class attacks their abusers, intent on inflicting pain. The world class forgives their enemies and sends them love, because the emotional pro knows that the emotional amateur knows not.” — Steve Siebold

The world class, operating out of love and abundance, dismisses revenge as a strategy for people operating at lower-level awareness. The great ones know you can’t fight hate with hate. The only power in the universe worth projecting is the power of love.

The pros know if they are cheated by an amateur, it’s to be expected, because amateurs act out of fear. Their fear-based consciousness thinks irrationally, so their improper or unethical acts are to be expected. Champions feel empathy for amateurs, because all of the great ones are former amateurs themselves.

Action Step for Today: Decide today to abandon any thoughts or plans of revenge. Don’t confuse forgiveness with weakness; anyone can hold a grudge. It takes a person operating at a higher level of awareness to forgive. Be reminded that 95% of the population is operating out of a consciousness of fear and scarcity, which is probably the reason this individual cheated you.

20. The Pros Reward Themselves For Execution

“The goals, targets and rewards system is the wave of the future. Goals are execution-based; targets are results-based; and rewards are based on the successful completion of the goals, not the targets. This subtle shift in performance philosophy has the power to launch a performer from middle-class to world-class results.” — Steve Siebold

Champions set execution-based goals over which they have total control. The results they are aiming for, but don’t have complete control over, are known as Targets. The great ones aim for their Targets but focus on their goals.

The philosophy is simple: reward people for activities they can control.

Action Step for Today: Take your number one goal for the next ninety days and convert it to a target. Next, make a list of every activity you must complete to attain your target. Lastly, think of a reward for yourself upon successful completion of the goal. I would strongly suggest converting all your current goals to targets over the next thirty days. After you get in the habit of this innovative approach, you’ll be amazed at how much more motivated you will be to succeed.

21. The Great Ones Are Learning Machines

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage.” — Jack Welch
“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” — Jim Rohn

World-class performers know the more they learn, the greater the level of awareness they reach; and the greater the level of awareness, the more they realize how much more there is left to learn. The great ones know learn- ing, like love, is infinite. There is no end until their hearts stop beating.

Action Step for Today: Make a commitment to develop your own self- education program. Read, listen, and attend seminars and workshops. Set a goal to read a certain number of books and listen to a set number of CDs each month. This shift in lifestyle will catapult your career and your consciousness.

Read Lead the Field by Earl Nightingale

22. The Great Ones Have A Sense Of Urgency

“One realizes the full importance of time only when there is little of it left. Every man’s greatest capital asset is his unexpired years of productive life.” — P.W. Litchfield

The great ones have a sense of urgency because they are operating at a level of awareness that constantly reminds them the present moment is all any of us really have.

Make it your mission to discover the embers that burn within your soul and focus that passion on what you really want. Don’t stop until you find it. When you do, create a sense of urgency to act on it now. Don’t hesitate. Pursue your dream boldly and fearlessly. It may be later than you think.

Action Step for Today: To heighten your sense of urgency, do a little mathematical calculation. Based on statistics, the average man living in 21st century America will live seventy-three years. The average woman will live seventy-nine years. Based on your current age and these statistics, how many days do you have left to live? Keep this number in front of you as a reminder the clock is ticking and there is no time to lose.

23. The World Class Believes In Servant Leadership

“The measure of a man is . . . in the number of people who he serves.” — Paul D. Moody

Whatever their chosen field, the great ones know the essence of success and fulfillment can be found in the service of others.

In order to embrace this mindset and become a conduit for positive change, a person must be operating from spirit, as opposed to ego. Champions serve without asking or expecting anything in return.

Action Step for Today: Examine your beliefs about serving others, and ask this critical thinking question: “What do my habits, actions and behaviors say about my belief in the law of cause and effect?” On a scale of 1 to 7, 7 being the highest, how much do you really give to others?

Read Leadership: The Inner Side of Greatness by Peter Koestenbaum

24. Champions Thrive On World Class Self-Talk

“Repeat anything long enough and it will start to become you.” — Tom Hopkins

Self-talk is what we say to ourselves all day long, yet it’s also how we say it.

Up to 77% of the average person’s self-talk is negative.

“Repetition is a convincing argument.” — Dr. Shad Helmstetter

Action Step for Today: Begin monitoring everything you say to yourself and others. Ask this critical thinking question: “Is the way I use the language programming me for success or failure?” Next, begin listening to the way people around you use the language. Ask yourself the same question about them. This is an eye-opening experience.

25. Champions Are Bold And Daring Visionaries

“Vision . . . it reaches beyond the thing that is, into the conception of what can be. Imagination gives you the picture. Vision gives you the impulse to make the picture your own.” — Robert Collier

The world-class consciousness is so powerful it needs little, if any, outside support to maintain motivation and direction toward its vision. The great ones have the confidence and clarity to go it alone, if necessary.

The great ones create their vision, and then their vision creates them.

Action Step for Today: Make a commitment to create the ultimate vision for your life in the next thirty days. Use these eight life components as a guide: business/career; family/ friends, money/finances, recreation/fun, health/ diet/exercise, faith/spiritual, social/cultural, and personal development. You can write these visions as independent components, or include all of them in one long vision. Use as much detail as possible to define what you want to be, have and do in your life. The last step is the most important: write about why you want these things to manifest. Include as much emotion as possible. Describe the feelings you are trying to create through the achievement of your vision.

Read Visioning: The Ten Steps To Designing the Life of Your Dreams by Lucia Capacchione

26. Champions Know Abundant Health Begins With Body Weight

“A significant step you can take on the road to world- class success and fulfillment is to get your body weight under control. The confidence you will gain as a result will carry over into every other area of your life.” — Steve Siebold

Professional performers know the foundation of good health is weight control. They know disease often begins when body weight is disproportionate. Champions focus on diet and exercise to manage their weight and overall health. They also know the real secret to weight control is commitment and mental toughness.

Taking control of weight through conscious choice is a fast track to ascending to world-class levels in other areas of your life. For those who wish to ascend to greatness, this is great place to begin. The confidence and power being thin and healthy will give you cannot be overestimated.

Action Step for Today: Give yourself a mental toughness reality check: Remove all your clothes, stand in front of a full-length mirror, and write a paragraph on what you see. Next, ask this critical thinking question: “What level of consciousness does my body reflect?” Is it: poverty class, working class, middle class, upper class or world class?

27. The World Class Is Character Conscious

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” — John Wooden

Champions will push only to the limits their character will allow. When their ambitions and drives begin to adversely affect other people, champions pull back. Character is what separates ambitious champions from ambitious criminals.

Action Step for Today: Make a commitment to always do what you say you will do, no matter what it takes. Put your commitment in writing. This philosophy separates you from 95% of the population, and will enhance all of your relationships.

28. The Great Ones Know How To Say “No”

“Do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” — Benjamin Franklin

World-class performers are ruthless with their time. This behavior stems from their awareness of their limited time on the planet. They view time as their most valuable resource. As pros become more successful, they have to say “no” more often.

The world class is generous, yet highly selective, with their time. They seldom feel guilty about saying “no,” even when they are criticized by amateurs for being uncaring and selfish. Champions operate from an internal frame of reference and tend to value their own opinion above that of others’.

Action Step for Today: Identify an activity that is not giving you the results or satisfaction you thought it would. Make a commitment to discontinue it. Get in the habit of saying “no” more often in order to protect your precious time.

29. The Great Ones Grow Up

“People mired in adolescence have no way of knowing that the best is yet to come; it is just past the point where you take responsibility for yourself and your relationships, and leave your self-pity behind. Adulthood has been vastly underrated.” — Dr. Frank Pittman

The great ones still feel fear, but choose to confront their fears and ask themselves if the threat is real or imagined.

Professional performers grow up and discover that nothing good comes easy, and if it did, we probably wouldn’t appreciate its true value. The great ones expect to fight for what they want, so when they hit the inevitable obstacles along the way, they are neither surprised nor intimidated. It all begins with their decision to grow up.

Action Step for Today: Examine the areas of your life and ask yourself this question: “ Am I behaving like an adult in this area…or like a child?”

30. Champions Embrace Diversity

“Diversity is a competitive advantage. Different people approach similar problems in different ways.” — Rich McGinn

They embrace diversity, because they are filled with a spirit-based thought process that is devoid of ego, pretense and fear. Simply stated, the world looks very different when viewed though the eyes of love.

Action Step for Today: Set a goal to make a new friend or business contact of a different race, political affiliation, sexual preference, culture, religion or philosophy. Make a commitment to do this at least once a quarter, and you’ll be delighted at the insights you’ll gain from a group you may have previously misunderstood.