Can You Teach Winning?
What’s the Answer from a 21st Century Skills Expert
Did you know 113 million people watched Super Bow LVII, when Patrick Mahomes led his team in the final minutes to beat the Philadelphia Eagles with a winning field goal. Final Score Chiefs 38, Eagles 35.
Patrick Mahomes becomes the 13th quarterback in NFL history to win 2 or more Super Bowls.
But can we learn anything from Mahomes’ heroics? More importantly, can we teach people how to win? Or is thinking and playing like a champion — just dumb luck?
The Champion Mindset
People pay thousands of dollars to “gurus” and “life coaches” so they can get an EDGE in life. But what are they hoping for? What type of information do they hope to gain from listening to these coaches?
The question we need to uncover is “Can you teach winning?”
The answer is YES — you can teach yourself how to become a winner or a champion. The obstacle most people run into as they search for this answer is looking too deeply at the outcomes of what other people have accomplished.
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh, for example, is considered one of the greatest artists of the 19th century, and yet he died penniless and alone at the age of 39.
What is Winning and Losing?
When you focus too much on the outcomes, you overlook the key skills you will need to learn and thus practice, in order to become a champion.
Here’s the harsh truth — there can only be one winner in the Super Bowl. No matter what the Chiefs or Eagles did in that game — one team was going to lose. That outcome is inevitable.
But if we analyze Super Bowl LVII and the performances of both teams — did both teams play like Champions?
And the answer is YES.
And because the answer is YES — that tells us that you can teach winning.
How to Become a Winner
In order to become a winner or a champion, you need to clear your mind for a minute. The reason you need to clear your mind is because its crowded by fake news, false edicts and a lot of propaganda.
Champions tune out the noise.
Can you tune out the noise?
In sports, professional athletes call tuning out the noise as being “IN THE ZONE!”
But ordinary people can do this too. It’s not easy, but you can do it.
When you have 10 minutes to spare do the following steps:
- Find a Quiet Space (or Room)
- Eliminate all distractions (that means get rid of your phone)
- And concentrate on this one thought — “I’m going to make my life better.”
Practicing Like a Champion
Clearing your mind of clutter is only the first step. Once you tune out the noise, you then have to practice being a champion — and this is where 99% of people fail.
Why is practicing so hard?
The fact is that 99% of people are lost in life. If you work non-stop, hustle and grind, but practice the wrong skills — you will never get anywhere.
Have you ever felt like a hamster on a wheel? There’s a reason it’s called the rat-race.
I encourage you to follow this account because I publish articles that talk about the power of 21st century skills and also how to fix our education system. Those two topics hold the KEYS to teaching winning and becoming a champion.
And if more people learned these skills — less people would be struggling and living paycheck to paycheck.
What Should You Practice?
Take a look at how much you’ve read so far. I want you to realize that I’ve written 562 words just about clearing your mind of harmful thoughts.
This is the preamble to the “actual” work. If you want to begin to understand why life is so difficult — it’s the simple fact that 99% of people NEVER move past the first 562 words.
People call me “The School Doc” because I diagnose problems and I also have over 20 years of expert experience in the education field. I am a former teacher, principal and superintendent. In 2011, I became one of the first superintendents in America to adopt a 21st century skills curriculum.
The reason you need to know all of that is because I am three steps ahead of you. Not one, not two — but three full steps ahead.
If you feel like life is “too hard” — you’re right. Life is nearly impossible when you don’t know 21st century skills.
If you feel like you can’t get ahead — you’re right. You cannot get ahead in the 21st century, unless you know all five 21st century skills.
Is this starting to make more sense?
If you want to become a winner or a champion, you need to start practicing the right skills. The first place to start is learning 21st century skills.
I host a weekly “LIVE” podcast on Instagram every Tuesday from 5pm EST/2pm PST. I have been talking about the power of 21st century skills since 2020.
To make things easier for you, here is a list of all five skills you need to learn:
- 21st Century Leadership
- 21st Century Team Building
- 21st Century Problem Solving
- 21st Century Sales
- 21st Century Communications
Don’t Guess Your Future
If you want to change your life trajectory, you need to change the way you think. Champions don’t “hope” for the future to come — they study what they need to know and then practice until it’s second nature.
The reason that Tom Brady is the greatest QB in NFL history is because he studied NFL defenses and memorized every play in his teams playbook. But Tom Brady practiced harder than any other player on the field. Tom Brady was practicing when he went home. Tom Brady was practicing during the Pandemic — when you weren’t supposed to.
That’s because Tom Brady is a champion.
Are you a champion?? Do you want to become a champion?
If you do — you need to stop “guessing” all the time. If you don’t know something — admit it and find someone that does, so you can learn from them.
I didn’t start my career as an expert in education. Oh, the contrary. I struggled as a teacher. The problem I ran into and that millions of teachers run into — there is no one to answer their questions.
Did you even know that?
That’s right, if a teacher gets stuck — they can admit they need help, but there is no one there to help them. (Doesn’t that suck??!!)
Are you in the same boat? Are you stuck in life, but there is no one there to answer your questions?
It’s a lonely feeling to be stuck with confusion.
What you need to know and realize is that Champions start in the same position. Every single person you look up to — started in the same position as you. No one starts life out with all the answers. No one starts life out as an expert.
To become a Champion means to stop beating yourself up and working towards your ultimate vision. It might take a lifetime, but if you learn the fundamentals of what you need to do — eventually you will become an expert and overcome whatever obstacle you are facing.
I started as a struggling teacher. But in 2009, many years later, I became recognized by the State of New Jersey for being one of the most respected and best teacher coaches in the state.
That’s because in 2009, I developed the Teacher Development Program, which is the fastest and most successful teacher training and prep program in the country. What it does is give teachers the fundamentals of teaching in the classroom and then provide expert coaching for two years.
When teachers graduate, they are experts in the classroom.
This isn’t your grandmas professional development, where teachers sit in a classroom listening to someone talk to them for 60 minutes. This is a development program that shows teachers what to “PRACTICE.”
Do you remember the question from earlier? What should you practice??
From Practice to Real Life
What’s the final stage? After you clear your mind and figure out what to practice, how can you put all the puzzle pieces together? How do you start to compete like a champion?
A funny thing happens when you do those basic things. If you can clear your head and ignore the noise, you give yourself the space to concentrate. And you need to concentrate on what you should practice.
But when you concentrate on your practice skills, you start to gain confidence. And confidence is what you need, if you want to become a champion.
The truth is that no human being has all the answers. I know a lot of people get really confused when they listen to me speak and lecture. A lot of people honestly believe that I’m a “know it all.”
It makes me laugh because if you know me, or are a close personal friend of mine, then you know my mantra is “the wise man knows that he knows nothing.”
And what that means is, the smarter you are — the more you realize how little you know.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Cornell University psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger published a groundbreaking paper in 1999, which is now referred to as the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
What it states is that the lower probability someone knows a subject, the more they assume they know everything.
In other words, only the people who know very little about a topic or a subject want everyone in the world to think they know everything.
Do you do this? Do you know someone who does this?
The truth is we are surrounded by people who want to “show off” when the truth is they know practically nothing about what they are talking about.
Finding the Missing Puzzle Piece
You’ve learned a lot in this article. My followers know that I like to do a deep dive when I start to write about a topic. That’s why a lot of my followers end up “saving” my articles, so they can come back and read them over again — after they have cleared their minds and found a quiet space.
Did we find the missing link?
Hopefully, you have a starting point now.
- Step One — Tune Out the Noise
- Step Two — Find out what you need to “practice”
- Step Three — Practice, practice, practice until you gain confidence in what you need to know.
Which brings us to the last piece of advice.
When I tell people this last step, they get mad. Not at me — but at life in general. This is the first full realization that life is DAMN HARD!! And it is — but life is not impossible.
If you thought you could float through life and become a millionaire — it doesn’t work that way.
When you finish steps one, two and three — now you’re ready to learn the five 21st century skills. When you know what you need to “practice” in your career and then have the confidence in those practice skills — you are ready to learn the fundamentals of 21st century leadership skills.
There are six fundamentals to 21st century leadership and the first fundamental is developing your life vision. Now that you know about your career, you know how to do your job — it’s now time to figure out “WHERE” you are going in life or where do you want to go?
And in order to determine that — you need 21st century leadership skills.
FREE BONUS FOR YOU!!
I can’t thank you enough for reading this entire article. I have slowly grown a following on Medium and I’m grateful for each one of you. My vision for America is that everyone UPGRADES their education and learns the five 21st century skills.
I am leading that movement to make that happen.
And what a leader needs to do is help other people — so I created a FREE 5-Day 21st Century Crash Course that you can sign up for. It’s easy and simple to sign up. Simply go to the Leaf Academy homepage and enter your email at the bottom of the page — where it says FREE 5-Day Crash Course
When you submit your email — you will start to receive one email per day for the next five days. In each email will be one 21st century lesson for you to learn. Remember, find a quiet space, clear your mind, and then practice what’s inside that lesson.
It will be hard in the beginning. Remember, that’s normal. The more you practice, practice and practice, the easier it gets and also the more confidence you build.
I would love if everyone that finishes the FREE 5-Day Crash Course comes back to this article and posts what they “learned” from the fast 5-day learning program.
The one thing a winner does is try and help other people. A champion is someone who LEADS people to victory. Our victory will be when everyone in America knows the five 21st century skills. We can all celebrate when everyone has the same opportunity to pursue their dreams.
