Meeting The Moment | Ep 3

Arjun: 00:00:00

Practice is not making perfect, but practice is going to make sure that you're prepared. And if you're prepared, you have a much better chance of succeeding.

For those of you who have seen the film Apollo 13, there is a scene in that movie that absolutely captures the essence of LFG energy. And it's also tying directly into the theme of this episode, which is meeting the moment.

Now, for those of you who haven't seen the film, I'm going to outline this for you and actually tell you the story to bring it all forward.

But this is something that drives my wife absolutely nuts, because what I will do is I will watch a show or a movie, and I'll watch them countless times. I'll always rewatch it. I'm one of those people. There's a certain psychology behind it.

But I'll do this and I'll extrapolate some line or scene and make it into a life mantra. It drives her absolutely nuts.

But there was a scene in the film, Jean Krantz is leading the mission to basically bring back three astronauts whose mission has gone completely wrong while trying to land on the moon. In fact, their lives are actually in jeopardy here.

Like, NASA would potentially be experiencing the biggest disaster in the history of the space program. And this guy has been intense the entire film.

Everyone else is slowly starting to fall apart because they're sleep deprived, they're stressed, and this guy who actually ended up writing a book called Failure Is not an Option, which is also LFG energy at its finest. Failure Is not an Option. You burn the boats and you take the island.

And Gene Krantz captured it beautifully in this particular scene because there was two things that happened here. One, he overhears two guys behind him who are starting to go negative, basically talking about, what if we fail?

That this would be the biggest disaster in the history of NASA, that we're going to have three dead astronauts whose bodies we're not even going to be able to bring home. And they were trying to basically get their heads around the magnitude of this.

Gene Krantz looks back at them and says really boldly, with all due respect, gentlemen, I believe this is about to be our finest hour. Now, that was incredible. I get goosebumps just saying it. And for those of you that have seen the film, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

And hopefully you're getting goosebumps, too, because he's basically saying, you guys are going negative. And. No, I actually see this entirely different. I'm looking at this through a different lens because Failure is not an option. We're going to succeed.

Now, the other subtle thing that he did, which you have to be paying really close attention to, but again, I'm going to paint it for you here, is that he starts to button his shirt and tightens his tie. Everybody else, again, sleep deprived. They've been up for about 72 hours. They look like they all fell out of a tree.

And here this guy is, he's tidying himself up. Why is he doing that? Why would he do that? And did you even notice it? I noticed it right away because this man is meeting the moment.

Win, lose or draw, he's going to meet this moment with class and dignity and be stoic, because that's who he is. Because failure was not an option. And he was going to give this 100% and not leave anything on the table to succeed and bring these astronauts home.

Another classic one, which is really short and there are many more people who might have seen it, is Game of Thrones. Now, one of my favorite scenes in Game of Thrones, I can't remember what season it was, was the Battle of the Bastards.

Jon Snow, who is everyone's favorite character, he's about to engage in this massive battle where they are clearly outnumbered like 10 to 1 or gajillion to 1. He falls off his horse, and he's standing there, and the opposing army is coming right at him.

There's about a thousand horses and soldiers that are on them that are approaching. You're standing in the middle of a field, and no one is behind you. He just looks up, he says, fuck it.

If I'm gonna go down, I'm gonna go down on my own terms.

He unbuttons his actual sword belt, takes out his sword, and just stands there and says, I'll do my best, but whatever it is, I'm going down on my own terms. That is LFG energy. He's meeting the moment. Now, here's what meeting the moment is actually defined by. All right?

And just follow along with me, because when I say meet the moment, this applies to anyone.

Whether you're an athlete, whether you're an everyday person, whether you're you or me, we all face big moments, whether it's a big deadline, whether it's a big event that you're going to. Maybe it's the economy, maybe it's the threat of losing your job or something that's about to happen.

And meeting the moment means simply being equal to it.

Because in life, when we have something big, if we come in bigger Than that moment, you are going to be arrogant, you are going to be cocky, you're not going to show it its due respect. And therefore you will actually be cheated out of the lesson that it was intended to teach you. So you never want to come in bigger than a moment.

Now, conversely, on the opposite end, if you come in smaller than a moment, a little bit timid, cowardly, think of a huge wave that surfers get entangled up in, it's going to chew you up and spit you out the other side because you weren't ready. But if a moment is big, you be big.

You be directly equal to that moment so that you can take it on and show it its respect and be taught the lesson that it was intended to actually give you. Now, here is how I want you to approach meeting the moment in any aspect of your life.

Again, whether it's for something that you have to do with work, a big moment that you have that's coming up athletically, physically, maybe it's a race, it's a marathon that you've signed up for, maybe you're battling cancer and you are now going to start chemotherapy, right? And you're going to go down this long road of actually trying to come out the other side.

And you will come out the other side absolutely victorious and healthy first. And if you listen to the previous episode, we talked a lot about this, you fixate on process because this is what causes people to choke.

And it's a huge component of how to actually meet the moment. You focus on your process and you take reps, which is the second item. Do as many reps in leading up to this big moment as you can. Practice, right?

This is something our parents have told us. This is not anything that is earth shattering. Practice is not making perfect, but practice is going to make sure that you're prepared.

And if you're prepared, you have a much better chance of succeeding. The third thing is visualization. Now, there is tremendous power in visualization because the mind can be tricked.

If you've never been in a big moment, you can visualize it so crystal clear as you close your eyes, as you meditate, maybe before you go to bed, imagine yourself in that moment, feel the surroundings, hear the actual noises, actually feel that anxiety or those butterflies in your stomach. And then ask yourself and paint out an act out, how am I going to perform? How will I execute here?

And if you do this enough, when you actually get to that moment, there's a degree of familiarity that you're going to have, or a sense of calm. And you might wonder, how is this even possible? I've never actually been here, but I feel calm.

It's because you tricked your mind through all that visualization into believing you actually have been there before. And we've all heard it. Act like you've been there before. Here's how you can last is going to be belief.

If you have no belief in yourself, then it's all for nothing, right? We have to have belief and courage. And the actual tie between courage and fear is one word, and it's action.

There's being afraid and then there's courage, which is actually being afraid and still taking action in spite of it.

Now, if you tie all of those things together, you're going to be able to meet more moments in your life than you'll be able to actually give recognition to. And you'll never be too big for them or too small for them.

Join me on the next episode where we're going to talk about the actual differences and similarities between being nervous and ready.