Our discussion today is about self-fulfilling prophecies and how mindset has ultimate power in determining outcomes.  Here's what was said at the Week 6 Team Meal.

Let's begin today by having Evan come up here. 

The Test

I've got a $5 bill.  Evan I'm going to give you $5, here's what you have to do.  I want you to sit in a perfect parallel squat for one minute.  Good Job.

Now I'm going to give you $30 if you will sit for 6 minutes like that.  Yes or No.... He said no.

Our discussion today

Our discussion today is about self-fulfilling prophecies. I mean, you're fulfilling the prophecy yourself. What Evan just experienced right now was something he knew he was capable of doing. He's done it before. We've asked you to sit and hold squat for a minute and a half and hold planks; we've asked you to do things like that, so he did it. He succeeded and he got $5. He got that little carrot hanging off the end of the stick.

Then, I posed another question to him. I said, "Here's what I want you to do: I'm going to give you six times what you were just capable of doing in terms of a monetary amount. If you can do six times the work.  6 Minutes, it's $30, and without hesitation... Without hesitation, he said, "I'm not going to do it." He said no, repeatedly.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Here's what I self-fulfilling prophecy is.
It is an expectation or a belief that you hold, I hold, some people hold, even people not in this group hold that can influence your behavior. It causes the belief to come true.

Evan, do you believe that you could sit for six minutes? Maybe? But what kept you from wanting to try?

• Pain
• Discomfort
• Fear of failure

Would you agree that maybe some of those things crossed your mind? Yes?

Listen, no matter how you look at a situation, you're always given two avenues:

One is I can attempt and I could fail.

OR

Two, I could never attempt at all and ultimately you fail in general.

If you expect everything to go wrong, it's gonna go wrong.

No matter what--> you always win in a self-fulfilling prophecy because if you think you can't, you can't. If you think you can and you do, you're like, 'Oh, see, I told you I could do it.'

The Power of a Mindset

But you have to understand the power of a mindset when it comes to this self-fulfilling prophecy. Alright, I've seen it too often in life.

People will sit there and:

• they won't attempt
• they won't budge
• they won't step over that line
• they won't commit fully

They won't go ahead and understand that no matter what, you have to keep moving. You have to keep moving forward, which attaches to another conversation that we've had, but ultimately, you're in charge of this self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you fail, you fail, but you tried, you at least attempted.

Think about the people out there, maybe some of them, your older siblings, maybe family members who have failed to put themselves out there. Think beyond that, think of in this building right now how many people are just going through the motions, happy to blend in, happy to be a number in this High School.

You guys already are part of this self-fulfilling positive prophecy; you have stepped outside of comfort zones. You are the few that have chosen to do this.

Alright, I had a kid in class today, freshman mind you, who decided to sit there with his table full of girls, knowing darn well he's in the head football coach's classroom for freshman resource talking about how he should have gone out for football, 'That he'd be so good, just so good, man. He should have done it.'

Listen, self-fulfilling prophecy, he knew he couldn't do it; he knew he couldn't do it. He talked himself out of it.

Right, here's what we have to understand: pessimistic predictions come true, optimistic predictions also come true.

Continually thinking that bad experiences will plague you or a team is better than you or that other person is smarter or you know what they had a better outcome in life because of how you were raised versus how they were raised, all that is building right now is a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.

Believing in a negative prediction again ultimately gives you a negative outcome.

Self-imposed prophecies are based on your expectations. What do you expect to happen? Is that a guarantee? Hopefully, by now, you know at 14 to 18-year-olds in life, there are no guarantees.

But I'd rather guarantee an opportunity at the table than standing back and watching from afar. That's about the only guarantee you get, and you only get it if you take that dive, if you take that step.

Tomorrow evening is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You are in charge!

We may succeed, and we may fail.

But if we fail to show up, figuratively speaking, then you will fail a hundred times out of a hundred. It is your job to show up, and then it is your job to perform.

All of those things are within your control.

Outside of that

🚫you don't control referees

🚫you don't control environment

🚫you don't control their game plan

✔️YOU Control YOU

And that's all a self-fulfilling prophecy takes... is you controlling you, doing your job to the best of your ability.

Let's go ahead and prophesize.

Can you show up tomorrow, literally and figuratively?

Then that's all we have to worry about.

There should be no other concerns.

Tonight, when you go to bed, when your head hits that pillow, tomorrow when you wake up, show up literally and figuratively. You already own them.

And then how you apply what you've worked on since the beginning of this season, as Coach Bernardi alluded to at the end of practice today, since January, That is how you fulfill this self-fulfilling prophecy, and you make it a positive result versus the opposite.