Recap of *Stay Sane in an Insane World*
The book--subtitled How to Control the Controllables and Thrive--by University of Michigan sports psychologist, Greg Harden, influencer of Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, Desmond Howard and more
It's short, easy to read, broken up into 37 chapters, interspersed with testimonials from his disciples that reinforce points Harden makes in the chapters.
I read the book in spurts over about a month or so--highlighting and dogearing along the way--stopping to reflect on its key points a few times, sharing its wisdom with my wife and kids a few times.
I then left it on the ottoman for a month or so, knowing I wanted to digitize my notes, summarize its lessons to memorialize it in my brain, but I felt like reading other things. So I did, I read two other books over the next month, but Stay Sane kept staring at me. So over the last few days, I typed up my highlights in my note-taking app and will do my best to summarize here.
A lot of its message feels obvious and trite, but like I've written earlier, I'm not living in this obvious and trite way that would substantially improve my life, which makes me think its message feels deep and profound.
In its penultimate chapter, he lists 7 things to remember, which I list below. I then attempt to pigeonhole my notes into 7 sections based on those 7 things. Most of the remainder of this post are quotes or near-quotes from the book with a few paraphrases thrown in.
Greg's key message is 7 things:
Become an expert on yourself - so you can become the best version of yourself
Control the controllables - it's right there in the subtitle, you are the only person with control on your mind, i.e. your thoughts and feelings...a combination of the "focus on what you can control" conventional wisdom with a little Adlerian psychology mixed in
Practice relentlessly - giving 100% effort, you'll outwork and wear down the average people
Commit to improving your life - make incremental improvements, maintain those incremental improvements, move on to the next one, Albert Camus in theory, James Clear in practice
Stop being afraid - courage is facing your fear
Love and accept yourself - replace your self-defeating attitudes with self-supporting attitudes
1. Become an expert on yourself
Resolve your trauma, let go of your baggage, prove it yourself that you did so by i) being able to talk about it without returning to the original emotion state you were in when traumatized, ii) clearly articulating what you did to overcome it, and iii) identify how the experience made you stronger.
Forgive your parents for not being perfect. If not for their sake, then for yours. This is one of the keys to mental health.
Expose your psychic vampires into the light, the things from the past that are holding you back. If you really want to become the person you've dreamed of becoming, you have to destroy your psychic vampires and break their hold on you mind, body and spirit. This will take bravery.
If you believe in yourself it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
2. Control the controllables
No one can make you feel inferior without your permission. They can create conditions to make you more likely to feel that way, but they can't force you to feel that way. It's your choice, they can't have power over you unless you give them permission.
You are the only person with control over your own mind.
Tom Brady says focus on the positive and face your challenges with a enthusiasm.
Be assertive, value yourself, communicate with i) confidence, ii) clarity and iii) calmness.
Think back to a time you went into an extra gear to accomplish something. Now imagine making that your permanent level of effort. That's what makes a champion.
Give 100% effort, 100% of the time. If you commit to this mindset, on your worst day you'll be better than an average person on their best day.
Tom Brady says obstacles are an advantage, because most people will back down in the face of obstacles. So if you keep a good attitude and push through, the obstacle actually helped you by getting your competitors out of the way.
Desmond Howard says you should always strive to get better at what you do. Never settle for good enough.
Opportunity will knock at some point. Make sure you have put yourself in the position to take advantage.
4. Commit to improving your life
Be humble and hungry to learn. Commit to the process of continuous self-improvement. Believe that you possess that special extra gear.
Your life belongs to you, and it's up to you to make the most if it. No one else can do this for you. Taking responsibility for your own life should be your highest priority.
Tom Brady say if you're not where you want to be in life, it's up to you to make it better. Your positivity and enthusiasm will help you toward your outcome.
If you believe in yourself, then there's only one way to change, you need to start doing everything different and stop caring about what anyone else thinks. If a coach believes in you, great. If not, don't get distracted by it. What you believe is all that matters.
It's not enough to dream big, you need to believe big.
How fun would it be to shatter everyone's expectations of you?
Desmond Howard says don't just be the best player on the field, be the most dominant. Think and behave that way, separate yourself from the rest.
Tom Brady says once apply a positive and enthusiastic mindset to all areas of your life, fear has nowhere to go.
Create your ideal self. Culture, media and politics is trying to program you, why not program yourself?
Get out of your own way. Those times when you were thinking nothing and having fun, that's when you were having the best games.
The best athletes have a short memory. When you make a mistake, give yourself permission to feel bad about it for a fraction of a second then get back to work. If you are someone that gets down on yourself after a setback, feeling sorry for yourself, how's that working out for you? Unless your objective is to be miserable, then stop beating yourself up, because the answer is it's not working for you.
Once you start to predict your self-doubt and fear, you can manage it.
6. Love and accept yourself
Your sport is not who you are, it's what you do. You will have an amazing life with our without your sport.
You can't let your self-worth be determined by the trappings of this world because those will ultimately fail you.
Ward Emanuel says it's important for young student athletes to understand at some point it could all be taken away from you.
You can't let your sport become a false god, or God will take it from you.
Love being an outlier, accept being one as a challenge, love being the person that broke the stereotype.
7. Be your own best friend
As you make these life changes, don't try to change anyone else. This project is between you and yourself.
You can rely on others for help sometimes, but you ultimately you have to rely on self-love and self-acceptance above all else. You have to be your own best friend.
To be a good teammate, you must believe in yourself first.
At then end of the chapter about psychic vampires, I wrote that mine is mediocrity. That I am mediocre. And if I step outside myself and take a risk, people will roll their eyes at me, I will be exposed as someone who is mediocre and in denial of my own mediocrity.
There was a worksheet in the middle of the book about what success looks like. I wrote some notes down one a separate piece of paper. Below are those notes...
My purpose is family, living long enough to see them thrive as adults, to meet my grandkids, doing interesting things along the way.
Success to me is good relationships with my wife and all three of my kids. After that, health: getting down to a better weight, more running. Then fun: travel, other. Then I wrote money with a colon too, but didn't write anything after the colon.
For measurable goals are wrote weight loss goals, running goals, money goals and family travel goals. I didn't write what those goals were. But I am already working toward a weight loss goal, 13 lb down, 8 more to go. I think it was Naval Ravikant that said the universe is good at giving you one thing, but only one. So maybe I can work on the other goals next, one at a time.
The self-defeating attitudes and behaviors holding me back from reaching my goals are i) I'm not good at networking, ii) making more money will require more/harder work and that's what killed my dad, and iii) life is boring without alcohol and unhealthy food.
Three things I will stop doing were i) drinking while weighing over 175 lb, ii) taking the easy way out at work, and iii) giving attention to things before my family, e.g. phone, computer.
Self-supporting attitudes and behaviors I want to cultivate are: people like me, I can make friends, I am fun not boring, and I can take steps to make more money.
Three things I will start doing, I wrote four: money/budgeting, weight loss/running, work development plan, family stuff. I didn't get specific
I am sort of meandering my way through a lot of that stuff. I could probably tighten a lot of this up and make my life better.
Like I wrote at the top, a lot of this is trite and obvious. The hard part is doing it.
