Enric Mas is having a good couple of weeks. The 31 year old Spanish professional cyclist finds himself leading the final Grand Tour (3 week race) of the season, the Vuelta a España, after the overwhelming favourite (and alien-cyclist-from-another-planet) Tadej Pogačar crashed out, breaking his collarbone and one of the vertebrae in his neck.
(Tough gig, pro cycling. It’s 44ºC in the office, there’s no air con and when you inevitably crash, it’s like jumping out of a car at 50mph, wearing nothing but your underwear.)
Enric’s been part of the furniture for years—a bona fide team leader, always going for the big titles—but very seldom in the limelight. He doesn’t win very much (at all), isn’t renowned for his tactical acumen and is seldom taken seriously as a contender.
But he keeps showing up, especially in his home race, the Vuelta a España, in which he has come second no less than three times, and also 3rd, 5th and 6th in the past. (To very little fanfare, it must be said.)
I like him. And I love his attitude, which is pure champion-mindset.
Recipe for success
What's “pure champion-mindset, Giles?” I hear you ask.
Great question! Well, you might think that to be a champion in professional sport (or any sport) you need to work hard at visualising success, ‘have a killer instinct’ and ‘believe in yourself’ but I think those are overrated, or in the case of the last of those, pure baloney.
Just ask Enric Mas. A week in, after winning a mountaintop stage finish (his first victory after a drought that lasted 4 years) he was interviewed about his prospects of winning the overall, 3-week Vuelta.
He'd taken a slender lead over his closest rival Primoz Roglič – who has bested him 5 times out of 6 in previous Vueltas, and a shocking 22 times out of 22 (!!) in long time trials… one of which loomed on the horizon, a few stages later.
Asked whether he was daunted at the prospect of holding onto the leader's jersey for the remaining 12 stages, he smiled that winning smile of his and said,
“It's not a question of fear. It's just that if I spend the whole day thinking about it, finally it ends up being a stress-fest which I don't need to have right now. I just want to enjoy this moment, enjoy wearing red, and enjoy being with the team. We have to concentrate on what's coming up, too. And that's pretty much it.”
😃 🙌🏻 🥳 👊🏻 🥰
Now there's a man who understands that 100% of his experience is created from within, using the Principle of Thought: “…if I spend the whole day thinking about it, finally it ends up being a stress-fest.”
Nobody needs that right now. Or ever, really!
Please note that he says nothing about thinking positively here. That's the ‘self-belief’ piece of the puzzle that's also missing from the mind of a champion.
The opposite of negative thought
I once had the privilege of sitting in on a conversation with John Musto, a 15-time National Squash Champion, who found career success later in life, after promising youth results led to years of professional heartbreak and struggle, with middling results.
He attributes his total turnaround to seeing something about the nature of thought.
He'd been coached that not getting attached to negative thinking while playing was the key to success (fair enough), but his mind had taken that and ran with it in totally the wrong direction, meaning that he practically broke himself at the altar of ‘self’ belief, and how good he was, or had to be, in comparison to the opposition.
Of course, being a prime example of ‘think more, live less,’ it didn't work, and he burned himself out, trying.
But then he was pointed towards the 3 Principles, and he had a colossal realisation that changed everything:
“I started out thinking that the opposite of negative thinking is positive thinking.
“Then I kind of realised, no, no, no. The opposite is no thinking! Just play from here.
“Being in the zone is just the absence of negative thoughts and positive thoughts – and being there.”
Just like Mas, newly minted in the red leader's jersey of the Vuelta a España, he discovered the performance-enhancing power of simply “enjoying this moment.”
Which sounds nice in theory, doesn't it? But what about your opponents, with their mental fortitude and their arsenal of techniques and their aggression on the court, all of which seem to be working in their favour?
Is it safe to drop everything like this? Doesn't this amount to what John refers to as “unilateral disarmament”?
He found the opposite to be true. Disengagement from the aggression and urgency of the mind actually opened him up to something waaaaaay more powerful: life energy itself.
“By letting go of all of that, I'm not disarming myself. I'm giving myself access to a supercomputer that I didn't realise I had.”
So that puts paid to the ‘killer instinct’ myth too.
🤷🏻♂️
A care-less win
I have a personal example of this same phenomenon.
As I sit here writing this, it's exactly 20 years to the day that I experienced my own sporting career highlight: a race win—solo—in a hilly 2nd Category race in the UK.
I'd been racing for several years, and had accumulated more 6th, 8th and 27th places than you could shake a stick at.
I trained religiously, each and every day (I was single at the time), and tried so frickin’ hard—through visualisation, racing aggression and manufactured self-belief—to win, but instead became something of an expert at losing races, even though at times I was clearly the strongest rider, and on form. It was equally baffling and demoralising.
Looking back, I always raced with a lot on my mind.
And then on Sunday 10th September 2006, near the end of another lacklustre season, I rocked up to this place in Shropshire I'd never heard of, to ride roads I'd never seen, somewhat out of shape and, frankly, wishing I were anywhere else.
I remember dawdling around the back of the peloton all day, with no team mates, just wanting it be over. I had no aspirations, was riding against people who were much more accomplished than me and basically I couldn't have cared less.
Where usually I was in analytical mode, trying to read the race, size up my opponents, and anticipate (and get in) all the right moves, this time I had nothing on my mind.
But I did notice that at one point of the course—the top of the short steep climb we went up on each lap—there was a general lull in the proceedings, as if everyone was grateful they'd not got dropped, and chose to catch their breath.
This was a point that was just over 1km from the finish line and on a subsequent lap, when the drop in pace occurred again, I had the single thought:
🤔 If this lull happens on the last lap, I'll attack.
That was it. Nothing more. Of course on the last lap, I knew that the big boys would come out to play, we'd hurtle up the climb at a pace well beyond my current capabilities, I'd get dropped, and be looking at another 7th place, or worse. Standard.
I went back to dawdling at the back of the peloton, forgot about it completely and instead used the time to consider the prospect of stopping racing next season, because it was all just too hard – all effort, no reward.
But it didn't happen like that.
The last time up the climb was the same as all the others, except for one strip of a lad smashing his way off the front, right from the bottom, in a bid for solo glory. Clearly the best climber, nobody followed him and we arrived at the top again as one, having not gone up there excessively hard.
I was around third wheel when, to my amazement (on the last lap! 1km from the finish!) yet again we slowed imperceptibly … and I found myself, on autopilot—without debating or analysing for even one millisecond—fulfilling the promise I'd made mentally a couple of laps previously and attacking immediately.
On the false flat that followed I caught and passed the best climber of the day, (dying on his arse having launched too early) thinking, briefly, “That's usually me – that's what I usually do,” got my head down, didn't look back and just pushed as hard as I possibly could for that last, long kilometre.
Another thought I recall, as I felt myself entering territory that qualified as dangerously exceeding what my body was capable of: “I honestly don't mind if I die. Here, on this road. At least I'll know I gave it my all,” and continued to push, harder than I ever had.
With 300m to go (the sort of distance where you start thinking about launching your sprint) I'd emptied the tank completely – I had nothing left for a sprint to launch!
Uh oh.
From previous race experience, this too was heartbreakingly familiar territory, and as I looked behind me for the first time, I fully expected to see either best-climber guy or—more likely—the entire peloton sitting on my wheel, biding their time to come past as I kindly led them out for the sprint.
But… there was no one there. I'd broken free entirely, and had all the time in the world to sit up and celebrate, dissipating years of frustration in one primal scream—COME OOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN!!!!—that you'd have heard from the next town.
🙌🏻 🚴🏻♂️ 🏆 💐 🍾
It's not disarmament
I hope from these three stories you can see that high performance lives in the Now – a space that is remarkable by its absence of analytical thinking. Dropping the conceptual mind is not “unilateral disarmament”, it's presence and therefore a direct connection to the source of high performance.
And of course, none of this is really about sport. Cycling and squash are just the arenas in which today's Daily Reminder is playing out.
It's about how you show up in life.
Your performance in the workplace, in creative endeavours, in your relationships, in your parenting, in your own company even… it's on a sliding scale where analysis, over-thinking and second-guessing all degrade the ‘signal’ of peak performance.
You don't have to be aiming for a championship win or a lifetime achievement because you are always playing the same game Enric Mas is playing: deciding how much of your headspace you're going to hand over to the kind of thinking that turns everything into a stress-fest.
By all means take action to concentrate on what's coming up, but mainly, just enjoy this moment and let the magic happen.
💖
Giles
p.s. At the time of writing, the Vuelta a España is still ongoing. [Spoilers 🚴🏻♂️] Mas lost time to Roglič in the time trial (as expected), but not much, and still holds the lead by 1:37, with two major mountain stages to come. Who knows whether Enric will win or lose, but I reckon he'll enjoy the ride, whatever the outcome - that's the real champion-mindset ☺️
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