If you've listened to the podcast and follow me on Instagram, it doesn't take long before you hear me talk about my kids playing sports. For 1, because it's such a big part of the stage of life that I'm in right now, running to practices and games, and 2, because there are so many great parallels between sports and business. Now often, I use those sports analogies to talk business. But earlier this year, I had the privilege of talking to my son's travel baseball team, about some of the concepts I teach business owners. Because just like business, Baseball is as much about the inner game as the outer game. And this group of talented athletes were losing some of their games, not because of their skill, not because of their experience, but because of their mindset. They'd show up one day, ready to play, get an early lead, and bring home the win. But the very next day, They play the same team, and after a couple of errors or a bad call or a couple of runs on the board from the other team, They get down on themselves, start blaming the empire, or get in their heads and end up beating themselves.

That's right. The other team didn't beat them, they beat themselves. So I spent about an hour with the team showing them that just like getting in reps with hitting or putting in work to improve their pitching and fielding, they need to focus on their inner game. Creating success is about the inner game. No matter how talented or experienced you are, The inner game is still important and can determine whether you take home the win or the dub as they call it. That means winning in business also comes down to your inner game. So I want to look at 4 different aspects of mastering your inner game today in this episode. 1st, you need to know your value.

And when I say know your value, I'm talking about your innate value. The value that you have, just because of who you are, just because you exist, not your achieved value. Many of you focus on your achievements, and whether you accomplish something or not determines how valuable you perceive yourself to be. Just like the kids, if they go up to bat and they strike out, if they allow themselves to believe that they're less valuable because of that one at bat, then, of course, that's gonna impact the rest of the game. And it's not true. Their value doesn't change because of 1 error or because of 1 strikeout, and neither does your value. So it's your job to create sufficiency, to believe you are enough, even when you don't win, even when things don't work out the 1st time, or the 2nd time, or the 3rd time. It's not about what you achieve.

Your value always remains the same. And when you do well, The other part of knowing your value is giving yourself credit. No more glossing over your achievements and giving your credit away. No more saying that it was a fluke or no more saying that someone else's contribution is what made it successful. I want you to look at why you successfully created the result, and I want you to know that it's probably more about who you were showing up as then how you achieved it. If you wanna dig more into that, I actually have a whole episode on how versus who, so go take a look back at that. The 2nd aspect of mastering your inner game is trusting yourself. I want you to look inside yourself for answers first.

Before you can ask someone else what to do, or try to reverse engineer what someone else is doing, I want you to ask yourself what you know to be True. Instead of relying on someone else to tell you every move to make, ask yourself, what to do. This also means looking for all of the reasons that you're right and that you're on the right path, you're on the right track before all of the reasons that you're wrong. Then, if you want support or coaching, ask for it. When you look for the answer yourself first and then you ask for support or coaching and tell them The answer you came up with and get feedback on that versus just having them tell you what they would do or what they think you should do, that helps you learn and develop. It builds your confidence by coming up with the answer first, and then getting feedback or coaching. It helps you build trust in yourself. So go find the answers by looking inward and trusting.

3rd, I want you to take responsibility. Have your own back. Be your own hero. Know where results come from, your thoughts, by the way. And instead of blaming or trying to change circumstances, take responsibility. If things aren't going right, if you don't have the result that you want, Know that those results are something that you can control. Own your feelings, own your actions, own your results, and ultimately go all the way back to own the thoughts that are leading to those feelings, because you create them. You create your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, your results.

Own the outcome, even when it's not the outcome that you want. What I mean by this is really taking responsibility even when things aren't what you hoped for. This doesn't mean that you're criticizing or judging yourself. There's no beating yourself up. That's not the point here. Instead, it's about creating awareness for why you don't have the results you want, creating awareness of your thoughts. So stop searching outside of yourself for the secret strategy or the right actions, or stop trying to change who you are to be like someone else, because none of that is what creates results. Look inward at the thoughts that you have, because those are what are leading to your results.

And 4th, this last piece of what I want you to master is how to free yourself. And real freedom comes from being you, doing what you really want to do instead of what everyone else says that you should do, doing what you really want to do instead of even what you think you should do, and ultimately, being who you really want to be instead of who Everyone else tells you, you should be. You need to determine your priorities, determine your boundaries, and follow through. Follow through on being you. You can master those 4 things, Knowing your value, trusting yourself, taking responsibility, and freeing yourself, then that's gonna help you master your inner game, and that will, of course, help you create success. Success is part inner game and part outer game, and you need both. But what I can tell you is if you master the inner game, You'll develop the outer game, you'll take the right actions, you'll get the results, but it all starts with your inner game. Remember, your value is innate.

It's not based on what you achieve, who you're being is what you should focus on versus how. I want you to answer your own questions to develop trust in yourself before you go seek the answers outside of yourself. I want you to own your results, no matter what they are, and free yourself from all of the shoulds, and just show up and be you.