My secret to staying focused under pressure

Athletes train their bodies to run faster, jump higher, throw farther -- so why don't they train their minds, too? Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson talks about the power of "neutral thinking," which helps him thrive under pressure (both on the field and off) -- and shows how you can use this mindset to make the right moves in your own life.

June 8, 2010,

Russell Wilson, fourth-round pick
to the Colorado Rockies baseball.

I'm fired up,

one of the highest moments of my life.

Every kid's dream to be drafted
by a Major League Baseball team.

June 8, 2010.

June 9, 2010 --

(Imitating flatline sound)

The line goes flat.

My dad passes away.

The highest of the high

to the lowest of the low.

Just like that.

My dad laying in his deathbed,

just tears running down my face,

you know, what do I do next?

My mind racing, memories,
flashbacks, moments,

early mornings, getting up,

taking grounders and throwing,

speed outs and deep post routes
to my brother and my dad,

to early morning car rides
to AAU baseball,

to my dad being the third-base coach.

Fast-forward to the championship high
of winning a Super Bowl,

holding up the Lombardi Trophy

and the emotions
and the excitement of it all,

blue and green confetti all over the place

and knowing that you just
won the Super Bowl,

to a year later, the pressure of the game,

the ball on the one-yard line,

and this is the chance to win the game,
and it doesn't work.

And however many millions
and millions of people

all over the world watching.

And having to walk to the media,

and what do I say next,
what do I do, what do I think?

Being married at a young age

and just coming out of college
and everything else,

to, you know, shortly after,
marriage not working out

and realizing, you know what?

Life happens.

Life happens, life happens to all of us.

Loss of family members, divorce,

fear, pain, depression, concerns, worries.

When you think about
being superpositive --

yes, I'm positive by nature,

but positivity, you know,
it doesn't always work,

because when you're down 16-nothing
in an NFC championship game,

and people are like,

"Russ, we're not going to be able
to win this game, man,

it's not a great situation right now,"

or when you're facing cancer,

or when you have things
you have to deal with

or finances and this and that,

like, how do we deal with it?

It's hard to be positive
in the midst of it all.

And what I definitely knew was this:

that negativity works
100 percent of the time.

Negativity was going to get me nowhere.

I started saying to myself,
"New are his mercies every morning,"

new beginnings, new starts.

And despite hardship and pain
and worries and wanting to get through it

and "How do I do this?",

I started thinking about a car.

You know how when you drive a car,
you've got stick shift

and you want to shift to neutral?

You go from first gear to second gear,
all the way to fifth?

You've got to know
how to shift to neutral.

And I needed to shift to neutral
immediately, before I crashed.

Sitting there after the Super Bowl,

I had a decision to make:

Will I let this define my career?
Will I let it define my life?

Hell, no.

What I found out was this:
that mindset is a skill.

It can be taught and learned.

I started 10 years ago,
training my mind,

with this guy named Trevor Moawad,
my mental conditioning coach.

He's been with me for 10 years,

and we've been best friends
and partners ever since.

As athletes, we train the body,

we train ourselves to be able to run fast,
throw farther, jump higher

and do these different things,

but why don't we train our mind?

What do you want
your life to look like?

Write it out, talk about it, say it.

What's our language,
what does it look like,

watch these highlights, Russell,
when you're in your best moments.

What does that look like?

And be that, live that, sound like that.

The best free throw shooters,

they don't worry about
the shot they just missed.

They think about this shot,

this putt, this throw, this first down.

Then I met this kid
Milton Wright, 19 years old,

he had cancer three different times.

This day when I went to see him,
he was frustrated,

"Russ, I'm done,
I don't want to do this anymore,

it's my time to go."

I started telling him
this story about my dad,

how he used to say, "Son, why not you?

Why don't you graduate early,
play pro football and pro baseball?

Why not you, why not you?"

I said, "Milton, why not you?

If you tried T-cell therapy,

and you try this and it doesn't work,

you won't remember it."

So Milton got a smile
on his face and said,

"You're exactly right.

Yes, I do have cancer, Russ.

But I can either let this kill me,

not just physically,

but I can also let it kill me
emotionally and mentally.

And I have a choice right now,
in the midst of the problem,

in the midst of the storm,

to decide to overcome."

One of the questions I always get asked
about neutral thinking is this:

"Does that mean I don't have any emotion?"

And I always say, absolutely not.

Yeah, we have emotions,

we have real-life situations,

we have things to deal with.

But what you have to be able to do is
to stay focused on the moment

and to not be superemotional.

It's OK to have emotions,
but don't be emotional.

When people look at me,

they see that I'm the highest-paid
player in the NFL,

they see that I have the girl and Ciara,

that I have the family and this and that.

But I still have real-life situations.

We all do.

We all have, you know, sadness and loss

and depression and worries and fear.

I didn't just get here.

What's the truth,

and how do I come through this better?

And that's really, kind of,
how my mind started shifting.

It was not just on the success of it all
or the failure of it,

it was on the process, like:

What is the next step,
how do I do this right here, right now?

We have a choice to make in life.

And for me, when I was young
and I didn't have much,

I made a choice.

I made a choice
that I was going to believe

that great things were going to happen,

that I was going to have my mindset right,

and I was going to have
the right language

and the right things to think about,

which helped prepare me for today.

Because I'm just human.

I just have the ability
to throw the ball a long way

and run around and make
some cool and fun throws

and make some people smile.

But the reality is
that I still have pressure,

I still have worries, I still have fears,

I still have things that happen.

Still have loss.

Positivity can be dangerous.

But what always works is negativity.

I never wanted to live in negativity,

so I stayed in neutral.

I kept my shift in neutral.

And so that's where I lived,

and that's where
I've been living ever since.