WEBVTT

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June 8, 2010,

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Russell Wilson, fourth round picked
to the Colorado Rockies baseball.

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I'm fired up,

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one of the highest moments of my life.

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Every kid's dream to be drafted
by a major league baseball team.

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June 8, 2010.

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June 9, 2010 --

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(Imitating flat line sound)

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The line goes flat.

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My dad passes away.

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The highest of the high,
the lowest of the low.

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Just like that.

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My dad lay in his death bed,

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just tears running down my face,

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you know, what do I do next?

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My mind racing, memories,
flash backs, moments

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early mornings, getting up,

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taking grounders and throwing,

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

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to early morning car rides to AU baseball,

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to my dad being the third-base coach.

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

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holding up the Lombardi trophy,

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and the emotions
and the excitement of it all,

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blue and green confetti all over the place

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and knowing that you just
won the Super Bowl,

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to a year later, the pressure of the game,

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the ball on the one yard line,

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

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And having the many millions
and million of people

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all over the world, watching.

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And having to walk to the media,

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

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Being married at a young age,

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and just coming out of college
and everything else,

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

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and realizing, you know what?

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Life happens.

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Life happens, life happens to all of us.

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Loss of family members, divorce,

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fear, pain, depression, concerns, worries.

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When you think about being superpositive,

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yes, I'm positive by nature,

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

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

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and people are like,

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

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it's not a great situation right now,

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when you're facing cancer,

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or you have things you have to deal with,
or finances and this and that,

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like, how do we deal with it?

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

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And what I definitely knew was this,

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the negativity works
100 percent of the time.

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Negativity was going to get me nowhere.

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I started saying to myself,

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new [unclear] every morning,

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new beginnings, new starts.

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

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how do I do this,

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I started thinking about a car.

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You know how when you drive a car,
you get a stick shift

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and you want to shift to neutral?

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

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

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

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Sitting there after the Super Bowl,

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I had a decision to make.

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

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Hell, no.

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

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It can be taught and learned.

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I started 10 years ago,
training my mind,

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

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and he's been with me for 10 years,

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

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As athletes, we train the body,

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

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and do these different things,

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but why don't we train our mind?

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What do you want your life
to look like, write it out.

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Talk about it, say it,

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

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

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What does that look like?

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And be that, live that, sound like that.

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The best free throw shooters,

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

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they think about this shot,

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this pat, this throw, this first down.

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

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he had cancer three different times.

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

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

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it's my time to go."

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I started telling him
this story about my Dad,

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

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

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why not you, why not you?"

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I said, "Milton, why not you?

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If you try T-cell therapy,

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and you try this and it doesn't work,

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you won't remember it."

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So Milton got a smile
on his face and said,

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"You're exactly right.

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Yes, I do have cancer, Russ.

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But I can either let this kill me,

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not just physically,

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

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

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in the midst of the storm,

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to decide to overcome."

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

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

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And I always say, absolutely not.

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Yeah, we have emotions,

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we have real-life situations,

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we have things to deal with,

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

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And to not be superemotional.

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

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When people look at me,

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

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they see that I have the girl and Ciara,

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that I have the family and this and that.

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But I still have real-life situations.

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We all do.

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We all have, you know, sadness and loss,

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and depression and worries and fear.

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I didn't just get here.

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What's the truth,

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and how do I come through this better?

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

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it was not just on the success of it all

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or the failure of it,

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it was on the process, like,

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you know, what is the next step,

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how do I do this right here, right now?

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We have a choice to make in life,

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

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I made a choice.

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I made a choice
that I was going to believe

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that great things are going to happen,

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that I was going to have my mindset right

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and that I was going to have
the right language

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and the right things to think about,

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which helped prepare me for today,

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because I'm just human.

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

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and run around and make
some cool and fun throws.

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And make some people smile,

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but the reality is
that I still have pressure,

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I still have worries, I still have fears,

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I still have things that happen.

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Still have loss.

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Positivity can be dangerous.

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But what always works is negativity,

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I never want to live in negativity,

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so I stayed in neutral.

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I kept my shift in neutral.

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And so that's where I lived,

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you know, that's where
I've been living ever since.