Mastery of Life and Sport

A Path to Mastery of Life and Sport

A path to the mastery of life and sport
A path to mastery of life and sport

Stephen McCarthy of The McCarthy Project and Co-host Shaun Goodsell of Mental Edge will be discussing the concept of mastery of life and sport.

On today’s show, we will have four guests.

1.  Michael J. Much, owner and publisher of Minnesota Preps/ Yahoo Rivals, on the game and its enjoyment.

2. Bret Hedican, 17 year NHL veteran, will be sharing his thoughts on how to develop your mind to “live in the moment” and master your sport.

3.  Quincy Caldwell, NBA trainer and former pro basketball player, will be talking about the attitude and perspective needed to compete at the highest level.

4.  Keith Lockwood, former collegiate football player and high school coach at White Bear Lake High School in White Bear Lake, MN, on the role of creativity and imagination in the game of sport.

One of the lost arts in life has become mastery of life.  We are a very distracted bunch who only listen to random bites of information at almost every opportunity,  rather than think strategically and in wholes for a longer duration of time.

Bret Hedican with The Cup
Bret Hedican with The Cup

I dare you to try this project:

Read a book, research the author’s life and their viewpoints, the influences these viewpoints had on their life and work, develop out the message of the book and write a one page report on your findings.

Why would this be a big deal?  You would be reading to understand the whole, rather than being entertained and compartmentalized.

The first time I did this project I was amazed about how little I knew about the world of creativity, the motives of author, and how the viewpoint was bias.  I just assumed what they had told me in the book was true.

Here is an excerpt from Ben Franklin’s Autobiography,

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with Pilgrim’s Progress my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton’s Historical Collections; they were small chapman’s books, and cheap, 40 to 50 in all. My father’s little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read….Plutarch’s Lives there was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of Defoe’s, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather’s, called Essays to Do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events in my life.

What man, woman or child has read any of these pieces of literature (or current works) and understood the concepts therein?

None of us.  We must learn to think at a higher level.  To diligently apply ourselves to think at a deeper level than entertainment value.  Here are areas to research and develop your cognitive ability in order to become a master in life and sport:

In John Taylor Gatto’s Underground History of American Education, he writes, “At the top, one-half of 1 percent of the students,where, as future policy makers, they learned to think strategically, contextually, in wholes; they learned complex processes, and useful knowledge, studied history, wrote copiously, argued often, read deeply, and mastered tasks of command.”

The simple solution is to elevate your thoughts from controlled do’s and don’ts to free, individualistic, and creative. Then spend time looking at other opinions and comparing them to your own. Develop out your viewpoint of right and wrong in life.  Stand up for yourself, see the complete picture and get to work studying.  This is entry point of the process of mastering life and sport.

Tune in for the complete show on Wednesday August 7th at 11am

Links from the show:

Bret Hedican: Always Dream Foundation on Impacting Lives Thru Literacy and Rosterbot.com, a online tools for managing sports teams and activities

Quincy Caldwell: Elite Skills Camp, position camps for basketball players

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