It's All About Perspective
This episode Cary Kolat and Matt Dernlan discuss Ch. 5 "Failure Can Make You Stronger" from the book Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World by Admiral William H. McRaven. This chapter talks about persevering through failures and allowing those moments to teach you and strengthen you. Dernlan starts by asking Kolat how about his summer training at Campbell and how it's developed from his first few seasons there. Dernlan points out there are a lot of parallels between learning from failure and running a wrestling program. During SEAL training, they have something called "Circus" where people who came in last during the different training they did throughout the day had an extra few hours of training. Admiral McRaven was consistently in the back of the pack and was forced to do extra training. By the end that extra training made him one of the best swimmers. Kolat breaks down and relates this to a coach and athlete relationship. You have a choice between viewing a coach pushing you as a punishment and develop a bad relationship or you can understand the necessity and reasoning to get you better. The only way to improve is to spend extra time and it comes down to the perspective you decide to take.

Put in the Work (10:08)
Kolat talks about the people who are afraid to put it on the line and fail or lose a match. You can't enter a competition with the fear of losing. The athletes who don't put the extra time in are the ones with the highest anxiety entering a match. If you know you put in the work you can have full confidence stepping on the mat knowing you did everything you could to prepare. Dernlan brings up the fact that if you're focusing on doing everything you can do that's recognized by everyone in the group. You can't go wrong with the mindset of being the first one in and the last one to leave the practice room.