Find your Competence when you Act with Confidence

Last week, I spoke at an event in Las Vegas. One thing about Vegas is that you can see any and every type of person.

While waiting for my flight home, I watched the various types of people coming towards the gate. When I looked at my phone, a gentleman sat two seats from me. Usually, this would not attract my attention, but he was only about 5 feet tall and built like a stud.

He asked me if I knew if the flight was on time. I told him it was as far as I knew. Then I asked him a question: “What do you do to keep so fit?”

He smiled and thanked me for the comment. He told me he was a horse jockey, and being a jockey, you have to be in top shape to ride a finely tuned racehorse.

I have never met or spoken to a jockey at this level, so I engaged in conversation with him.

If you know anything about me, you know that I love to learn the mindset of people who have done and do extraordinary things, especially an athlete from a sport that I have never participated in because

Success leaves clues.

He had ridden in all the big-stakes races—the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and The Belmont—and competed against some of the top jockeys in the world. He had never won one of the big three, but playing at that level is like running the 100 meters in the Olympics.

All are outstanding, but the difference in winning and fourth place is minimal.

I asked him what he thought the difference was between winning one of the big three and not placing.

He told me it’s like moving from being a workhorse to a racehorse.

A workhorse is someone who is reliable, dependable, and consistently does their job. Someone who is a racehorse studies their competition and works to perform at their best. 

They find their competence when they act with confidence.

It always comes back to your managing your mindset.

I have learned from being around world-class performers that they all have one thing that has propelled them from being a workhorse to a racehorse in their industry.

I have spoken about it since my first talk after the Miracle on the Hudson and the captain and others employed that fateful day.

They go from being laid back to ferociously focused in their defining moment using informed instinctiveness.

Informed instinctiveness is the ability to make quick and confident decisions by combining experience, knowledge, and intuition.

We discussed how the other jockeys who have won the big races are able to make those split-second decisions after having raced thousands of races, combining their knowledge of their horse with their instinctiveness.

After I thought about that comment, I started to think about some of the races I have seen, horse, NASCAR, Formula 1. When the winners had to ” make their move,” they used informed instinctiveness to execute and win.

When I thought about what the Captain of US Airways 1549 did to get that Airbus 320 into the Hudson River masterfully, he used informed instinctiveness.

As I made decisions that day as we descended to the river and after, I used informed instinctiveness to do what I did.

As we boarded our flight to Charlotte, the last question I asked him was what he thought about when he and his horse entered the starting gate.

He said, “Once you cross that line from track to gate, you only think positive thoughts.”

When he said that, I first thought about the Kevin Costner movie, “For the Love of the Game,” when he and his dad were playing catch, and his dad told him to ” clear the mechanism.“

Once you cross the baselines on a baseball field, only positive thoughts give you the best opportunity to succeed.

Once you reach that defining moment, as tough as it may be, you give yourself the best opportunity to succeed when you clear the mechanism and employ informed instinctiveness.

My kids ask me all the time, “Why do I talk to everyone when we are out?”

This is the reason; you never know who you will meet and when. They just may give you a distinction that will not only help you grow but also help you contribute to others.

A pathway to living the Limitless Life is when uncertainty hits, act with confidence as your competence will be revealed.

In times of uncertainty, the person with the most certainty becomes the leader people look to for confidence.

Employ informed instinctiveness and clear the mechanism and you give yourself the best opportunity to not only win the day but, be seen as the leader you are.

And you will turn that uncertainty into opportunity and transform your life into your Limitless Life!