The magical coach then suddenly disappears and poof - you wake from your nap very disappointed, realizing that this was only a dream. Darn, it seemed so real. One minute you had the solutions to all your problems and challenges and then the next moment, reality takes it all away.

Not true! The fact is that we already own this success machine. The success machine is in reality our "mind."

Unfortunately, our mind does not come with a owner's manual and that is one of the reasons it is so often unused, misused, and abused. Most of us don't realize the great potential that the computer found between our ears has. We truly can achieve anything we want in our lives and more specifically, in our athletic careers, if we take control of the most powerful computer on earth, our "own mind."

Most people rationalize the success of others with thoughts like:

• "They are gifted."
• "They are a special case."
• "They have all the right connections."
• "They were in the right place at the right time."

And most of all:

• "They are just lucky."

What keeps most wrestlers from achieving the success we want is not due to I.Q., family history, level of education, race, age, or bad luck! "It is the way we think." Life is a game played between the ears. What we think determines the decisions we make. The decisions we make determine what we do, and what we do determines how successful we become. Change our thinking and we change our decisions. Change our decisions and we will change our behavior. Change our behavior and we will change our life. Unfortunately a lot of athletes don't realize this or they are just unwilling to change.

A lot more people would be willing to change if they only realized the success and riches that comes with this realization.

Of course this leads us to the very important question:

• "What kind of thinking does it take to become the best?"
• "What kind of thinking does it take to become a city, state, national, world, and Olympic champion?"

This is the main question. The answer to the question is you must develop a "Champion Mindset." If you have a champion mindset you will make more right decisions. If you make more right decisions, success will follow as surely as Tuesday follows Monday.

It is crucial that we believe "our present life is the result of the choices we have made in the past, and our future life will be the result of the choices we make in the future." We are the sum of our choices. Becoming successful in wrestling begins with the understanding that we have total power in the hundreds of choices we make daily.

We all have what it takes to be the best. All we have to do is make good decisions each and every day.

The most important decision that we will ever make is the choice to take control of our mind. What we choose to focus our mind on is critical because we will become what we think about most of the time. The late Earl Nightingale, one of the foremost success experts of the 20th Century, called this discovery the "Strangest Secret."

To quote some great philosophers and thinkers regarding this concept:

• "A man is what he things about all day long." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "We become what we contemplate." - Plato
• "The mind is everything. What you think, you become." - Buddha
• "As a man thinks in his heart, so he is." - Proverbs 23:7

Whether you realize it or not, we create the life we live through our choices and our thoughts. If in our thoughts all day we think about our sport, we will become better athletes. If we think about how to become great athletes, we will make better decisions, which will lead to better choices, which will lead to better behavior, which will lead to better performance and results.

Most people think that life is something that just happens to them. They feel powerless when it comes to success. We must realize that this is not true! We create the life and success we have by the power of our thinking. We can be as successful as we can imagine and believe.

So let's not settle for anything less than being the very best we can be. Take control of athletic success machine. Realize life and your athletic career is a self-fulfilling prophecy and as you think, so shall it be!