Ep. 24 - ACE: A Simple Framework

Julian Alvarez: Welcome back, Be Better Tribe. This is the podcast where we explore stories, lessons, and leadership journeys that help shape who we become. I'm your host, Julian Alvarez. And in this episode, we're it's gonna be a solo episode, and I'm going to focus on a framework that I learned over two decades ago. But before we do that, I want to couple couple top of minds here. Is one is the conversation I just had with Ker Chris Harris, who was a leadership coach, somebody who was in the military. And trained Navy SEALs, individuals at the highest peak of where they're at and under probably the most intense pressure s pressure situations. And so I wanted to remind you some of the key takeaways that I had from that conversation. Number one is the metacognition. So it's the foundation of personal growth, which is all about self-awareness and ⁓ understanding how to control what you think. The next one, which I absolutely love, is the f the The lesson that you are not obligated to remain the same person you were yesterday, an hour ago, 10 minutes ago, there's always the opportunity to change. And ⁓ this the last lesson that I'll say here ⁓ from the last conversation is adversity creates the opportunity for you to get better and it creates the opportunity for you to change and morph into whoever you want to become. And so without challenges, without adversity. you you're never gonna, you know, have the opportunity to grow. And so I know there's a ton of things happening in my life, I'm sure in your life, in, you know, everyone's life. And ⁓ you know, the way in which we go about solving those problems and the attitude that we have about those issues is really what's going to help us create the life that we want. But before we jump into the framework that I'm gonna discuss today, I want a quick reminder that you can go ahead and visit our the website, be better tribe.com. Where you can go ahead and pick up the Be Better Tribe Habit Tracker. and again, the reason why I created this habit tracker is it really allowed me as an individual to stay focused on the goals that I want to think about on a daily basis. And so some of the goals that I have, ⁓ one of them is doing Duolingo. ⁓ I know growing up my whole life, ⁓ not being able to speak Spanish has some been somewhat of an embarrassment. ⁓ my dad obviously was from Mexico and that whole side of the family speaks Spanish and I didn't grow up speaking Spanish and it's been something that I've been embarrassed in. But I have just dedicated myself over the last gosh probably year and a half to do Duolingo every day. And have I done it every day? No. But this habit tracker has really helped me hone in on doing it. And ⁓ I have over the past six months have consistently been practicing. And I gotta say that my Spanish is getting a lot better and it's because I'm dedicated to that and it's because ⁓ I have a habit tracker that I'm I'm focused on. The other things are like working out, journaling, ⁓ things of that nature that ⁓ I'm trying to do and create that habit daily because if I do that, I feel better ⁓ and I ⁓ will accomplish things that I'm setting myself out to do. So I'm really passionate about the habit tracker. I it's helped me and And again, that's why I created it. So if you'd like to order it, please do so. I'd get that shipped out to you whenever you do. ⁓ you can find that again on the website, bebettertribe.com. You can also find ⁓ the crew neck ⁓ sweatshirt that I'm wearing here today, Be Better Tribe. ⁓ there's another shirt on there and a couple other items that if you're interested, we'd love the support. ⁓ but with that said, I want to go ahead and jump into the topic of this episode here today. So today's episode, we're gonna focus on a lesson that comes from a time in my life at Cow Poly where I was playing soccer. And it was from our sports psychologist, Jeff Trosch. So Jeff worked with our team as a sports psychologist, but the best part is what he taught us extended far beyond the soccer field. ⁓ in fact, I believe it's one of those practical lessons that I learned in my early 20s that really hit home. and changed how I thought about ⁓ playing soccer, changed how I thought about dealing with challenges, it changed how I thought about pressure situations in life. Because this framework should allow you to be challenged and then center yourself so that you can perform at the highest of your highest abilities. And the framework that we're for gonna focus on here today is called ACE. A C. E and the acronym stands for attitude, concentration, and effort. And those are three very simple words, but if you truly think about them in during the challenging situation, it will reframe what you're doing and it'll allow you to like bring the best self, your best self, in order to accomplish whatever you want. And so you know, what I feel like is one of the biggest challenges in life is figuring out. how to get things done. It's figuring out ⁓ what to do when. And you know, a lot of the times, and I I spend a lot of the times worrying about outcomes. You're worrying about the future. You're worrying about ⁓ will I get promoted to my current role? You're worried about if you're a sales professional like myself, worried about hitting quota. If you're in project management or if you're a software developer or whatever you're doing, if you're in college and you're trying to get a good grade, you're Am I gonna get a good grade in this next test? Am I good enough? And you have all of these thoughts. ⁓ and even as a parent, it's like, are my kids gonna turn out okay? Are they having a good time at school? ⁓ was I a good parent tonight? and so a lot of those questions come up. And the reality is us thinking about the outcomes, us thinking about things out of our control aren't gonna help us. And I believe that's exactly why Jeff Trosh. Have this acronym that he shared with us that would allow us to be the best soccer players at that time. Because what we talked about is attitude, making sure that we show up to the pitch every day with the right mindset. We come in with a positive attitude, we come with a can-do attitude, we come with the right thought process of like we can do it. We, we, we visualize, we, we think about the positivity, we really think about ⁓ having the right mindset and attitude towards our teammates, towards the game. Towards everything that we're gonna do as we step on that field. And what we can translate it to is like you having that attitude for anything that you're doing. ⁓ because if you if you're doing something and you have the wrong mindset, the wrong attitude, it's gonna be really, really hard to accomplish anything successfully. And so like I I start to think about it like as a father, you know, I pick up my kids from school. I got three boys, two of them, a six-year-old, ⁓ three and a half-year-old. And ⁓ he's a newborn, he he's just over a month. And you know, the attitude that I have when I pick those two and those kids up is going to dictate how that night is gonna turn after school. Do I have a positive attitude? Am I thinking about ⁓ how how great this afternoon is afternoon is gonna be? Or am I worried about well, what if they throw a tantrum or what if this happens, or you know, what if they had a bad day at school and it you start to just spiral into. ⁓ things that aren't gonna help you. So number one is attitude. When you think about it, like whenever you're gonna go do something, am I having the right attitude in this? An attitude is a tough thing to get right all the time. And I'm not saying you can always be positive, but what I am saying is what I've learned over the times is like attitude sets the stage of how successful you can be in that current situation. Again, just for me, on my experiences, is like the right attitude to try to solve the problem is going to be the first step. to getting to the next level. Okay. And so like you can also take it if if something goes bad, your attitude about that bad situation can actually reflect the future outcomes. So for example, let's say you lost a soccer game or you had a bad night of parenting, which we all experience, or you had a bad month of your, you know, your sales career, or you had a bad class in college, whatever the case may be. ⁓ What can you learn from that? What is your attitude about learning from the failure or the challenge or whatever the case may be? It's about flipping that into a positive. And so whether it is the attitude going into a challenge or it's the attitude after a game, it's always about having the right mindset and having a good attitude because ultimately, again, that's gonna dictate how you continue to learn and how you move on from that. ⁓ so attitude again, it's really important to me because I do truly believe attitude becomes a choice that you can make every day. And so, whether it's like wake up smiling, which I've often said in my past, is whether it's like ha it's a good day to have a good day, ⁓ I I really do appreciate that this acronym acronym, excuse me, starts with attitude because I do truly believe again. ⁓ your mindset and your attitude are going to dictate how you're gonna have or w how how you're gonna deal with that challenge. The next thing that I absolut the next word in this acronym of ACE is concentration. And in today's world, concentration might be the hardest skill of them all. Because we live in a world of notifications. We live in a world of emails, of messages, whether it's social media, whether that's ⁓ Slack messages, what whatever it is, everything and everyone wants our attention. But in order to actually solve what you're trying to do, in order to be the best, again, athlete, musician. Sales professional, college student, parent, grandparent, whatever the case may be, you have to really hone in the concentration and being able to direct your focus toward what matters most. And so for me, again, relating it to a sales leader, relating it to a parent, relating it to a former soccer player. ⁓ soccer is a lot of themes here. Obviously, the World Cup is going on right now. So ⁓ I think it's somewhat relevant. ⁓ but whatever you're trying to do, whatever you're trying to accomplish, ⁓ again, this is where the noise within our world, the notifications can can steer us away from what we want to do. And another quick plug, that's again why I have this habit tracker because it allows me to concentrate and really focus on tasks and habits that I want to do in order for me to get better. And so again, while I'm on Duolingo, while I'm parenting, while I'm leading a sales meeting while ⁓ I'm trying to accomplish a certain task. I have the right, I need to have the first of foremost the right attitude for that task. And then the second thing is the right concentration. I need to be present when I'm trying to achieve something. Because if you're not present with your work, with your spouse, with your kids, with yourself, it's gonna be really hard to accomplish anything or or to get the right outcome you're looking for. Because divided attention often produces divided results. It's not gonna help you achieve what you want. So the first two things, again, is the attitude that you have when you're trying to accomplish something. And then the second piece is once you have the right mindset, then the concentration. Are you present with what you're trying to achieve? And so I love those two: attitude and concentration. And then the last one, ultimately. Is the effort that you put in. It's the final piece. ⁓ and it really is the work ethic that you have. And it's really what I like to say is effort cannot be taken away. And effort is kind of the key to what, like, it's the key to success. ⁓ but in order to find that success, you do need to have the right mindset, which is your attitude and the right concentration on being present. And then the effort of just doing it over and over and over will actually create the outcome that you're looking for. And so ⁓ you may not be the smartest in the room, you may not be the most talented individual, but you can absolutely be the person that puts in the most effort and works extremely hard. And again, life isn't always about ⁓ having the I'm gonna work, I'll work everyone, but I do think life is filled with moments. And it fill it's filled with opportunities and it's definitely filled with challenges. Where if we think about ⁓ how much ⁓ how am I gonna frame this? If we think about how important is this challenge for me to achieve, your effort should definitely be aligned to that. And if it's a really important thing that you're trying to accomplish, effort should be pretty easy. ⁓ and if it and if if effort's hard, might be time for you to pivot and think about something else. But in my opinion, if you do put effort in, it compounds. And unlike results, effort is completely in your control. And when it's in your control, that's when you start to get the 1% better every day. That's when if you log into Duolingo for 15 minutes a day, you will get better at Spanish, which I am. And so if you are a friend of mine or if you are a cousin or family member, Challenge me on that, see if I am getting better at Spanish. ⁓ but I hope so because ⁓ I am spending the time and it is something that I am passionate about. ⁓ so again, with that said, ⁓ this is gonna be a little bit shorter of a podcast, but I wanted to reflect back on that classroom session that we had with Jeff Trosh, who taught us about ace, attitude, concentration, and effort. And it was early on, early on in our season. And I do truly believe it's one of the main reasons why as a team. We achieved, I I think we overachieved. ⁓ you know, looking back, ⁓ you know, it's a time in my life where I was surrounded by individuals that I think were a little bit more of underdog. We weren't highly recruited out of high school. ⁓ our coach transferred in from D3. ⁓ and he was one of the first individuals I had on this podcast. And so if you'd like go back and look at or listen to the Coach Hollerher episode, it was early on in this podcast journey, I think episode, you know, four or five. and ⁓ this is I think one of the reasons and one of the staples why I think our team was successful and I think why we achieved more than people thought we could is because we did have the right mindset. We did focus and were present when we were on the field and we did we tried our ass off. We we played hard and I think that's why people enjoyed watching us. Whether this whether the level of soccer was ⁓ better than we thought we were. ⁓ it was something that I think we're proud of. And I think this is acronym really hones into that. And so ⁓ with that said, I think as a father now of three, as a sales leader, as somebody who's sharing lessons that I think are meaningful for myself, I'm hopeful that and I do believe, I'm not hopeful. I I think if you take it to heart, if you take this acronym, write it down, think about it, think about a challenge that you're gonna deal with today, tomorrow, whatever, this week, and think about how ACE can actually help you achieve that. So again, ACE attitude. concentration effort. Have the right mindset, have the right attitude when you're dealing with things. Concentrate, be present, get rid of your phone, move those notifications off of, you know, your desktop, get things cleared away, have a habit tracker that will allow you to like be present, be concentrated on what you're trying to accomplish. And then at the end of the day, it's up to you. It's up to the effort that you're willing to put in. Because if you do put in that effort, that effort's going to compound and you're going to get better and you're going to accomplish things. ⁓ and you're gonna do achieve ⁓ a lot of amazing things in your life. So ⁓ the next time you face a challenge, a setback, or even a stressful moment, pause and ask yourself, you know, how is my attitude? Where is my concentration? And what's my ⁓ effort level here? Have I put in enough work? Because regardless of what's happening around you, you always have control of those three things. And sometimes the simplest lessons end up being the ones that stay with us forever. And I want to, you know, as we wrap up, I want to say a huge thank you to Jeff for Jeff Trosh for teaching us that lesson way back in the day. And it's been over 20, 25 years now. And ⁓ not 25 years, I I don't think. Jeez. No, it's been over 20 years, geez. ⁓ but I'm still focused on that. So thank you for listening again. I hope you enjoyed this episode. ⁓ and until next time, ⁓ Be Better Tribe, make sure you show up, you stay consistent, and you always, always remember to be better. Thank you. Take care.