Mental Toughness - Finding Your Differentiator To Survive And Thrive

Dr Steve Harris’ (The Mind Doctor) research and personal experiences have led him to believe that the evolution from surviving to thriving is achieved through incremental, smart, and primarily proactive adaptations that provide humans with marginal yet significant gains.

He asks you now to consider whether you are adapting so that you can progress from surviving to thriving? If you feel that you are already thriving, his question then is, “What are you doing to accelerate even further ahead?”

As a World Champion Sportsperson, Award-Winning Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, and armed with his PhD on Mental Toughness, Dr Steve Harris acknowledges that people struggling with harsh conditions, or persons with mental health concerns that draw them outside consensus reality, will struggle to adopt his ideas on thriving.

Steve says that to thrive, you need differentiators that make you stand out from the rest of the crowd. These differentiators must be something different and unique that set you apart from others pursuing similar outcomes so that you will have a distinct competitive advantage.

This type of advantage is usually admired by others unless you are signalling superiority, and in so doing, you are “othering”. Othering means that you are trying to establish that others are inferior to you.

For some, a stand-out competitive advantage may be highly stressful and therefore undesirable. This phenomenon is called FOSO – the Fear Of Standing Out. For them to benefit from standing out, they need to develop specific skills to manage the stress and possible resentment that could accompany this sometimes-lonely place. As is commonly said, “The tallest trees catch the most wind.”

The human polar bear, Lewis Pugh, created a unique competitive advantage. Lewis stood out for the right reasons when he created a unique competitive advantage. He achieved success through enduring extreme cold-water conditions and continued by achieving significance when he combined this ability with a passion for environmental sustainability.

Steve met Lewis when, as a junior, he joined the Clifton Surf Lifesaving Club in Cape Town. He was highly driven and hungry for personal accomplishment. Lewis trained hard and showed extraordinary willingness to go the extra mile. However, no amount of training would be enough to make Lewis a serious contender for top honours in the swimming aspects of competitive surf lifesaving. Top competitors were usually of Olympic standard. This did not deter Lewis, who continued to train more than most and helped to teach others.

An offshoot of his preparedness to train hard was his acceptance of the icy Atlantic sea temperatures off Clifton beach. His peer group lauded and respected him for this trait. Steve suspects that this acknowledgement and recognition motivated Lewis to use his adaptiveness to icy water as a differentiator. Eventually, it led him to international fame as an environmentalist and earned him the nickname ‘human polar bear’.

We all know how challenging life has been with the Covid pandemic – both for individuals and businesses. Finding your differentiator is not an easy task, but it will give you or your business a competitive advantage that may just help you survive these times.

Steve’s motivational speaking offering is unique in that he has various motivational topics to choose from to suit your company and help you achieve your objectives. These topics are tailor-made and suited to match your requirements, use a holistic approach and produce remarkable results!

Contact Steve to schedule some time with him.