John Eliot quotes:

Bill Russell is one of the great names in basketball, an all-American... and the only athlete to ever win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a professional championship all in the same year-1956...But Bill Russell had this one problem: He threw up before every game.

Perfectionism is simply putting a limit on your future. When you have an idea of perfect in your mind, you open the door to constantly comparing what you have now with what you want. That type of self criticism is significantly deterring.

Genuine confidence is a way of thinking about yourself and your abilities. Confidence is your perception of your own potential; it's a kind of long-term thinking that powers you through the obstacles and tough times, helping you solve problems and putting you in the way of success. Your confidence is quite a separate matter from your social skills.

The best players in any high-stakes field - business, entertainment, law, surgery, as well as sport - recognize that pressure occurs at the moments when meaningful accomplishment is possible. In fact, that is the reason why performers perform: for the opportunity to tackle challenges head on, to do something significant, to demonstrate what their hard work and talent can produce.

Elevated levels of confidence are omnipresent among history's greatest overachievers. Benjamin Franklin, one of the most famous men in the world even before he signed the Declaration of Independence once lamented about humility, "I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue."

The idea of perfect closes your mind to new standards. When you drive hard toward one ideal, you miss opportunities and paths, not to mention hurting your confidence. Believe in your potential and then go out and explore it; don't limit it.

Superstars think like superstars long before the fans or the press anoint them.

Exceptional thinkers ignore their critics and go about their business making history.

History shows us that the people who end up changing the world - the great political, social, scientific, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries - are always nuts, until they are right, and then they are geniuses.

Stick with your own perception of yourself-living in your own world-and letting your reality, not the reality presented by other people or particular situations, control your performance.

The top players in every field think differently when all the marbles are on the line. Great performers focus on what they are doing, and nothing else...They let it happen, let it go. They couldn't care less about the results.

Anyone who strays too far from the majority view or the conventional wisdom is bound to be labeled "arrogant," "a maverick," "a Wildman," "weird," or even "crazy."

As soon as anyone starts telling you to be "realistic," cross that person off your invitation list.

Confidence is not a guarantee of success, but a pattern of thinking that will improve your likelihood of success, a tenacious search for ways to make things work.

Thinking is a habit, and like any other habit, it can be changed; it just takes effort and repetition.

High achievers dwell on what they do well and spend very little time evaluating themselves and their performances.

Great performers welcome pressure.

Unlikely accomplishments are borne out of single-minded purposefulness. Future superstars don't get there by keeping part of their heart in reserve.

All the great performers I have worked with are fueled by a personal dream.

To be a top performer you have to be passionately committed to what you're doing and insanely confident about your ability to pull it off.

Confidence is a resolute state of mind by which you believe nothing is impossible.

You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.

What turns ordinary people into overachievers is the way they use their minds when they are called on to perform.

Overachievers don't think reasonably, sensibly, or rationally.

Great performers are, by definition, abnormal; they strive throughout their entire careers to separate themselves from the pack.

Great performers in all fields seem immune to what outsiders think about them. Their sense of themselves never depends on the feedback-positive or negative-they get from the environment.

Overachievement is aimed at people who want to maximize their potential. And to do that, I insist you throw caution to the wind, ignore the pleas of parents, coaches, spouses, and bosses to be "realistic." Realistic people do not accomplish extraordinary things because the odds against success stymie them. The best performers ignore the odds. I will show you that instead of limiting themselves to what's probable, the best will pursue the heart-pounding, exciting, really big, difference-making dreams-so long as catching them might be possible.

We tend to view confidence as a product of accomplishment rather than part of the process that leads there. But supremely confident people were confident long before they achieved anything.

Great performers require a measure of confidence that would strike many as absurd, unfounded, and downright irrational. They believe in themselves utterly, without question, even when everyone else is questioning how good (or sane) they are.

If you really want to find out what you're capable of, you cannot put limits on yourself, and you definitely cannot be cautious.

Like squirrels, the best in every business do what they have learned to do without questioning their abilities - they flat out trust their skills, which is why we call this high-performance state of mind the "Trusting Mindset."

Overachievement is aimed at people who want to maximize their potential. And to do that, I insist you throw caution to the wind, ignore the pleas of parents, coaches, spouses, and bosses to be "realistic."

The true exceptional performer is on super pilot. Every single sense, every fiber of his body is brought together in what he is doing.

If you really want to break from the pack, you have to risk being perceived to be as eccentric as these people. You have to think exceptionally-a LOT!

The physical symptoms of fight or flight are what the human body has learned over thousands of years to operate efficiently and at the highest level...anxiety is a cognitive interpretation of that physical response.

I have discovered that I cannot enhance anybody's performance without getting them not only to live with the butterflies that come with high-pressure jobs but to embrace that kind of physical response, enjoy it, get into it. That's the first real ticket to being a performer who thinks exceptionally.

Arrogant S.O.B.s run the world. A performer can never have too much self-confidence. The best in every field are likely to strike most people as irrationally confident, but that's how they got to the top.

cross that person off your invitation list.

Superstars perform so naturally and so instinctively that they seem to be able to enter a pressure-packed situation that would terrify or freeze most people as if nothing matters. They let it happen, let it go. They couldn't care less about the results.

We must not sit down and wait for miracles. Up and be going!

Confidence is consistency of thinking about what is possible and how to make it possible.