325. Overcoming Adversity with Jeff Heggie

Entrepreneur and success coach Jeff Heggie discusses how his book showcases adversity, gives advice on how to overcome it, how this can go beyond athletes.

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Visit Jeff's website and find a copy of Challenger Deep:
https://www.jeffheggie.com/

Look through the free resources he offers:
https://www.jeffheggie.com/resources--0fc4c

Check out Jeff's social media:
https://www.instagram.com/jeffheggiecoaching/
https://www.facebook.com/JeffHeggieCoaching
https://www.youtube.com/c/JeffHeggieSuccessCoach

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. We all eventually face adversity in our lives, which makes us a relatable theme to address in our writing. However, despite the difficulties that we might feel in that moment, adversity can lead to resilience and feelings of hope. Jeff Heggie, author of Challenger Deep, is here to share how he included those messages when writing about real-life stories of athletes who encountered their own hardships and struggles, and why he believes that having the right mindset is key.

Jennia: Well, first, thank you so much for being here, Jeff!

Jeff Heggie: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity and looking forward to it.

Jennia: So how did you first come up with the idea for writing Challenger Deep?

Jeff Heggie: Well, so my co-author, Tami Matheny, we have a program called The Confident Athlete Program where we help athletes dealing with developing powerful mindset, and their mental game, and all of those things. And Tami has written a few books. She has written another version of Challenger Deep that wasn't athletic focused. She wrote a book called The Confident Athlete. And we were talking and she says, "You know what? We have so many of these stories of our athletes that have overcome adversity and I think our athletes and our coaches could all learn a lot from it and I would love you to write a book with me." And so it was an invitation from Tami that got me started on that. And so it's been awesome.

Jennia: It's so nice when you have those opportunities where those interests just sort of collide, but they already feel like such a natural fit that you think, "Well, how could I not do that?"

Jeff Heggie: Yeah, it really was. And both of us being in the athletic world all our lives, there's so many things you see. And there's so many—you know, especially from my experience coaching, from my experience being an athlete, running The Confident Athlete program, there's so many people that—especially young athletes—they face adversity and they let it crush them. That it ends their career. That it impacts them for so much. And they look at some of their heroes and think, "Well, they're different. Look at them, they're in the MBA," or whatever it might be, and they don't think that they've overcome any adversity themselves to get there. And so to be able to kind of tell those stories and say, hey, look at this person that you look up to. Look what they had to overcome to become who they are. And it not only was something they overcame, but it probably made them better because of that experience. And that was our hope, is as they read these stories, they can put themselves in those situations. Or when they find themselves in that situation in the future, then it's easier for them to say, "I'm not going to quit. I'm gonna overcome this."

Jennia: When you were writing this, did you think about writing it just for other athletes to read or did you anticipate that it would have a broader audience?

Jeff Heggie: I definitely thought it would have somewhat of a broader audience. But our avatar, we were looking at athletes and coaches because I knew we would have coaches that would take the book and use it within their team. And that's been a really cool experience because we've seen coaches that have taken the book and—you know, one coach that I work with each week, someone on the team has to take one of the stories from the book and share it with the team, how it impacted them, how it could impact their team. And after every chapter, we put some resources and tools that they can use and help them implement what they learned from the story.

Jennia: That's so neat! Can you give an example of what some of those resources and tools are?

Jeff Heggie: Yeah, absolutely. So some of them are simple. Self-talk is such a powerful tool—

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: —And so one of the resources we give are some tools and keys people can use when they find themselves having some negative self-talk. Because that's often what will happen is someone will recognize they've got some negative self-talk but not know what to do about it. And especially if they're in the middle of a sport and they're in the middle of the game and the emotions are high, it's like, yes, I know I've got that negative self-talk right now, but I don't care, here's the problem. So if you can give them some resources to say, "When this happens, here's what to do," then they've got an action plan. And so that's one example that we share.

Jennia: Yeah, I think that is so true. Especially when you are giving actionable advice and not just those blanket statements like, "Use positive self-talk instead of negative self-talk." But if we aren't able to differentiate between the two or even identify when we're doing one over the other—especially because we might have that written self-narrative where we believe that what we're saying is true, not necessarily that we're engaging in negative self-talk. So yeah, just showing, here's an example of it, here's what you might be doing, here's what to do instead.

Jeff Heggie: Yeah, exactly. Because it's really easy to give people the answers, but if you don't give them the tools to use, then they're not going to be a lot better off.

Jennia: Mhm. Which is why I love that you said you had tools and resources. It wasn't one or the other. Because, like you just said, you really do need to have both.

Jeff Heggie: Yeah. And in fact, one of the things we do is we give all those tools and resources away for free. If you go to confidentathleteprogram.com/challengerdeep you can get all of those resources.

Jennia: Do you think that helps your book also become more, not just inspiring, but again, where people can take action because you're not just sharing motivating stories, but then you're including these other components as well?

Jeff Heggie: Yeah, I definitely think it helps people take a story just from being that story to how it can apply to me. Because, you know, even—there's stories in there about Michael Jordan. And lots of young athlete basketball players, they want to be like Mike, but in reality they can't make that connection. But then when they take some of those resources and say, "Okay, he had this experience, here's how I can apply these resources to my own experience and it's going to help me in a similar manner."

Jennia: Mhm. How did you decide which stories you were going to include or even which ones you thought would have the most impact?

Jeff Heggie: You know what? There were so many stories that we had and that was actually a really tough part. And so we spent a lot of time going through all the different stories and just starting to whittle it down, thinking what ones meant the most to us individually—

Jennia: Mmm.

Jeff Heggie: —and what we felt would be most impactful on our readers. And some of them were from personal experiences. You know, Tami and I are both big Michael Jordan fans and so we wanted to make sure to have that one in there. I was previously a professional rodeo cowboy and so I've got—

Jennia: Oh neat!

Jeff Heggie: —a few stories in there from the rodeo world. And so, you know, we kind of just picked some of our favorites and then as we started to narrow them down, just came to the final few that we wanted, the final 30. But that has also morphed into something beyond that, too, because Tami came to me a while ago and said, "We've got so many more stories than we shared in the book. We want to get more of those out." So we actually have Challenger Deep: Athletes Rising Above Adversity podcast as well, where we share more of these stories and bring on these athletes that can share their stories there as well.

Jennia: Yeah, that's a great idea. Plus, too, it just keeps that conversation going and going. And I would guess that you probably have people on who might feel like, "Oh, I'm not famous enough for people to read about," but, you know, we just kind of get in our own head a little bit, like we have to have this level of authority or name recognition before we feel like we're in a space where we can share a story. But you are making that available to them.

Jeff Heggie: Yeah, absolutely. Because looking at both the book and the podcast—for example, in the podcast, we've had NFL players on there, we've had world champion bull rider, and we've had a couple college athletes, we've had some coaches. And so it's a whole spectrum. You don't have to be a world champion. Everyone faces their own adversity. And that's the whole idea, is we all are going to face adversity, and it's how we choose to deal with that adversity that's going to determine who we become as our future self.

Jennia: Yeah. I'd love to hear you talk more about that, too, about the future self, and even the whole mindset part of the book.

Jeff Heggie: Yeah. Well, and I guess I should take a step back, too, and looking at the name of it, Challenger Deep: Athletes Rising Above Adversity. Challenger Deep, if you don't know what that means, it's actually a location in the ocean. It's the deepest part of the ocean, which is, physically, the lowest part on Earth. And so the whole meaning behind that is, when we're at our lowest point, there's only one place to look, and it's to look up and to rise above that. And that's the whole idea, is we want to create that mindset knowing that as we face adversity, there is a way to overcome it—

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: —and we can become better because of it. And if we face that adversity head on—I mean, it's not fun.

Jennia: No (laughs).

Jeff Heggie: When we're facing adversity, it's tough. I look at some of my toughest moments in my life and they were terrible at the time. But in retrospect, as I look back on them, what are the lessons I learned from them and who have I become because of those things? And I think that's what we want to really—especially, I mean, it's with everyone. Doesn't matter if you're an athlete or not. Doesn't matter if you're youth or an adult or whatever, we can all learn from this. But especially as we work with the young athletes, it's important that they can create that vision of who they want to become—

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: —and work towards that and not let adversity diminish that goal. Because there's so much capability, there's so much potential that these young athletes have, and there's so many that face an adversity, and some of them are legitimately terrible adversities that knock them down. But when they can see someone like—you know, we wrote about Amberley Snyder. She was a barrel racer, got in an accident and broke her back, and she's paralyzed now.

Jennia: Oh, wow.

Jeff Heggie: But she's got a Netflix movie called Walk. Ride Rodeo. because her goals are still she's going to walk someday. She's riding in rodeo. She has been able to continue on her journey, and she's still a professional rodeo cowboy. And she's just had to face a lot of adversity to get there. And so we had someone on our podcast recently, and one of their biggest adversities, in high school, when they were focused on becoming a collegiate athlete—

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: —their parents went through a terrible divorce.

Jennia: Mmm.

Jeff Heggie: And the impact that had was incredibly significant. So it doesn't matter if it's becoming paralyzed, a family dispute, you know, what it is. For that individual, at the time, it's significant.

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: It doesn't have to be compared to anyone else's adversity, but at that time it's significant. And they need to be able to figure out what they need to do through their support systems and whatever they need to overcome that adversity rather than letting it define them. And that's really what we're hoping to do.

Jennia: Yeah. On another interview of yours that I listened to, you talked about the importance of support systems. And so I'd like to have you go into why you felt that needed to be included or have people understand that these are really necessary.

Jeff Heggie: They're huge. And there's so many of the people that I've worked with that their support system has been so important in what they've achieved. And I think it's important because especially when we're in those hard times, the people that we surround ourselves with can really help point us in one direction or another. You put yourself around negative people, it's really easy to be negative, and it's really easy to face some adversity and have those people just continue to drag you down further and further. When you surround yourself with positive influences around you that are encouraging you and gonna help you overcome that and encourage you and give you that support to keep fighting on, it'll make all the difference in the world. And that's with anything we do—

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: —whether we're facing adversity or not. It's the same as our thoughts. You know, I was actually speaking yesterday and talked about our thoughts. They're like a heat-guided missile. They're going to go to what we're thinking about. Our life is going to follow our thoughts that way. And so when we can focus on the good things, it's same as surrounding ourselves with great people. We're gonna move towards that thing. And as we focus on becoming the future self that we desire, that's have a huge impact. The thoughts we have, the people we surround ourselves with.

Jennia: Have you ever seen this happen in real life, say with one of the students you coached or something similar where you did see a shift in the type of person they were hanging out with and even then what effect that had on them and how they thought about themselves?

Jeff Heggie: Absolutely. I had an athlete I was working with and he came to one of our sessions and we had previously been talking about self-talk. And him and I had had a conversation about his own self-talk and how it was impacted by the people around him, by the teammates that he was spending the most time with. And so he made a really conscious effort to be spending more time with—it was actually the team captain who was a very positive, outgoing, supportive individual. And he told me, he says, "I noticed that, first of all, in the middle of our game, I still caught myself having some negative self-talk. But when that happened, the change that had happened was I thought of this other player and how he would respond. And it changed how I started to think of my own responses." And I'd given him some tools to make the shift in what his thought pattern was so he could change his self-talk, and he says he really took that as a win, that it gave him a way to make that shift. And a lot of it was because he started spending more time with that other individual who had that positive influence on him.

Jennia: Yeah, and that is backed up by science too. We see those papers and those studies coming out where they talk about, I think it's like the three people or the five people that you're closest to or you spend the most time with. that is almost just like that emotional energy, too, that surrounds a person and you start—just almost absorb it. And then you're reflecting that back out upon the world and upon yourself.

Jeff Heggie: Yeah, it absolutely is. And you see it all the time. Someone starts complaining and it's almost like, well, I have something better to complain about—

Jennia: (laughs) Yes, let's out-complain each other.

Jeff Heggie: (laughs) Exactly. But it can go the other way too. When you can change that to a positive message, it's amazing. And I heard someone tell this story yesterday. She said, "Every day I play this game with myself that I wake up and say, 'Today is gonna be the best day ever.' And then I look for ways that are gonna make today my best day ever.'" And when you're looking for that,

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: —it's gonna change things. And so I can guarantee the way she speaks to people and the impact she has on other people is positive. So when you surround yourself with people like that, it's awesome.

Jennia: Yeah! And then, too, just saying I'm going to make this the best day, that doesn't mean you're going to be the best athlete, or the best person ever, or the best at whatever. It's that you're taking this moment in time, making it the best of that moment. And I do think that it's important for people to hear that, too, because they might hear, "Overcoming adversity to win first place," or, "Overcoming adversity to be the fastest on the track team." That's not necessarily what it means.

Jeff Heggie: Exactly. The book isn't about becoming Michael Jordan.

Jennia: Right.

Jeff Heggie: It's not that. It's, you know what, Michael Jordan, best basketball player of all time, still had his hard, difficult things he had to overcome. So you can overcome him too. You might not end up being the Michael Jordan, but you can become the Michael Jordan of what you're doing—

Jennia: Yeah. You're still a better version of yourself.

Jeff Heggie: —and you're trying to be the best version of you. Yes.

Jennia: Yes, and I think that is such a great message, especially for—because you were talking about coaching—you know, younger people when they're still so formative and they are still forming and shaping those views of the world, of others, of themselves. And having those messages early on, instead of hitting roadblock after roadblock with negative self-talk or thinking, "I can't overcome this," or, "If I don't reach this or this status or level of success then I haven't really overcome adversity."

Jeff Heggie: Yeah, absolutely. And there's so much to it. We look at those things, the self-talk, the body language, all of the different things combined, and when you start to recognize those things—because it's really easy to get into patterns—

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: —and just follow what everyone else is doing. And a lot of the times those patterns are a negative cycle down. And so when you can recognize those things, there's a lot of things that you can do to overcome that. What we like to teach about, and we call it our circle of success, and we teach this through different stories in the book. But the circle of success starts with unity. And your team—even in individual sports, you're still a team. You know, for myself, when I was a professional rodeo cowboy, I was an individual athlete, but there was a team involved in my success. And then you've got confidence, you've got your focus. And then probably the biggest part of all of it coming together that we teach about is knowing your true purpose, your why. And when you can pull all those things together, it can have an incredible impact.

Jennia: Do you talk about finding your why in the book also, or even within the individual stories?

Jeff Heggie: We do in some of the different stories. It's something that both Tami and I are very big on. Whether I'm working with athletes or entrepreneurs, it's something I do all the time. In fact, I run some accountability groups, and everyone starts their part of the accountability call with stating their why to begin.

Jennia: Oh okay!

Jeff Heggie: And we've got a specific process that we go through. And again, something I give away, it's at jeffheggie.com/why. And you can find the video and the process to go through. It's a process that I learned from Dean Graziosi. We call it the seven levels deep.

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: But I thought I had a pretty good handle on what my why was. But then I went through this process, and it really took it a lot deeper, put in an emotional level behind it, and it means a lot more. And that's what's important. Because when you're faced with adversity, it's how strong is your why?

Jennia: Yeah!

Jeff Heggie: What's your purpose that's gonna push you through?

Jennia: So true. Asking why that is because that why might be an external why from someone else or some other whatever, some other influence that is not your internal why. But you haven't yet made that distinction.

Jeff Heggie: That is a great point. You know, one of the things that I always talk to our new athletes about is I tell them to tell me why they started playing their sport to begin with at whatever age. And it's always because it was fun, they loved it, they had a good time, whatever it is. And then I say, "Who are you playing for?"

Jennia: Ahh, yeah.

Jeff Heggie: Because what happens as athletes get better and better, the expectation of what they're gonna achieve gets higher and higher. And so many times I see athletes that are not playing for themselves anymore. They're playing for a parent, for a coach, for someone else, because the expectations are there. So they're trying to achieve something to please that other person. And that's one of the things we like to work on, is getting them back to the point that they're playing because they love their sport.

Jennia: Yeah. Even that is a form of adversity where you've had to override your own expectations for yourself or your own why to match somebody else's why. So I love that you are identifying that also and helping people see this could be why you feel conflicted. This could be why you feel at odds with yourself and with what you're doing.

Jeff Heggie: Yeah.

Jennia: Do you also address where maybe it's possible that they won't get that love back and maybe their way to overcome adversity is to perhaps move on to something else?

Jeff Heggie: Absolutely. I've dealt with that actually quite a bit.

Jennia: Ah!

Jeff Heggie: Where an individual has put their life into something and then you get to a point where it's like, "You know what? That's not as important to me as it was back then." And that's why I think it's really important to really reflect on what our goals are quite often. Another tool I have, I call my mindset journal. And one of the things we do every day is write out your top five goals. And what I love to do is when I'm working with people say, "Okay, let's go back in your mindset journal six months ago. What were your goals?"

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: Because when we set our goals, so often they're like the horizon. As we get closer to them, they just keep moving, right? We achieve things and we kind of make our goals bigger and bigger. And they'll often go back, look at what their goals were six months ago, and not even realize that their goals that they had back then, they're living them now. They've achieved them. And they really haven't even celebrated that they achieved that goal because they just gradually made that goal bigger and bigger and kept pushing it out. And so I love having them go back and looking at that because often they can look at it and say, "I need to celebrate this win because I've achieved something that I didn't give the recognition it deserved."

Jennia: Yes! That is such a good idea. Because I've seen that even with some of the authors that I edit for or I'm friends with where it might be, well, I want to get invited to this event, or I want to get this high on the bestselling list, or I want to sell this many copies at this event or this weekend, or whatever it is. And yeah, and you see those constantly moving goals. But yeah, they're doing the exact same thing where they're overlooking that they've already accomplished so, so much to be proud of because their eyes are just fixed on that next thing.

Jeff Heggie: Right. You know what? After writing a book, if you write a book and your mom is the only one that ever buys a copy, that is still a win. If you wrote a book, that is a win (laughs).

Jennia: Yes! No, I completely agree. So much work just goes into that. And then again, you look at the statistics that we hear all time about how many people start a book and then don't finish it. And yet we're not congratulating ourselves on this amazing feat because we're still looking ahead, ahead, ahead, and not at what you've already done.

Jeff Heggie: Yeah, absolutely.

Jennia: Well, so when you were including each of these stories, how did you ensure that they were still motivational and inspiring, but they didn't read as overly sentimental or maybe even preachy when you were giving those uplifting messages?

Jeff Heggie: I mean, part of it is because we have the opportunity to work with a lot of athletes and I think stories is one of the best ways to teach. And so a lot of these are stories that we've shared over and over, and we've seen the impact that they have.

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: Now, alternatively, there's also some that either myself or Tami had personal relationships with the person we were telling the story about—

Jennia: Mmm.

Jeff Heggie: —and that gave us a different perspective on it. Anthony Trucks, he was someone that we wrote about in the story because the first time he ever played football was when he was 14 years old. And I had the opportunity for him to personally tell me this story. And he says, "I was the worst one on the team. And it was at that point that I decided from that year to the next, am I going to quit, give up on this football thing, or what am I going to do?" And he went to work on his own, and in the off-season, put in the work. Long story short, he ended up playing for Oregon, went on to the NFL, had an incredible career. And so I included that story in the book and partially because not only had he told me that story, but he had also created a video for me. And the video link is in the resources.

Jennia: Okay!

Jeff Heggie: He created a video for my athletes in The Confident Athlete Program where I think it's like a three- or four-minute video where he just goes in and tells that story. That, "This is what I did and this is how I overcame this." And his message is, "I did the work in the dark so I could shine in the light." And it's really a motivational story to let athletes look—because you've got all these young athletes that maybe they're not even getting any time on the field 'cause they're not the biggest, they're not the fastest.

Jennia: Mhm.

Jeff Heggie: But you know what? By 12th grade, maybe they are. And so don't give up, because between 8th grade and 12th grade, there's a lot that can happen as you develop and become better. And what are you going to put into it to make yourself better?

Jennia: Yeah, that is so true. Well, do you have any last messages or pieces of advice that you'd like to leave listeners with?

Jeff Heggie: Yeah. If you're writing a book, finish it (Jennia laughs). That is your greatest accomplishment. And congratulations on that because it's an incredible thing. And to be able to publish that book is an incredible thing to be able to do. And for anyone that is interested to get a copy of our book, Challenger Deep: Athletes Rising Above Adversity, you can go to jeffheggie.com/freebook and get a copy of that and I'll send it to you.

Jennia: Oh, fantastic! Thank you for doing that.

Jeff Heggie: You bet.

Jennia: And thank you again for being here and for this amazing conversation!

Jeff Heggie: Thank you! I appreciate the opportunity. It's been fun.

Jennia: And thank you for listening, and be sure to check out the show notes for additional information. And if you enjoyed today's show, I'd greatly appreciate it if you shared the episode with a friend. Thanks again!