Dynamic Drive

Dynamic Drive Plot Summary

Introduction

One Point Away My heart pounded as I gripped the phone while it rang. When my social science professor answered, I took a deep breath and said, "Sir, this is Molly, I think there's been a mistake. I just received my grade from your class. I got a 'D.'" He responded fast and firmly, almost as if he were expecting my call, "You were one point away from failing the entire class, so you might want to hang up the phone and be grateful." I hung up in shock. My GPA for the fall term at Michigan State was a 1.8, which meant that not only had I been one point away from failing my social science class, I was one point away from getting kicked off the tennis team. That would have been a disaster, after years of training and yearning to play college tennis. As a walk-on—I held the last spot—I had been thrilled to squeak onto the team at my mother's alma mater. That day I felt the pang of disappointment, the cold chill of fear wash over me. It was far too close to no court time. When my mom saw my first semester grades, she looked at me in a way I hadn't seen before and said, "You can do better, Molly." My heart sank. She was my fiercest supporter, but she was also never one to hold her tongue. "Molly," she continued, "you can be great." I don't know if you've ever had someone speak that kind of truth into your life, but knowing that my mom loved me enough to confront me with those two realities really hit home. I can do better. I can be great. I nodded reluctantly as she added calmly, "Something has to give. What's it going to be? Partying or tennis?" Then she placed my anemic grade transcript on the dining room table and walked away.

Chapter 1: Mindset: The First Key to Unlocking Your Potential

Carli Lloyd is one of the most accomplished soccer players to ever step foot on the field. She's a two-time FIFA World Cup champion, two-time FIFA Player of the Year, four-time Olympian, and two-time Olympic gold medalist. She's got the trophies and the medals—not to mention the street cred—to be called a champion. She had an incredible natural ability, but she almost lost her way because of her mindset. She had undeniable raw talent at a young age, but she didn't have the discipline or the mindset in place to play at the highest levels. Her raw talent only took her so far. The turning point for Carli came when she was cut from the Under-21 National Team in 2003 and almost quit soccer. The coach gave her a number of reasons why she wasn't making the team, but the one that stood out above all else: she didn't work hard enough. Carli told me: "I was a player who from the outside looking in, may have looked comfortable. But inside I was actually struggling with the fact that I didn't believe in myself." Carli knew she had to do a lot of work in order to play at that elite level—and most of the work was inside her head. Carli took stock: She struggled with negative self-talk stemming from perfectionism and an all-or-nothing approach, which prevented her from developing new skills. She had adverse reactions to criticism. She knew she had to learn to face her weaknesses head on, to work on them over and over again until they became her strengths. As she continued with this approach, her discipline grew. Carli says she began to read the books of other best-in-class athletes like Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Wayne Gretzky, and Diego Maradona. She immersed herself in new ideas around positive self-talk and letting go of ego. She learned to meditate before big games and practiced visualization to see exactly what she needed to do on the field. Through her mindset work, Carli began to build the discipline and positive self-talk required, and in turn, she was able to level up with increased endurance, athleticism, and skills. Her mantra became: "Empty The Tank." Giving 100 percent effort, 100 percent of the time, never leaving anything to chance. Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you see the world and yourself. It's not enough to simply think positively; our mindset must move beyond positivity and into action if it's going to lead to real, lasting success. Does your mental chatter or running script sound like it's hurting more than it's helping? Are your "buts" getting in the way of your dream? You can make a conscious choice to change your self-talk and change your mindset. When you do the work to train your mindset, learn how to create constructive and positive internal dialogue, and practice reframing challenges as opportunities, you'll begin to unlock a greater level of possibility.

Chapter 2: Energy: Managing Your Most Valuable Resource

We have an energy crisis in our country, and I'm not talking about fossil fuels. Rather, the data tells us that people feel worn out, exhausted, and depleted, pulled in so many directions by increased demands on their time and more distractions than any previous generation. We're a multitasking workforce, juggling more than ever. Have you ever noticed how most of us are obsessed with managing our time, with little thought to where we invest our energy? We fill our schedules to the max, and we measure our productivity by our level of activity. We misdirect our energy toward the wrong priorities and risk chasing the wrong things. Yet, some people prioritize consistently showing up with the kind of energy they want when and where they want it most. How? They look at their time through the lens of energy. Time isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of intention around how you're spending this limited resource. It's a challenge to reframe the passage of time as an investment of energy. Recognizing this shift is the key to unlocking a new level of control over your efforts, increasing your effectiveness. Nothing will ever truly move forward if you are not investing meaning into how you spend your time. Energy is crucial for Dynamic Drive. When we don't have enough energy, what gets compromised is our best life, our goals, visions, and aspirations because we operate in survival mode. We aren't pushing for more or better, we are simply surviving. Don't give that away. Can you lead, sell, solve, love, empathize, connect, and recover if you don't have enough energy? Absolutely not. If we don't decide where our energy goes, the world and everyone else will decide for us. When you allow yourself to fall prey to the constant dinging of your phone, interruptions when you're engaged in head-down work, and the allure of multitasking, your productivity, effectiveness, and mental acuity plummets. The concept of "time famine," a feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it, was introduced nearly twenty years ago by researchers, and yet it's never more essential than it is today. The study concluded that it's not the number of hours you work that leads to time famine; it's a frantic mindset of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. Working more effectively—changing the way you think about and use your energy—is key to the joyful pursuit of your goals. It's about the holistic view of your life and legacy.

Chapter 3: Discipline: Bridging the Gap to Your Future Self

As an NFL quarterback, Alex Smith was used to being hit hard. But in the fall of 2018, he suffered an infamous injury that almost cost him his career—and his life. After being tackled by two linebackers at the same time, his leg snapped; he had a compound spiral fracture of the tibia and fibula, and the bone had broken through the skin. His leg was an open wound, and the infection ravaged his skin and muscle. Smith developed sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition that occurs when the body is fighting infection. Smith's body fought for weeks while he was sedated, until finally he was stable enough to make a harrowing decision: to amputate the leg or try like hell to save it. He chose to save his leg. It was rebuilt with screws, plates, and muscle taken from his other leg. All in all, he underwent seventeen surgeries. But his journey to recovery was far from over. Once he was stable, and the infection was under control, it was time to rehab. Smith went to a military rehab facility because his injury was similar to those endured by wounded soldiers, akin to stepping on an IED. He couldn't walk for months. He struggled with the anxiety and the uncertainty of what the future would look like for him until he had a vision that he was going to get back to football. He held onto the image of standing behind the center, taking snaps, and competing at this level again. That's what drove him. Smith missed the following season. Then, incredibly, he made it back to the active roster for the 2020 season. In October of that year, in a game against the Los Angeles Rams, Smith entered the game, almost two years after his life-changing injury. He started for seven games as he led the team into the playoffs. He retired the next year, but what that single season of play meant to him will last a lifetime. In his TED Talk, Smith said that the recovery from his catastrophic injury to playing in the NFL is the thing he's most proud of. That battle, through the mental game and the discipline he embodied daily for almost two years, made him who he is today. He proved to himself that he was strong enough to return to the NFL, that he could overcome a life-threatening injury to play at the highest level. And, he says, it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Athletes who are rehabbing from an injury are required to do the grueling work without the excitement, visibility, and tangible rewards of playing. They've got to rely on their mindset, they must hold tight to their purpose, and more than anything, they have to use discipline to go and do that every day, day after day, to get themselves back. Discipline isn't something you buy, borrow, or inherit. There's no hack or cheat to get it. There's no way to acquire discipline other than to build it within yourself through commitment, through actions like those I've outlined here.

Chapter 4: Curiosity: How Questions Spark Growth and Innovation

Curiosity is defined as a need, thirst, or desire for knowledge. The concept of curiosity is critical to your success because it embodies the strong desire to learn without constraint. It's the driving force behind new discoveries in all fields, not just technology and science. It pushes the limits of what we know is possible and opens up the world to what we imagine is possible. Curious people have a mindset that helps them move forward to do the things that lead them on the path to new discoveries. The world's most successful entrepreneurs are curious about improving society, they are creative in developing innovative ideas, and they are committed to their task. Consider how much of our time we spend seeking and consuming information, whether listening to the news or music; browsing the Internet; reading books or magazines; watching television, movies, and sports; or otherwise engaging in activities not directly related to eating, reproduction, and basic survival. Our insatiable demand for information drives much of the global economy and, on a microscale, motivates learning, and it even drives patterns of foraging in animals. People with a higher curiosity are more inquisitive and open to new experiences. They tend to generate original ideas and are counter-conformist. Individuals with a higher curiosity are generally more tolerant of ambiguity. Curiosity also leads to higher levels of intellectual investment and knowledge acquisition over time, especially in formal domains of education like science and art. People are better at learning information that they are naturally curious about. It's awfully hard to remain complacent when you are insatiably curious. Curiosity on its own without action is a never-ending loop that leads you nowhere. You can read books, listen to podcasts, and gather new information, but you need to recognize that there's got to be an action component to it. Scientists or professors still have to produce something with all of that knowledge. Curiosity is the interest to learn more about a subject; motivation is the desire to do something with that information. If you want to unlock Dynamic Drive and even more opportunity, you have to adopt curiosity as your default mindset in every situation. Curiosity is an engine for growth, and requires that we embrace uncertainty. Make curiosity who you are, not something you do.

Chapter 5: Resilience: Coming Back Better After Setbacks

I'm standing on the range at the Masters Tournament behind my client, former professional golfer Franklin Langham, while he warms up. It was early in the morning in Georgia, and only a few guys were on the range. I looked down the range and I saw legendary golf instructor Butch Harmon standing behind Tiger Woods, who was also warming up. Both players were just starting their routines and getting loose. I had met Butch a few nights before and I was eager to continue our conversation. Every April, during Masters week, about a dozen of us in and out of the golf business get together for dinner near Augusta National. I found myself in conversation with Butch, one of the foremost swing coaches in the game and among the top-ranked teachers in the country. He had worked with some of the best golfers on the PGA and LPGA Tours—Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Annika Sörenstam, to name a few. He's one of the most sought-after, revered, brilliant minds in the sport, and he has witnessed his players hoist trophies time and time again. I had a lot I wanted to ask him about, so I edged my way over and reintroduced myself. "Butch, I've got to ask you," I said as Tiger continued to drop wedges right on top of the pin, "you've worked with some of the best golfers in the world. What would you say is the one thing, the biggest difference between the ones out on tour that are winning tournaments, making cuts, holding trophies over their heads on Sundays? What's the difference between them and everybody else?" "That's easy," he said. "Molly, the best are resilient. The best recover from adversity fast. They're disciplined and intentional about their recovery. The difference between good and great is the ability to recover from adversity fast." He paused. "Faster than everybody else." It isn't about the mistake, the missed putt, the sprayed drive, the shanked bunker shot. It's about resilience. Resilience is the difference between just hitting a bad shot and letting that bad shot ruin the hole or the round. You're going to hit bad shots. Resilience is about how you choose to respond. Because here's the thing: we're all going to make mistakes and have a bad day. That's fine. We're going to get no, right? I always used to love to say to my young sports agents, "No, it's really just feedback. That's what no is. Feedback." The difference isn't what happens. It's how we choose to respond to it. That we don't let it unravel us, that we recover. Resilience is the "capacity of a system, enterprise or person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances." What does a lack of resilience cost you? Progress, at best. Resilience is trying, failing, building on those misses, and trying again, and again and again. Failure and success go hand in hand. Most people think about resilience as just coming back. Yes, that's important, but it's about coming back better, stronger; not just showing back up.

Chapter 6: Connection: Building Relationships That Amplify Success

Connection is the link to a meaningful life. It's an essential component of Dynamic Drive, a key to unlock an even higher level of performance and a must-have for a well-rounded, full life. Human beings are creatures of connection. Without it, we wilt. Connection is a tool for self-motivation, a way to maximize our impact, and a pathway to fulfillment. Connection has been recognized as a critical part of communication and persuasion since the days of Aristotle, back in 350 BC. He identified pathos as a critical element in communication and persuasion. Pathos, in philosophy and rhetoric, is a purposeful appeal to emotion to evoke specific feelings in one's audience. Aristotle understood way back then that the human connection makes a huge difference in provoking a desired action. Aristotle knew that people's sense of their connections and relationships to others and the social groups with which they identify themselves is also intrinsic to their motivation. The role of social identity has been studied by Gregory Walton, psychology professor at Stanford, who found that it serves as a powerful source of motivation—especially as it influences achievement. He also suggests that people's interests, engagement, and motivation all derive from their social identity. For example, people are often motivated to go to work when they may not be feeling well, primarily because of their affiliation with their work community. Membership in a social group appears to greatly influence persistence in pursuing tasks and goals that are seen as important to the group. In one study, college students were shown a newspaper article highlighting a former math major at their school. The only variable manipulated in this study was that of the math major's birthdate published in the article; in the experimental group, the date matched the participants', in the control group, it did not. Those who were told that they shared a common birthday persisted 60 percent longer when presented with an unsolvable math puzzle. In addition, these students also reported greater interest in the math department and their sense of potential "fit" for themselves in that department. Connection—even in this seemingly superficial and arbitrary way—created a positive increase in motivation. Connection is built through our behaviors and conversations. Yet we often avoid interacting with those around us because of fear. Social psychologists coined the term "the spotlight effect" to refer to the tendency to overestimate how much other people notice about us. We think there is a spotlight on us at all times, magnifying our mistakes or flaws for the world to see. We fear what people will think of us, how we come off, or that we'll say something wrong. We're so wrapped up in our own self-consciousness that we miss out—not just on the conversation, but on the connection that comes with it. But the truth is people aren't focused on us like we are focused on ourselves. Connection takes time. It takes preparation and courage. We need to embrace the vulnerability it requires to deepen our connections and strengthen our relationships.

Chapter 7: Purpose: The Heartbeat of Dynamic Drive

Purpose is your sense of direction, your meaning in life. To discover your purpose involves identifying your passions, values, and aspirations and using that self-awareness to set meaningful goals and pursue a fulfilling life. These foundational elements determine where you invest your time, what your energy levels will be, and what actions you'll take. Research shows that people who find meaning in their efforts report higher life satisfaction. A personal sense of purpose is less of a specific end goal and more of an ongoing impact that you have on the world. It's about having a clear intention or reason that guides your actions and decisions consistently over time. It's the fuel and the motivation to continue working toward your goals, even when faced with challenges or setbacks. Purpose is a sustained goal, not a singular achievement. Athletes too often think that their purpose is to win the World Series or the golf tournament, and when the moment passes without purpose they become lost. Achievement is a necessary part of success, yes, but purpose is what gets you back in the training room and on the golf course fast. Think of Tom Izzo the day after winning the NCAA tournament: It's not what you do, it's who you become. Purpose is an identity. Achievements are a way to live out their purpose—be it on the field or off, in or out of the office or home. Purpose is like a compass that guides you past discomfort, over speed bumps, and through inevitable uncertainty. Like the corner pieces of a puzzle, it guides you to fill in the spaces. Your life, your goal, the "glass half full" mindset, will all create the picture you have dreamt about. So many people are no longer content with just having a job for the sake of earning money. They want their work to have meaning, to contribute to something larger than themselves. It's a privileged position, for sure. But weaving purpose into just about any professional pursuit is possible with Dynamic Drive. McKinsey researched individual purpose and discovered that about 85 percent of people feel they have a purpose, and about 70 percent of those people say they define their purpose through work. Millennials are even more likely than other generations to see their work as their life calling. So what that means is that people are looking for opportunities in the work they do day-to-day to be actually contributing to what they believe their purpose is. That's a great thing. When people are working toward something they believe in, they tend to be more motivated and engaged. A clear purpose drives you to live your best life. Purpose is the why that gives your life meaning, and it is distinctly personal to you. I think passion is great, as something that will start your engine. Purpose will provide the drive that sustains it.

Summary

When you live with Dynamic Drive, it becomes a part of who you are. It's a badge of honor and symbol of freedom from complacency as you navigate the world around you. Your goals become opportunities to lean into hard work, engage your discipline and resilience, and expand your mindset. Imagine a world in which you operate at the highest level of Dynamic Drive: You are clear and committed to your purpose. You know why you are working hard. The results aren't the focus, the process is. When things get hard, you expect them. You welcome them. You glance at your purpose, swallow it whole again, and keep going. You say no and you know why. You say yes and know why. It's not an accident where you focus your time and energy; it's on purpose for a purpose. You are consistent and committed to what you want most, not what might be in front of you. You do the hard things repeatedly and reap the benefit of it. It inspires others around you to do the same. Failure is fuel to you. You welcome it because you know it means you are pushing your limits. The difference with your Dynamic Drive DNA is that you recover fast when you fall, really fast. You don't stay down, and here's what's cool: you come back better. You hear "no" and you see a starting line, not the red tape. You are fulfilled and ambitious. Your daily efforts feel meaningful, and you feel like you are making an impact. People are encouraged by your optimism. They admire your confidence and curiosity. They watch you stumble and come back stronger. You are content, but not complacent. You're changed now. Dynamic Drive has become your identity.

About Author

Loading...

Molly Fletcher

Molly Fletcher is a trailblazer in every sense of the word. She is a rare talent of business wisdom, relationship brilliance and unwavering optimism. As a CEO, she shares her unconventional and unique techniques that made her one of the first female sports agents in the high stakes, big ego world of professional sports and now a successful entrepreneur. As president of client representation for sports and entertainment agency CSE, Molly spent two decades as one of the world’s only female sports agents. She was hailed as the “female Jerry Maguire” by CNN as she recruited and represented hundreds of sport’s biggest names, including Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, PGA TOUR golfer Matt Kuchar, broadcaster Erin Andrews, and basketball championship coaches Tom Izzo and Doc Rivers. As she successfully negotiated over $500 million in contracts and built lasting relationships, she also observed and adopted the traits of those at the top of their game.She has been featured in ESPN, Fast Company, Forbes and Sports Illustrated, and has energized organizations as diverse as AT&T, Bank of America, Michigan State, Georgia Tech, the PGA TOUR and Home Depot.Molly is the author of three books: A Winner’s Guide to Negotiating; The Business of Being the Best; and The 5 Best Tools to Find Your Dream Career. She’s also the founder of The Betterment Institute, a series of online coaching courses for corporations and individuals. Molly has been recognized by Michigan State University with the Outstanding Alumni award and numerous other awards. She currently serves as a National Trustee member for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, after serving on the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta board and as a member of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).Molly earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Michigan State University while competing in tennis as an elite college athlete. Molly’s energy and passion for life shines through everything she does and shows mostly when she is home in Atlanta with her husband Fred and their three daughters.

Read more