The bravest men in New York City were terrified of a podium.

There’s a story behind that.

This is your daily message from Chad number 1191 to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. This message is dedicated to Gary Pritchard who I got this story from.

Here’s the upgrade:

You think life is a talent game. But upgraded thinking knows life is a training game.

Here’s the story:

Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York City during 9/11, and years later he told a story about a mystery that used to puzzle him. Every so often, a firefighter would run into a burning building and carry out an infant. Or a police officer would dive into a freezing river and pull someone out alive. A few days later, City Hall would honor that firefighter or officer with a short press conference.

Here’s the mystery: men who ran into fire without blinking would show up to that podium shaking. Men who dove into freezing water without a second thought couldn’t get through two sentences without their hands trembling.

Giuliani said it took him a while to figure out why. Then he dawned on him. Firefighters are trained to run into burning buildings. That’s what the drills are for. Police officers are trained to dive into rivers. That’s what the academy teaches. Nobody had trained either one of them to stand at a microphone and talk.

They weren’t bad speakers. They were untrained speakers. That’s a different thing entirely. The mayor’s takeaway was you can be trained to do anything.

Same is true wherever you feel behind. You don’t have a bad memory — you have an untrained one. You’re not a bad writer — you’re an untrained one. You’re not a bad salesman, a bad parent, a bad closer — you just haven’t been trained yet in that particular room.

Muhammad Ali said it best: “I hated every minute of training, but I said, don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Talent is what you’re born with. Training is what you build. And the second one is available to anyone willing to ask for help, find a coach, or show up enough times that the drill becomes the instinct.

The better story to tell yourself is, “I’m not behind. I’m just untrained — and that’s something I can start fixing today.” Just imagine picking the one thing you keep calling ‘bad at’ and running it through thirty days of actual training instead. You can do it. Life is not a talent game, it’s a training game and you can be trained to do anything!

Tell me a story of training beating talent to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Check out messages 777 and 956 for more on this. Send someone a text right now and tell them, “You don’t need more talent. You need more training.” You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at http://www.fromchad.com.