The Mindset Of A Man Who Is Redefining His Sport | Lacrosse Legend, Paul Rabil

Paul Rabil (0:00)

I think sport is a combination of math and art, and the math is your fundamentals, so you gotta get, in our case, the overhand pass right, you've gotta get it with your right and your left hand. You gotta be able to run straight, you gotta be able to zigzag, you've gotta be able to do the fundamentals of athletic meets skill performance in whatever it is your craft is.

And then if you get that, if you learn long division really well, and that becomes sort of an innate way of moving up and down the field, and understanding schemes and X's and O's and game plans, then you can unlock your creative flow and sort of paint outside the lines.

Michael Gervais (0:38)

Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high performance psychologist. And today, I'm really excited to welcome Paul Rabil as our guest for this week's conversation. You might remember Paul from his first appearance on Finding Mastery back in 2019

But for those unfamiliar, Paul is a former professional lacrosse player who is widely regarded as one of the best to ever play the game. Over his playing career, he won two NCAA national championships at Johns Hopkins, three league MVP awards, appeared in 10 straight All-Star games, and is a two-time world lacrosse champion with Team USA. But Paul's legacy reaches far beyond his stature as a world-class player. 2018, Paul and his brother, Mike, co-founded the premier lacrosse league known as PLL. It's a new and improved and a more equitable professional lacrosse league. And all, you would be hard pressed to find an athlete who has had a bigger impact on his sport than Paul.

That's a big statement now. He is an emblem for passion, for grit, resilience, excellence, living with purpose and so much more. So with that, let's get right into this week's conversation with Paul Rabil. Paul, welcome to the Mastery Lab.

I'm so stoked to have you back.

Paul Rabil (2:18)

I'm excited to be back.

Michael Gervais (2:19)

Yeah, it's great. It's been fun watching what you've built over the last ten full years.

Paul Rabil (2:23)

Thanks.

Michael Gervais (2:23)

Yeah, and one of the things that I want to make sure that we talk about is that this framing that you constantly get connected to is being the best in the league, the best that ever maybe potentially play lacrosse.

And then you went and you founded the league that you started. I just, that's going to be the hub of this conversation. I think in some respects, people look at you and they feel terrible about themselves.

Paul Rabil (2:50)

Well, I hope not. I feel terrible about myself pretty regularly.

Michael Gervais (2:54)

That's a good jumping off point. And the reason is because you're handsome, you're athletic, you're smart.

You know, you're one of the best to ever do the thing that you're passionate about. And then you're an entrepreneur and a successful one at it. It's pretty cool, dude.

Paul Rabil (3:11)

Thank you. Yeah, I've, gosh, I don't know where to begin on that. So I appreciate you saying that.

Michael Gervais (3:19)

Yeah, that's cool.

Well, let's start with like that little thing that you said, is that sometimes I'm hard on myself. What does that mean?

Paul Rabil (3:28)

Oh, well, I think for most high achievers, high performers, there's often a fire that is, you know, started at some point in their life. You know, we have a conversation around innate behavior versus learned. And I think largely we're a product of environments that we didn't choose. So who our parents are going to be, where we grew up, what schools we're going to, what faith, if there's a faith that's designated, political views, those are all kind of given to us when we're younger.

And then at some point in time, we get to make decisions for ourselves. If we reach that point of like critical intersection of self-exploration. But going on all of those sort of forms of attachment and guardian style and all that stuff that along the way, for me, sport became an outlet. And this unquenchable thirst to dominate and to win.

And part of that inspiration for me daily was the feeling that I was never enough. The fear of losing. I would listen all the time to some of the greatest players of all time, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady. Now their fear of losing drives them more than their satisfaction of winning. It feels so ironic given that we do all this stuff just to win and we ignore it.