Excerpt written by Vince Lombardi, Jr. from What It Takes to Be Number One: Excerpts from Vince Lombardi’s Famous Speech

Mental Toughness

Head and heart – mental toughness – was one of Coach Lombardi’s favorite topics. He believed that mental toughness was the single most important quality a leader needed to develop in themselves and in the people around them. Mental toughness is the ability to hold on to your goals in the face of the pressure and stress of your current situation. It’s the ability to hold on, and hold on to what you want in the face of what you’ve got. Mental toughness is the glue that holds a team together when the heat is on and helps them persevere just a little longer – which in many cases is just long enough to outlast the competition.
Coach Lombardi’s brand of mental toughness dated back to his college days at Fordham University. He was an average player compared to some of his more talented teammates. He played mainly because of his determination. He once played an entire game with a cut inside his mouth that required 30 stitches to close after the game. He said, “I can’t put my finger on just what I learned playing…but it was something, a certain toughness.”

My father schooled his players in the mental approach to football, telling them, “Hurt is in the mind.” He stressed that in order to win, they would have to disregard the small hurts, ignore the pain and pressure that would be applied by opponents and supporters alike. In talking about mental toughness, Lombardi was emphasizing the necessity of staying the course when things start to go wrong. He was talking about using failure to come back stronger than before. We learn perseverance by persevering. “Sometimes it’s good to have an obstacle to overcome, whether in football or anything,” he once said, “when things go bad, we usually rise to the occasion.”

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