Ben Newman’s driving narrative began at age 7, when his mom died.
“I’ve discovered a lot energy in my story and my mother,” he says. “Though she had this uncommon muscle illness referred to as amyloidosis, she fought, and he or she had this superb journal that turned a spot the place she unleashed her constructive psychological perspective. She’d write issues in her journal reminiscent of, ’Beat the statistics,’ ’Beat the chances,’ ’Dwell with a illness that’s power and deadly.’”
Whereas his mom wanted 24-hour nursing care the final 12 months of her life, she nonetheless insisted on coming to the dinner desk with an IV stand to ask Newman about his day. Newman watched his mother battle the sickness till the day she died, 11 days earlier than his eighth birthday. “I’ve all the time felt that, at the moment, she handed the pen that she was writing with in that journal on to me,” he says.
The “Burn“ is born
As an grownup, Newman realized the best energy in his life comes from the ache he endured after his mother’s demise and the teachings she left him. His story—what Newman calls his “Burn”—is what conjures up him to assist others discover their very own as a efficiency coach, writer and motivational speaker. “It’s [about] encouraging folks in our work, serving to folks discover that Burn—that zeal that may give them the flexibility to battle via the issues that oftentimes maintain them again,” he says.
However Newman didn’t begin his profession as a efficiency coach. Earlier than he was paid to talk for the primary time in 2006 and coach somebody professionally in 2008, Newman was a profitable monetary adviser for 10 years. “Once I left [my job in finance], my managing associate tried to induce me with cash, and he was principally telling me I used to be loopy,“ he says. “Like, ‘How may you allow this profession?’ However I imagine in some unspecified time in the future in time, now we have to chase what we had been destined to do and assault what we had been destined to do, not be held again by what’s snug.”
How Newman rose to the highest
Over the previous 20 years, Newman has written eight books (The Normal: Successful Each Day at Your Highest Degree is his most up-to-date, printed in 2023) and hosts a podcast referred to as The Burn Podcast, the place he chats with excessive performers in enterprise and sports activities. By way of the Ben Newman Corporations, he and his group of efficiency coaches have labored with athletes and groups within the NFL, NBA, PGA, MLB and different sports activities entities.
Along with teaming up with coaches and gamers from a number of Tremendous Bowl–profitable groups, Newman at the moment serves because the longtime efficiency coach for head coach Chris Klieman and the Huge 12 Champion Kansas State soccer group. He was additionally a efficiency coach for 5 years for the College of Alabama’s Crimson Tide soccer group below former head coach Nick Saban.
He’s additionally introduced his teachings to locker rooms and fields throughout the nation, together with these of the Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, Wake Forest College and a number of other highschool groups in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.
How the Burn motivates prime performers
By empowering purchasers with “psychological toughness” coaching instruments—suppose: the right way to determine your Burn, imagine in your self, and be taught to beat adversities and challenges by reframing your perspective—Newman helps them obtain targets and carry out at their finest utilizing their pure skills and skills.
“When you perceive your underlying Burn, that fireplace within you, that’s truly what ignites your why and goal and causes you to indicate up on the times you don’t really feel prefer it,” Newman says. “So the frequent denominator I’ve discovered with Corridor of Famers, Tremendous Bowl champions, NCAA champions, a number of the prime Fortune 100 corporations on the earth… is leaders and the excessive performers [who know] what that Burn is.”
The Burn will be something from a life-changing expertise, reminiscent of shedding a caregiver or changing into a father or mother, to the need to show your self to a bunch of naysayers.
Along with recognizing their Burn, Newman says profitable people are additionally extremely disciplined and keen to decide to good long-term practices. “[They’re] disciplined to not concentrate on the outcomes,” Newman says, “however disciplined to the habits and the work each day, realizing that the byproduct of nice self-discipline is profitable at excessive ranges.”
Who advantages from the Burn?
Whereas roughly 30% of BNC purchasers are within the sports activities world, 70% are company professionals at corporations and organizations like Microsoft, Wells Fargo Advisors, The Canada Life Assurance Firm, Boys & Women Golf equipment of America and New York Life. Whether or not you’re a adorned athlete, monetary adviser or working mother, although, anybody who desires to be extra profitable of their private or skilled lives can profit from discovering their Burn.
“Don’t be held again by what society or adversity or problem tells us,” Newman says. “You need to write a ebook? Go write a ebook. You need to go converse? Go converse. You need to develop into the vp of an organization or personal an organization at some point? Go do it. Put the motion behind it that’s going to trigger you to do these issues.”
Find out how to construct your ”Prizefighter Day”
In Your Psychological Toughness Playbook, which has been offered or downloaded greater than 1 million occasions, Newman shares recommendation that helps you determine and assault the on a regular basis actions that may empower you to fulfill your targets like a prizefighter.
“Nothing in a ‘Prizefighter Day,’ if constructed appropriately, relies on outcomes. It’s all primarily based on the alternatives we all know we have to make so as to drive success,” Newman says. “And once we’re not feeling profitable, it’s usually as a result of we’re selecting to not do the issues we all know we have to do to achieve success…. It’s manageable once we handle it at some point at a time.”
To have a Prizefighter Day, one the place you’re feeling like your finest self, Newman recommends establishing a every day routine that features the next three actions:
1. Private exercise
Newman’s instance: This contains “waking up each morning and getting in your morning exercise (as a result of it releases endorphins and builds confidence).”
2. Enterprise or skilled exercise
Newman’s instance: You may “[set] a particular objective for the variety of cellphone calls, follow-ups, reps [or] exercises that you must make day-after-day, realizing that may additional your success, whatever the outcomes.”
3. Service to others exercise
Newman’s instance: “This may very well be lending an ear to a good friend, giving compliments to a stranger [or] calling your dad and mom…. What exercise are you able to persistently do within the service of others?”
This text initially appeared within the July/August 2025 difficulty of SUCCESS® journal.
Photograph by ©Sam Limon
