# 177 Mental Toughness Secrets by Steve Siebold: 4 Ideas I Actually Use

> Source: [https://icharles.com/articles/177-mental-toughness-secrets-by-steve-siebold-4-ideas-i-actually-use](https://icharles.com/articles/177-mental-toughness-secrets-by-steve-siebold-4-ideas-i-actually-use) (canonical)
> Author: Chuck — iCharles, https://icharles.com
> Published: 2016-05-11 · Updated: 2026-07-07

## Why I finally opened this one

This book sat in my Kindle for eight months. I bought it, forgot about it, and kept telling myself "yeah, I'll get to it eventually" — the way you do with half the books you download. The title almost turned me off too. "177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class" sounds like one of those hacky "number one reason" titles I usually skip.

I was wrong to wait. It reminded me a lot of *The Success Principles* by Jack Canfield — old-school, no fluff, no hand-holding. Siebold doesn't say "maybe try this." He says do this or you'll stay average. I like that. I don't want average, I want world-class, and a book that talks to me like an adult instead of coddling me is worth the read.

I read it fast and pulled out the ideas that actually hit home. Here's what stuck.

## Confidence is just doing it scared

Confidence is a word everyone throws around but nobody can point to. You can't hold it or see it. What Siebold nails is that confidence is simply doing the thing you don't want to do, when you don't want to do it, anyway. That's it. It's not a feeling you wait for — it's an action you take before the feeling shows up.

This is straight out of *Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway* by Dr. Susan Jeffers, which is the book that kicked off my whole self-development path years ago. Same principle: regardless of how you feel, take the action.

I had a real test of this the day before I recorded this review. I had a chance to do something that scared me, and I didn't do it. I felt fine in the moment — my body was relieved to stay in the comfort zone — but I still felt off about it. So I asked myself why. I traced it back: I hadn't prepared. Because I wasn't prepared, I got fearful. Because I got fearful, I backed out. Champions prepare to win — that's in the book too, and it's the real lesson. Fear usually isn't a confidence problem, it's a preparation problem.

## Build on your strengths, know what you're not good at

Siebold points out that champions know exactly what they're bad at — and instead of trying to fix it, they hire it out. Peter Drucker says the same thing in *Managing Oneself*: build on your strengths, don't waste your life patching weaknesses.

For me, that's numbers. I can read a spreadsheet, I like a good pie chart, but I don't want to be the one compiling reports all day. So I don't. I hire that out. Knowing what you're bad at isn't a weakness to hide — it's information you use to delegate correctly. Gary Vaynerchuk calls this self-awareness, and it might be the most underrated skill in business: know what to do, know what not to do, and stop pretending you have to do everything yourself.

## Believe in honesty, even when it costs you

The chapter on honesty landed harder than I expected. Siebold's point is that champions believe in honesty — and I'd go further and say truth. Not the comfortable version of truth, the real one: saying the thing that might make you look wrong, vulnerable, or unpopular.

I've watched Gary Vaynerchuk change over the years. From 2014 to 2015 he was honest, but not at the level he is now, where he'll openly say "today I don't feel like doing this" or "I screwed up." That's when I connected with him more, not less. The more honest a leader gets, the more trust they build. Same in my business — clients don't want the salesman who says everything's fine. They want the person willing to say "I don't know if this is right for you."

## Who should read this

If you've already read *The Success Principles* or *Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway*, a lot of this will feel familiar — it's more reinforcement than revelation. But if you're early in building any kind of discipline, in business, training, or faith, and you want it delivered without the coddling, this is a fast, useful read. No filler, 177 direct hits. Read it quick, pull three or four that apply to your life right now, and go apply them.