Character & Integrity
They’re going to say something.
Maybe they already have. Something about this team, this program, what’s going to happen in this game. Something designed to live in your head. To make the competition about something other than the competition.
How you respond to it is a competitive decision, not just a character decision.
Read this passage slowly.
I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?
Nehemiah 6:3 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
Nehemiah is being repeatedly invited to abandon the work in progress to deal with people who are trying to distract and undermine him. His response is the most useful competitive principle I know: I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. The work is too important to abandon for the distraction.
Trash talk works when it succeeds in making the competition about the talk rather than the game. When the athlete who receives it is so focused on the provocation that they’ve taken their attention off the actual task. The trash talker wins not by saying something true but by successfully redirecting the opponent’s focus.
The competitive response to trash talk is Nehemiah’s response: I have a game to play and I cannot go down. I cannot go down into the argument. Into the retaliation. Into the emotional response that takes me off my game. The work is too important.
Silence is almost always the strongest response. Not because the trash talk deserves deference, but because engaging with it gives it more power than it deserves. The athlete who responds to trash talk with their best performance has both refused the distraction and demonstrated that they’re not interested in the alternative competition being offered.
Answer them on the field. With the game. That’s the only response worth giving.
Trash talk works when it makes the competition about the talk instead of the game. The response that wins is: I cannot go down. I have work to do.
When someone trash talks you or this team, what’s your typical first response? And what’s the response that actually serves you best?
Two-part question: the actual response versus the best response. The gap between them is where the growth is.
Answer them on the field. With the game. That’s the only response worth giving.
Most effective in the game week when trash talk is already circulating. The Nehemiah principle gives athletes a framework before the moment arrives.