It Takes What It Takes

Trevor Moawad is a mental conditioning coach who has spent nearly two decades working with elite athletes, NFL teams, and college football programs. In this nonfiction book, he argues that the key to high performance is not positive thinking or negative thinking but what he calls "neutral thinking," a judgment-free, present-focused strategy that strips away emotional biases and concentrates entirely on the next actionable behavior. He builds his case through memoir, case studies, and research, contending that the same tools used by Super Bowl quarterbacks and Olympic gold medalists can help anyone navigate challenges in work, relationships, or daily life.

Moawad opens with a personal crisis. In December 2015, his wife, Solange, told him she no longer wanted the life his career demanded. Weeks later, she confirmed the marriage was over, citing his constant absence. Driving to his next work engagement, Moawad broke down and called Florida State football coach Jimbo Fisher, who had recently finalized his own divorce. Fisher's calm support reminded Moawad that he already possessed the tools to handle this challenge, and this realization becomes the impetus for the book.

Moawad traces his background to his father, Bob Moawad, a high school basketball coach turned self-help pioneer who founded Edge Learning Institute and created the Increasing Human Effectiveness program. Bob raised his son using affirmation tapes, nightly recitations, and note-card exercises designed to build positive self-expectations. At Occidental College in Los Angeles, Moawad drifted academically and fell seriously ill during his sophomore year. The experience prompted what he calls his "psychological birthday": He recognized he had been measuring himself against others instead of pursuing his own potential. After recovering and graduating, he taught high school history until a coaching clinic at IMG Academy, an elite athlete training facility in Florida, introduced him to mental conditioning. He joined IMG full-time and eventually worked with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Alabama football under Nick Saban, US Soccer, and Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson.

Moawad defines neutral thinking as a strategy that acknowledges the past without dwelling on it, avoids both blind optimism and destructive negativity, and evaluates reality through three mental states: what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. He illustrates the concept through Wilson's 2014 NFC Championship Game against the Green Bay Packers. Wilson threw four interceptions and trailed 19–7 with five minutes remaining, yet he refused to let the mistakes determine his next play. He rallied the Seahawks, changed the play call at the line of scrimmage based on defensive tendencies he had identified, and threw the game-winning touchdown in overtime. Another example features the 2018 Rose Bowl, where Georgia, coached by Moawad's client Kirby Smart, trailed Oklahoma 31–17 at halftime but won in double overtime after Smart told players to treat the second half as an independent event. Moawad also cites the Apollo 13 mission as an example of neutral thinking in a life-or-death context.

Moawad argues that achieving goals requires detailed planning. Before Super Bowl XLIX, he met with Wilson to create a mental plan built around core behavioral keys: great fundamentals, great balance, and staying engaged. During the game, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady engineered a late comeback to go ahead 28–24. Wilson drove to the 1-yard line, but Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted his throw, winning the Super Bowl. Ten days after the devastating loss, Wilson texted Moawad that it was time to reset. Together they built an off-season plan that relocated Wilson to San Diego and incorporated morning reviews of Wilson's career comeback videos, a technique Moawad's father called "imprinting." Wilson posted his best statistical season in 2015.

Moawad contends that for those who aspire to excellence, choice is an "illusion" because the behaviors required for success are non-negotiable. The concept crystallized during a conversation with NBA veteran Vince Carter, who at age forty-two still played in the league by making deliberate lifestyle sacrifices. Moawad contrasts Carter with JaMarcus Russell, a quarterback drafted first overall by the Oakland Raiders who received $32 million guaranteed but failed to maintain his conditioning and left the league within three years.

The book examines the destructive power of negative language. Moawad presents research showing the human mind absorbs negativity seven times more easily than positivity and that verbalizing negative thoughts amplifies their impact tenfold. He cites studies linking negativity to impaired task performance, decreased happiness, workforce damage from even a few negative individuals, and higher dementia rates. At a retired Navy SEAL friend's urging, Moawad subjected himself to a monthlong experiment: hours of cable news, heavy metal, and country music daily. Within weeks, he developed insomnia, anxiety, and uncharacteristic episodes of crying. By day twenty-six he broke, documenting his findings in an email to Wilson, Wilson's brother Harrison, and business partner DJ Edison. His conclusion: Decades of psychological training could not withstand the constant barrage of negative content.

Moawad argues that the internal monologue functions as a self-directed advertising campaign shaping behavior. He cites Nike's "Just Do It" slogan as neutral messaging that commands action without promising a specific outcome. He connects this to visualization, citing Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson, who before his 200-meter race at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics ran four neutral thoughts on a loop: "Keep my head down. Pump my arms. Explode. I'm a bullet." Years later, after a ministroke, Johnson applied the same visualization mindset to rehabilitation, recovering far faster than typical patients.

Moawad uses a four-stage competence model to argue that understanding why you succeed or fail is essential to sustained performance. The stages range from unconsciously incompetent (not knowing what you do not know) to consciously competent (knowing what works and why). His primary case study is Jacksonville Jaguars running back Fred Taylor, who adopted the routines of successful teammates and played forty-six consecutive games without missing one to injury. On leadership, Moawad profiles Saban as a model of conscious competence who continuously sought new ideas and brought in diverse voices. He contrasts this with soccer prodigy Freddy Adu, drafted into Major League Soccer at fourteen, whose development was undermined by poor institutional decisions and his own behavioral lapses. Moawad reframes pressure as a privilege, citing tennis legend Billie Jean King, and shows how the 2013 Florida State team embraced it through a summer mental-conditioning program and won the national title.

Moawad devotes a chapter to role models, arguing that their behaviors can be emulated. Wilson's most important role model was his father, Harrison Wilson III, a Dartmouth athlete and attorney who died from diabetes complications in 2010. Moawad's own role model was Bob, whose teaching laid the groundwork for neutral thinking.

Moawad closes by synthesizing his themes through two stories. In 2006, he found his terminally ill father reviewing affirmations exactly as Bob had taught his son since childhood; his father told him that choice is the last true freedom anyone always has. Moawad also recounts Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell's survival after a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan: Luttrell, left with catastrophic injuries, needed to reach a village seven miles away. He drew a line in the dirt, crawled to it, drew another, and repeated the process. Moawad holds this up as the ultimate example of neutral thinking. He urges readers to reject "psychosclerosis," a hardening of attitudes, and embrace the "comma": the understanding that each event is followed by a sentence the individual can write through behavior.