Trevor Moawad - Getting to Neutral: How to Conquer Negativity and Thrive in a Chaotic World

TO ANYONE CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN

T revor Moawad was my game-day sounding board. His job was to help my husband, Russell, prepare mentally to play the most demanding position in football, and once the game rolled around, Trevor and I would always sync up. It was as if we were playing the game ourselves. We would create our little team huddle. Trevor was the person I leaned on to stay neutral. Wed talk. Wed text. Afterward, wed debrief.

Trevor was family, and I cant believe hes gone.

When you are a big dreamer and you seek a role that comes with a lot of pressure, there are going to be a lot of challenges. There is going to be a lot of adversity. Its not going to be easy. You have to accept that up front. I accepted it the first time I stood in front of a microphone and sang. Russell accepted it when he became the quarterback of the Seattle Seahawks.

In our house, we always say, Pressure is a privilege. Trevor, who started working with Russell in 2012, used that phrase all the time. It means that what youre doing matters. But its still pressure and the reality is that sometimes your human instincts get in the way. When the challenges come, your instincts might take you to a negative space. You cant stay there. You have to find neutral.

I dont like matching chaos with chaos. I dont like matching fire with fire. Thats only going to make everything explode. When there is chaos, you have to come with opposite energy. There comes a point where being neutral is the only option. You have to go to that place, because otherwise its impossible to get clarity and calm things down. I love the idea of taking a moment to pause and then going to neutral.

We have to be able to get to neutral, because were all going to face adversity. Were going to get challenged along the way. Were going to have naysayers along the way. Were going to have doubters along the way. Ive heard no more than Ive heard yes along the way. Im so proud to be where I am in my life, and Im grateful for those nos. As soon as you tell me no, thats when the conversation really starts.

But even if you tell me no, even if you tell me I cant succeed, Im going to stay neutral. One of the best lines that the legendary Trevor Moawad gave me is that theres never been a statue of a critic. I love that. It couldnt get any truer than that. As long as I am able to execute my vision and feel really good about my art and my process, thats all I need. Thats all there needs to be. If youre worried about what someone else has to say, it sends you all over the place. And the reality is that there is always going to be someone. There could be ninety-nine great comments, and there will always be one bad comment. But through the years, Ive learned how to find my way to that neutral place that Trevor talks about.

Trevor was one of the bestif not the bestmotivational speakers Ive met. He always knew the right thing to say. Who you have feeding you in times of need makes a difference. Who you have feeding you matters when youre trying to navigate lifes incredible journey. And when Trevor gave that vitamin dose of information to Russ, it fed my soul too.

Im praying that this book will be the gift that keeps giving. Trevor planted so many seeds while he was here, and I believe those seeds will continue to blossom. He may be gone, but he can still change lives.

Even as he fought cancer at the end, he still knew how to find neutral. In our last conversations, he would start off each call crying. Then hed find a moment when he just shifted to neutral, and by the end he was encouraging me.

But that was Trevor. He poured into everyone. He gave his all for everyone else. I know that God said to him, Well done. I am pleased. God put Trevor on this earth to do exactly what he did. And we know that heaven has gained an angel.

T he email popped in on a Friday night in April 2021. Like many of the thousands of emails I received from Trevor in the course of writing two books together, this one contained a link and nothing more. Trevor had unearthed one more thing I needed to see to understand himto help capture his voice. So I clicked.

This link led to a YouTube clip of Trevors father, Bob, speaking to a rapt audience. Bob Moawad was a coach turned motivational speaker who could hold a crowd in the palm of his hand. He spent most of the last third of his life teaching people that a positive outlook would make their lives better. The speech Trevor had emailed me likely took place in 2006, about a year before Bob died following a long fight with cancer. Bob explained to the crowd that most people dont really expect an answer when they ask how were doing, but he would give them one anyway. Im vertical, Bob said. Im on this side of the carpet. Im eating solid food. Who could ask for anything more?

Trevor struggled for years to reconcile the fact that while his father was his hero, Trevor had built a similar business contradicting some of his fathers core beliefs. Working with elite athletes, Trevor had learned that top performers need more than just be positive. So he had developed a curriculum based on neutral thinking. And though that made him very successful, at times it made him sad. Deep down, Trevor wanted to be just like his dad, and he felt he had deviated from Bobs path. But as I watched that video, I heard Trevor. As Bob kept talking, I realized that what he and Trevor taught wasnt as different as Trevor feared.

Im vertical.

Im on this side of the carpet.

Im eating solid food.

Those are neutral statements. Trevor always taught the athletes he worked with to go to the truth. Those were the facts at that moment. Bob Moawad was teaching neutral thinking years before his son put a name to it.

At the time Trevor sent that email, he had reached essentially the same point as his father had when that video was recorded. Both were fighting a battle against cancer that was far more difficult than they let on to the outside world. Both had only a few months left to live. Bob died about a year later. He was sixty-six. Trevor died September 15, 2021. He was forty-eight.

Trevor never told anyone he was dying. Like his former boss Nick Saban, he didnt believe in looking at the scoreboard. He chose instead to give each moment a life of its own. But beyond anything he taught, he undersold how serious his condition was because he cared more about the rest of us than he cared about himself. He didnt want me to give a single thought to his condition if it might take away even a second of joy from a moment with my family. Trevor didnt want Russell Wilson worrying about him when he could be trying to solve the Rams defense. Trevor didnt want his friend Lawrence Frank to fret when he was trying to build a championship team with the Los Angeles Clippers.

He told a few of us the details of his cancer because he had to, but he kept that information from nearly everyone else because he preferred that they remain blissfully unaware. He worked most of the 2019 season with the Georgia football team while undergoing chemotherapy and various invasive procedures and didnt tell anyone in the organization about any of it until after the season ended. Trevor always felt his job was to serve others. If his clients were concerned about him, they were wasting mental energy that they could have used to improve their own performances. Originally, he didnt want to discuss his cancer fight in this book because it meant so many people would know. He only changed his mind when he realized that he could help so many people by passing along the lessons he learned during the process.

We finished the manuscript for this book at the end of May 2021. After Trevor and I went over the last words over the phone and I emailed the finished product to the publisher, I turned to my wife. I hope we didnt just write Trevors last words, I said. My wife works in medicine. As soon as I told her what kind of cancer Trevor had back in 2019, she had warned me that he was embarking on a fight few people win.