In Every Day Great, Mike Pawlawski Provides a Roadmap to Success

The former Cal quarterback shares what has worked for him and some great stories, including his encounter with a grizzly bear in Alaska

Mke Pawlawski / Photo courtesy of Mike Pawlawski

Mike Pawlawski, known to Cal fans as the quarterback of the 10-2 team in 1991 and the Bears’ long-time radio analyst, has packed a lot into his 55 years.

His resume includes being an Arena Football League champion, a TV host and producer of outdoor programming and a private quarterbacks coach.

And now he’s an author.

In Every Day Great, Pawlawski dissects the roots of success — on the football field and in anything you do — and provides a roadmap for getting there.

Every Day Great / Courtesy of Mike Pawlawski

Drawing from his career as an athlete, and even as a youngster overcoming severe breathing issues, Pawlawski provides the reader with his High Achiever’s Protocol, a five-step process involving Hustle, Adaptation, Perception, Persistence, Equity.

Another former Cal quarterback, Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions, gives Pawlawski’s book high marks.

“Mike Pawlawski is the real deal. His insights into performance and mindset are game-changing,” Goff wrote. “If you want to elevate your life, you need to read this book.”

Former college football coach Urban Meyer called it “Brilliant . . . a must read.”

The book is organized and well-written but it’s more than a how-to text book. Pawlawski is a terrific storyteller and he takes us inside the locker room on teams he played for and into the wild while filming hunting and fishing shows.

I won’t spoil it, but the tale of his encounter with a grizzly bear in Alaska is edge-of-your-seat stuff and relevant to the themes of his book.

In the video at the top of this story, Pawlawski explains why he wrote the book and how he identified the path to his successes on and off the football field.

“It’s different skills you need, but it’s the same mindset to be successful in football as it is to be successful as an entrepreneur as it is to be successful as a C-suite executive,” he said.

The High Achiever’s Protocol is five-piece process for making positive changes in pursuit of goals.

“When you boil it all down, those are the things that are present in every win,” he said. “Hustle is obvious — you have to work. If you do the work, the human body is amazing and it adapts. So hustle and your natural adaptation and persistence, and that is how you change, that is how you grow.

“The keys to those is having the right perception. If your perception is clear, if you understand those three things will make you grow then you’re going to be persistent in everything you do. You keep at it until you finding that winning point.”

The equity piece is two-fold, he said. “Giving yourself space, being fair with yourself. But it’s also owning what you are doing. Taking stock and saying either this is the right path or the wrong path.”

Pawlawski came to Cal in the late 1980s when he says sports psychology was just taking hold. But one day, coach Bruce Snyder sent the Bears’ quarterbacks for a visit with Cal psychology professor Dr. Bill Coysh for a session.

“We all got down there and we’re thinking, `OK, what’s this about?’ “ Pawlawski recalls in the video above

Finally, Dr. Coysh asked the players if they had any questions.

Pawlawski spoke up, asking why he always yawns before a game.

“Bill just looks at me and he goes, `Oh, yeah, that’s your fight or flight.’ 

“I’m like, `Huh?’ "

Dr. Coysh shared how it’s the body preparing for a stressful event.

“He went on to explain to me that it is literally performance-enhancing drugs for your body,” Pawlawski said. “And your body’s creating them because you get surge of adrenaline, you get the cortisol . . . you get all those things that you need to be really good in that moment.”

The body will respond the same way in other pressure moments, Pawlawski learned.

“It’s a great piece to understand,” he said, “especially if you have some high-stress situations you’re going to be involved with, to understand that stress-enhancing mindset is a huge benefit to you any time you’re going to be under pressure.”

A revelation for me in the book is that Pawlawski was born with severe breathing issues, an obstacle that eventually became part of his road to a career as an athlete. He explains it in the video above.

Turns out he had an undiagnosed, mild case of cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease which can be chronic and dangerous. In Pawlawski’s case, it led to nearly annual trips to the hospital when he developed pneumonia or other issues as a youngster.

But it also prompted doctors to suggest to his parents that they put their son into sports to help develop his lung capacity. 

“Literally, I was in every sport as a kid,” he said. “I could feel my lungs getting stronger.”

Encouraged by positive results, Pawlawski threw himself into sports.

“I realized my body was adapting,” he said. 

And the High Achiever’s Protocol was taking shape.

*** Every Day Great is available as a digital book on Kindle and will be released in a print edition through Amazon on Tuesday.