Mike Pawlawski had trouble breathing as a child. He went on to have his share of breathtaking moments as quarterback of the Cal football team.

Pawlawski was once referred to by a reporter as the "worst quarterback recruit in the Pac-10." He went on to become the Pac-10 Co-Offensive Player of the Year.

Pawlawski didn't make an NFL roster out of college. He went on to become one of the most accomplished quarterbacks in the history of the Arena Football League.

As he consistently expresses in his recently released book "Every Day Great – The Playbook For Winning At Everything," setbacks are only setbacks if you allow them to be.

"I think oftentimes we let people tell us it's too hard, rather than saying, 'Yeah, it's hard. Life is not easy. But if you do the work and get through it, you're going to be fine," said Pawlawski, a member of the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame and the radio analyst for Cal football games. "Growth is inevitable if you do the right things. If you put in the work and put in the time, you're going to grow and you're going to get better."

Pawlawski's foundation for the new book, which is now available on Amazon, began a few years ago by simply putting some thoughts down on paper. He tinkered for a couple years, making sure he found the right theme. In January, he began to find the right structure for telling the story and delved more into the writing.

"I used to love to write stories in college," Pawlawski said. "I didn't love essays, but I loved creative stuff. I got into TV, and there is obviously a lot of storytelling there and figuring out stories. But I hadn't done a longform hardcore project like this before. This is big."

Pawlawski's recurring life experiences that feature overcoming setbacks and disadvantages became the rallying cry for his story, and his success stories can be traced back to grammar school. Pawlawski battled significant lung disease and consistently wound up with ailments like pneumonia and whooping cough. It turned out he had cystic fibrosis.

When he was 6 years old, Pawlawski's doctor suggested to his parents that they get him involved in sports to help strengthen his lungs.

Pawlawski began playing everything – baseball, soccer – and, of course, football. Even at his young age, Pawlawski remembers struggling to breathe – and eventually overcoming those obstacles. It also forced him to be keenly in tune with his body at a young age, and taught him the value of mental fortitude as well.

"I definitely remember working hard to breathe," Pawlawski said. "I remember the late nights when my parents would come in my room and sit with me and rub my back when I couldn't breathe. Those memories are all imprinted on me.

"What it did for me was make me very aware of what my body was doing and what I was feeling. It made me aware of the things that worked for me. It also helped me learn the mental mindsets, the perceptions that helped me. It was a huge formative piece of growing up - learning how to battle adversity and get through it."

Because of his childhood medical issues, Pawlawski also took an interest in the human body, and the different ways it reacts to stress, pressure and its relationship to mental performance. He became especially interested in how the nervous system affects not only physical performance, but one's ability to rebound from adversity.

He did much of his research while a student-athlete at Cal, while also learning lessons from his coaches such as Steve Mariucci and Bruce Snyder.

"Oftentimes, people separate all these different things," Pawlawski said. "We are very physical beings. We think of mind and body and all of these things differently, but quite honestly, it's our nervous system that controls everything. If you train your nervous system properly, it's going to function for you."

"Every Day Great" contains numerous anecdotes and stories from Pawlawski's playing days at Cal, including the memorable 1991 season when he was named the Pac-10 Co-Offensive Player of the Year and led the Bears to a 10-2 record – including a blowout win over Clemson in the Citrus Bowl – and finished the year ranked No. 8 in the country.

But Pawlawski's primary motivation for becoming a first-time author was to help and inspire others by sharing his stories of overcoming setbacks.

"The whole point of writing the book for me is to help as many people as I can," Pawlawski said. "That's really what I want to do with this book. I want to make people feel remarkable, because the human species is remarkable in terms of what it will do if you treat it right."

Note: Mike Pawlawski will be holding a book signing on Oct. 26 at Tailgate Town from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. (noon) PT before Cal's football game against Oregon State.