The Holy Triangle

I love sports. My father was a sports fanatic. He used to say that you can learn everything you need to learn about life on the ball field. And he was right – but in my experience – only if you have someone to help you transfer those skills. A bad coach can ruin your self-esteem for many years to come, but a great coach can inspire you forever.

What are the elements that every great athlete knows that would help you in your business and ultimately in the quality of your life?

It’s what I call “The Holy Triangle”. With all three aspects working together, you’ve got a winning combination. See if you can relate this to your own area of expertise as we continue to use the sports analogy.

The first point of the triangle is the technical side. These are the mechanics of the activity. For example, for a tennis player, it’s the technique: grip, forehand, backhand, overhead, serve, slice, volley and so on. As you can see, there’s a lot to learn. Natural athletic talent is a plus, but only a part of one’s success. Natural talent combined with the “right” coaching puts the athlete in a great competitive stance.

In business, it would be your education: the knowledge and experience combined that marks you as an expert.

Next is the tactical part of the equation – the strategy, so to speak. For the tennis player, it would be recognizing your opponent’s weaknesses, where to place the ball, managing your energy and making quick corrections during a match.

For the CEO, it would be how to distinguish yourself from your competitors, where to expend funds that will bring you the greatest return and all the other decisions that go into sound business practices.

And this is where most people stop. For high-level athletes, they understand that their mental game is equally, if not more important than their technical or tactical game. Because what goes on between the ears dictates all other actions. If you have two opponents with an equal level of technical and tactical skills, and one has a strong mental game and the other does not, the one who has mastered the mental skills will invariably win.

For those of you reading this, I am sure you have invested a great deal of time and money on the first two points. But how many of you have studied the mental game? In my experience, the numbers are slim in comparison.

In my system, called Mastery Under Pressure, I delve deeply into 5 categories that will help you raise your level of performance, no matter where you are on the continuum. They are: