Talent is still not enough

F1 motor racing is in the sporting news right now. Discussions on ‘the show’ and how the technical rules relate to it abound. In the specialist F1 news there’s strong interest in the latest signing to the McLaren F1 Young Driver Program, a 17 year-old Dane called Kevin Magnussen. What’s…
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Great self-talk

Here's the Matt Le Tissier link referred to in a previous post. We think this is a superb example of high performance thinking and great self-talk (that led, if you recall, to his 48/49 record). If you prefer to read it: interviewer: "Were you one to suffer from nerves?" MLT:…
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Pre-performance Routine

A couple of posts ago, we talked about Matt Le Tissier and his prowess at kicking a stationary ball into a large rectangular from 12 yards (if you search the BBC Sport Website at the moment there's a video of him talking about penalty taking being all in the mind...…
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Elite Performance Thought Part 4

Many of the international performers we work with receive feedback dozens of times every day as a result of living primarily in a "practise" environment. This is of course world class practise, often under pressure, always under the scrutiny of a helpful eye or video camera and always focused on…
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Positive self-talk

Seeing Stevie Gerrard scoring another penalty for Liverpool last night prompted a quick web search of successful penalty takers. A BBC Sport Online article argues that Southampton favourite and former player Matthew Le Tissier proved himself to be the spot-kick king, converting 48 of the 49 penalties he took during…
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The Impact of Quality Preperation

'Fast Execution' is one of the statements that goes towards making up Oblique Strategies and this particular one speaks 100% to everything that being an elite performer is all about. The typical approach we get to see is Fast (or no) Preparation and Frantic Execution. The lack of preparation leads…
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Elite Performance Thoughts Part 3

There's an often written about concept of "flow" in the world of performance psychology (and there's a good chunk of it in 'flavour of the month' book Drive). The theory says that you reach the much sought after state of flow when there is a perfect match between the level…
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Drive…

  If you see the previous post (clarity of purpose), you'll see how we found our way to Dan Pink's book Drive. For anyone reading the blog who we've had the pleasure of working with in the past, we'd highly recommend you read this book. It'll help bring the 3C's totally…
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Clarity of purpose

In a Harvard Business Review blog article is the following paragraph: "Dan tells a story about Clare Booth Luce, the playwright, journalist, and Republican Member of Congress. In 1962, Luce met with President Kennedy, who was, at the time, pursuing an ambitious agenda domestically and overseas. She worried about his diffuse…
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Business Wisdom

Evidently we're worthy of a very grand title in the FT - Business Wisdom! We see it more as stating the obvious... but nice that the folks at the FT think it's wisdom!
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