The Path Of The Executive Athlete

Some people in life are very fortunate. Their life paths seem to be laid out for them Clothingijtgdfttnud all they have to do is follow those paths. Others seem to struggle to find what they want to do in life and what they want to get out of life. I have been one of the fortunate ones. My path has unfolded before me at every step of the way. Every bend in the road, every turn, has brought me closer to this moment. Writing this book is the realization of a 30 year goal.

I studied to be a teacher, a physical education teacher. I sought to combine my love and insatiable desire for sports with my equally strong desire to help people. Thats why I originally went into teaching. I wanted to help children develop a love of sports, get healthier and grow up to be highly fit and fully functioning adults. It was a lofty goal and I was going to achieve it. But teaching physical education was simply not enough. I realized I wanted more for myself so I could give more to others, so I pursued graduate degrees and received a Ph.D. in Sport Psychology. This helped me better understand what people were going Flatscreentvaivxsjoia when they were playing a sport. I wanted to know what was going on inside their heads so I could help them perform better on the field or the court. I wanted to know why there were ups and downs in their performances; why their attitudes and approaches changed from game to game and day to day.

The degree in Sport Psychology was a tremendous help to me in this regard. I am a helper, a counselor, a mentor, a trainer, a COACH. Yes, I am a coach. Professionally, I have taken my training as a Thomasj and transformed it into working with other types of students- students in business and sports. I have coached basketball at the recreational, high school and college levels. I have officiated basketball at all those levels also. I have had the pleasure or working with entrepreneurs and CEOs. I have worked with youth athletes, amateur athletes and professional athletes. I have worked with students who were having academic problems in school to help them perform better. In fact, I am still playing basketball with athletes 20 and 30 years younger than me and they all call me coach, which is a sign of respect (perhaps more for my age than my knowledge, but I like to think its the other way around). Even on the courts today during the pickup games, I still coach/teach. My path has led me (allowed me) to work with thousands of people from all walks of life and in many different professions to help them be better at what they do. This is what a coach and teacher does.

Throughout all my work, I realized there was a strong connection between business life and sports. In fact, there is a strong connection between sports and life, in general. Anyway, as I continued to work with people, the sports-business connection grew ever stronger. Maybe it was because of my mental Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp the mind frames Beyond I possess and use. Maybe those frames of mind were causing me to look for and find the links between business and sports. If that is the case, it is fine because the links are truly there.

I found this to be especially true in my work with salespeople. Salespeople are definitely Executive Athletes. They practice, they compete, they win some, they lose some, and then they do it all over again. Just like sports athletes. In fact, I have found that you can mentally train salespeople to be highly successful by using the same sport psychology techniques you use to train high level athletes1. And this is part of what led to this book. Years of coaching, testing and training salespeople and other executives to use sport psychology techniques to better their performances led to the same conclusions. You can get measurable performance improvements if you treat and train business people like athletes. Furthermore, the business executives love the analogy and the comparison.

When I tell someone they succeeded at a task just like Michael Jordan when he was playing basketball, or Tiger Woods or Annika Sorenstam in golf, or Roger Federer or Maria Sharapova in tennis, and the list goes on, the person lights up. They know these people are the highlight reels on ESPNs Sportcenter. They know that these people are at the top of their game. And so, when I compare something they did to one of these great athletes, the business executives grow a little taller, gain a little more confidence and motivate themselves to go out the next time and do a great job. When they get these results, it also makes me feel good.

Thats why I say this book has been 30 years in the making. I received my Ph.D. in 1978. I took a different path than most graduates with a Ph.D. in Sport Psychology. The majority of these graduates became college professors who, after many years, also started consulting with athletes and executives. They realized there was potential for practical applications of their craft. I, on the other hand, went right to work working with athletes and executives. I knew from my own experiences that mental training played a crucial role in my own successful performances and I wanted to help others achieve high levels of performance. Now that I had the tools backed by research and the credibility of a degree, I was going to change the world. Unfortunately, the world was not ready to be changed so quickly.

While I was able to begin working with some athletes, most did not want the help of a mental coach back then. There was a stigma (some of it still exists today) to having someone help you with your mind. It was fine to have conditioning coaches, strength coaches, position coaches, hitting coaches, any type of coach you can think of. But a mental coach meant you couldnt handle the pressure of whatever you were doing. So, in typical high-level athlete fashion where you keep going even after a loss or if you get knocked down, I turned to the business world. There, too, acceptance of the ideas and concepts was slow, but not as slow as in sports back then. Business executives were looking for any edge they could get on the competition. Plus, ESPN and Sportcenter were beginning their meteoric rise to world domination in bringing sports to the masses. So, I had a ready-made collaborator I could point my executives to when I made the sports comparisons.

Fast forward to today. Everyone you meet in business will tell you that it is competitive, fast paced and requires a high level of skill to succeed. Just like athletes. And everyone in business is still looking for that competitive edge. Just like athletes (and I dont mean taking steroids or other performance enhancing drugs). And everyone in business is still looking to achieve at the highest level possible. Just like athletes. And so, business people truly understand the comparisons with athletes. So, whether I was ahead of my time or I just go lucky to go down my path, the world is now ready for all business people to become executive athletes.

That is what The Executive Athlete is all about. There are so many similarities between executives who want to achieve high levels of performance and top performing athletes. A forthcoming book that I am writing will take you there. You will go inside the minds of athletes and learn how they mentally train themselves. You will learn how to apply those same mental training techniques to yourself and your business setting. You will read about the close ties between business performance and athletic performance, and how to train like an athlete to be a top business performer. You will learn both well-known and little-known techniques to achieve high performance2.

So, with a tremendous thank you to all my clients over the years who have allowed me to apply these techniques to help them get better at what they do, in both business and sports, I invite you, the reader, to join me as I continue on my path to helping people be more successful. I invite you to learn these same techniques and become an Executive Athlete.

Richard Gerson, Ph.D. is President of Gerson Goodson, Inc., a management consulting and training firm specializing in helping individuals and organizations achieve higher performance and measurable results. The company provides coaching, consulting and training services in sales, marketing, customer service, CRM, leadership development, human resources and talent/performance management. He is also the principal owner of the HEADcoaching Institute, which teaches executives and athletes how to use mental training techniques to achieve peak performance. More information is available at www.richgerson.comwww.richgerson.com and www.businessbests.blogspot.comwww.businessbests.blogspot.com