Olympic Champions – a case of mind over matter?

This entry was written by a client of The Ideal Marketing Company - Trevor Silvster who is MD of The Quest Institute www.questinstitute.co.uk  

The body is a marvellous thing and the lengths to which it can be pushed never fail to amaze me. The sportsmen and women who will be competing in Bejing next month have spent years of their lives in prepation for an event which lasts only sixteen days. These elite athelets may only have a few moments to achieve their ultimate goal of Olympic victory – and in these tense seconds it is the power of the mind that will really make the difference.

So what are the ingredients that combine to make an Olympic champion? Undoubtedly the hours they spend practising and honing their skills. Obviously genetics, dedication and physical prowess also play a vital part. But ask any champion and they will tell you that it is the proper mental preparation that separates bronze from gold.

As a cognitive hypnotherapist, I deal in the realities our brains create in response to a range of situations. In simple terms, I work out why one person acts a particular way in a specific situation, whilst another responds in a completely different way. So what enables Justin Gatlin (2004 Olympic 100 metre sprint champion) to storm away from the blocks whilst others are slow off the mark? It is only by uncovering the pattern behind the behaviour that it is possible to help effect real change.

As a cognitive hypnotherapist, I deal in the realities our brains create in response to situations that occur around us. In simple terms, I work out why one person runs away from a dog someone else is happily stroking, why someone can speak up confidently in some situations and feel a complete fool in others, and why one person can kick accurately anywhere, anytime, and another can’t. By uncovering the pattern behind the behaviour I use the most effective method to assist them in changing.

Sport is full of examples of highly skilled people who are let down by their mental processes. One most recent example is that of John Terry who missed a crucial penalty in the European Cup Final. It seems inconceivable that someone earning what he does for being able to kick a ball should miss something that most 12 years olds could score from. So, what went wrong? I suggest it was his mind, not his eyes or his feet, that let him down. And we’ve seen it many times before, with the likes of Tim Henman, Jana Novotna (unkindly dubbed the lady from Chokeoslovakia), Greg Norman and any England football player called to take a penalty. So what goes on? What turns a superb athlete into a choker? And what can be done about it?

In any situation your brain (in simplistic terms, your unconscious thought) is working out the likely consequences of the actions you could take, it then selects the one most likely to bring you the result it believes is most beneficial to you. This is your brain. Your unconscious works using a simple, reflexive form of thinking; its fast but can sometimes be wildly inaccurate. If the calculation the brain makes of your future is negative it will release chemicals into your body that were originally intended to protect you from sabre-toothed tigers. They increase your heart rate, your respiration, stop digestion and, if strong enough, shut down those parts of our brain responsible for logical, considered thinking.

This puts you into a state best described as a trance. Not one that will get you to dance like a chicken, but one that will cause you to sky the ball over the cross bar, or forget your name in an interview. Anyone who’s ever felt ‘hijacked’ at such moments will know what I’m describing, a loss of feeling in control – truly, strong emotions make us stupid. It’s this fight or flight response that causes someone to run from a friendly dog, shake in front of an interview panel, or fluff a shot at match point, all because our brain looks at the present situation and calculates the likely consequence. As you stand ready to make your serve, do you foresee an ace, or the laughter of your friends as you hit yourself on the head? As you stand to make a sales pitch do you foresee an enthusiastic reception, or a mass of shaking heads?

Context is highly significant: you could be cool as a cucumber serving for the championship at Wimbledon, but a nervous wreck afterwards at the prospect of speaking at the press conference. This is because the meaning of the present situation you’re in (whether it’s good or bad), and its anticipated outcome is based on calculations the brain makes based on your past.

For example, if a young child trips over at the school play they will feel disoriented by the surprise and will look around her for what it should mean. If she spots her parents looking supportive and encouraging she might interpret the crowd’s laughter as something positive, shake herself down, and carry on happily. If they look disapproving or embarrassed then she’s likely to interpret the laughter as being humiliating and perhaps run off the stage in tears. A dozen different children experiencing that same moment could end up with different interpretations, mainly based on a split-second interpretation by the brain.

This moment may become what is called a hub memory, one that is used by the brain to calculate the meaning of present or upcoming events. So, the next time she is in a similar situation - the brain foresees the possibility of future humiliation and begins to trigger the flight or fight response hormones to help her get ready to run away from it. This is likely to be experienced as nervousness, something that grows stronger the nearer she gets to the event.

By the time this new event arrives the nerves are so strong that it’s likely to cause the predicted outcome to come true – the idea of self-fulfilling prophecies has a strong element of scientific validation. She’s so nervous she feels a fool all over again and is unable to perform well.

Now imagine a string of such calculations stretching up to adulthood. Each subsequent event would mould the context so the same event could be the cause of interview nerves in one person, or sports performance anxiety in another, or both in someone else; the permutations are endless, which is what makes my work as a cognitive hypnotherapist so fascinating – every day is a detective story.

So if the brain creates a version of reality that causes people to underperform, what you can do about it. Most people do is to try to wrest control back from the brain and ‘deliberately’ serve, or kick, or run. In other words we try to consciously perform an action that is so practised it’s almost completely unconscious and make a hash of it. We need something to keep us out of our own way and leave our unconscious to perform the actions we’ve practised.

Method One: Anchoring

Has a record ever come on the radio that reminded you of a past event and left you feeling a particular emotion? These are called anchors and work on the stimulus-response mechanism first identified by Pavlov. Basically the principle is that if, at the moment you’re experiencing a strong emotion, a stimulus is paired with it (a song playing, a group of people watching you, a dog running at you), then the two become wired together in your neurology and one will trigger the other off in you. Those examples were negative, but they can also be used beneficially by pairing a stimulus or trigger with an emotion relevant to your performance. A powerful trigger is a smell because the response to it can’t be controlled – even if you know something is going to smell bad you’ll still recoil from it.

British athletes have used this for a while. During training, whenever they get into a good performance state – run a personal best, feel full of energy or confidence – they’ll focus on their feeling and inhale a smell that’s impregnated on a wrist band. The smell itself is usually just something they like, although some natural products have been shown to have particular effects (peppermint improves short-term recall). They’ll continue to ‘stack’ these states over a period of time so the smell becomes strongly evocative of the emotional state that accompanies a good performance. On the big day, before serving, or settling into the blocks, or….taking a penalty…they take a deep breath and reaccess the positive state. Try it. Songs are another good trigger, and physical pressure like squeezing a finger and thumb also work well. All of a sudden the mannerisms of top athletes might take on a different significance – ever notice Tiger Woods twirling his club?

Method Two.

If I tell you not to think of a blue tree what happens? If I tell you not to think of…missing that penalty…the problem is that the brain has to process a negative; it has to think of the blue tree to not think of a blue tree. A key maxim in any situation where you want to perform is to think it how you want it. Before a game rehearse how you want it to go, see yourself performing well – make it a picture where you see yourself in it, rather then through your own eyes, because research shows that makes it more compelling. Fall asleep thinking of a positive aspect of your performance because it will prime you to notice your qualities and not your faults. If you play a sport where you have a moment to prepare, like tennis, golf or set pieces in football or rugby, then ‘play forward’ the next thing you’re going to do in your mind – while firing your performance anchor – precisely the way you want it. So, as John Terry approaches the penalty spot he pauses, takes a deep breath of his wrist band, and sees himself running up and placing the ball in a precise part of the goal. It will probably help if he closes his eyes so the goalie doesn’t get a clue from where he’s looking. For Arsenal footballers that line will magically disappear and you won’t remember reading it. Repeat that rehearsal until the effect of the anchor feels strong and then take shot, get in the blocks etc.

Method Three.

Imagination is one of your most powerful tools. I work with the mind/body connection everyday and know of its power, but you don’t have to take my word for it; researchers have found that old people given the task of spending time each day imagining bench pressing actually got stronger – and put on muscle! Imagine that, changing your body shape just by thinking. Also, an experiment was done where basketball players of equal ability were separated into three groups. One practised shooting hoops, one imagined shooting hoops, and one sat around reading magazines. After the allotted time they were put back on the court and their ability re-accessed. Who do you think had improved the most? Those who imagined, because they sat and rehearsed shooting perfect baskets and their mirror neurons – neurons which imitate the actions of others (and in our imagination we trick the brain into treating ourselves as an ‘other’) stored this ‘map’ of shooting a hoop and used it when it was next performed physically. Those who’d physically practised failed on some of their efforts so the map was more flawed. So, practise doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent, so make sure that what is being made permanent in your muscle memory is the best possible representation of your skill. Set aside 10 minutes a day to mentally rehearse key aspects of your game. As before, see yourself doing it – you have to represent yourself to your brain as an ‘other’ – and really focus. That’s why I suggest doing it for no more than 10 minutes, any longer and your concentration tends to drift.

There are many other things that modern psychology can teach us in order to improve our performance, and often they come from unrelated fields of study. One thing is for sure, in any contest between evenly matched opponents it’s going to be the mind factor that makes a difference – and sometimes it will against someone who is physically superior to you – remember Buster Douglas against Mike Tyson? So if you want to make headway, do head work.

The Right Way to Set Goals

by Ralph Jean-Paul

Ok so you decided that you want to set a goal. Good for you! What is it? Do you want to get in shape? Make more money? Maybe meet someone new and start a relationship? Whatever it is the important thing is that you’ve taken a step towards your goal. Now think about your goal. I’ll give you a second. Ready? Alright. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being absolutely confident and 1 being not confident at all) how confident are you that you can reach your goal? If you answered any number other than a five you are off to a bad start. Confidence and belief in your ability is crucial to your success. It’s not being cocky or egotistical but more like being sure of your ability. Read this quote and think about the idea.

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” - Henry Ford

Why can’t most people keep their New Year’s Resolutions? Every year people make promises to themselves to change or add something to their lives. But by the time May or June comes around, most people can’t even remember what their resolutions were. I was one of those people until about 2003. After being frustrated about how my life was going and not accomplishing anything in my life that I wanted I decided to change. On January 1st 2003 I wrote down a list of things that I wanted to change. And I was determined to achieve everything on that list no matter how long it took. When I learned the right way to set my goals, achieving them became much easier

Write down your goals so they are clear.

Your goal should be clear enough to you that you can write it down. If you can clearly write down what it is you want to accomplish then it’ll be easier for your mind to adjust your thinking in order for you to start moving towards your goal. Reaffirming your ability can make a huge difference in the outcome of goal.

Have you ever seen the movie Men of Honor with Robert Deniro and Cuba Gooding Jr.? Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Carl Brashear who is a man trying to become the first African American Navy diver. Throughout the movie he faces opposition from those who don’t want him to succeed. Well the final test of his training is to assemble a flange while under water. To make it impossible for him to accomplish this, Deniro is ordered to cut the supply bag containing all of the parts and tools Gooding needs to do the job, and toss it into the water.

It’s a great scene because Gooding is under water and he sees his bag cut open and his supplies scatterd all over the river bottom. Hours pass and now it’s dark and cold and Gooding is still under water trying to put this thing together. Deniro is communicating to Gooding by radio saying “Give it up Cookie (Deniro called him Cookie in the movie) it’s not worth dying for”. Gooding answers with “My name is Carl Brashear, I am a Navy diver.” He eventually puts the flange together and becomes a Navy diver. Why am I telling you this? One reason is because I love the movie. The other reason is I want you to focus on what Carl Brashear was saying to himself while he was underwater. He kept on repeating to himself that he was a Navy Diver before he even passed the test.

Now think about your goals. Are they clear enough to you that you can specifically write them down? Are they clear enough to you that you can see yourself already there even though you are not there yet? If you want to advance in your career then you should already be thinking and acting like you are already there. How would you act if you were department manager? How would you dress? How would you treat people? How would you speak? Be as specific as possible even down to what you would smell like. The purpose of writing down your goals and reaffirming them is so your mind and habits can align.

Remove Roadblocks

There are two major types of obstacles that you will come across when you are trying to accomplish a goal or succeed at anything, internal obstacles and external obstacles. Internal obstacles include fear, procrastination, lack of information, denial, pride, or anything that you do to yourself that stops you from reaching your goal. External obstacles are the things that happen that you have little or no control over. When I was building this site I came across so many external obstacles that I was tempted to cancel the entire project. I will have a section on how to deal with the external obstacles but for now let’s look at what you can do to remove your internal roadblocks.

The first thing you should do when removing the road blocks is to identify what they are. Are you a big TV watcher? How much time a day or week does watching TV take away from what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to start your own business are there things you could be doing instead of watching TV that will help you succeed? The faster you identify your roadblocks and remove them the faster you will be able to see progress in your goal.

The way you set goals may be just as important as what you do to accomplish that goal. Before I knew the right way to set goals, I would fail miserably at almost everything I attempted. It wasn’t until I realized that the foundation for my goal wasn’t stable enough. It is like trying to construct a building with a weak foundation. This is a common mistake that many people make when they want something. The sooner you can get into the habit of setting your goals right the first time, the sooner you will achieve them with a lot less hassle.

At my weekly networking goup working breakfast (www.workingbreakfast.com) I met up with a long standing friend of mine Rose Garwood.  She told me about a new course which is part of the management workshops that she runs (which are excellent by the way). This one is designed to help team managers and business owners get the best out of their people, improve communication and raise performance.

She’ll show managers how to predict behaviour, overcome tension, cope with the complexities of team dynamics and focus on success in the business. The next half-day workshop is Wednesday 18 June, in Nottingham. There are 3 places left! I’d love to go but have some stuff on that I can’t get out of that afternoon.

You can reach Rosie at www.reflectionconsulting.co.uk

If you go I’m sure you won’t be disapointed.

Whether there is a single ’secret’ to success I rather doubt, but many great minds point to the same things time after time.

There is a book called ‘The Secret of Success’ not to be confused by the Michael J Fox fim from the 1980’s that  is an important motivational book written by author William Walker Atkinson. Atkinson teaches in this work that individuality is inherent in each of us, and which may be developed and brought into activity in each one of us if we go about it right. Individuality is the expression of our Self - that Self which is what we mean when we say “I.”

Each of us is an Individual - an “I” - differing from every other “I” in the universe, so far as personal expression is concerned. And in the measure that we express and unfold the powers of that “I,” so are we great, strong and successful. We all “have it in us” - it depends upon us to get it out into Expression. And, this Individual Expression lies at the heart of the “Secret of Success.”

If this sounds of interest, you can view the whole book online for free here:

 http://www.scribd.com/doc/401071/William-Atkinson-The-Secret-of-Success

What Would You Do With A Second Chance?
By Tim Knox

You could avoid the mistakes you previously made and build on
the successes you previously enjoyed.  You could nurture the
positive relationships and avoid the bad. You could tap into
your wealth of experience during times of indecision and always
know where and when your time and money would be best spent.

How many times have you said, “If I only knew then what I know
now?”

We’ve all wished that we could go back in time with our heads
full of knowledge and our belts busting with experience and do
it all over again.  The proverbial “second chance” is something
we’ve all wished for - some of us more than others. Imagine how
different our lives would be if we came equipped with unlimited
“do overs.”

You could avoid the mistakes you previously made and build on
the successes you previously enjoyed.  You could nurture the
positive relationships and avoid the bad. You could tap into
your wealth of experience during times of indecision and always
know where and when your time and money would be best spent.

Now apply that question to your business. What would you do if
you had the opportunity to build your business all over again,
but do so with the wisdom gained from building the business all
these past years?

If you could take the knowledge and experience gained from
years of running your business, as well as your credibility,
good name, and customer list, and start anew from square one
what would you do? Oh, and did I mention that you had a nice
check to fund it all this time so you won’t have to scrimp and
save and bootstrap your way back to the top?

Here’s why I’m posing this question: a few weeks ago a young
business here in Huntsville was destroyed by fire. It was a
devastating loss for the owners who could do nothing but stand
by and watch as years of hard work went up in flames.

The fire destroyed the building, some equipment and inventory.
The business was insured and the owners have already vowed to
rebuild, which means the fire did not destroy the business
itself, only the physical aspects of it.

Brick and mortar and inventory do not a business make. Brick
and mortar house the business.  Inventory brings the business
revenue, but the heart of the business – the spirit and soul and
purpose – lives inside the entrepreneur building that business.
If the entrepreneur survives and rebuilds, so survives the
business.

Starting over can be tough even with an insurance check to fund
it all, but I hope these entrepreneurs understand that this is
an opportunity to take the lessons learned over the last few
years and put them to work for the future. This is a chance to
do all the things they always talked about that they should have
done differently in the beginning.

So back to the original question: if you could go back and
rebuild your business knowing what you know now, with an
insurance check to fund it, what would you do differently and
what would you do the same?

Let me put it into perspective for you. Imagine building your
dream home and living in it for a few years until one day the
house is destroyed by fire. A devastating loss, no doubt, but no
one is injured and everything is insured.

You now have to make a decision; will you build the exact same
house or build a different house that takes into account all the
things you wanted to change about the old house.

Maybe after living there for a few years you discovered that
you should have put in a downstairs bathroom or added more
closet space in the master bedroom. Maybe the kitchen was too
small or the laundry room too large. Now you have the chance to
rebuild your dream home with all the lessons learned from years
of living in the house.

So to these entrepreneurs who are living this experience, I
encourage you to keep the faith and keep looking toward the
future. I understand that you felt completely helpless watching
that fire engulf the building. I know that you are now mourning
the business as if you’d lost a close friend. But please, keep
in mind that disaster gives rise to opportunity.

Rise from the ashes, become the Phoenix. Rebuild your business
into something truly amazing. We’ll all be with you as you do.

About the Author: Tim Knox Entrepreneur, Author “Check Out
Tim’s New Radio Show!” http://www.timknoxshow.com Preorder Tim’s
New Book: Everything I Know About Business I Learned From My
Mama http://www.timknox.com/amazon/

Source: http://www.isnare.com

Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=168684&ca=Business

 Feedback – it’s important to receive feedback on what went well and what could be improved upon. If the volume is high, e-mail or printed forms are the norm. If the volume is low and the level of service is very high, a formal written questionnaire is not appropriate. However, an informal set of questions for an appropriate amount of time with either the candidate or client would be relevant. This would have several benefits:

1. It shows interest

2. It provides an opportunity to see what can be done to improve for future work and therefore reduces the risk of losing the client

3. It gives the opportunity to pass on other jobs or candidates

4. It is an opportunity to build the relationship

5. It is the best time to gather testimonials for case studies.

“Marketing is not an event, but a process . . . It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end, for it is a process. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely”

Jay Conrad Levinson

Mean Mums

What lessons can be learnt by business owners from the events at terminal 5? 

Implementing a major change in your business can be a daunting time, and rightly so.  A lot more than your hopes for the future are pinned on it. The reputation of your business is also often at its mercy. 

There are some key steps that you can take, particularly where any kind of technological change is concerned, to stop this kind of disaster occurring.  

1. planning is the glue that will hold everything together. Think carefully about how things are going to work and allow time to make sure everyone’s plans are going to be effective. It’s impossible to think of everything but too much change surfacing later on due to bad planning will cripple your project. 

2. make sure you know the real story about how things are going. People don’t like giving bad news so no-one will want to tell you if it’s not looking good for your launch date. Often, it becomes exactly like the story of the emporer’s new clothes. You need to find a way to get to the truth, by showing them you really want to know what’s going on, won’t sack them if you hear bad news, and are prepared to do something about it. Also, try and find a key informer in the team, who you trust to give you the scoop, and keep in touch with them. 

3. use your team. Between them, they will have a lot of experience and knowledge, so put it to the best use by listening to what they have to say. If they think something might be wrong, you should pay attention and not ignore it, because they’re probably right. 

4. good project management is the key, so find yourself an effective and creative project manager. Someone who will get their hands dirty and work with the team to sort things out when issues come up, not just collate everyone else’s actual effort and report it back to you once a week. And don’t believe them if they tell you they’ve brought every project they’ve done in on time and to budget, because general opinion is that over 95% of all business change projects have gone over on both, so they won’t be telling you the truth, and that’s a bad start to the arrangement. Better to find out what they did when things went wrong, and what strategies they employ to get back on track. 

5. make sure you have a regular meeting with the key team members to review progress and any major risks and issues. Try and create an atmosphere of straight talk only, because that will help you get to the bottom of what problems might hold you back. 

6. equally, nothing can kill a project quicker than poor communication. Get an effective communications strategy in place early on, so that information can flow around the project team, and to you and your management team and back, with ease. As with everything, if everyone knows what they’re doing and why, you’ll have a greater chance of success. 

7. in these days of business reliance on computers, don’t forget that most business process changes mean you will need IT system changes, and vice versa. They go hand in hand and you need to ensure that they are dealt with as a concerted effort. If they don’t work together succesfully, your project will be doomed to failure. 

8. don’t set dates too aggressively. Most things usually takes longer than we expect them to and your project won’t be any different, so leave yourself some contingency to fix your unexpected issues - somewhere between 20 and 30 percent is normally a good place to start. 

Equally, costs normally over run, because all those unexpected things will cost more, so allow plenty of contingency in your budget. 

9. a key part to any change project is controlled and thorough testing.  changes to your processes and your systems need to be put through their paces at all the various points along the way, and by various people at each stage. Don’t skimp on testing because it is essential to understanding whether your changes are going to work, and what unanticipated issues there are hiding away.  Your business people should be involved in their own phase of testing, called User Acceptance Testing or UAT, where they confirm that the system and business processes are fit for purpose. 

To get the maximum benefit, testing must be done in a controlled way (i.e. like a scientific experiment, with controlled inputs and pre-determined outputs). A lot of people say they are testing when they are just ‘trying it out’, which simply can’t prove it will work in all the key scenarios for your business.  

Also, you must make sure that, as well as testing parts of your process and system changes in isolation, they are also going to be tested altogether, in an end-to-end way. That’s often when the really important and surprising results come out. 

So check the testing strategy carefully to confirm that the testing is going to be controlled and thorough. 

10. Once problems have been found in testing, make sure you and your senior business people are involved in making decisions on which ones need to be fixed and which could be ‘lived with’. Research suggests that it can cost up to 20 times more to fix problems after launch than if you fix them during the development process, so you need to think carefully before putting things off. Equally, having too many workarounds can really hamper a business, and won’t help you sell the benefits of the change to your staff, suppliers or customers. 

11. when you get right up against your launch date, have a thorough review of the situation. Get everyone in a room, tell them you want straight talk only, and find out if the project is ready or not. Get to the truth and pay attention to any concerns people have. 

If it doesn’t sound like everything is ready, then put it off. But not for a week - nothing can be done in a week. Put it off for at least a month, longer if necessary. If it’s not ready, don’t be tempted to rush it in and ’see what happens’. Headlines are made out of those decisions, when it all comes crashing down, and it won’t be good PR for you. People won’t forget it easily, either, because anything negative sticks in people’s minds. 

12. don’t cut corners and compromise on quality. The best things take time and money to get right. If you skimp, you’ll get what you paid for, and you’ll simply pay the price later on sorting it out. 

13. allow for extra support cover when your project launches, as there will be problems. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Put procedures in place that will help you identify, analyse and fix problems as soon as possible. And don’t be shy about admitting you might have some teething problems to your customers. They’ll appreciate your honesty and give you some leaway. But, if you keep them in the dark, they’ll be spitting blood if things go bad for them. 

14. contract staff are great - we use them all the time. But don’t rely on them too heavily for your project. They’ll disappear when it’s all over, and the knowledge of what went on and why will disappear with them, so keep a healthy balance of permanent staff on the team - a 60/40 split in favour of your own people is the minimum I would recommend.

Thanks to Derrick Cameron, MD od Eximium (www.eximium.net) for this article