1984: ‘As they round the third and penultimate lap the
lead runner quietly and gently moves across the arena and allows Sebastian Coe
through for his all-important moment of glory; years of sinew stretched
training, hour upon hour of regulated self-disciplined drill, planning,
observing, and marking the competition.
This is it; he crosses the line, glimpses at the crowd and basks in his
merited glory leading to a future of success in everything upon which he lays
his hands.’
1992: ‘The highly
tuned and beautifully engineered Mercedes AMG thrust to all extremes of its
energy efficient tarmac hugging superstructure manoeuvres determinately across
the red hot tarmac track, dragged behind it a stream of sleek low slung
pursuers eager to take up pole and fame; at bend 13 AMG respectfully bows out
waves to his champion; Nigel Mansell accepts the nod guns, the F1 and strikes
through the remainder of the race to become the new world champion applauded
for years thereafter.’
At this point I am tempted to stop and continue a new
career as a sports writer for which I have always had a secret ambition
(feedback to Zest inbox please), however the reason I think I wax lyrical about
Nigel Mansell, Seb Coe and could have done so for many others is simply because
the thought of such success always charges me up to motivation level 10; you
see it’s all in the language. To stand
alongside someone or a group of people and radiate motivational, forward,
positive thoughts is vitally important and I guess that the majority of
humanity get that. And I select the word
majority as there are always
exceptions; I mean who in their right mind would want another person to think
anything other than positively? Who
would want self-doubt to creep into a talented soul? What would make you want your employees to
believe anything other than a progressive future?
Then I thought about a few recent personally observed
illustrations. My good friend and
golfing partner Steve who recently told me I wasn’t getting any younger! A young mum telling her agile and dextrously
confident son not to look down ‘cos it really hurts if you fall! A senior manager explaining to his team that
the 3 year strategy probably won’t work but they’ve had instructions to give it
a go! The careers advisor impressing on
the 13 year girl old that she might as well be realistic!
All these comments may have honourable intentions (apart
from you Steve), so what about the formula for success? My brilliant colleagues at Zest like to think
of this as towards language. State
your intentions in the positive, identify and remove any limiting beliefs, look
at all your options, clarify your goals, identify what resources/skills/training
you need, take your first positive step. Coaching to high performance.
http://www.zestbusinesscoaching.co.uk/executive_business_coaching.php
Oh, and back to Seb Coe, Nigel Mansell et al. You may care to add; these people are
brilliant at what they do and passionate about the end result; everyone in the
world will have a brilliance within them in whatever world they are in; finding
it and developing it is the skill. What
was missing from my earlier striking narrative (plug sports commentary skills)
is the pace runner standing aside, the pace car moving over and both at exactly
the right time for the champion to finalise that victory. This is what excellence is in coaching; we
are your pace runner and pace car; that is our
passion.
I have changed my mind about sports writing, I’m not
getting any younger you know.
“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you
think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the
times you've felt that way.” ― Charles
Bukowski
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