FEED: Does success in business follow the same principles an individual athlete might apply?
EDDIE O’CONNOR: In sports psychology 101, the most basic thing is process over outcome. If you’re thinking about the outcome, you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing in order to achieve that outcome, and you will get messed up. Early on with every client we say, “What are the things you need to do in order to achieve your goal?” For a business, if excellence is just money,
sports or to business, it keeps your head focused on the right things; it keeps you in the process.Then the money, the winning and everything else will follow. I would say to a business person, “What’s your mission?We all want to make more money, but why did you join that company in the first place?
Do you want to be a company known for customer service? Or one that’s agile, quick
be careful, because what message is that going to send? If that’s the only factor, it might lead you into being tempted by cheating or fraud. In the same way that, if winning is all that matters in sports, then you get cheating and performance- enhancing drugs. One of my favourite exercises is asking clients, “What
“WHAT WOULD
and responsive? Or do you want to be always on the cutting edge?” Those are the things that will excite you and the things that people can rally around.
YOUWANT PEOPLETO SAYABOUT YOUATYOUR RETIREMENT DINNER?”
would you want people to say about you at your retirement dinner? About how you responded to adversity, how you handled risk, how you took care of your employees, how people felt when they came to work?” For all the hundreds of times I’ve done it, I think only one person ever said anything about winning! People tell me they want to be known as a good teammate, a hard worker, as somebody who was supportive, as somebody who was technically really good, or who showed consistent growth. When you can apply these qualities to
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