On choosing the right mindset coach

Reading Time: 3 Minutes

About two weeks ago, Cody Royle sent me this post on X:

Every time I see a clip like this, I’m both frustrated that someone’s had a bad experience with a sport psychologist and concerned that quality work isn’t being done by people who understand what it means to work with high-level athletes, at any level.

Put plainly: you can’t treat anyone working toward greatness like they should be “normal”.

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The idea that somehow having less self-belief would help someone work toward being best in the world is dead wrong.

Many of the GOATs across sports consider this unbreakable, unrealistic self-belief as a prerequisite to their excellence. 

It’s an absolute dream to work with athletes like Wiffen, with an attitude like this. And when I’m working with athletes who don’t believe this way, we spend a considerable amount of time trying to cultivate a self-belief that would allow them to compete at their best. Athletes at any age and stage can be working on building this self-belief. It’ll serve them well in sport and life.

This clip isn’t about sport psychology not being helpful. This clip is about why athletes shouldn’t just work with anybody. 

I’m not a believer that to be most effective, you have to know the sport well. But I am a believer that to be effective, you have to understand sport. What I mean is that your mindset coach needs to understand just how hard it is to become great, just how important mindset is to excellence, and how to help someone develop the courage and resilience to pursue something “abnormal.” 

This is true for any high-performance endeavor, whether it’s starting a company, performing on stage, or speaking in public. Your team around you - including your performance mindset coach - should understand what it takes to reach your goals and be your best, even if they don’t understand all the technicalities of your performance. 

They can learn technicalities. 

It’s much harder to learn the fundamentals of excellence. 

I was recently on a podcast discussing my process in talent selection. You can check out the episode here:

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