Performance Intelligence at Work: The 5 Essentials to Achieving The Mind of a Champion - Hardcover

Julie Ness Bell; Robin Pou

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071625143 ISBN 13: 9780071625142

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 2009

Synopsis

Your mind is a powerful tool. You just need to learn how to master it. That’s where Performance Intelligence comes in.

The ability to perform your best when it matters most is a skill anyone can learn. A well-known sports psychologist, Julie Ness Bell, Ph.D., has trained some of the world’s greatest athletes, from professional golfers and tennis stars to football teams and basketball pros. She’s learned that the athlete’s ability to perform under extreme stress is predominantly mental―not physical―and the basic principles of peak performance are the same for everyone, whether you’re a corporate leader, team player, or small business owner.

Principle #1: Your mind is powerful.
Principle #2: You control your mind.
Principle #3: You have a choice in every situation.

Think about it. Now think again. That’s the secret behind Performance Intelligence at Work, a proven method of unblocking the obstacles in your brain― and unlocking “The Mind of a Champion.”

Performance Intelligence works for athletes, and it will work for you, too. Throughout the book, Bell provides specific examples from her vast coaching experiences and relates them to the corporate playing field.

Each chapter ends with a “Business Leader Huddle” to help you put each principle into action. You will learn how to recognize your old ways of thinking, refocus your thoughts on a goal, and establish new routines to make it happen. Instead of negative “what-not-to-do” thinking (I will not procrastinate), you’ll be able to retrain your brain using proactive “what-to-do” thinking (I will finish this task today).

Soon you’ll be performing at higher levels than you ever thought possible―with a winning mindset you never knew you had.

About this title

About the Author

Julie Ness Bell, Ph.D., is founder and president of The Mind of a Champion, a Texas-based coaching firm that works with athletes, individuals, and companies, including Time Warner, State Farm, and Ernst & Young. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Oklahoma State and a master’s and doctorate of sports psychology from the University of Virginia. Dr. Bell wrote Performance Intelligence at Work with Robin Pou, J.D., a successful entrepreneur whose experience leading people and growing businesses has provided him with an up-close view of how individual and organizational thinking influence performance.

From the Back Cover

GET IN THE GAME ANDPLAY TO WIN!

“Performance Intelligence at Work is the wake-up call every business leader needs.Results come from actions but actions come from your thinking. To performbetter you must change your thinking.”
—Mike Davidson, Vice Chairman and Chief Agency and Marketing Officer,State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

“Dr. Julie coaches you to activate your mind fully so you can conquer anychallenge and rise to the top. If you are looking to achieve your greatestpotential, read this book.”
—Brian Baldinger, thirteen-year NFL veteran; sports analyst,Fox/NFL Network; and coauthor of The Map to Clear Messages

“Without confidence, focus, and a winning game plan, it is hard to reallyperform your best. Dr. Julie gives sound advice to take your game tothe next level.”
—Alton Jones, professional angler, 2008 Bassmaster Classic Champion

“Performance Intelligence at Work is a home run. . . . As an athlete and businessowner, training my mental game is critical to success. Everyone needs acoach and this book is mine.”
—Don Miguel, master fitness coach; founder of Fit-for-Me Foundation; four-timenational track and field champion; and fifteen-time all-American, track and field

“With this book, Dr. Julie coaches you to change your thinking so you canchange your actions to achieve the results you desire. A must read.”
—Holly Roush, Presidential Black Diamond, MonaVie

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Performance Intelligence at Work

THE FIVE ESSENTIALS TO ACHIEVING THE MIND OF A CHAMPIONBy Julie Bell Robin Pou

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 The Mind of a Champion Publishing
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-162514-2

Contents

Chapter One

Your Mind Is Powerful

"Dr. Julie, it's Coach Smith. We have a problem. Robert is in a free throw slump. He is shooting 17 percent in games, yet he shoots 97 percent in practice. I know you can help him."

Robert and I met on the court later that day, and I asked him a handful of questions. What was the difference between games and practice? Did he forget how to shoot a free throw? Was he nervous about the crowd? Was he worried about his coach? Did the arena bother him? He kept answering, "No. That's not it." Then he did something interesting. He stepped up to the line, dribbled the ball, and said, "You know what, Dr. Julie? I think I'm jinxed from the line." I answered him simply: "Now we know your problem."

The only difference between practice and the games was his thinking. He thought about making the shot in practice. He expected his free throws to go in. In games, he thought, I'm jinxed from the line. And that thought changed his shooting percentage from the high 90s to below 20. It changed the execution of his skill.

Imagine a printout of your thoughts. What might it look like? If you saw that list, would it cause you to consider changing your thinking? Now put that printout of your thinking next to a list of the actions that result from those thoughts. Place them side by side and you will see how a change in your thinking can have a dramatic impact on your actions.

Three Principles of the Mind

Three basic principles of the mind guide my Performance Intelligence coaching. Let's start with the first principle.

Principle 1: Your Mind Is Powerful

Do you know that your mind is powerful? Think about a time when you had a nightmare. You might have awakened suddenly with cold sweats, a racing heart, or a fearful scream. Yet you were in bed—a warm, safe environment. There was no real danger, but your body reacted to your mind, to what you were thinking. Your mind tricked your body into having a real reaction to the perception of a fearful situation.

Here is an exercise that will demonstrate the power of your mind. Find a paper clip and about a foot of thread. Tie the thread to the end of your paper clip. (Now read these instructions in their entirety; then put down the book and do the exercise.)

Make sure the thread is tied to the end of the paper clip. Place the thread between the tips of your finger and your thumb with the paper clip dangling. It is important that the thread be at the tip of your finger and the tip of your thumb, not at the knuckle. Hold the thread gently. Without moving your hand or blowing on the string or the paper clip—only by thinking about it—move the paper clip from front to back. Just think front to back ... front to back. Continue to think front to back.

Now, without moving your hand and only by thinking about it, change the direction of the paper clip. Move the paper clip from side to side by thinking side to side ... side to side.

Next, without moving your hand and only by thinking about it, change the direction of the paper clip again. Move the paper clip in a circle. Repeat the thought in a circle ... in a circle.

(Put the book down and do this exercise. You will be amazed at how powerful your mind is.)

What happened? Did the paper clip move in the direction of your thinking? I use this activity in the workshops I lead. A majority of the participants are able to move the paper clip simply by thinking about it. There is no magic here. Your mind is powerful. As a result of your thinking, your mind sends out impulses all the time. Those impulses travel down your arm and out your fingertip and thumb, and down the thread to move the paper clip in the direction you are thinking. Congratulations. You now know that your mind is powerful.

To get an idea of how powerful the mind is, consider the story of the prisoner who was in a concentration camp for seven years. When he came out, he had shaved 20 strokes off his golf game. How? While locked away, he played every course he had ever set foot on in his mind. He would play one course a day, every day. The same thing happened with a Chinese pianist who improved under similarly trying circumstances. He was a gifted player before his incarceration, and he visualized playing each note of each song he had ever played. When he emerged, he performed at an amazingly higher level.

The second principle of the mind should be considered great news too.

Principle 2: You Control Your Mind

Do you agree? To know for sure, do this simple exercise. I want you to think of a song whose words you know. Sing a few lines of that song in your head.

Now I want you to sing the same song with the same words. Only this time, slow the song down.

Do it one more time. This time I want you to speed up the song. Make it go faster.

If you can speed up the song, slow down the song, or even change the words to the song, you are demonstrating that you control your mind. As easy as it is to speed up a song or slow it down, that is how easy it is to control your mind. Congratulations. You control your mind.

When you put these two principles together—(1) your mind is powerful and (2) you control your mind—you are ready to understand the third principle.

Principle 3: You Have a Choice in Every Situation

The choices you make in your thinking directly influence your actions. Here's another way to say it: Your thoughts lead to your actions.

The basketball player in the free throw slump at the beginning of this chapter was experiencing these three principles. Every time he heard the whistle and knew he was going to the line, he thought, I'm jinxed from the line. Those thoughts created tension, and that tension made it more difficult to make the shot.

These three principles are not exclusive to sports. Let's consider a business example. Your company has launched a customer service initiative. The company has invested a significant amount of money in training employees to handle difficult customers. The much anticipated customer surveys return, and nothing has changed. What happened? The focus of the training was on actions. No one addressed the thinking of the customer service representatives.

For example, let's say that one of those customer service reps has an upset caller on the line. That service rep has a choice in his thinking, and the choices he makes in his thinking will influence his actions directly. If he is thinking, This person is upset and wants to blame someone, how is he going to act? Most likely, he will approach the call defensively, frustrated, or listening for conflict.

Now take the same situation but change the thinking. This time the service rep is going to think, This person is upset and believes I can help. If those are his thoughts, what are his actions? Most likely he will approach the call in a helpful manner. He is listening for some sort of solution or pressing toward resolution.

Think about it. The person on the other end of the phone has not changed. She still is using the same colorful adjectives to describe her issue. She still has intensity in her voice. But the rep's new thoughts have led to his changed actions, leading to a completely different customer experience. Change your thinking and you can change your actions.

This book is designed to help you understand more fully that thoughts lead to actions and actions lead to results. In Chapter 2 we will take a deep look at the Three Rs of Performance Intelligence. Knowing the Three Rs will help you change your thinking.

As an introduction to the Three Rs, you first must Recognize your thinking. Recognizing your thinking is a matter of using self-evaluation to identify your thoughts. It takes courage to recognize your thinking. Going back to the printout of your thoughts, would you want anyone to read what you say to yourself? Most people would say no. Why? Because we don't always have the best coaching voice for ourselves. Many times people talk to their dogs more nicely than they talk to themselves.

After you recognize your thinking, you will determine where to Refocus it. Refocusing is as simple as the service rep changing his thinking from "The customer wants to blame someone" to "The customer thinks I can help." For the basketball player, it was a little more challenging. Every time he thought about missing a free throw, he had to stop that memory and refocus on what he could have done differently to make the shot.

Once you recognize and refocus, you will need to create new habits of the mind, or Routines. Just as you have habits in your actions, you have habits in your thinking. Those thoughts create your actions and interactions. Many people, including me, see the flashing lights of a police car in the rearview mirror and experience an instant flood of adrenaline. Before your heart begins to race, you have a thought. That thought may be, What did I do wrong? That thought triggers the physical reaction. With the Determined mindset outlined in Chapter 3, you can create new routines in your thinking that will lead to new actions and the desired results.

At this point you may be asking yourself, Does my thinking really matter in business? Absolutely. Whether I'm in a workshop with a group or doing individual coaching, I focus on thoughts that set up people for success and thoughts that set up people for failure.

I have worked with different groups within State Farm for more than 13 years. I find State Farm to be an amazing company. The tenure of its employees speaks volumes. If you have been with the company 15 years, you easily could be at the low end of the seniority ladder.

I remember working with many agents during a time of transition. State Farm had branched out from life, home, and auto insurance, and agents were expected to sell financial services. Some tenured agents had a limiting mindset. They experienced thoughts such as the following: There are professionals who do financial services. I sell insurance. I don't know how to do this. Those thoughts were setting them up for failure rather than setting them up for success.

My job was to help those agents refocus. As a State Farm customer, I clearly recognized that agents could provide financial services very successfully. New agents were having tremendous success because they wore a different set of glasses when they went into training. Their perspective was different. They viewed themselves as being in a relational business. I coached the tenured agents to change their mindset by talking about a couple of things.

First, I helped them change their thinking by giving them a different perspective. I shared a personal point of view. I couldn't wait for State Farm Bank to come to my state. This was a time when banks were changing their names every few weeks. It seemed as if my bank had changed names three times in a few months. I knew that State Farm had been around for a long time and was a stable force in our community. When the State Farm Bank came to town, I would be able to count on it always to be there for me.

Second, I talked about my relationship with my insurance agent. My agent knows what assets I value. My agent knows my current lifestyle and the lifestyle I desire in retirement. My agent knows everything I own. It makes sense that the person who already has all that information is in the best position to educate me on my investments.

I coached the tenured agents to think differently by realizing the value of the relationships they already had with their policyholders. I coached them on how their mindset had to shift from "How can I be successful at that?" to "No one else could do it better." As it relates to Performance Intelligence, financial planning is less about products than about knowing your clients and helping them make wise decisions. You can help your clients make wise decisions better when you have a relationship with them.

In working with the agents, I helped them recognize their limiting thinking. I coached them to refocus their thinking on the facts of the business. I also coached them to create new routines through self-discipline. Implementing the Three Rs helps drive the results you desire.

I was working in a one-on-one coaching relationship with a real estate agent. She wanted to grow her business and had a plan for doing that. She needed to reach out to a few "bigwigs" and ask for their business. The problem was that she suffered from call reluctance. During our coaching sessions, I asked her to describe her idea of bigwigs. She described them as some of her husband's friends and other important people who sat on different boards with her.

The tone of her voice telegraphed her thinking. She was intimidated by those so-called bigwigs because of their stature in the community. In helping her refocus her thoughts, I asked her to take the word bigwig out of her vocabulary and thus out of her thinking. I wanted her to describe her target market with different words and changed thinking. When she thought about John the bigwig, she was intimidated. She procrastinated by finding other things to do rather than picking up the phone and giving him a call. However, when she thought of her husband's friend John whom they regularly meet for dinner, she was able to pick up the phone and call him. That simple change in her thinking led to her most profitable year in business.

Whether you are in sales, service, or business leadership, you probably have experienced the obstacle of call reluctance. Let me share a personal example.

I constantly challenge myself on my thinking. I want to improve my thinking so that my actions will be aligned with my desired results. When I recognize that I am procrastinating about making a call, I ask my team to coach me through it.

My team asks me, "What are you thinking?" This is the crux of the issue. Once we recognize and refocus my thinking, we are able to prepare for the call. We think through the desired outcome. We set a course of action. We role-play. We answer the what-if questions to align my thinking and my actions with the desired outcome. When my mind is prepared, I am ready to make the call. Invariably, I find that the call is not as challenging as I feared. The discussion that follows is typically fruitful. My performance is in line with my preparation, and the results always seem to be beneficial for all involved. That doesn't mean I always get the business, but it does mean I learn from every situation. So can you.

Your thoughts before a call set you up for success or failure. Your thoughts after the call set you up for future success or failure. Let me play this out in terms of golf before wrapping up the call reluctance example.

The thoughts you have before your shot in golf will set you up for success or failure. "Don't hit the ball in the water" is a thought that sets you up for failure. You are focused on the water. You are thinking about what not to do. "This is a 7-iron to the back of the green where it will feed down to the cup" is a thought that sets you up for success. You choose a target, have confidence in your decision, and focus on what to do.

After your shot, the way you think about the execution of that shot will set you up for future success or failure. "Are you kidding me? I'm behind the green with a horrible lie and no chance of saving par here." These kinds of thoughts lead to tension and frustration. They do not set you up for future success. "Nice 7-iron. Good execution. Just a little too much club." Those kinds of thoughts allow you to learn from your game and keep your confidence high.

Let's go back to call reluctance. You made the call. You were organized in your thinking. You did not get the face-to-face appointment you were anticipating, but you did learn from the call. This customer is not a good fit for your services. You executed your skills well and had the Mind of a Champion, but it did not result in the desired outcome. You are not going to win every time even when you perform your best, but Performance Intelligence will keep you in the game so that you have a shot at winning your next game and the championship.

At this point, I hope you are thinking about your thinking. That is great. You are on your way to taking your game to the next level. When I speak about the next level, I am talking about performance at a higher level: greater consistency, better accuracy. Now let's discuss the Three Rs in depth.

Chapter Two

The Rs³

"Doc, it's Terry. It's time to talk again. The playoffs are around the corner. The coach is looking at me to lead the team. It's now or never."

Terry was near the end of his career as a Central Hockey League goalie. I started coaching Terry when his teammates had so little confidence in him that they were leaving their positions to help him out. That created a bigger problem: So many people were in the way that he couldn't see the puck coming in.

I coached Terry to help him get his head back in the game. We talked about confidence with the goal of remembering how to be a strong leader on the ice. His team responded to his leadership. They were now in the playoffs.

Terry's "now or never" comment was a clue to coach him quickly. His old habit of creating pressure for himself was showing. He did not perform his best under that self-induced pressure. Terry knew this. That was why he wisely made the call.

At one time or another, all of us have received a challenging workplace assignment. It is up to us to figure out how to get it done. Do we execute? Can we execute? Or do we allow our brains to get in the way? It shouldn't seem like such a long way from the brain to the follow-through, but it's amazing what can happen to us within a few seconds.

Once we start thinking about a difficult task, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, we begin contemplating the details, and too often we convince ourselves that we're the wrong person for the job, regardless of the reason. Before we know it, we're convinced there is no way to get it done. Our confidence is shot.

Our thoughts set us up for either success or failure, depending on our thinking. Perhaps you're a real estate agent who has just moved to a new city where the market is struggling. You might think to yourself, This is a tough market.

On the surface, that's not a positive or negative thought, but if you think about it, it is a thought that does not set you up for success. When you think about what a tough market it is, your next thought could begin, I will be lucky if ...

You are already planning for failure.

At this point, it is time to change your thinking. Consider this formula for success: Your thoughts lead to actions. Your actions lead to results. I coach a three-step method that creates new habits in your thinking; Recognize, Refocus, and Routine.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Performance Intelligence at Workby Julie Bell Robin Pou Copyright © 2009 by The Mind of a Champion Publishing. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071625143
• ISBN 13: 9780071625142
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208