Excellence: More Than Just Winning - Sustaining the Winning Habit and Bettering Records All the Time
Global sport has evolved rapidly, and so has cricket in India. It is now more about extremely fit, disciplined professionals competing to stay relevant in front of ever-demanding, devoted fans.
There is growing awareness that success requires more than just skill and fitness, which have now become baseline hygiene factors. At the next level, sports have already embraced technology to compile databases and derive information for use by coaches and players to drive performance. Indian cricket has also begun using data analytics for tactics to separate the best from the good. This has somewhat levelled the playing field while simultaneously raising the level of competitiveness.
So, global sport continues to seek "what's next" to continue winning and setting new benchmarks. At this next level, we are seeing more of game strategy and even more mental strength emerging as crucial next frontiers for excellence.
This is not to say that game strategy is something new; just that it has been codified into easier modules for learning and application.
Larwood no longer has to ask Jardine why he should "stare down" the Don!
Game strategy is no longer left to chance. It’s a science, and coaches, captains, and players have begun to consciously learn and apply game strategy not just during game-time but also even before the games commence. And then comes the ‘next frontier’: the mind. Universally, all disciplines and not just sport, agree that after a point, sheer skill, fitness, and even strategy get evened out. What really makes the difference and propels the journey for excellence is simply the ‘state of mind’.
At one level, it is about passion, determination, discipline, dedication. At another level, it is about anxiety, frustration, disappointment, distress, tension, anger, denial, and lots more. Of course, there is an immense body of knowledge around the softer arts like emotions and psychology (the study of the psyche or mind). But the hard part is how to leverage these arts into a practical science, i.e., enable the practice and application of psychology into real-time behavior change and consequent performance.
Enter Mind School, an integral part of Leadership-next.com.
Here is what a few champions and their coaches have said -
"Mental freshness helped Chopra win Gold."
Neeraj Chopra’s coach, Klaus Bartonietz, a German biomechanics expert
"It is the mind that leads to technical errors … because anxiety is high, you tend to over-compensate your movements … Form is your state of mind along with the body working in harmony."
Sachin Tendulkar
"I try to stay more in the present...I try to shut my mind to a lot of stuff going around...and just quiet my mind down."
Phil Mickelson, after winning the PGA Championship on May 23, 2021
This reminds us of Ramana Maharishi's simple mantra 'chumma iru.'
"Talent alone does not work all the time. Self-belief is important to face competition, and once into it, you should be in the best frame of mind."
Mithali Raj
"Skills and fitness are important. 98% of normal performers focus on this. The top 2%, however, become world-beaters by building mental strength on top of skills, fitness, and strategy. There is no other route to excellence and sustaining winning, setting standards, and leaving a legacy."
G Ravindran, Mind Coach for Olympians and Leaders
Is cricket a mind game, a game of skill or both?
Does the chemistry professor teach us English?
"I can build my mental strength with books, videos, podcasts, and there is the internet and Google. Also, my coach, parents, and friends can help me with this," is a common refrain amongst most people.
True, they can up to a point. But let's look at it once again. When we were in primary school, just one teacher could teach us many subjects: languages, numbers, science, and more. However, by the time we reached high school and then college, we had separate professors for chemistry, math, or English. Each one, including the chemistry professor, taught us in English, Hindi, or Kannada, but we did not learn English or Tamil from the math or chemistry professor, did we?
And if we look beyond college to PG and PhD, say in cellular engineering or biomechanics, even the college chemistry professor steps aside to make way for specialists with a deep understanding and access to vast knowledge resources. Often, even such specialists merely guide and mentor their proteges to climb even higher.
Enter Mind-School. Specialists, practical behavioural science professionals; experienced in psychology, sports sciences, and behavioural process work to support and mentor players/teams in tandem with existing coaches and support staff
Mind - What is the Big Deal?
How easy it is to say, "you need mental strength" or "you should have the correct mindset" or simply "it is all in the mind." We hear this all the time whenever an elite performer succeeds or fails.
The BIG deal is that we hear this, say this, but do we really understand this? The BIGGER deal is how do we build this strength, and how do we acquire the correct mindset? Then, how can we put this into practice and bring out the best in us every shot, every ball, every innings, every tournament, and a string of tournaments after that, year after year? Think Djokovic, Nicklaus, Muhammad Ali, Sergey Bubka, or Tiger Woods.
Breathing helps. So does music. So, is it just about some Bluetooth headphones or some "pranayama," and you are good to go? Maybe if you are a casual player, but NO if you are a professional. The BIGGEST deal is when we have to group many such fit and skilled people together and then aim to bring out the best in the "team," every shot, every ball... year after year. And see that they enjoy it!
Mind School, with its unique, indigenous approach "Mind it," is doing simple path-breaking stuff in this space. These will include better understanding and natural ways to leverage neurophysiology in psychology (the chemical and electrical activities in the body caused by emotions) and more.
Mind School
Excellence is more than just winning. It's about sustaining the winning habit, setting new standards all the time, and enjoying it. Steve Waugh once said, "The key to handling pressure is to enjoy it when you're confronted with it rather than worry about it too much." Jonty Rhodes believes that "things will go much better if the players smile and have some fun on the field rather than acting like a wound-up spring." Sachin Tendulkar famously said, "People throw stones at you, and you convert them into milestones."
But the burning question remains, how can we do this? Mind School has some answers with its proven pedagogy and development processes, working at both the individual and team levels.
Ricky Ponting once said, "Every batsman surveys the field before taking strike, and usually the fielders get imprinted on his mind. They can almost see every fielder in their mind's eye. But in my head, I don't see the fielders. I only see the gaps!"
Mind School's foundation is built around a similar, age-old Indian philosophy of 'Shiva'; a space where stress and pressure can be turned around to be the energy fuels for enhanced performance and enjoyment. Shiva represents the vastness of the cosmos, where the planets and heavenly bodies are a mere sprinkling. The vast nothingness is actually the space for new energies and creation. This is Shiva.
'Mind School' is different.
Our indigenous proprietary 11.2 coaching framework (to achieve 'escape velocity' from the ordinary) is anchored along five themes:
Collaborative Coaching: Working together with the skill coaches and other influencers.
Quantum Coaching: Working with individual players, tag-teams, small & large groups.
Blended Coaching: Physical and virtual sessions, in the classroom (off-field) & on-field.
Authentic Coaching: Setting and operating within SMART goals.
Holistic Coaching: Laser-focus on cricket without losing sight of the individual.
Mentored learning, i.e., sharing core concepts with asynchronous video classes, as well as live sessions for application-based problem-solving.
Mind School's formal structured program creates a multiplier effect to maximize potential and release untapped energy of professionals. The unique 'Learning and Doing' pedagogy (off-field & on-field) leverages the role of other coaches and support professionals to maximum effect. This gives us our best shot at achieving the synergy and escape velocity required for cricketing excellence.
Excellence is more than just winning, it is about sustaining the winning habit, setting new standards all the time, and enjoying it.
Mind School Future
Focusing on the present team and its players is only the beginning. The real excitement will be in supporting the emerging pipeline of players to become holistic champions. Overlaying skill, fitness and game strategy with the power of new developments in the fields of technology, psychology, and neuroscience. Supporting a new-age Takshila-like Academy for World Cricket built on Indian ethos.
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