Open Letter To The Few Who Dares!
Dear Chairman, Head Coach, Assistant Coach, and Technical Staff
The kick-off day is coming for the new season to start, and no doubt many dreams will lie shattered by this time next year! Many regrets of “Why didn’t we do this?”, or, “If only we did that!”, will be in the order of the day, but it will be too late once again to change anything.
I see this happening season after season, and I wonder why teams learn so little from each other’s bad experiences? Why do we think that it will not happen to us? Every season teams tries to get into the top positions, try to win the league, or to get promoted, and once promoted gets relegated again. The struggle to get promoted is tremendous and getting back once relegated is much more difficult to do! Yet teams continue using the same recipe for disaster season after season. Nobody is trying a different approach! It’s more of the same, day after day, until time finally runs out.
I would like to share some very valuable information with you, and I can assure you by the time you have come to the end of this letter you will look at your team’s approach for the new season that lies ahead in a different way.
History of a team’s past performance is a fairly poor predictor of its future performance since …
- The makeup of a team changes all the time, i.e.
- New players join the team, and established players leave
- Coaches and technical staff come and go (most times, not on their own accord!)
- Game strategies and overused tactical approaches are implemented with varying degrees of success from match to match, and ‘good’ or ‘bad luck’ is often the determining factor
- Lack of consistency and failure to adapt in a timely manner to a volatile changing environment
2. The competitor of yesterday is a different animal tomorrow because of the factors above
So how does one build a stable team that wins consistently in such a challenging environment where winning is everything and losing brings about even more changes in an attempt to win, often with disastrous results?
The answer is simple, but oft times difficult to implement due to one's fixed mindset (Some minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed and fully set!), and our habitual nature, finding it difficult to break the mould of preconception and rather choosing the more travelled, well-known path.
The time has come to ... BE PROACTIV, NOT REACTIVE!
Winning or losing does not start on the training field or on matchday! It starts off the field and it happens 24hours a day in the minds of your players, your coaches, and even you!
Managing the thoughts of someone is the most difficult thing you will ever attempt in your life!!!
BUT…. If you can succeed, it offers the greatest rewards!
SO, WHAT, you may say? WHO NEEDS to teach players how to manage their thoughts and their minds and be more disciplined on and off the field? WHO NEEDS to help them develop their mental potential that directly impacts upon their execution of their football skills? The answer?... ONLY THOSE who wishes to be the best of the best should bother! The rest may choose to remain ordinary, and whom more than likely will never experience what it feels like to be EXTRAORDINARY!
We all know how one wrong word, poor timing of a reprimand, or misinterpretation of what was said can cause a player and a team to grossly underperform. Can you can think how many times that has happened to you? That someone said something that upset you so much you could not think of anything else for hours afterwards, and part of your day or whole day was ruined?
Human beings are highly emotional beings, and what goes on in the mind largely determines what goes on, in the field of play. Extrinsic motivation has a very short lifespan of a few minutes to a couple of days at most, whereas intrinsic motivation lasts a lifetime!
Does it not make sense to teach one’s players to be in more control of their minds? And in doing so, better enable them to perform on the day? And become a team that makes history?
If you would like to know more about what you can do to lift your team's performance to the next level, I will gladly send you some documents (on your request) that will provide you with a deeper understanding of how Elite Performance Engineering could add substantial value towards your efforts to win almost all of the time.
NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED!
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
Edward Gray