Mindset as a Competitive Advantage
As a founding partner of the athletic creative agency Transition S+E, I often work with people whose physical well-being is central to their goals, accomplishments, and creativity. This past year alone, I’ve worked with a globally-ranked sky-diver, a World Cup champion soccer player, a world renowned mountain climber, a Super Bowl champion, a rugby legend, a number of NFL draft prospects, and active members of the elite U.S. Special Forces Community.
Right now, I’m excited about our mindset programs for professional athletes and other high performers like those I’ve worked with all year. We’ve been developing these programs by leveraging podcast technology and partnering with veteran professional athletes, former military, and trusted wellness experts. Our focus on this is driven by our understanding that effective mindfulness practices, including mental preparation and maintenance, can positively impact every high performer’s livelihood — in terms of professional achievements, career longevity, and earning potential. For example, for a pro football player, the financial consequences of reaching (or not reaching) a second contract in the NFL can be enormous. Recently, I spoke to a two-time Super Bowl Champion who played from 2003–2008 in the NFL. Three years ago, he developed a meditation practice. When I asked him how his career might have been different if he’d developed this practice while he was still in the NFL, his eyes got wide; he let out a big laugh and said, “Man, I’d still be playing!” We’ll never know whether he’s right, but he does know that injuries forced him from the league at a time when he was less self-aware of not just his body but his mind-body connection, and less able to make decisions grounded in that understanding.
I have spent a lot of time working with people who, in one way or another, are continually working to push their bodies, perfect their movements and instincts, and expand their physical potential. My observation about people like this is that they are often already primed to take on the rigorous and humbling work of developing a mindfulness practice. They have experience in discipline and focus, and an appreciation for the importance of what some call “the mental game.”
What I have also observed, though — and an understanding that informs our team at Transition S+E — is that athletes have: (1) a finite amount of time; (2) a finely-tuned bullshit radar; and (3) a healthy skepticism of people marketing something to them. And as someone with over a decade of experience in the wellness world (including as a yoga teacher and digital director for a major yoga brand), I know there are plenty of self-professed “mindfulness experts” who are armed with plenty of quote-pics on Instagram, but with little to no real background or experience in athletics or wellness. And worse, some of these folks seek to work with athletes as validation of themselves, rather than with the goal of actually making a real difference for the player or performer. Perhaps as a result of some of these factors, mindfulness is still somehow on the sidelines for many athletes — despite the reams of research showing the benefits of mindfulness, meditation, and therapeutic movement for elite and aspiring athletes.
A few weeks ago at the College Gridiron Showcase, I gave a seminar on mindfulness to sixty All-Star football players. These are young men in a high-pressure situation; they have two days to show their abilities to potential employers in the NFL, all while carrying around the baggage of their past, their family expectations (real or perceived), and an array of other stressors that are omnipresent for a college athlete. Imagine how they might play when unencumbered by all that? When their body is free from the sludge of worry and doubt, and honed toward owning the present moment? When I asked how many of them had ever been across the line from someone who seemed afraid or panicked, everyone’s hands went up. When I asked how many of them were subsequently beaten by that guy, no hands went up. He or she who is consistently mentally in control has an advantage. When we frame mindfulness as a competitive advantage, athletes listen. I talked through a mindfulness program we are developing for first-year NFL players, and then led them through a few minutes of guided meditation, customized to their actual experience. I had more than a handful report they used a few of the techniques that day with positive results.
I’m excited for the future of all of this. Overall, my main goal for my clients is to better reveal their humanity to the widest possible audience. The sheer crucible of what it takes to rise to the top of any field, especially if it’s physical in nature, forges an exceptional human being who does not deserve to be reduced to a jersey number or a position description. My mission is to normalize mindfulness and make it part of the fabric of what it means to perform at the highest level, whether you are playing in the World Cup final, or being deployed as Special Forces operator. It’s my hope that, with thoughtfully tailored training, elite and aspiring performers can develop mindfulness tools that can empower them to be successful on and off the field.
