Adopting the mentality of a top-performing athlete will morph you into a top-performing CEO.
Business is the ultimate sport. It's a high-stakes game that's 24/7, relentless, and ever-evolving, where success requires pushing your mental and physical limits. But while a typical athlete's career spans five to 10 years, an executive's career spans decades with no offseason.
From talent management, investor relations, brand reputation, stakeholder management, risk management, establishing vision and strategy, and leadership and culture, among other responsibilities—the demands are high.
As you strive to elevate your leadership, gain a competitive edge, improve company performance, and optimize personal well-being, leverage these two principles that some of the greatest athletes have used.
Embrace Your Alter Ego
As a CEO, much like a top-performing athlete, scrutiny comes from the public, competitors, and everyone in between.
If a company has a rough couple of quarters with missing earnings, a setback on a critical product, or even issues from their personal life, criticism will grow louder and intensify.
Five-time NBA champion and two-time NBA Finals MVP Kobe Bryant, regarded as one of the best basketball players ever and known by many as "The Black Mamba," is a prime example of someone who dealt with this.
In 2003, during the lowest point of Bryant's career, when dealing with a court case, Bryant needed a way to get himself back in the right frame. Inspired by the movie Kill Bill, Bryant adopted the The Black Mamba persona to separate his professional and personal life as explained in his 2015 auto-documentary “Muse.”
The odds are that we will inevitably experience various stressors and unexpected obstacles, both in and outside of our control, that can threaten our performance.
Whether you're a star athlete or the CEO, both domains are demanding and in the spotlight. Separating your personal from your professional life isn't just a nice-to-do thing; it's necessary. Creating an alter ego allows you to accomplish one of the most critical traits for high performance: compartmentalization.
As a leader, you have many responsibilities and daily decisions that ultimately affect team members, families, shareholders, and the company's direction. Effectively compartmentalizing allows you to focus entirely on your work and separate critical areas of life.
Imagine facing a rough period; let your alter ego show up. It's not Bruce Wayne. It's Batman. In times of challenge and strife, our mindset, particularly self-doubt, takes the biggest hit. We must do all we can to guard our attitude in these moments. So, as you create your alter ego, you can start by defining your goals and current struggles.
Who must you become to handle this current period and begin steering the ship in the right direction?
Find Your Edge, No Matter What
Before he was a six-time NBA champion, six-time Finals MVP, five-time NBA MVP, and known as the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan was expected to be good, but not what he turned out to be.
Jordan is known for many things, but one thing in particular stands out above them all: his mindset. In particular, his ability to use anger and other perceived slights as motivation. Often, anger is considered a negative emotion. While that could be true, anger can be a gift when appropriately utilized.
Jordan, for example, during his Hall-of-Fame speech, mentioned his high school coach, and the player picked over him. When he enrolled at North Carolina, Jordan wasn't the star. Buzz Peterson was. People said Jordan wouldn't play because of Peterson. Jordan leverages these situations to improve.
Now, what could you use as motivation for this quarter? This year? A lifetime? Odds are, there is something or someone that gets under your skin.
Perhaps you're number two in your market. Your competition is getting the recognition, funding, and contracts that could be yours. You could remind yourself daily of these things and place them where you can see them.
If that seems too ridiculous or you're not a maniacal competitor, set a reminder for why you do what you do. For example, put a picture of your family on your desk to get you going. You make a few extra calls, pour a little extra into your team, and don't cut corners with your wellness because you want to provide a better life for them and actively participate in their lives.
Anger and any other emotion can serve as a valuable compass to where we want to go and what's important to us and create the stakes of why we must do something, even if we don't feel like it. The key is to read your anger, cultivate it, and leverage it into a competitive tool. While many pinpoint athletes' physicality and athleticism for their successes, their mindset is the separating factor. In a game of inches between first and second place, it's imperative to find the small things to create distance from your competitors and, ultimately, give your company the best opportunity to be the top player.
That thing is your mindset. And ultimately becoming an executive athlete. Thus operating with better leadership, company performance, and personal well-being.
