The Real Impact Of Not Listening

You’re in a room full of people all wearing hats. You look around and listen to the conversations and notice 5 people have green hats on, 5 people have blue hats on and 2 have red hats on. How many people are in the room?

While you’re working that out let me remind you you’re also listening to the conversations in the room with great interest. 

Listening is a skill that few have mastered but many lack the understanding or purpose of listening so let me suggest why listening is a skill you need to master and you’ll be surprised at how easy it can be. 

Let’s imagine for a moment you’ve got something you just have to share with someone. Something inside your head is urging you to share this emotionally charged news so you call your friend and begin to talk enthusiastically, sharing as much as you can. 

When you’ve exhaled all the news you stop and wait for a response, hoping for some kind of recognition or acceptance. 

In sports it’s very common for coaches or managers to talk at the players and expect them to carry out those instructions.  The coach talks, the player listens. 

Yet some of the better coaches approach communication from a different perspective often giving the players the opportunity to talk, and for the coach to listen. Why is this a good strategy?  

When a coach is only giving instructions they are missing part of the bigger picture.  Through listening to the players, the missing piece is found and solutions to improving performance can be found quickly.

And by the way, the answer to the question of how many people are in the room is 13.  5 plus 5 plus 2 plus 1 (you) 

Thanks for listening and remember to Take action, Reflect, Adjust and repeat 

Play with purpose

How I Can Help You In Your Moment Of Crisis

The very first thing you have to do is accept you aren’t in a place you want to be AND you want to do something about it.

Struggling and Tolerating

Many athletes struggle but think things will get better, things will change and struggling is part of the job. They tolerate and try to shoulder the burden and anxiety. They try to figure it out themselves or ask family and friends for their advice, which is nice, but unless your family and friends have the skills necessary to help you, the frustrations will linger.

Yet those few people who thrive, know differently.

They know a moment of crisis needs to be dealt with because if it isn’t the path to self-destruction isn’t too far away.

They know they need to do something about it!

You deserve to thrive again

Consider what you’ve been through to get to where you are as a professional athlete

You’ve spent hours, days, weeks, months, years, developing your physical and technical abilities to get you to where you are today.

You’ve challenged yourself, pushed yourself and lived a life, very few people on the planet can say they lived.

Perhaps you’ve had great sponsorship

Perhaps you’re very well paid

Perhaps you’ve won awards

Perhaps you’ve even won a World Cup and been number 1 in the world?

But something changed

Something isn’t right and when was the last time you had mental performance training?

Honestly….

I didn’t think so.

There is no club, NGB, college or university that trains you in mental performance coaching

Listen, I’ve spoken to current and former professionals and one thing they all say is they wished they had reached out sooner rather than later, or had someone they could trust, to contact in that moment of crisis.

You always have options. You always have other perspectives to consider, but most of the time, these choices and options are either hidden from you as others try to manipulate you, or you are that stressed out, you can’t see the answer, even it came up behind you and kicked you in the ass!

How Can I Help You?

I can help you by listening to you without judging

I can help you by understanding your situation

I can help you by understanding you and not using jargon that just confuses you

I can help you understand how to move forward quickly in a discreet and confidential manner.

Only you and I need to know what’s said between us because once you’re thriving again, others will benefit from your improved performance including your family, team-mates, coach and others who put their faith in you like the fans.

If you know someone who is in a crisis moment, and you know this by their mood change and poor performance, let them know you can help by asking them to read this post then click here to start moving away from stress and towards thriving

Basketball Players – OutSmart Your Opponent With This Simple Shift Of Perspective

WINNING

There’s no better feeling than winning!

There’s no better feeling than getting an edge on your opponent and feeling you are getting the better of them.

You lock them down and limit their ability to do what they do best

CONTROVERSIAL CONCEPTS

What I’m going to tell you, some may find controversial.

Traditionally, basketball players when being taught defence are taught to focus on the chest area of the attacker because this is the only part of the body they can’t fake. That makes sense until you discover another perspective.

Another perspective that was born from experience, research, pilot schemes and live performance, will tell you that this traditional method needs to be left behind.

GB PLAYER TEST

In a test, one former GB player, Devan Bailey was coaching on a camp I was also coaching on a few years ago in Bury up in the North of England. Devan is a quiet guy, humble yet intelligent and when I approached him with this new strategy to try out, he was open to it.

I explained the concepts to him and he took them on board. As a baseline I asked him to give me a number from 1 to 10 as to how in control and his confidence was in stopping the attacker, before the exercise and he gave me a number. After the exercise I asked him the same question and the number had increased! It also showed in his movement and behaviours.

His level of feeling in control and ability to stop the attacker had increased!

Just by shifting his perspective.

ACCESS YOUR COPY HERE

To outsmart your opponent with a simple shift of perspective, click here to access the academic paper and methods, for free.

The research included travelling around the North West of England, filming 200 players from amateur to pro including players from The Manchester Giants, Moss Side Tropics, Burnley basketball club and Bolton University.

Are you a professional player?

Are you a university wanting to improve performance?

Get in touch by clicking here

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Why You Should Consider Hiring Me

Believe it or not success doesn’t happen by accident and in the same breath, failure doesn’t happen by accident either!

There are things that have to happen either accidentally or on purpose.

Failure and success means something different to you but if you are experiencing any of the following, now is the time to hire me.

• Confusion as to your role in the team
• Frustrations from feeling left out
• Life events not working out for you
• Anxiety
• Always feeling pressure
• Feeling overwhelmed
• You want things to improve and you’ve tried everything else
• You want to be the best you can be
• Loss of trust
• Clash with team mates
• Not feeling valued…

The program I deliver is unique and gets results. Here are what some players said about the program…

“Just read it Mike. I love it, there is all the stuff ive been wanting to learn about.”

“All because of you helped me to increase my strength as both mentally and physically to carryon trying out things”

“Hi Mike, thank you so much for all the help🙏🏾🙏🏾”

“I have done some mental training, but i think Mike can help you with different kinds of methods”

“Definitely since I first spoke with you, I haven’t had any negative thoughts or anxiety completely which is fantastic!”

Knowing what deliberate actions to take to move away from failure and towards success will help you.

If you know a #footballer in the #premierleague or #championship that wants more to improve performance quickly in this competitive football world to enhance their chances of a long and successful career ask them to get in touch.

Please message me for your private and confidential consultation or click here to apply