The Corporate Athlete 2.0 - Part 1

I find it fascinating that the term the ‘corporate athlete’ was coined 23 years ago in 2001 in this article by Harvard Business Review. Even back then we knew that the whole person in terms of Mind, Body and Spirit was critical to success in both sport and business. Training each in isolation does not help someone towards high performance. Yet at the Dubai Active Industry show this week ‘training the body’ was still the only underlying mantra towards being a high-performance athlete or leader.

With all the modern day understanding of the brain via neuroscience the past 20 years there is still a gross simplification that takes place which suits anyone looking to position their miracle cure, exercise, supplement or brain trick as the holy grail of performance.

Hintsa Performance has known for over 30 years working with the world’s best athletes and leaders that a holistic approach of mind, body and spirit is the key to unlock individual optimal and sustainable high performance. The body elements are clear, excercise, biomechanics, nutrition are also intertwined with the mind in terms of sleep, and rest and recovery however the spirit, or ‘Core’ as we call it is the lessor understood of the three. ‘The Core’ is your deep intrinsic motivation to do, or not do, something. This is the psychology of a person which is both individualist and deep.

To get change in a person you really need to deeply understand their motives and reward systems as no two people are the same, otherwise gym membership or healthy food would work for everyone. So what is the missing ingredient?

One thing that gets ignored, or at best overlooked, is the need to build a system around the individual of support, motivation and accountability knowing that everyone is different. It’s not easy to do, as trust, honestly, transparency is required at a human level to tap into that resource or power someone has to change.

I am a passionate believer in high impact performance coaching and therapy being critical success factors which are both are both well proven and high effective interventions. Hence the therapy and coaching industries has exploded the past decade with anyone and everyone claiming to be a coach. Therapy has started to move online into the mass market via apps, which is likely less effective and potential dangerous.

Even with the explosion in therapy or guided ‘coaching’ applications we still don’t see people marking the shifts required. Why?

You will have to wait for part 2 to find out the answers and what is coming next as the potential solution or please comment with your thoughts.

HBR - The Corporate Athlete