What Healthcare Leaders Can Learn From Football Coaches

Sunday I was at Panthers Stadium rooting for my struggling team against Seattle.  At the same time, I was inspired by the Seahawks’ performance. 

There’s one reason I really admire the Seahawks. 

The key element of Head Coach Pete Carroll’s team’s success is mental training for his athletes, including mindfulness and#meditation practices. And his strategy is a winning one: in 2014, Carroll led the Seahawks to their first Super Bowl win.

As Hugh Delehanty discovered in his interview, training his team to be fully present and engaged is central to Carroll’s coaching philosophy.

“I’m trying to create a really thriving environment. That means making it as rich as possible. So there’s noise, competition, activity, energy—like when we play. It’s better than a pristine vacuum-type environment, as far as I’m concerned.

Because we never play there. We don’t talk about mindfulness that much, but that’s how we operate. We focus on what’s right in front of us. We don’t care about the other team or the environment we’re playing in. We just take every game as if it’s the most important in the world and focus right on that. That takes great mindfulness.”

— Pete Carroll

The Inner Game

In his classic Inner Game series, sports psychologist Timothy Gallwey distinguishes two distinct selves or inner voices we all have: Self 1 and Self 2.

• Self 1 is the inner voice that sets intentions, gives commands, and loves to criticize Self 2.
• Self 2 keeps quiet and performs the desired action.

By training our self-awareness, we can begin to recognize the distracting and destructive voice of Self 1 and quiet the noise, so that we can let Self 2 do the work: enter and stay in a state of flow and total engagement

So what does sports psychology and peak performance training have to do with healthcare?

How Mental Training Improves Patient Safety and Physician Experiemce

Over the past 10 years I have experienced a transformation in my own practice of medicine as a direct result of mindfulness and meditation practice, My ability to focus and maintain and regain concentration in the midst of a sea of distractions has dramatically improved. The constant inner monologue during times of stress has quieted to a manageable whisper. 

How Mental Training Improves Patient Experience and Physician Safety

More important than improved ability to concentrate, I’ve been told that I am no longer seen as a cold, rushed, and impersonal cardiologist. Others are now more often experiencing me as I wish to be: open, present, and deeply connected with the lives, suffering, and joy of others. Colleagues, and patients have said they have noticed a difference in my day-to-day mood and mindset. Hugs, smiles, and even laughter (when the timing is right) are now everyday occurrences in my office. And the patients notice the difference.

Peak Performance and Mindset Training for Healthcare Providers?

And so it is that I continue to be inspired by the cutting edge mindset training work of Coach Carroll and his colleagues, sports psychologist  Michael Gervais and Air Force Commander Janelle Macaulay PhD, among many other trainers and coaches.

Rigorous mental training has been a standard part of excellence in the fields of athletic and military performance, as well as education. Professionals musicians and actors have also discovered the power of rigorous mental training to enhance focus, concentration, and positive mindset. 

And as we strive for excellence in healthcare, I believe we would do well to borrow the best practices from these high stress/high stakes environments. To be clear: all the mindset training in the world will not fix our broken healthcare system, marked by disconnection and dehumanization. We must also find the wisdom and compassion to fix the organizational and process-related factors driving provider burnout and patient dissatisfaction, which I discuss in this post.

Recommended Reading

Seminal works in field of peak performance and training include Peak by Anders Ericsson and Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. For practical applications of these theories, The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle is another worthwhile read. 

And if you’d like a complete list of must-read books on peak performance, compiled by George Mumford — NBA Meditation Coach and author of The Mindful Athlete — you can find it here

So How Do You Stay in the Game?

Do you value personal excellence at your work and life? Do you actively create conditions for flow states for your team members? If so, what are your keys to peak performance, mindset, and mastery? I’d love to learn from your experience.