Gold with Gore: World Champion Mentality
I loved this conversation with Spencer Gore, like me he is fascinated by the psychology of success and one of the topics that he was really curious about (and that I get asked a lot about!) was, how you sustain success. I won a total of 6 world titles in my career and three of them were in consecutive years, so we discussed the mindset required to do that.
When we achieve success, it’s easy to get complacent and to think that another great year is just going to follow, but it doesn’t work like that. One victory does not guarantee another one in the future. If you take your foot off the gas you will get overtaken by your rivals and growth will slow. Instead, you have to put the steps in place to guarantee you can back up a great performance this year with an excellent performance next year. I encourage people to reflect on the year just gone and consider, what did you do well and how can you do more of it, how can you improve on it.
It’s particularly important to gather people around who will challenge you to think again, to question the way you are currently doing things, to look for new and even better ways. That might be uncomfortable but you have to be prepared to get out of your comfort zone because that is where the success happens.
It’s a mindset that believes that you can always improve, so you force yourself and your team to find out how. If you start to think that you’re the finished article and you’ve got all the answers to success then you stop listening and learning and growth will stagnate. The most successful people are life-long learners, recognising that knowledge is never static or complete. The path to continued success lies in the belief that there is always more to learn.
When you have a team full of people who pay attention, are alert and curious and striving for constant learning and improvement, you’ll have a team who consistently stays ahead of the competition. It’s true in sport and certainly true in business.
Other topics we discussed included:
- The importance of choosing your response in adverse situations and circumstances
- The power of giving and receiving feedback
- Awareness of your environment and how that impacts success – Intrinsic motivation
- The importance of consistency and building great habits
These are common themes that I discuss in my keynote speeches, if you’d like to discuss how I could add value and support your next event, please get in touch.
Listen to Part 1 and Part 2 here
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