As a one-time figure skater (not ISU ranked— I put my priorities on schooling), I’ve carried away a lot from those days of applied sports psychology.
Recently, I was reflecting on the parallels between great people in sports and great leaders. A few lessons stood out:
- Before the big event: plan your strategy. Visualize the execution in detailed steps. See yourself doing it successfully. Go into the moment already aligned with that outcome.
- What separates great from average is not just experience, but how you learn from it. Keep your head level. Analyze without emotionally clinging to past wins or losses. Extract the lesson and move it forward.
- Break big tasks into small, manageable fractions. Progress is rarely about one leap—it’s about a series of doable steps.
- Stay consistent. Don’t wait for motivation. Don’t overthink. Just keep showing up. In sport and in leadership, it’s not about being “inspired”—it’s about being reliable and adapting as reality shifts.
- Practice, practice, practice. Under pressure, you don’t rise to the occasion—you fall to the level of your training.
- Focus on “process” over attaching all the weight to the results. In corporate life, results matter tremendously but focusing on the “how” – properly adapted to reality and goals—is what produces them.
- Stress-test your performance. Practice under pressure so pressure is familiar, not foreign.
- Actively seek and welcome feedback. It’s what exposes blind spots and accelerates improvement.
We often are aware of these principles but applying them is less than consistent. That’s where reflection, challenge, and the right support system come in.
In sport, coaches hold up the mirror. Every single day. In leadership, that relationship is missing by definition.
I often hear from my clients that even a single coaching session can bring that clarity—revealing what works and what does not, shifting perspective, and unlocking meaningful change.
