Mission Development Brief: Extraordinary athletic performance is developed one great day at a time. The goal of this talent development report is for us to recognize the importance of “Winning the Day” and making today count. We are going to learn how to become an extraordinary athlete one extraordinary day at a time.

Let's do this!

I love learning from top coaches in sports and I love learning from ancient Zen teachers. What do top coaches and Zen teachers have in common? They both teach the importance of focusing on today and making the most of the present moment. It’s great for us to have big goals and the way we are going to hit those goals is by us having big, productive days again, and again and again.

4TH AND GOAL EVERYDAY

Someday is not the day that we will live, play and compete at a high level. Today is the day. It sounds obvious because it is obvious but a lot of the time, we put off what we know needs to be done today using the excuse that we will get it done in the future. This could be with our training, relaxation, nutrition, sleep, sport skill acquisition, anything... We need to create a level of urgency that today is the day.

Today we have 86,400 seconds to get present, get better and have some fun.

Are we going to take full advantage of these seconds or are we going to put things off?

When it comes to creating a sense of urgency I immediately think of Alabama football coach Nick Saban and how he goes about setting the tone for his championship football program. Phil Savage of the Crimson Tide Sports Network, explains in 4th and Goal Every Day: Alabama’s Relentless Pursuit of Perfection

“Alabama goes for it. Alabama wins more than anyone else because it is 4th and goal to these people in Crimson every practice, every meeting, every game, every day. Do not underestimate the power of that mindset.”

When they find themselves in a chaotic game situation, Alabama is prepared because, as they say, “We played this game four times already this week.” You play the game the way you practice, says Saban.

Daily urgency is core to the Alabama program. Saban is concerned about the details—the fundamentals.

“The fundamentals and practice regimen require players to play to a standard. They do not play to the level of their opponent. They play to a standard set by Nick Saban and established by the team leaders.”

OUR FUNDAMENTALS

For us to really treat today like its “4th and Goal” it all starts with the fundamentals. The basics...

In the case of the fundamentals for the Talent Spikes program, we are going back to the 4x4 Extraordinary Athlete Performance model

Let’s go through this right here, and don’t overthink it, answer it as simple as possible. I am going to answer them here to so you can get an idea of what’s running through my head currently...

Click here to download the performance vitality worksheet

MAKE PROGRESS

Ok, now that we wrote out what we are going to do to “Win the Day” we want to focus on one thing, MAKING PROGRESS. There is been a ton of research that has shown that making progress towards a meaningful goal makes us feel great. Let’s take the 5 minutes to fill out the above and then go about attacking our plan, enjoying every moment and have some fun making progress.

MASTERPIECE DAY

John Wooden is considered by many to be the greatest basketball coach in history. His UCLA Bruins had a dynasty in the 1970s and Wooden’s big focus with his players was not about winning, it was about making today a Masterpiece. Here is Wooden talking about it in his book Wooden,

“When I was teaching basketball, I urged my players to try their hardest to improve on that very day, to make that practice a masterpiece. Too often we get distracted by what is outside our control. You can’t do anything about yesterday. The door to the past has been shut and the key is thrown away. You can do nothing about tomorrow. It is yet to come. However, tomorrow is in large part determined by what you do today. So, make today a masterpiece. You have control over that.

This rule is even more important in life than basketball. You must apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each day over a period of time, you will become a lot better. Only then you will be able to approach being the best you can be. It begins by trying to make each day count and knowing you can never make up for a lost day.”

This is powerful and this is something we can tactically do day in and day out to improve. Do we want to focus on making today an extraordinary day? And how do we do that? By applying ourselves to the task of becoming a little better each day. We need to make today count and know that we can never make up for a lost day. Preach on em Coach Wooden!

TEST, MEASURE, APPRECIATE, ITERATE

Connected with this TDR is a worksheet for us to fill out daily to show what we are going to do to make progress in our 4 factors of performance vitality and our 4 factors of sports performance. We are calling this our “Win the Day worksheet.” Ideally, you are filling this out every day and texting an image of it to your swim buddy. Additionally, at the end of every day, we want to take a couple of minutes to do a debrief to see what worked and what didn’t.

We want to create and maintain an experimenter mentality and test different things when it comes to our 8 different extraordinary athlete performance factors. Some Teaching Powerful Talent Development Tools to Every Athlete on the Planet new things are going to work, and some new things are not going to work. This is how we are going to incrementally improve and accelerate our skill development. By experimenting and finding better and better ways to get the results that we want.

CONCLUSION

Extraordinary athletic performance is developed one great day at a time. Let’s stay present, stay focused and make today really count. Remember what Coach Wooden said, “We can never make up for a lost day.” Let’s become extraordinary, one extraordinary day at a time.

Let’s do this!