“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way little else does. It speaks to the youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.” – Nelson Mandela
Following from my previous blog post “The Classic 20 – steps to learn anything faster, better and easier“, I am going to look into details for educators and learner how to master each step. Today let’s start with the essential lessons from sports legends.
1. Mental Attitude: believe in your dream, visualize your goal, step by step and learn from mistakes.
All achievers have a dream and they believe in it. They dream the impossible and make it happen. Their passion derive from an overwhelming desire to succeed. Their dream could be to win the Olympic Gold medal, to set new world record, or to challenge their own physical limitation. Then they learn to visualize their goals and break those goals down into achievable steps. So while the dream is always there, they build on their successes. You can’t become a world champion overnight; you have to tackle hurdles regularly along the way – and celebrate each success as it is achieved. To see their achievements in advance. To play through their next football match like a video of the mind. Jack Nicklaus, possibly the greatest golfer of all time – until Tiger Woods – says 90 percent of his success has come from his ability to visualize where every individual shot is going to land. Also all sports achievers have a fantastically positive attitude toward mistakes. They don’t even call them mistakes; they call them practice. Even Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova belted balls into the net thousands of times on their way to the top in tennis. No teacher marked those shots as failures. They were all essential parts of learning.
2. Physical intelligence: link the right mental attitude, fitness, diet and physical skills. Trust me. This can be trained. Then winning will just be like a habit. I will have a separate blog talking about how to discover the power of physical intelligence.
3. They all achieve by doing. 
Sport is a hands-on operation. You don’t get fit by reading a book – although that may help with the theory. You don’t develop the right muscles staring at a television set. You don’t long-jump over 28 feet in a classroom. All sports achievements result fromaction. Former American Olympian pentathlete Marilyn King says all astronauts, Olympic athletes and corporate executives have three things in common: “They have something that really matters to them; something they really want to do or be. We call it passion.
4. Each achiever has a coach, a mentor, a guide. In fact, we can probably learn more about real education from the success of the American college coaching system than we can from most school classes. If you doubt it, how many Olympic athletes, basketball and football stars have emerged from colleges – where the coaches are mentors, friends and guides?
In short, the key to peak performance is a combination of physical strength, mental focus, action and find an awesome coach!
Lastly, let’s give our sincere praise to our Olympic athletes for encouraging us to dream and inspiring us the essential lessons for life!
Source: Nelson Mandela quote. “The-Learning-Revolution” by Dr. Jeannette Vos and Gordon Dryden; “The Power of Physical Intelligence” by Tony Buzan. NIKE quotes
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