Condor Performance Blog - Decision making

Many people know (will tell you) that at the elite level it’s about 90 % mental and yet they only spend 10% of their time on this part of their performance. There is a good explanation for this oddity. At the highest level of most sports the reason why the top 10 and the 100th best are most different psychologically is because the technical and physical areas have evened themselves out. In other words everyone at this level does about the same quantity and quality of work on the technical and physical parts.

Therefore the reason why psychological strengths are so dominant at the deciding the very best from the almost best is because this is the only part of performance that hasn’t “plateaued” yet amongst the super elite. I’ve worked with elite athletes who have made it to the top 100 in the world but whose “mental capabilities” are so poor it would be the technical equivalent of an equestrian athlete getting onto the horse facing the wrong way. Of course this also explains why 10% only work on the mental side. Regardless of how keen they are to improve the BIG FIVE (confidence, concentration, performing under pressure, decision making and motivation) very, very few people actually know the science based mental skills that – when delivered appropriately – do this.

Let us know your thoughts, GJM

One of the questions we get asked most is “can you guarantee that I / we will win” after doing some mental skill training. The answer is no but we can guarantee to increase your changes. How and why this is the case is best told by the story of why we called ourselves Condor Performance.

A few years ago I was in Peru with my partner and we heard about this place called “the valley of the condors”. The most common way to get there was via tour group so I asked a few of them “as it’s a two day drive are we guaranteed to see some condors?” They replied that there was about a 50% chance of seeing these massive birds during the hour at the viewing platform.

We decided that these odds were not good enough so set about trying to hire a car (easier said than done in Peru). In the end we managed to find a local willing to lend us his truck for 2 days and set out (with a hand drawn map) to find the valley. At about noon on the second day we arrived only to discover that there were about 500 tourists and no condors. We waited. Slowly, the visitors were told that there tour buses were leaving and the 500 soon become 50 but still there was not a condor is sight. By about 2pm there was only a single bus left plus the two of us and the dozen or so tourists finally threw the towel in having spent all that time and money only to see nothing.

As we were the only people with our own transport we had the option of waiting a little longer. Not five minutes later we saw three black dots on the horizon. Partly in disbelief and partly in sheer wonder we saw as the three dots came towards us. There were Andean Condors and gave the two of us a private show by flying above us, doing a couple of laps of honour and then flying off over the mountains. We could not believe our eyes. We were not guaranteed to see any Condors by deciding to go alone…but we did increase our chances.

Cheers, GJM