Peak Performance Lessons from The Last Dance

Can spiritual teachings make you a better athlete? A better leader? A better person? If you’ve been watching The Last Dance, recently and reminiscing about Michael Jordan’s incredible feats then you’ve also been seeing the power of a fantastic coach.

That’s right, Michael is a one of kind player, but his coach helped create a winning TEAM of athletes.

Phil Jackson took an unconventional approach to coaching after being raised in very strict Christian home…he brought to his teams the teachings of many philosophers to help them harness their energy and mind to achieve more {thus his title as Zen Master}.

Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success from Phil Jackson is fantastic book for athletes. It’s a reminder that sports are a great way to learn many life lessons, but only a lucky few have a coach as dedicated to a players human success as to winning.

It made me think far differently about the life of an NBA player {more mundane and routine than most imagine}, but also gave me a new appreciation for how centering the mind can be as powerful as getting hyped up before a performance.

Peak Performance Lessons

The book goes through each and every season of Phil’s eleven rings as a coach and two as a player, so for those not interested in basketball here is the highlight reel of mental tips which will help you be a better athlete, leader and person.

As always, I’ll be relating all of these to your run :)

Lesson 1 – More Than You

“What you do for yourself, you’re doing for others, and what you do for others, you’re doing for yourself.” Pema Chodron – A key building block for a team and a leader {Tweet It!}

Even in running this can help us by looking outside of ourselves:

Can you cheer on someone struggling next to you in a race
Can you wave to the policeman who is guarding the streets to thank him
Can you send a note of encouragement to a new runner

You’ll be amazed out how getting outside of yourself can help your own mindset.

Lesson 2 -Freedom

It’s scary sometimes to not have explicit directions, but it allows for creativity and individuality, which lead to solutions that everyone can embrace.

Ohhhh as a coach, how well do I know that without a plan some of you feel out of sorts. But what if that’s a time to test things out, to see what you enjoy, to find that you love strength training or that you enjoy running long with no worry about pace.

Occasionally try breaking free from all plans.

Lesson 3 – Meditation

“..when we do something with a complicated mind…our activity becomes very complex.” Utilizing meditation helped the players get focused on each moment and achieve an awareness of what was happening around them.

For runners, mindful running is a great tool to help you pay attention to your form, your breathe and of course to let go of all those fears holding you back.

Lesson 4 – Do What You Enjoy

“the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family…” Maslow. Align your work with your true nature to make it enjoyable. Make it enjoyable to do it well consistently.

YESSSSSSS this is why I personally fell in love with running over many other ways to get fit.

Understand your fitness personality
Remember that running should be fun
Choose workouts that make you shine, not that you feel you must do

Lesson 5 – Keep Striving

What got you to this level, will NOT get you to the next level. Keep seeking your best role, providing your strengths.

I love that he basically says to a winning team, you can’t stop now. It’s the same when we hit a new PR, you can’t assume things will simply stay that way.

Keep doing the warm up
Keep doing the hip work
Keep doing the mobility

Don’t let success slow you from the things that are helping you progress.

Lesson 6 – Embrace Change

Everything changes and until you accept this you will never be at peace. This means accepting both the good and bad in life as simply moments.

Unfortunately, just because you ran the best race of your life, doesn’t mean the next one is going to be great too. That’s one of the bizarre components of running!

Your body will change as you go from beginner to long time runner
What your body can handle will change with life circumstances, age, hormones
Some runs will be stars and some will feel like you stuck your face in the mud

Lesson 7 – Accept What Is

The main cause of suffering is wanting life to be different than it is {Buddhist teaching}.

No good, horrible, very bad runs fall squarely in to this category. Instead of fighting them, we need to accept that they happen and focus on what we can learn from bad runs!

9 lessons for Peak Performance from the coach of Michael Jordan and how they apply to your running! #runchat Click To Tweet

Lesson 8 – Learn to Deal with Problems

There is a difference between passivity {ignoring a problem} and non-activity {being tuned in and not forcing anything}

Lesson 9 – Don’t Fear Anger

“In Western culture we tend to view anger as a flaw that needs to be eliminated. But trying to eliminate anger never works. The more you try to suppress it, the more like it is to erupt later…”

This is a fascinating topic for me because of what I’ve learned over the years in holistic medicine about how we hold anger in the body. Basically think of it like when you feel angry you get tense…if you’re just holding anger then you’re holding tension and often in places like your hips!

AH HA the hips which often lead to so many injuries.