Obviously achieving high performance is not solely about just the physical components of whatever it is that we do. In fact, the interference that takes our focus away from what we need to do, what we CAN DO often comes from directions we least expect, and sometimes from bizarre directions.

He is an example, quiet a few years back I was working (teaching tennis lessons) with a talented kid. He was progressing well and wanted to give the pro tour a try at some point in the future. I had some friends still coaching and playing on the pro tennis tour at the time and asked a friend to let this kid train and tag along to see what it takes to play at that level.

I started going on about how talented this kid was, how I thought he would be able to keep up in practice and give the guys a good work out. My friend stopped me cold and said, “I don’t care about his tennis skills, playing tennis is the easy part. What sort of person is he? Is he coachable? Will he work hard? Can he learn?” And then he asked what I thought at the time was the strangest question, “is he going to get home sick?” I was surprised, I remember thinking, “what, what does that have anything to do with anything?”

All these years later, I realize how homesickness can be a huge interference factor that prevents us from maintaining the right mind set that allows to maximize our potential and the effort we put into whatever it is we do.

Continued tomorrow