Summary: The Winning Spirit

Review and Analysis of Montana and Mitchell's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511020357
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Joe Montana and Tom Mitchell's book: `The Winning Spirit: 16 Timeless Principles that Drive Performance Excellence`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Joe Montana and Tom Mitchell's book `The Winning Spirit` shows that the same time-tested principles that underpin success in professional sports work equally well in the family and business environments. In their book, the authors demonstrate that in order to win consistently, you need to develop a winning spirit based on a foundation of preparation, optimism, attention to detail, enduring setbacks, personal responsibility, honesty, loyalty and integrity. This summary explains how each of these characteristics will help you on your way to success and how you can use them in everything you do and guarantee victory.

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To learn more, read `The Winning Spirit` and discover the key to developing characteristics that will lead to success.

Summary of The Winning Spirit (Joe Montana and Tom Mitchell)

Section 1: Preparation

Performance excellence never happens in isolation. Rather, it is the result of careful preparation and a deliberate effort to ready yourself for optimal performance. To prepare well, find what works best for you and then keep doing that day-in and day-out. In the world of preparation, repetition is king because it delivers a sense of mastery and self-confidence. The foundation for your own road map to performance excellence is to prepare consistently and well.

1. Know what you want

Identify your goals clearly and concisely. Clarity is power, but clarity put into action is achievement. It’s vital that you identify what you want so you know what to prioritize and how to direct your energies.

Paradoxically, you achieve more in life by subtracting than you ever do by addition. In other words, the more you can eliminate the distractions and what doesn’t work for you individually, the more quality time you have to focus on what you need to do and master to become successful. Clarity helps you concentrate and get more out of the practice time which is available.

With this in mind, you should be able to give a very concise answer when someone asks: “What do you really want from life?” To be able to answer this question honestly will take work, time and effort on your part, but this is vital. If you can’t answer that question in fine detail, how will you know what to do or whether you’re making sound progress? You won’t even be able to feel very confident about what you’re doing until you’ve taken the time and effort to clarify where you want to be.

There is usually a direct link between what you like and what you’re pretty good at. If you’re not yet sure what you want to go after, looking closely at what you’re already good at may provide some worthwhile clues and hints. Once you have this clarified, you can then focus like a laser on your chosen area of specialization. That clarity can unleash a genuinely impressive and powerful driving force. At this stage, repetition becomes you closest ally. You can practice again and again everything that is required to perform in your chosen area of specialization with confidence and skill.

“We can all conjure up favorite heroes, in sports or elsewhere. They all have something in common, and in abundance. These heroes are doing exactly what they want to be doing. A long time ago, they had clarity about their chosen fields, and with that clarity came the desire, focus and energy to practice and excel. Knowing what we want is the beginning of achieving performance excellence.”

– Joe Montana

“Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge. If this is true, let’s make the time and spend the energy to engage our imaginations and begin to see what it is we want to do and where we want to go. Let’s not allow our limited thinking (or anyone else’s, for that matter) to put us in a box or place a ceiling above us. Let’s utilize the power of clear thinking, as well as imagination, to help us successfully accomplish our greatest dreams.”

– Tom Mitchell

2. Love what you do

If you make your work the vehicle by which you pursue your passions, impressive amounts of energy and enthusiasm can be brought to bear. Have the inner desire which underpins the passion to excel.

The desire to excel can’t be faked. Instead, desire flows naturally from doing something you love. When you put yourself in that position, practice and then performance can be viewed as an opportunity to express yourself rather than an obligation. A career should be built around something you feel passionate about even though it also serves to pay your bills. This is a more attainable goal than most people realize.

When you enjoy what you do to earn a living, you’ll be motivated to excel. You’ll lie awake at night planning what needs to be done the next day in order to get better. You’ll be creative and hardworking. You’ll want to show just how good you are. All of these benefits are flow-on effects from your deep seated desire to achieve which everyone should have.

One reason why this is so important is when you’re doing something you love, you’ll be prepared to work hard. This should not be underestimated. Even better, the harder you work and the more creative you become, the more fun you will have. This, in turn, leads to better-than-average work habits and loads of other flow-on benefits. A recurring trait with many highly accomplished people is they are having so much fun they just can’t imagine doing anything else. They’re too busy exploring everything life has to offer.

It might be unrealistic to think you’ll lov...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of The Winning Spirit (Joe Montana and Tom Mitchell)
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright