During the past few months I have traveled quite a bit. My newfound freedom from professional football management has allowed me to avail of the time granted to me.
The complete contrast of being totally engrossed in a demanding job to being afforded the time to make decisions based purely on myself is, I have found, most invigorating in a physical, mental and even, dare I say it, a spiritual sense.
Time for oneself is the one thing needed most but is usually the first thing sacrificed in the mad helter-skelter desire to get through the day.
In this respect I have been somewhat fortunate. Many years ago I came across a most talented individual who had assembled the means to sectionalise his life better than any person I had met up to that time.
With his assistance I learned the importance and the art of meditation. As a consequence of this I have practiced meditation for years.
There is nothing dramatic about meditation. It is a very simple process of increasing awareness of ones innerself. Sport has the potential to be meditative. With practice and belief a performer can cultivate an unerring strength of focus that comes from deep within.
In those vital moments of competition when pressure is at its most intense, the wonderful ability to be totally alone and at peace in yourself despite being surrounded by thousands of screaming people is a cathartic experience, which unfortunately, is taken for granted by many top performers.
The best performers, in any business, are those that exude calmness, a confidence and understanding in who and what they are.
Contrary to popular opinion, this is not a gift from the gods. It is a learned process that develops over a period of time and is generally based on the individual having acquired the mentality to accept, understand, and overcome, the fear of failure, and just as importantly, at the same time understanding the over-reaction of others to that failure.
The pressure and demands that accompany the desire for success in sport are capable of creating a vehicle that can carry one on a journey of self-discovery. However, at the same time it can also encourage an inclination to back away from the individual responsibility that comes in the face of great challenge.
Sport, and especially professional sport, has the enormous capability to entice the individual to indulge in self-illusion and even self-pity. In team sport in particular, some become very adept at finding a quiet hiding place amid the hurly-burley of expectation.
I had noticed this when I was a player but thought it was a rare occurrence. In management though one acquires the second sight to see beyond the obvious and fear is eminently capable of freezing the you-know-whats off some individuals.
Don't get me wrong. Fear is an effective tool of motivation for a manager, and indeed a performer, but to rise to the apex of ones potential fear has to be challenged and controlled.
I have watched games at all levels during my recent travels. I was most intrigued by non-league football. When I played in England non-league football was part-time and a handy stepping stone to retirement. Now however, all the top non-league clubs are full-time and full of ambition.
Over the past few weeks I have met people in all capacities and at all levels of professional football. I was particularly struck by one non-league Chairman who had set the future of his club out in detail and fully expected promotion to League 2 in the near future. Whilst I admired his ambition I failed to accept his reasoning.
He told me he would succeed or he would depart. I believed he was too far ahead of himself because sport, like life, is rarely a matter of all or nothing. Much as I wanted to, I did not tell him he had neither time nor truth on his side. It was not my business to do so.
His team was not good enough and his perception of his team not accurate enough. I felt he too was hiding from the truth, half hoping that a knight in shining armour would come galloping over the horizon and turn his team into winners and his dream into a reality.
The greatest fear you encounter is not necessarily in the dark streets of a strange city. Almost always, it is something that lies within yourself.
I myself have harboured great fears of failure in the past. Experience taught me this is simply part of the journey. Once you realise that while ambition depends on today it is rarely realised today, you can accept today on its own merits. Then you have time on your side.
