Matt Phillips, Mental Toughness & When to Hire a Business Coach
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Matt Phillips is the Founder and CEO of Pro Athlete Advantage, a high-performance business consultancy. Matt is also a mental toughness expert and a former pro baseball player. He applies the structure and benefits of coaching in athletics to business coaching to help entrepreneurs accelerate growth toward their goals. Listen in on my conversation with this highly motivated individual and learn how to start building momentum in your own life. Enjoy!
Matt and CJ Discuss the Meaning of Mental Toughness, When to Hire a Life or Business Coach, and Building Momentum Towards Your Goals
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Episode Overview
- CJ and Matt discuss work spaces and styles leading into the conversation, considering their different markets (Buffalo and Denver) and the new work-from-home culture created in the wake of Covid. Matt feels that the place in which you work can give you energy. He makes his way to a coworking space near his home for just this reason.
- What does it mean to be mentally tough? According to Matt, it means having a strong mindset against adversity. When something goes wrong on your way toward a goal, you’re going to have some kind of reaction. Mental toughness is your ability to control that reaction, find the opportunity in the adversity, and take the appropriate action to get you back on track.
- Mental toughness takes confidence, focus, control over your emotions, energy, and action.
- Matt and CJ address how ALL people struggle to maintain the five aspects of mental toughness, even the star athletes who appear to be on top. Even the Lebron Jameses of the world face setbacks in life. And even the Lebron Jameses trust the guidance of coaches to get them through.
- The prevailing perception of coaches in the business world is that coaches are brought in when something goes wrong, as a disciplinary action or in response to inadequate performance. The reality is that a person shouldn’t hire a coach because they’re inadequate; a person should hire a coach because their ambitions are too big for one person to contain. Coaches point out blind spots, hold you accountable, help you work through emotions and ultimately help you become more productive.
- If you’ve got big goals and you know you want to accelerate growth toward that goal, you’ve built a team out and you’ve got some obstacles you want to remove, Matt’s the guy for that. He’ll come alongside you and help you refocus and energize.
- How to know if you need a coach: Do you know what “done” looks like for you? Do you know what you need help with? Knowing your end goal helps you identify the right coach for the job and the right timing. A coach’s skill set should match your end goal, and the timing will be right when the growth will be worth the expense.
- One of Matt’s go-to lines is that action equals results. In other words, energy follows action. Taking the first step starts the momentum. Once you start the action you want to do, the energy will follow. When the pressure is on, start. The pain associated with thinking about doing something is usually much worse than the pain of actually doing the thing.
