The creation of the Smart Mind methodology

How it all started

Do you have a dream that sounds impossible, or out of reach, to others? Let us tell you the first step to achieving it: Believe in your abilities!

As spectators, we see top athletes excelling on the international stage. They make elite sports seem easy and their achievements look natural. The public often thinks all they need to be successful is a lot of talent.

However, as an elite sports psychologist, Ellen Schouppe is close to top athletes and realizes how much it takes from them every day to achieve these top performances. She has had the good fortune to accompany top athletes and teams, like the Belgian Cats, from the beginning of their career to the international level. Based on this experience, she and Tara Kuklis identified seven attitudes that will guide you to success.

The process

Once talents are identified in someone, that person is quickly labeled as a high potential. And yet, as an HR manager and sports psychologist, Ellen has on several occasions met people who were identified as high potential, but could not live up to it. The question everyone asks at that point? “Where did it go wrong?”

They turned the question around. Instead of analyzing what was missing, Ellen and Tara started looking at what top performers have in common, besides their talent for their sport or profession. The conclusion? It has nothing to do with gender, race, ethnicity, age, education, or income. What top performers possess is a specific set of behaviors that positively influence their performance. These are the building blocks for our 7 attitudes model.

In the context of talent development, it is important to emphasize that attitudes can be learned and developed! The difference between a high potential and a high performer is in the attitudes with which they use their talents to achieve top performance. 

The seven attitudes

Based on scientific articles and years of experience in the elite sports world, Smart Mind identified seven attitudes that top performers share that lead to top performance. According to Smart Mind, a person will not have “one” bad attitude. Rather, they will display one or more attitudes too much or too little. 

Which of these attitudes do you recognize in yourself?

1)     Be highly motivated to perform and work smart

2)    Lead and make others better

3)    Be coachable and follow

4)    Innovate, dare and repeat

5)    Be resilient and bounce back

6)    Optimal use and refuel of energy

7)    Enjoy and celebrate

Do you want to find out more about the attitudes? You can read all about them by buying our book “De ultieme overwinning”!