I’ve been affiliated with The Pacific Institute for almost three years now. I’ve been an Arizona Diamondbacks fan since their inception in 1998. But for some inexplicable reason, I have been completely ignorant of Arizona manager Kirk Gibson’s history with TPI.

I was back in Seattle last weekend, for the final “Weekend with Lou” event of the year. I had a couple of clients who wanted to experience the curriculum in person before deciding on bringing it back to their organization in Indiana. It was a fantastic trip, far exceeding my expectations. I got to reconnect with some old faces, and show them my old face as well.

As a sports fan, I wanted to catch up with some of the people involved with using TPI’s curriculum with athletes. The University of Alabama, Arizona State University, and the University of Oklahoma have all implemented programs with their football teams in recent years. Team USA swimming also took the majority of it’s swimmers through TPI’s youth oriented program, PX2.

Presently, most athletes experience the curriculum on a team, or within a group. But, there was a time back in the day where athletes would come and work with Lou Tice individually. Just yesterday, I stumbled upon a fascinating article about the man by Les Carpenter from the Yahoo! Sports blog: The Post Game. The article mostly focuses on Gibson’s maturing into the likely NL Manager of the Year in 2011. It jumps back and forth between rough patches and high points during this season, spring training, and even the winter meetings that the team conducted before the start of the season.

Sprinkled right in the middle, is a little anecdote about a talk Gibson gave to his players regarding the idea of a scotoma. Scotoma is a Greek word, and means “blindness” or “blind spot”. It’s an important concept to embrace because it highlights our own lack of perfect perception. As a leader, this acknowledgement not only says “I’m not perfect”, but also “I need your help to see my blind spots”. It’s not an admission of a personal weakness, it’s just an aspect of the human condition.

When I read the term “scotoma”, my mind immediately flashed to Lou Tice and his popularization of the term. I quickly searched the internet to find any sort of connection between Kirk Gibson and The Pacific Institute. I found out that he was referred to Lou Tice and TPI in the early eighties, to help deal with something of an anger management problem. While he was a talented baseball player, he seemed to let his emotions get the best of him in his desire to be the best.

Of course, following his time at TPI, Gibson the player would go on to hit one of the most memorable home runs in baseball history. In the video of that link, notice how Gibson describes the visualization process as “dreaming”. He visualized or “dreamed” that home run, just moments before it happened.

This is the same visualization process that he was introduced to at TPI. In fact (as I recently discovered), Lou has used Kirk Gibson’s story to illustrate the power of visualizing the ideal future. However, it’s not the story of the petulant baseball player who found his swing just in time to win the World Series. Rather, it’s a lesson of even broader impact of helping others to visualize themselves:

Click here to view the embedded video.

That’s probably what’s most exciting about Gibson’s current role as manager of the Diamondbacks. Instead of just being able to reach and inspire others with his own individual efforts, he now has the listening ears of entire baseball team, and a growing fan base that has been sharing the love for “Gibby” for quite some time now.

If you’ve been following the D-Backs this year, you’ll know that their calling card has been mental toughness, grinding out close games, and managing to come from behind to win many of them late. Gibson has been credited with coaching and mentoring these men to visualize success so vividly, that any “reality” that might argue with that “dream” begins to just fade away.

Finding out that my favorite manager on my favorite baseball team is a TPI guy has blown me away. Although I shouldn’t be surprised.

As of this writing, the Diamondbacks are just a couple of wins away from clinching a spot in the playoffs. Soon enough, we’ll find out if Gibson has any magic left on the baseball diamond. But we should know by now, it’s not really magic at all. He has a process for success, and he works it diligently.

If things don’t pan out for Kirk Gibson the manager, maybe there’s more work waiting for him in the advertising world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Let’s hope that baseball always has room for Gibby. I have have a feeling that it will.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you are a coach, athletic director, or even an athlete looking for a every ethical edge you can get, maybe you should check out our PX2 program and see if The Pacific Institute can help you and your team to do more of the things you know you are capable of.

Congratulations again coach.  You definitely deserve it.

A lot has been said about the reasons for Alabama’s resurgence to national prominence as a football powerhouse.  Most of these articles and discussions start with head coach Nick Saban, and they should.  His leadership has set the tone for every aspect of the football program.  While having the best college football program in the country is the goal of the University, producing fine, responsible, and productive young men is the ultimate aim of the program.  With each player understanding their responsibilities to the team and taking responsibility for reaching their potential, both the team and the players succeeded.

Check out this article from ESPN.

As you may or may not know, coach Nick Saban hired The Pacific Institute to take the entire team through the PX2 curriculum last fall before the 2008 football campaign.  This fall, he brought our facilitators back to train the freshmen.  How much of the team’s success can be attributed to the their mental toughness is difficult to measure.  But the tools they used to gain that psychological edge are no secret.  Sports Illustrated noted it last year.  As did the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

PX2 works.  It’s fun to watch the results play out in the national sporting news.  But it’s still accessible for local youth sports teams.  Read more on this site and send me an email for more information.  You can view the first unit of PX2 for free here.

I love my job.