Ben Hall

“RED HEAD Tight, inhibited, results-oriented, anxious, aggressive, over-compensating, desperate. BLUE HEAD Loose, expressive, in the moment, calm, clear, accurate, on task. It’s what tennis coach Nick Bollettieri calls the ‘centipede effect’. If a centipede had to think about moving all its legs in the right order, it would freeze, the task too complex and daunting. The same is true of humans. Red is what Suvorov called ‘the Dark’. It is that fixated negative content loop of self-judgement, rigidity, aggression, shut down and panic. Blue is what he called ‘the Light’ – a deep calmness in which you are on task, in the zone, on your game, in control and in flow. It applies to the military; it applies to sport; it applies to business. In the heat of battle, the difference between the inhibitions of the Red and the freedom of Blue is the manner in which we control our attention. It works like this: where we direct our mind is where our thoughts will take us; our thoughts create an emotion; the emotion defines our behaviour; our behaviour defines our performance. So, simply, if we can control our attention, and therefore our thoughts, we can manage our emotions and enhance our performance.”
― James Kerr, Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life

“So, fast forward from Cardiff 1997 to Auckland 2011, from a Rugby World Cup quarter-final to a World Cup final, from a team heading towards defeat to a team heading towards victory. It’s the same two sides playing: New Zealand vs. France. It’s just as tight, but this time New Zealand lead by one point. Read the body language. Richie McCaw breathes, holds his wrist, stamps his feet – reconnecting with himself, returning to the moment. He looks around. There are no glazed eyes now. No walking dead. Brad Thorne throws water over himself, cooling his thoughts. Kieran Read stares out to the far distant edge of the stadium, regaining perspective. New Zealand, the stadium of four million people, is less calm. The dread casts a long black cloud. The spectators can’t help but flash back to the bad pictures. They are in the Red, but the All Blacks stay in the Blue. The clock counts itself down, slowly, slowly; until finally . . . the whistle blows. 8-7 New Zealand. ‘We smashed ’em,’ says Graham Henry. And in their heads, they did.”
― James Kerr, Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us About the Business of Life