Confidence, impacted the AFC Championship, Quarterback Russell Wilson had the, confidence, not to fold and give up and it resulted in success.

Let’s say you are down by 16 points with 3 mins to go in the 4 quarter. You have played the worst game of your life. You have thrown 4 interceptions. Not only that, but the world is looking on and judging you. What do you do? Do you fold up like a flower without sunshine or do you have the, confidence, to play one drive at time? Do you dig deep and remember the last time you were down 16 to nothing and you came away with the victory? Quarterback Russell Wilson did just that on Sunday to win the AFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers.

With 3 mins to go in the 4 quarter, Wilson was having his worst game to date; he had thrown 4 interceptions. The commentators were saying they had never seen Wilson play this bad. I started to route for them. I was routing for the underdogs, the Packers, because the Seahawks were the Super Bowl champions; but I hate to see a team embarrassed in front of millions. I have heard of quarterbacks who were tagged as not being able to win the big games. But this is where, confidence, separates the true champions. Confidence, and the spirit of never giving up. Even though Wilson had already thrown 4 interceptions to Kearse, he had, confidence, in him to give him another chance and he caught that winning touchdown and held on to that ball like his life depended on it. If you allow the facts like you just threw 4 interceptions, and you let negative thoughts snap your positive energy; you will loose. But like Wilson tearfully declared after pulling off a stunning overtime victory, he had the, confidence, in himself and in his team that they could win.

How Confidence affects Sales Teams

I saw this same scenario play out on a, sales, team  that I was a part of. We were a team of about 40 outbound reps in a call center. The top, sales, persons on the team were selling about 40 units per day. Then a new girl was hired. She started banging out 40 units by noon!. Sales Management, thought she was cheating and started to check her sales to make sure she was not sandbagging leads. She calmly declared that she was not cheating; but that she had, confidence. She said when she picked up the phone, she had, confidence, that she was going to close the sale, and she usually did. I started paying attention to what she was doing, and I too started selling 40 units by lunchtime! My, confidence, grew.

Confidence, is usually the result of prior successes. As a sales manager, confidence, should be the first skill you coach to. If your, sales, team is not, confident, that they cannot win. You have to exhume past victories to give energy to present day activities. Why did Wilson feel that he could win?; because he won before. He knew that if there was time on the clock, his team had a chance.

Coaches need to build, confidence

“The road to athletic greatness is not marked by perfection, but the ability to constantly overcome adversity and failure.”

In, coaching, teams, you have a wide variety of players. You have your slow players, your fast players. You have the ones that are good at defense. You have the ones that are good at offense. You have the ones who would choose to drive and dish and you have the ones that would rather shoot the three. You have the people who set up the plays and you have the people who finish them. You are in charge of getting these types of players to work together and to build their, confidence.

Sure, a coach can put together a pretty set of plays. A, coach, can scream their head off in a game and try and get their players motivated. Coaching, can make you run for punishment, or they can make you run to get more in shape. The most important role of a coach, however, is to make the players on their team better with, confidence. To hopefully help them to reach their fullest potential. Players do make mistakes, but it is from those mistakes that you learn and grow.

Coaches sometimes destroy confidence by being too harsh. 

You wanted to win, and there was nothing wrong with that. I saw it in your eyes if I made a mistake, you were not too happy, which is normal for, coaching. Turnovers happen. Players miss shots.

Sometimes someone beats you in a race. Sometimes things happen. Players make mistakes. It is when you have players scared to move because of a lack of, confidence, that teams loose.

A player can be, confident,  in the way they play the game. Confident, but not cocky. It is up to the coach to build that, confidence, by highlighting the players strengths  and minimizing his weaknesses. That is what makes them improve overall, and become an asset who could become an  extremely great player and win Championships.

What happens when a player looses confidence

The fight to get my, confidence, back was a tough one. It was something I wish I never would’ve had to do. Instead of becoming the best player that I could’ve been, I now had to fight to become the player that I used to be. My, coach, took away my freedom of playing a game that I loved. He  took away my good memories in a basketball uniform, which is something I can never get back. You can be the greatest athlete in the world, but without, confidence, you won’t go very far.

Additional Resources

https://myhelps.us/confidence/