In Reality, There Are No Limits: A Success System for Sports, Business and Life

In Reality There Are No Limits

A Success System For Sports, Business And Life

Adolfo Gómez Sánchez

Second Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used; reproduced, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the copyright owner - except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Copyright © 2010 (first edition), 2016 (second edition); Adolfo Gómez Sánchez

ISBN: 9783958498747

Original Title: En Realidad No Existen Límites, Printed in Spain (ISBN: 978-84-92849-42-0) and deposited in the registry of intellectual capital in Madrid with number: M-000784/2010

PRAISE FOR ADOLFO GÓMEZ SÁNCHEZ

AND HIS WORK ON OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE

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Each session with Adolfo made me grow and mature as a tennis pro. He helped me believe in myself again and know that anything is possible. We set a goal of reaching the Top Ten and began working with the tools and techniques he designed… and with a lot of hard work, we achieved it

Juan Mónaco

Former ATP Top Ten

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Companies that work with Adolfo and implement these principles in the DNA of their organizations will have a competitive advantage in any market

Tobías Martínez

CEO, Cellnex

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In professional tennis, mental strength marks the difference between being a top ten and a top hundred player. Adolfo brings tools I’d never before seen to achieve that strength"

Guillermo García-López

ATP Tennis Pro

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Fantastic! Adolfo achieves immediate results

MIGUEL IRISARRI

Founding Partner Sassola Partners

Former Managing Director UBS Private Banking (Spain)

Former Managing Director A&G

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We had the tremendous pleasure to have Adolfo speak to our Mental Conditioning team at the IMG Academy. His competence and passion for the field of sports psychology coupled with this sincere care for his athletes left us with the desire to be better practitioners

JUSTIN SU’A, M.S.

Boston Red Sox Head of Mental Skills;

Former Head of Mental Conditioning

IMG Academy

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Required for those who want to perform better, suffer less and enjoy the process. A revelation!

Virginia Ruano

Ex-Doubles Number One in the WTA during two years

Winner of 10 Grand Slam doubles titles

Grand Slam winner in mixed doubles category

Winner of two Olympic medals in women’s doubles

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Adolfo not only makes you feel alive, he know how to bring out your greatest strengths. His work is amazing and his ability to engage even more so 

TOÑEJO RODRÍGUEZ

Multiple Spanish National Champion in jetski and quad cross, 60 first place finishes in Motor-Cross, First Spaniard to pilot an F-1 powerboat

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Anyone who aspires to reach the summit in their field should study these concepts

Carlos Moyà

Former World Number 1 in the ATP rankings (1999)

Winner of the French Open (Roland Garros 1998)

Member of the winning Davis Cup team (2004)

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Practical, Intelligent, exciting . . .Adolfo provides principles which bring balance and meaning. He reframes day to day challenges from a more efficient and rooted perspective 

JOSÉ LUIS DORADO

CFO Crèdit Andorrà

Former CFO Fortis Spain,

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Marvelous! I apply what I’ve learnt in both my life and my training and the difference is noticeable in both areas

JESÚS ESPAÑA

Gold Medal European Championships 5000 meters

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Adolfo helped me understand how my mind works, and how to turn it into a weapon on the court. I’ve never felt so confident under pressure

SANTIAGO GIRALDO

ATP Tennis Pro

Highest Ranked Colombian in ATP history

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Adolfo 100% integrity and deep expertise. He treats each assignment/partnership opportunity with great seriousness and delivers results

Shuja Ali

Managing Director

Istithmar World (Dubai)

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Working with Adolfo is indispensable for any coach who wants to optimize his players’ performance and for executives who aspire to build elite teams

JOSÉ MANUEL PEPO CLAVET

ATP TOP 10 COACH

(Alex Corretja, Tommy Robredo, Feliciano López, Juan Mónaco, Fernando Verdasco)

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If you know you have talent but you don’t know for what. . .If you know you don’t have talent because you recognize it, but you are wiling to work hard . . . If you’re not mediocre and want to live life with passion, work with Adolfo

NACHO CANO

Pop star; Founder of MECANO music group

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"We achieved that plus for my players of being present and fully focused

on every shot, thanks to Adolfo "

JOSÉ MARÍA CASTILLO

ATP Trainer and Physiotherapist

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Adolfo pushes you out of your comfort zone and challenges individuals and teams to strive towards excellence and to want to be the best they can be

Mª Jesús Alonso

Change Lead, Southern Europe

GlaxoSmithKlien Consumer Healthcare

This book is dedicated to my family.

Every day you show me what it means to be truly great with your love, your generosity and your brilliant view on life.

Together, I know that there truly are NO LIMITS

Notes to this Second Edition

It has been six years since the publishing of the first edition of this book in Spanish. Those years have provided wonderful opportunities to meet and work with spectacular people both in the field of professional sports, as well as in the world of business. When you have the fortune to share experiences with this caliber of people, it invariable changes you; it makes you better.

While preparing the translation of this book to English, I have tried to enrich the content with nuggets of wisdom and learnings gathered from these years, however the base principles have remained the same.

Additionally, I have incorporated feedback from readers of the previous edition and have modified the presentation of some concepts to increase clarity and comprehension.

About the author

Adolfo Gómez Sánchez has dedicated over 20 years to working with professional athletes and leading multinational corporations to drive them to optimal performance. His mission is to mentor individuals and teams to achieve the best version of themselves and to gain the millimeters of difference that separate champions from the rest in every field.

Before mentoring others, Adolfo was CEO of a 300 person services firm. He holds and MBA from Yale University and an undergraduate degree from McGill University. Early in his career he worked in leading firms such as Procter & Gamble, Gemini Consulting/Cap Gemini Group and Coopers & Lybrand.

For over 30 years Adolfo has practiced and taught martial arts (Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Jujutsu, Aikido, Tai Chi) and has applied many of the key concepts to his work with athletes and multinational corporations . In the 1990’s, he moved to Tokohu’s region in Japan to study Aikido under Master John Stevens, under the lineage of the legendary Rinjiro Shirata Sensei, 9th Dan, who was one of the original students of Aikido founder, Morihei Ueshiba.

He has taught his methods in different countries within Europe, North America and South America, and has worked together with executives, professional athletes and individuals from all walks of life.

His personal slogan is Impossible only means that no one has done it . . .YET!

Acknowledgements

I would firstly like to thank my martial arts teachers. I have had the great fortune of studying under, and training with, true masters in every sense from Japan, to Canada and the US, and in Europe. During the more than 30 years that I have been teaching and training, the philosophies of Budo (Martial Way) and Bujutsu (Martial Science), imbued with Zen teachings, have become an integral part of who I am, serving me in every aspect of my life. These teachings have provided the cornerstone for many of the skills and techniques that have helped my clients (both athletes and executives) achieve dramatic improvements in performance, focus and happiness. It is said that achieving the level of black belt signifies that you have reached the point where you are ready to start learning the subtle and transformative lessons of the arts, and one must continue to train, meditate and grow until the belt gets so worn out that it loses all color and becomes white again. The objective is to attain the beginners mind as Zen masters refer to it. That unquenchable thirst to learn and integrate new information, viewpoints and nuances into one’s training with no concern for the traps set out by the EGO. My belt has begun to fade, and everyday I understand a little more of the true, deeper meaning of what these great masters tried to teach me, and as a result, I realize what a long way I have to go. Thank you for teaching me that this is a good sign and that the value is in the journey.

I would like to thank all the great tennis coaches and players (active and retired) who contributed in one way or another to this book and to my broader work on optimal performance. Tennis is a wonderful metaphor for business and life and their profound knowledge of the tactics, strategies and dynamics of the game have allowed me to include illustrative examples of the application of the elements that drive optimal performance. To include all their wisdom would have required five additional volumes, but even with the little I was able to capture and share, this book has been enriched by real experiences from the world of professional sports that have added an immeasurable value.

Thanks also go out to those unique captains of industry that I have been fortunate enough to work with, who have shown that it is possible to be a disruptive, innovative leader, while being a kind and caring human being. You are a living example of how passion, courage, purpose and compassion are essential qualities for business leaders.

Finally, thank you to my mother, who at the time of publishing this second edition, has lost herself in her battle with Alzheimer’s disease, and so she sadly can not understand this message. Nonetheless, thank you for having taught me to never give up and to believe that I can achieve anything I set my mind to. That spirit has been the seed of this book and for the coaching programs that form the basis my company, Zentro.

Table of Contents

Introduction

The SAN CHI E ZU System

FIRST ELEMENT: Quiet Your Mind To See With Clarity

SECOND ELEMENT: A Non-Negotiable Objective

THIRD ELEMENT: Be Rooted and Centre

FOURTH ELEMENT: Demand Perfection And Hate Mediocrity

FIFTH ELEMENT: Flow

SIXTH ELEMENT: There Are No Simulations

SEVENTH ELEMENT: Learn And Grow Continuously

Where To Now?

Introduction

When I first saw the movie The Matrix I felt chills throughout my body, not because of the amazing special effects, but rather because I was witnessing a sobering metaphor of how the vast majority of the population spend the days of their lives. We find ourselves tricked into fighting incessantly to create and maintain lives that don’t make us happy, trapped in a world defined by rules which we never question and which we never participated in defining. We wander blindly, like mindless robots down a path which leads to what others define as "success", without stopping to appreciate the most sacred blessings in our lives: our loved ones, our health and the opportunity to live each day with unbridled passion. If someone points out this tragedy, we quickly search for ways to invalidate the observation and remain apathetically trapped in the false reality that provides us with the proverbial security of what we know. We abandon all too easily our most ambitious dreams, believing that they are unrealistic and impossible, simply because we have been told that is it thus. Well, the time has come for you to learn the truth:

In reality, there are no limits!!!

As in The Matrix, most of us need someone to pull us out of the labyrinth in order to realize that our lives have a greater purpose than simple feeding the system with our bodies, minds and souls; beaten into submission by fear of being ostracized from society. My purpose with this book is to serve as a guide, just as the character Morpheus did when he freed Neo from the Matrix, and to help everyone who knows deep inside that there is another, more correct way to live. For this purpose, I have structured and detailed the variables of my success system called SAN CHI E ZU. I created the name from the Kanji (Japanese characters), which mean;

To hold sacred life energy, happiness and the path

In essence, the system teaches the basic principles necessary to live according to these parameters, which are essential to achieving greatness in any field.

SAN (to hold sacred)

What you most value will determine where your energy and focus go. Make sure you care for the most vital things in life above all and don’t get sidetracked bleeding energy into irrelevant concerns, false fears, and other people’s objectives.

CHI (vital life energy)

If you don’t have a strong and healthy CHI [vital energy], to provide vigor and health, forget about everything else.

Sadly, modern society scarcely values caring for one’s health, resulting in an alarming high number of its members becoming passively ill. Their symptoms are not acute, but they drag themselves through life with little vitality, scarce flexibility and very limited cardiovascular endurance. All this translates into premature deterioration and aging resulting from having to endure ridiculous levels of stress during prolonged periods of time. And if your health is not world class, you will lack the energy, focus and persistence to overcome all barriers on the road to making your dreams a reality.

E (Happiness)

If we are honest with ourselves, we will find that the search for happiness is the main driver behind the decisions we take in all areas of our lives. Anthony Robbins stated this truth with brilliant clarity when he said,

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your emotions.

In other words, you can have all the money, fame and recognition in the world. Society may consider you a success, but if your days are characterized by anger, stress and other negative emotions, then the quality of your life is very low. Although most of us are not aware of it, everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, we do is to seek happiness. If you want more money, it’s not because of the money per se, but because you associate it with a series of advantages and/or sensations which [you believe] will make you happy. The problem resides in that we have been taught to chase that which we should have, without stopping to think whether these things would make us truly happy. This is why there are so many successful people in today’s society who are profoundly unhappy. My definition of success is being able to live as I WANT, in other words, in the fashion which makes me happy, because in the end, when your life is over, the only thing you can take with you is the love and happiness you have lived and given to others.

ZU (Path)¹

The third element of the system, the path, refers to taking control of your own life and truly deciding which path you want to follow. Just as companies develop and revise their strategic plan periodically, as human beings we need to do the same. Surprisingly, the vast majority of people defined their objectives many years ago, if at all. Even worse, many have adopted the dreams and goals of others as their own. In either case, rarely do we stop and review where we’re going and what we really want. One of the main regrets of people on their deathbed is not having dedicated enough time to thinking about what they wanted to do with their lives. I believe that it is necessary not only to plan, but also to measure and constantly evaluate if we are on the right path. If we don’t take the time to do this important practice, we run the risk of one day awakening to discover that certain parts of our lives, far from making us happy, generate huge stress or simply make us feel miserable.

How, and in what area of your life, you apply the SAN CHI E ZU system is up to you, as it is equally effective for pro athletes who want to optimize their performance and break through their current limits, as it is for the working mother who is sick and tired of feeling suffocated by her obligations and