The Qualities of Racecar Driving High Performance Applied to Business Success

Cornish Infinability Drive Intensive

In February, the RDC descended on LeMans Karting as we teamed up with Robert Cornish to offer a Drive Intensive special to RDC members. This was an all day event that was nonstop from start to finish with the exception of a short break for lunch.

We started the morning with Robert and co-instructor Barry Hartzel asking us to focus on our intentions for the day. We soon learned that focusing on intentions and "what's working" were the themes of the day. My intention? That's easy, I want to learn to kick Roland's butt.

Then we found out that we were actually going to be coaching each other. Huh? You're kidding, right? Nope. This is a process called co-active coaching and Robert and Barry took us step by step through the process of how to coach each other to tap into what we already know how to do. Sounds weird, when do we drive?

Before driving, we learned how to listen. What does listening have to do with driving? Well, it turns out that by listening to someone and asking questions, you can get them thinking and coming up with their own solutions to problems. With driving (or anything for that matter) we usually know what we're doing - both right and wrong - and by someone listening and asking the right questions, we can figure out what we need to do to accomplish our goals. But first, let's try doing something the way we always do it... Yes, we finally get into the karts!! Yippee!!

We broke into two groups, and Roland and I decided not to be on the track together. We were just driving for lap times to get a base line and in my first session, I didn't kick Roland's butt... Came close, but just couldn't do it. Drat!

After our first session we came in and paired up with our coaches for our first shot at co-active coaching. Here we learned about the importance of "what's right". Rather than beating ourselves up over all of our many mistakes, we looked at our strengths and what we had done right and how it felt when we did it right. Back to the track for round two with the intent to focus on what was right with our driving and forget the rest. Amazingly enough, it worked. My times came down and I felt a whole lot better about my driving. Still not up to Roland though... Grrr....

Next we learned about awareness instruction. This is where you give your conscious mind something to focus and let your subconscious mind drive, since your subconscious mind can do a whole lot better without you messing it up. While you can use anything, for the driving, Robert suggested either focusing on steering wheel grip or throttle position. We were supposed to give these tasks a number rating from 1-10 and say it out loud while driving. I picked throttle position, set my intent for the session and headed back to the track. Hmmm... That worked too... Unfortunately, Roland was getting the same stuff I was...

Finally, the race... Putting it all together. For our final coaching session, we focused on our intent for the race. My intent was to put together what I'd learned. I was going to focus on what I was doing right on the track and practice my awareness instruction, and forget about Roland. I don't think my coach believed me about the Roland thing. I didn't believe me... But then I decided that I had been too focused outside myself and that I did want to focus on me and doing my own thing and having fun and doing my best. The race format was a five minute qualify with a 20 minute race. I qualified second. Yep, Roland was first... On the start, I edged out in front. I say I was well-prepared for the green (the start was a Christmas tree style light system) and Roland says I jumped the start. Either way we went at it tooth and nail through most of the race. What fun! What I noticed was that when I started thinking about him behind me, I'd make mistakes. When I starting calling out numbers for my throttle position, I'd smooth out and drive well. Go figure... This stuff was working. At the end I ended up ahead - Roland got tangled up in a pass attempt and we ended up with essentially the same best lap time - I was a few thousandths of a second ahead.

When all was said and done, it turned out that the work shop really wasn't about driving at all. Driving was just a great way to see the immediate results of the skills we had learned. I've been able to apply these skills to my business and to my other sports. The following weekend, I used the awareness instruction skill snow boarding and finally started going faster and falling less on the more challenging slopes.

Lisa Devlin

Back