‘For me the brain is a muscle and, in some regards, the most important one in the body,’ he said when I interviewed him about the early stages of his career. ‘It blows me away that some sports still have minimal work that goes into strengthening the mind. Of course you need talent and work, but whoever performs mentally has the upper hand. In motorsport I feel it is especially important. Bathurst is six and a half hours, so it's a mental endurance game in and out of the car. Beyond that it is the whole week leading up to the race as well. I'm glad I developed mental skills in my younger years. I continued to work on them right through my career.’
What is less well known about Whincup is the time he spent as a junior at Sonic Motorsport. Sonic is a hugely successful organisation, with numerous championship trophies from drivers they have developed. Whincup cut his teeth in Formula Ford with Mick Ritter, the team owner at Sonic. Sonic has effectively been a production line for future champions. In addition to Whincup, Will Davison, David Reynolds and Nick Percat have all gone on to win Bathurst and be highly regarded drivers in the competition. All passed through Sonic in their junior days. Mick estimates that 15 to 20 drivers from his junior program have gone on to V8 Supercar or Bathurst drives.
Mick was ahead of his time in Australian motorsport. While working in Europe as a young mechanic on race cars in the mid 1990s he realised there was a lack of ‘overall professionalism’ in juniors in Australia, compared with what he was seeing there. So he introduced a mental and physical skills training program to his developing drivers. ‘Talent is relevant,’ he told me, ‘but it's overrated. Some of the most natural drivers I've seen over 30 years have not gone on to have successful careers in the sport due to relying on their talent and not working enough in all the areas necessary.’
In his opinion, ‘The most important thing to build a successful career on is hunger and desire. That's because there's so much to do in so many areas to become professional. And that includes mental and physical work.’
Mick also integrated mindset into his own thinking and work. ‘I realised I had so much to learn as well. The key was embracing people who specialise in a high‐performance mindset, then we all work together. I had to stay open‐minded, and the work we did helped me to talk to drivers in different ways about different things. Getting all the people involved and on the same page was a big deal. The drivers also developed a capacity to identify different areas to work on and to build means of dealing with a wide variety of different situations as they happen.
‘Helping the athletes understand themselves and how they can get the most out of themselves was also a big deal. All of this helped them to take ownership of their performance, and champions embrace that,’ he added. ‘What separates them at the upper echelon, where talent is more equal, is that performers then draw on all that mindset work they have done and refine it over a period of time as part of looking to constantly improve.’ That's what Whincup did.
Ritter isn't alone in contributing to an environment that enables people like Whincup to flourish. There are many other such programs that help nurture talent and reinforce work rate and performance mindset, including the one Geoff Lipshut established to nurture Jacqui Cooper and other aerial skiers.
Talent doesn't coach you
Of course, some people will never thrive as athletes for purely physical reasons. And some sports, by virtue of their composition, make selection challenging based on physiological factors. But in most sports talent alone is not enough to forge a career or achieve goals and ambitions. At times, talent can even be counterproductive for high performance, as it seduces an athlete into thinking that all will be well because of their proven talent. But talent is not enough. Even talent and work rate are not enough.
Without the motivation to participate in hours, days, months and years of dedicated, engaged time‐on‐task, talent in sport is unlikely to be realised. A performance mindset helps sustain this motivation, manage personal and emotional challenges, overcome competing interests and demands, and utilise supports to realise talent.
Sally Pearson, Australian hurdler and 2008 Beijing Olympic Gold medallist, affirmed this view in a comment she posted on LinkedIn in 2021. She noted how annoyed she would get when it was implied that her success was attributed not to her hard work, but to the talent she was born with. Her talent, she argued, wasn't what encouraged her to train to get better, or what coached her.19
Keep in mind that this discussion extends well beyond the few athletes who are household names. Mindset skills are relevant for fringe athletes deciding how much energy to invest and how to improve. They are relevant for athletes hidden in lower ranks, who enjoy only limited game time, and for team members moving in and out of a squad. Of course, a performance mindset is also applicable beyond sport — whether you're in a classroom, at work or striving for personal development. Building a performance mindset while engaged in any trade or task will help people to perform and flourish.
This notion reflects the power of the human spirit. It was preached by Percy Cerutty, a great character in Australian sport in the fifties and sixties who coached Herb Elliott. As a runner, Herb was unbeaten over the mile and the 1500 metres. His victory in the 1500 metres at the Rome Olympics in 1960 is still widely regarded as one of the great performances by an Australian athlete.
In one of his six books, Athletics: how to become a champion, from 1960, Cerutty spoke about the power of the human spirit. ‘I do admit freely, frankly and fully that we are not all born equal in graces, brains or ability, but I do affirm that no power exists, human or superhuman, that opposes the genuine aspirations and sincere attempts of any personality to advance itself … I affirm that our destiny is in our own hands [although] no one but a fool would deny that we do find difficulties, set‐back, frustrations, even inevitabilities at times, and by the dozens — hundreds.’20
When I met and interviewed Herb in 1992, he spoke about his belief in the importance of mindset. ‘The basic ingredients for success haven't changed in 50 000 years,’ he told me. ‘They are the spirit, soul, body and mind.’ And, he added, ‘If I could pick one thing that is vital to be successful internationally, it's mental toughness. The wonderful thing about it is that you're not born with it. You can train it into yourself.’21
Summary
The first step towards embracing and deliberately working on mindset skills is appreciating that talent and hard work are important, but are realised and maximised only with a performance mindset. Here is a model I advocate when thinking about achieving anything.
Talent is not the foundation, or even the middle layer. A performance mindset is the foundation. Without a performance mindset there can be no progress because there is no beginning or continuing. The following chapters explore some methods of building your performance mindset.
BUILD ON YOUR TALENT
Embrace developing your mindset. Talent is required, but is not as paramount as one might think. Mindset is more important and contributes to work rate.
Respect balanced development in the early years of sport. Recognise individual development journeys.
Embrace the idea that becoming an elite athlete takes a long time — years of time‐on‐task — so be patient.
Begin