Matthew Hodgson

I spent over a decade as a professional basketball player; representing Australia with the Boomers, spending a preseason with the Dallas Mavericks, and winning championships across multiple countries. I had a very good career.

What doesn't get mentioned there is that I came out of college at 23 years of age with no professional prospects whatsoever. Just a horribly injured knee, a psychology degree, and a notebook full of my own conclusions, drawn from years around world-class athletes and psychologists. Nobody was offering me a contract, so I put every page of it into practice. Within two years, I had accomplished most of the accolades in the paragraph above.

As my career continued, I further honed this education; earning my postgraduate degree in psychology, investing tens of thousands of dollars in cutting-edge performance disciplines, and learning from champions outside of the sporting arena.

What I found is that no matter the arena, success is contingent upon the same handful of trainable skills.

They are not talent, and they are not mysterious. Knowing precisely what you want and what it costs. Consistently returning to your optimal level of intensity, so your ability is there when it counts. Holding a sense of who you are that doesn't rise and fall with every result. Staying the course when it gets difficult or ambiguous. The arena changes, but the skills don't.

After walking away from sport, I formed People Performance Advisors to give others the performance abilities needed to get the results they truly want.