Success is only a light switch away

Good morning everyone, or of course afternoon, evening if you are reading from around the world in the 200 countries that have sent the readership of this blog soaring past 10 million and approaching the 12 million figure, according to my blogger stats. I thank-you and ask that you keep spreading the positive word by sharing the articles to promote a positive environment.

I tend not to read the doom and gloom merchants, but as someone running a site I can understand the marketing behind a site that latches on to people hunger for bad news. There is a reason some people have great success and the masses live an existence. The viewing figures would mark this site down as a roaring success so what elevates some and how do Spurs embrace success?

Well, you are going to need a vision, you need to know what it is you want to achieve. The desire to achieve that goal, that vision, has to be a consuming burning desire, a passion. If it isn't likely as not you won't achieve it because it is the burning desire that drives you. That desire derives from the reason you want to achieve something, your motivating factor.

There are other aspects which I'll happily tackle at other times, but if you accept that motivation to achieve derives from the reason you want to achieve it, then I ask you to apply that thought to each and every player in our squad. Who would you put in each camp, motivated enough, not motivated enough?

Cristiano Ronaldo had a single-mindedness at Manchester United, doing additional training with Sir Alex Ferguson's number 2, working on his own to take his game to the level we see today. He didn't just stumble into being one of the best players in the world, he had the burning desire to get there and did what it took to make sure it happened.

Gareth Bale had his dream of playing for Real Madrid, did he just wait around and hope it happened, doing what everyone else does on the training ground? No, he worked at his game with the same single-minded determination to take his game to a level that would make it impossible for them to ignore him. He produced a free-kick that swerved the ball both ways, again, that was no accident, but the result of a motivated burning desire.

Fans love Harry Kane, even those who said in forums he was a Championship standard player and not good enough for the Premier League. Should Harry Kane have listened to all those fans telling him he isn't good enough? Bale and Ronaldo would have had the same, should they have listened to those fans or should they have stayed true to their internally motivated burning desire?

Have Erik Lamela or Mousa Dembele, for instance, had the same internally motivated burning desire that forces them to do whatever it takes to succeed and have they got it now? I talk about a winning mentality, that in essence, is what it is, an internally motivated burning desire.

A footballer is no different than you, they are just paid more, a football club is merely their employer. Can your employer motivate you to work with a burning desire to be the best at your job you can possible be? I would suggest they probably don't, but you can have that desire yourself for reasons outside of the company, you'll be motivated for your own reasons. A company can motivate you temporarily, but unless it is a desire within you that motivation won't last, you'll do an adequate job, perhaps a good job, not a consistently brilliant one that makes you stand out though.

Transfer that to football and you see that football players are not motivated to perform just because they join a club, all they are doing is changing employer. They have to have their own internal motivation that drives a burning desire to be a success.

As a club then, should you just keep your fingers crossed that you come across a player sufficiently internally motivated to improve his game significantly or should you help him find that internal motivation? Which is going to bring success faster, which is more likely to bring success?

What difference would it make if Spurs found three or four players in their ranks whose game was stagnant, or not at the level their skill dictates it should be and helped those players find their own internal motivation?

Do you think that might improve the club, the squad, the team significantly? Do you think that would improve results, that it would bring us nearer to success? If you accept that it would why then would you not seek to find and unlock that motivation?

Do you simply wait and hope the player discovers it for himself and in the meantime put up with mediocrity? Should the club not have its own burning desire to unlock players, it does, of course, but are those making those decisions doing an adequate job, a good job or a brilliant job? One man  or woman doesn't make every decision, but should our relatively new Head of Football Operations, Rebecca Capelhorn, not have the vision to see this?

Unlocking the potential within a player is the next frontier in football and I am an unashamed advocate of Tottenham becoming world leaders and forerunners of mentally developing players to unlock the untapped talent within. Senior figures like Rebecca Caplehorn should be exploring the possibilities, the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust should be asking the question, is it something the club has rejected or not considered?

We market to untapped markets, should we not be doing whatever it takes to tap into the dormant potential within our own club? What player would a truly internally motivated Erik Lamela be? He hasn't lost the skill he has, I suggest he hasn't had the internal motivation to succeed in the way he did in Italy. What have we done in two years to help him find it? Relied on a coach? Is that good enough, given the rewards it could offer?

If you pit an amateur team against a professional team you would expect the professional team to win would you not? Is Mauricio Pochettino a professional at finding a player's internal motivation or is a sports psychologist a professional?

Do you wait for a player to decide he wants to unlock his potential and let's face it, most people don't know the difference mentally unlocking someone can make so don't seek for it to happen. Having invested millions in a player should it not be a standard part of training that we seek that very motivation, that drives the burning desire, that will make a significant difference.

We are improving as a club in so many areas, yet an opportunity stares those with the vision in the face, for me it's the brightest of lights, for Spurs it's a low wattage, if the light is even on.

Someone with vision needs to turn the switch because success is a only light switch away.

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