Ben Crowe: Chase Your Dreams but Don’t Define Yourself by Winning
When you’re a world-famous performance and mindset coach, you get the opportunity to study high-functioning individuals and teams up close on their path to headline-making success. Yet Ben Crowe advises his clients to never define themselves by winning.
“I don’t have a client on the planet who isn’t obsessed with achieving their goals and dreams,” says Crowe, who has worked with Australian tennis champions Ash Barty and Dylan Alcott, surfer Stephanie Gilmore and the AFL’s Richmond Football Club as well as high-flying CEOs. “I love the focus and the intent on doing everything in your power to chase that – as long as you don’t determine your self-worth by whether you win or lose, because you can’t control that. If you define success purely by winning, does that mean you’re a failure if you don’t win?”
That rhetorical question helps to shift mindsets among some of the world’s highest achievers, allowing them to sharpen their focus without beating themselves up. “We’re just so friggin’ hard on ourselves as a human race,” says Crowe, speaking at Qantas magazine’s second Think. event for 2024, held at Tama in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. The topic for the panel discussion was “Executive evolution – how great leaders stay great”.
From Crowe’s perspective, the key is finding a way to go a little easier on yourself. “We have this reptilian brain with a negative bias – it’s Velcro for negative and Teflon for positive,” says the mindset master, who offers a virtual self-development course via the Mojo Crowe app. “We all need to do what Ted Lasso says: get some scissors and cut ourselves some slack!”
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Crowe says that we can endlessly drive around in circles while trying to meet the expectations of others, when the direct route to success is via self-acceptance.
“The most important form of love is self-love, the most powerful form of acceptance is self-acceptance, the most powerful form of compassion is self-compassion,” he explains. “You have to give that energy source to yourself first before you can give it to anyone else.”
When you’re able to look in the mirror and honestly say you don’t care about what others think of you then you’ve unlocked “the superpower to get you through tough times”, he says. “Otherwise you’re trying to fit into the imaginary expectations of others and you don’t even know what they are.”
To be clear, Crowe is not suggesting you don’t try your heart out. He’s talking about accepting yourself, including your limitations.
“Perfectionism is caring what other people think of you and trying to live up to this ideal image,” he says. “Celebrating imperfections leads to acceptance of who you are. We suck at acceptance because we’re comparing ourselves and judging ourselves. Acceptance is a skill – I develop an acceptance list every day. Once you realise you can develop this acceptance muscle and build it, it can be a competitive advantage.”
Think. is a thought-leadership event and content series presented by Qantas magazine in association with LSH Auto Australia – the country’s leading Mercedes-Benz dealer group. Find out more about LSH Auto Australia
