Lawyers need to maintain sustained high performance in the face of unceasing pressure, requiring more and more of their time and energy. Most lawyers and the firms they work for attempt to deal with this only from the neck up, connecting high performance primarily to a lawyer’s intellect or cognitive ability. Compare this approach to that of athletes, whose primary source of performance is their physical or athletic ability. Yet, athletes know something that most lawyers do not. Sustaining their ideal performance state is as much a matter of their mental and emotional (and some would say spiritual) state as it is a matter of their physical state. And how do they maintain a proper balance of mind, body, and spirit? They look to their coaches for ongoing motivation and support.
Likewise, if lawyers are to maintain an ideal performance state over the long haul, they need to train in the same systematic, multilevel way that elite athletes do. Using the sport analogy, they can look to coaches to help them train for peak performance.