Lou Tice remembers the 1990 Edmonton Oilers, a team of underachievers, enormously talented — and at the same time tremendously angry with club owner Peter Pocklington.

Tice had been asked to work with the NHL team in early January of that year, but Pocklington balked at the fee.

“I told him double or nothing,” recalls Tice, co-founder of The Pacific Institute, a Seattle-based company that helps groups and individuals reach their potential.

“I told him that if the team didn’t win the Stanley Cup then he wouldn’t have to pay me anything. But if they won, I’d get double.”

Dave Olecko, Business Edge
Lou Tice explains the inner workings of the mind to his audience.

The Oilers — still feeling the emotional effects of trading superstar Wayne Gretzky two years before — went on to win the Cup.

Pocklington doubled Tice’s fee.

What Tice told the Oilers is the same information he has used for 30 years to unlock the potential of top CEOs, elite paratroopers, social services groups and young students across the world.

“People and businesses hold themselves back,” believes Tice, who spoke before an attentive audience at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce last week.

“The message is you have enormous potential for outstanding results in almost every area of your life, for the most part. We show people how to release the potential.”

Utilizing leading psychological research, Tice’s strength is as an educator who translates new concepts into a program his clients can understand and from which they can learn.

“I am not a motivational or inspirational speaker,” he says. “I translate concepts that can help a hockey player, a pilot or a mom become better at their jobs.”

Since forming The Pacific Institute in 1971 with his wife Diane, Tice says his company has helped teach more than 10 million people, including more than half the Fortune 500 companies, at least 1,000 police forces, and even armies in Colombia, Guatemala, the U.S. and Northern Ireland.

Successful people demonstrate patterns of thinking and common denominators regardless of profession, says Tice.

The good news is that these abilities can be developed, he adds. “You are not born with them.”

During an entertaining speech rich with insight, Tice explained how the mind works against a person trying to fulfill his or her potential — even in reacting to one of his speeches.

Here’s an example:

* “I don’t need this. I’m OK the way I am”;

* “I don’t need this, but I know a whole bunch of people who could use this . . . In fact, I sure wish my spouse was here”;

* “Hmm, a little of this is all right”;

* “Oh, my gosh. He’s talking about me.”

In his three-hour session, Tice touched on common foibles and illustrated how he believes the mind works to hold people back.

From the earliest time in the womb, the human mind is recording and storing information, he said.

The information is registered on a subconscious level, forming a person’s “truth or reality.” It’s the foundation of how people perceive themselves, evaluate and make decisions hundreds of times a day.

On another level, the subconscious acts as a checks-and-balance system, making sure we don’t stray from that reality.

For example, says Tice, if you are an average golfer and are playing the round of your life, the mind will say: “No, you are doing too well,” and inevitably you will have a few bad holes to counter the good play.

Understanding how the mind works, and that there are techniques to overcome these restrictions, is critical to reaching one’s potential, he stresses. “Do you know why people don’t change?” asks Tice. “Pressure.”

He notes that people will fix their homes up when they have company coming to stay. They will be nice to their wives and kids during the visit.

And they can’t wait until the company leaves, he says. Why?

“So they can go back to being who they are.” But, he asked, wouldn’t it be better to live in nicer conditions and have a more pleasant atmosphere in the home all the time?

Similarly with organizations, Tice says many workers are most happy with their daily routines.

There are people who can get up, do their thing at home, get to work, and not even be awake at 10 o’clock. Everything’s ingrained.

But if the boss asks the employee to do something different, watch out. “You’ve messed up their rhythm, and most people resist that to the death.”

People and businesses would be far better breaking those patterns, says Tice. He knows, because he was one of those people.

As a high-school teacher in Seattle, Tice was going through life unfulfilled and not knowing it. He complained about his job, the school board, the parents, even the kids.

“Everything was everyone’s fault but my own,” he recalls.

Slowly he began to develop a positive attitude, and started reaching for the things he wanted.

People will blame heredity, environment, even their daily horoscope for their lot in life, he says.

He and his wife, along with building a successful international business, have raised 11 foster and adoptive children. Through their own lives they’ve seen first-hand that it is possible to alter mindsets.

Through the Pacific Institute, Tice delivers customized programs for groups and acts as an outside consultant. Within the groups, credible facilitators are found to run the programs which rely heavily on audio visual components.

“It’s a matter of letting people know that what’s inside (your mind) is what matters, not the external stuff.”

In the case of the Edmonton Oilers, Tice said the team was playing poorly and didn’t realize that subconsciously they were holding back because of their loathing for Pocklington.

All it took was one player, a leader, to understand they could change their mindset, said Tice.

“I had to let them get that insight and realize there were reasons to let go of it and release their potential.

“I remember one guy saying: ‘I got it.’ It was one of the leaders in the group. He said: ‘I want the dough. I want the dames. I want the Cup. I want the ring.’

” That was it, says Tice. Changed, they went out and came back with the Cup.

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