Igniting the Third Factor: Lessons from a lifetime of working with Olympic athletes, coaches and business leaders

How do you get someone else committed to reaching their full potential?  It's a question that challenges new managers and seasoned executives alike, echoes through coaches' heads as they watch a gifted athlete underachieve, and keeps parents up at night.  It's a question that you need to be able to answer to move your work team to high performance and enable your children to achieve self-reliance and success.  It's also a question Dr. Peter Jensen has spent a lifetime investigating. In Igniting the Third Factor, Peter synthesizes his life's work into the five core principles exceptional leaders use to ignite the Third Factor in themselves and others - whether it's in the locker room before a gold medal Olympic hockey game, or at a routine performance review.

How do you get someone else committed to reaching their full potential?

It's a question that challenges new managers and seasoned executives alike, echoes through coaches' heads as they watch a gifted athlete underachieve, and keeps parents up at night. It's a question that you need to be able to answer to move your work team to high performance and enable your children to achieve self-reliance and success.

It's also a question Peter Jensen has spent a lifetime investigating. Since 1984, he has lived with one foot in the boardroom and the other in the locker room - attending six Olympic Games, helping over 40 athletes and their coaches win Olympic medals, and working with thousands of business executives as an instructor in the MBA and EMBA programs at Queen's School of Business.

What Peter has discovered is that to answer this question we must move beyond the first two factors that play a major role in our development: nature (heredity / talent) and nurture (upbringing). While these two factors lay down a formidable foundation, it is the Third Factor that determines "reach," what is ultimately possible for each person. A focus on the Third Factor ignites the spark that inspires people to reach for their full potential.

In Igniting the Third Factor, Peter synthesizes his life's work into the five core practices exceptional leaders use to ignite the Third Factor in themselves and others - whether it's in the locker room before a gold medal Olympic hockey game or at a routine performance review. Peter works through an easy-to-understand model, providing a clear view of what separates 'igniters' from 'extinguishers' and exploring a wealth of strategies you can put to use immediately in your world.

Dr. Peter Jensen is the founder of Performance Coaching Inc., one of the premiere corporate training firms in Canada.  He has attended six Olympic games as part of the Canadian team, worked with over 40 medal-winning athletes and their coaches, and is currently the sport psychology trainer for Canada's Olympic women's hockey team.  He is a top rated instructor at Canada's foremost business school, Queen's School of business.  He has authored two books: The Inside Edge, a Globe and Mail editor's choice and Canadian Best-Seller, and Igniting the Third Factor.

On his website Peter has put together a series of interviews and exercises that take the reader deeper into the background and content of the book.    More about Peter, his books, and his work can be found at peterjensen.ca