Audi Ambassador and former All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen’s shares his secrets to sustained performance.
Ask former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen what his years coaching at a high performance level taught him about what it takes to keep achieving and push boundaries, and he knows how to answer immediately.
“Never be satisfied with what you have just done,” he says. “As soon as you think you’ve arrived, you’re finished, so it’s about making sure the athlete and the environment is always about trying to improve, trying to be better, never walking past standards that weren’t the ones you wanted to set, and never accepting things that weren’t good enough. Yes, you enjoy the successful moments, that’s really important. But at the same time, it’s about demanding more, and pushing yourself more.”
So it’s not surprising that one of the things that makes him proudest about being a brand ambassador for Audi, is the way the company continually pushes the boundaries in terms of excellence, design and innovation, and performance.
“If you look at the company, they’ve been leaders in their field for a long time,” he says. “The thing they do really well is they don’t sit back and say they don’t need to keep getting better. One of the things that really struck me is the way they are always looking to improve their vehicles.”
The ability to seek out and nurture top performers characterised Hansen’s almost 16 years with the All Blacks. Ultimately, he says, while performance obviously requires talent, it’s also a mindset that relies on attitude.
“I think our greatest player ever was a guy called Richie McCaw. Is he the most talented player who ever played for the All Blacks? No, but he is our greatest player. I believe he had a mindset that said, ‘I want to be a great player, I want to perform to the highest possible standard, and once I’ve done that I want the standard to be risen. He had the mental fortitude to drive himself through that and he was always looking to be better.”
Audi General Manager Dean Sheed agrees that performance is a mindset for the company.
“Sure we manufacture mobility in various forms, but it’s more of a way to live your life,” he says.
“We are known as a sports performance brand, and we deliver on that. Performance comes in a couple of different flavours for us. We’ve got the performance range of vehicles that have an S or RS badge on them, and they are the physical thing that most people see regarding performance.
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