Executive Toughness: The Mental-Training Program to Increase Your Leadership Performance

Introduction

Mental Toughness: Potentially the Difference Between Life and Death

At 8:00 A.M. on Friday, October 13, 1972, Nando Parrado and 44 of his rugby teammates left an Uruguayan Air Force base on a twin turboprop plane headed for a match in Santiago, Chile. Tragically, the squad would not make it to their destination. At 3:30 P.M. that afternoon, as the players threw a rugby ball around the cabin of the plane, the aircraft crashed into the Andes Mountains. The next morning, Nando and 26 of his teammates found themselves alive and struggling to accept the horrifying reality that would keep them on the mountain for the next 10 weeks.

Nando decided that he would do whatever was necessary to live. Through this conscious choice, he became ...