Gilbert Enoka spent 23 years with the All Blacks as their mental skills coach and spoke on adversity and how to deal with it at the Time Out dinner for the Manawatu River Catchment Collective. Photo / Leanne Warr
Gilbert Enoka spent 23 years with the All Blacks as their mental skills coach and spoke on adversity and how to deal with it at the Time Out dinner for the Manawatu River Catchment Collective. Photo / Leanne Warr
Adversity doesn’t discriminate. It can occur regardless of age, colour, religion or status.
But there are tools to deal with it, according to former All Blacks mental skills coach Gilbert Enoka.
He was speaking at a Time Out dinner and evening for members of the Manawatū River Catchment Collective.
Chairwoman Shelley Dew Hopkins kicked off the evening talking about the achievements of the collective and some of the challenges they’ve had.
She says they are “sort of in that crossroads in farming” with a lot of challenge and the last six years hadn’t helped.
“As farmers we know that there’s always going to be change and always going to be challenges but it’s how we manage them and how we work with them and how we take control of them that’s what really counts.
“I think with the catchment collective, we’re starting to really see some traction around the country and I think it’s really important that we take control of what we’re doing and telling our story.”
She said there are about 600,000ha in the catchment area and 234,000ha now involved in 13 catchment groups with 452 farmers.
Farmers in the catchment covered a diverse land-use from sheep and beef farming to market gardens and forestry.
Enoka began by talking about his background.
Born in Palmerston North, his father was a Cook Island Māori. Gilbert was the youngest of six boys.
When their father left New Zealand to return to the islands, the boys’ mother was unable to raise them by herself and they were sent to live in a children’s home in Marton, where Gilbert stayed until he was 12.
Enoka stresses that they were well cared for in the home, but he says it lacked that “nourished love that sparkles inside of a human being when they touch it and they connect with it”.
When he left, he returned to live with his mother and stepfather but says the four years he lived with them were probably tougher than when he lived in the children’s home.
At age 16, he decided to leave and moved to Christchurch where he looked for different opportunities and began playing volleyball.
“I’ve always believed you’re given something - every human being’s given a gift, given a talent.
“I started in volleyball and I got quite good at it. People told me: ‘You’re quite good at this, Gilbert’. So, every time I heard that, what do I do? I work a bit harder.
“Never underestimate how those words can impact individuals.”
Enoka explains he went on to study physical education at the College of Education in Christchurch, becoming a teacher at Hillmorton High School.
Gilbert Enoka during a test match some years ago. His greatest joy has been working with the All Blacks. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Then one day he met Wayne Smith, former All Black and coach, which eventually led to him joining the All Blacks as their mental skills coach.
“I was playing New Zealand volleyball and he was an All Black. I was wanting my team to get better and it had taken me to what I call the last frontier, which is the mind; how that kind of assists or inhibits us when it comes to performance.”
Enoka says there are three key lessons.
The first is “you’ll never ever rise above the opinion you have of yourself”.
Second is that choices, not chances, determine destiny, adding that the most powerful things in life are the decisions you make.
Third is that the past does not have to equal the future.
“There’s too many people who get trapped inside what has happened in their lives earlier and that basically prevents them from advancing forward.”
Enoka went on to talk about his time in 23 years with the All Blacks, including the highs and lows, and how he’s used the lessons he’s learned in his work.
Adversity was something that everyone had to face, he says, no matter what colour, age, religion, status or how long someone had been in farming.
“It doesn’t discriminate.”
His advice is to push through the crap, the criticism and the rejection.
He adds that in his 23 years, he hasn’t met one All Black who didn’t have doubt or fear.
“What they did is push through it. It’s only a problem if it traps you and you get stuck.”
Enoka went on to say that adversity messes with a person’s attention.
“When you have your attention messed with, you can create this thing that you call anxiety or worry. Every time you’re worried, you’re thinking about something that has happened. Or something that may happen.
“Psych 101 tells us that if we can keep our focus in the present we can manage ourselves. You’ve got to mind where your mind goes. When you’re having a lot of adversity, you’ve got to shorten your focus and take it in bite-sized chunks.”
