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72 ǀ POSITIV MAN 2026
Do you primarily focus on individuals
or entire teams, whether in sport or
in the business environment?
I focus on working with the subjective
world of people. I do not distinguish
between an athlete and a businessman. If
I were to put it into percentages, it would be
fifty-fifty. I work with companies and sports
teams as groups, but also with individuals
on a one-to-one basis. And there is a third
area as well — Education, because I actively
teach at the university level. My work
week is divided between companies, sport
and education.
Could you outline what your work week
looks like? How do you manage the entire
organisation of it all?
Most of my work week is built around things
arranged largely by my colleague,
especially in terms of scheduling, time
management, and handling requests that
come in from companies, sports clubs, or
parents of athletes through the website.
Then there is another group that I manage
myself, and those are elite athletes.
With them, for example, I arrange phone
calls directly, because my clients also
include players from the American National
Hockey League and similar competitions.
In terms of organisation, it is probably
around 80% handled by my agent and 20%
by me personally.
What criteria do you use when choosing
your clients?
I do not really select clients according
to strict criteria. You simply have to connect
with the person in some way, and that
usually only becomes clear after the first
meeting, which is why I try to meet them
personally. Sometimes my colleague
already evaluates whether I am the right
fit for a particular client and whether I am
actually capable of helping them.
Do you encounter parents of young
athletes who approach you with problems
concerning their sporting children
and believe that once they contact you,
everything will be fixed as if by magic?
That is, of course, the wrong way to look
at it, but unfortunately it is quite common.
Not only because of that, I tend to work
more with older athletes who are already
responsible for themselves. It is a “cleaner”
relationship — just you and the athlete,
whereas with younger clients it becomes
a triangle of athlete, parent, and you.
With younger clients, I usually refer them
to my students at Newton University,
specifically from the postgraduate
programme in Mental Coaching
for Managers and Athletes.
What is the best way to introduce
a problem to you?
Clearly defined requirements work best
for me, because then I know exactly what
is expected of me, and I can look for a clear
path — or rather a method — of how
to approach it. Or I can also say: “I’m sorry,
but I cannot help you with this. I do not
know how.”
That way, the expectations of both sides
align, and there can be genuine satisfaction
from the work that has been done. And that
is really what we want — What gives our
work meaning. Ideally, the client is able
to identify the barriers holding them back
within their own subjective world and wants
to remove them.
Can you identify what is killing
the mental health of today’s modern
managers in medium-sized
and large companies?
One of the major killers is an unhealthy
fixation on results — on measurable
performance indicators. I have to win,
I have to achieve this. It is a very common
situation: a strong emotional attachment
to the goal, but very little emotional
attachment to the journey itself. The first
step towards solving this is to clearly realise
that you are too attached to the outcome
without having an emotional connection
to the process.
That is also why self-awareness
is so important. We often focus on
personal development, yet we do not truly
know ourselves. It is crucial to understand
what we are good at, what we are not
good at — In other words, to have proper
self-reflection. Based on that, we can then
decide how to move forward and whether
we actually want to change something or
not.
So, if a manager has accurate self-reflection,
they can define a path towards changing or
improving a particular issue. The problem
comes when someone believes they are
good when they are not, or thinks they are
working hard when in reality they are not,
and so on.
What brings you joy in life?
I love life. So, in a way, life itself! Besides
that, many other things — For example,
my work. Of course, there are aspects
of it that are more enjoyable than others,
but I genuinely enjoy what I do. That
is probably why I work relatively a lot,
including weekends.
What can be considered praise or success? For Marian Jelínek, PhDr., Ph.D., what truly maers
is being able to say at the end of the day that the enre day, a parcular lecture, or the work
itself had meaning. We explore how he found his way to sports psychology, what mentally drains
today’s managers, and how to break free from it.
Coach Yourself
Life Is Educaon
| Text: Jana Frydrych, foto: PhDr. Marian Jelínek, Ph.D., Vraslav Polívka