What comes first, the attitude or the training?

I have been doing agility for over 20 years now and am very fortunate to have had so many wonderful life experiences because of it. I have competed in hundreds of trials, numerous "special" events put on by various sponsors, many National Championship events, and, competed in 3 World Championship events.
I have traveled the world competing and teaching, I have taught countless seminars, classes and workshops, was selected as the coach of the United States Agility team 2 times and known great success from this end of the spectrum as well.
I have worked very hard to be successful in the sport of agility and would like to think that I will continue to be successful, however, although I have always thought of the mental game as a very important part of that success it never held as important a role as it does at this point in my career.
I attribute this in large part to the fact that the sport is continuing to get more competitive, more demanding, and, overall requires a much larger skill set to to do well in the upper levels of competition both domestically and internationally.
You can have the best trained dog on the planet handled by the most skilled handler ever conceived and, without an equally well honed mental game it will be quite unlikely that they will reach their potential.
I have a couple of friends who were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend the Lanny Basham coaching workshop this past weekend in Texas, this along with the fact that I had the pleasure of working with a group of the Worlds greatest people this weekend who truly want to succeed in the sport of agility and have fantastic attitudes towards this goal, really got me thinking again how important the mental game is and how very important it is for people to be made aware of the resources out their available to them relative to this topic.
Lanny Bassham, and, Jane Savoie immediately come to mind as absolutely required reading and listening.
What makes this mental game so very important? An example would be one of my favorite mantras these days as I walk the course, focus on the process and the outcome will be there... We are so invested inn the Q that we have a tendency to walk the course with our focus on the outcome, the Q. It is very difficult to achieve the Q without focusing on the process necessary to achieve the brass ring.
We want to win, however, if you do not plan the appropriate strategy to put all of the pieces of the course together it is unlikely that you will win. Do your best on the pieces of the course and there is a very good chance that you will not only Q, but very possibly win!
The conscious and subconscious mind are very powerful, it is really important that you use them in a way that has the power to enhance your runs!
You are only able to consciously think of one thing at a time, make it something positive. Subconsciously, there are many things going through your mind at one time, train yourself to focus on positive thoughts, successful outcomes, and, each piece of the puzzle that makes up the whole picture.
Verbalize what your strengths are, do not dwell on the mistakes! How you think about your previous run greatly affects the outcome of the next.
Keep training, smile, remember the good stuff, and, most of all enjoy the ride!