Giftedness is revered in our culture; inborn talent—whether intellectual, athletic, or artistic—ensures that children will be successful. How many times have you heard “Bode Miller was born to ski race” or “Lindsay Vonn was destined to greatness?” Well, let me clear something up: No one is born to do anything, certainly not to ski race. [...]
I've been in the ski racing world since I was six years old. The first 20 years, I was a racer learning the ups and downs of ski racing the hard way, mostly through trial and error, and sometimes painful failure. That, I can say with 20/20 hindsight and absolute certainty, is no way to [...]
Parents who want their children to achieve something called “success” may find that this goal conflicts with their desire for their children to also become happy. Achieving success, as typically defined by our culture, emphasizes wealth and social status, and is often at odds with what the research has shown to produce happiness. A perusal [...]
Prime confidence is a deep, lasting, and resilient belief in your ability to achieve your goals. Prime confidence keeps you positive, motivated, intense, focused, and emotionally in control when you need it most. With prime confidence, you’re able to stay confident even when you’re not skiing well (it happens to even the best ski racers [...]
With the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in our rearview mirror, it is a joy to bask in the reflected glory of such superstars as Lindsey Vonn, Marlies Schild, Julie Mancuso, Maria Riesch, Bode Miller, Didier Defago, and Carlo Janka. And with the 2011 World Cup season already underway, we can look forward to intense battles between [...]
Please be prepared. I'm going to go on a bit of rant now. I just can't hold it in any longer. I see parents doing this constantly and it's killing me because they know not what they do and they are actually hurting their children's personal and ski racing development. What am I referring to? [...]
Confidence is the single most important mental factor in ski racing. Confidence is also a mental area that is ripe for change and, between now and the new year, I will not only be offering you insights into how confidence impacts your ski racing, but also many practical tools for developing confidence. Confidence is so [...]
We live in an achievement culture in which many parents feel pressure to “fast forward” their children’s development as ski racers (and students, for that matter). Unfortunately, in their efforts to speed up their children’s progress, parents are in danger of setting them up for failure and slowing rather than speeding up their development. By [...]
Motivation is the foundation of all of your efforts to achieve your ski-racing goals. Without your desire and determination to become a better ski racer, everything else you do won't matter. It's simple. To become the best ski racer you can be, you must be motivated to do what it takes to maximize your ability. [...]
In my very first Kids & Culture Alert! e-newsletter published in April of 2005, I discussed the sad epidemic of fear of failure that I found to be rampant in America at that time. Well, over five years later, fear of failure is still the most pervasive and debilitating issue among young athletes and other [...]