Ironman is the ultimate in triathlon competition. It’s the standard by which triathlon is known to the world at large. When I began doing triathlons, almost every non-tri person I met would ask if I had done an Ironman (that’s all they knew), as if that is the only badge of honor in our sport. [...]
Like all endurance sports, triathlon success involves preserving and apportioning out your energy evenly during a race. Burn too much gas early in a race and you’re finished before T2. Run out of gas late in the race and you have no fuel for a strong finish. In either case, you’re in for one horrendous [...]
The most powerful psychological tool you have at your disposal to achieve your triathlon goals is positive self-talk. What you say to yourself when you’re in the pool, on your bike, or in your running shoes affects what you think, how you feel, and how you perform. It also will often determine the quality of [...]
Most sport psychologists work with athletes on the mental side of their sport in an office setting (usually one hour per week), providing them with mental tools that they can use during training and competitions. This approach makes about as much sense as a coach offering their racers technical instruction and then telling them to [...]
Over the many years that I've been working in the field of sport psychology, I have championed the benefits of mental training for sports to thousands of athletes. This work has ranged from talks to junior programs to ongoing consulting with individual athletes and teams. As many of you know from my dozens of articles [...]
This article is a challenge for you to take an essential, yet often neglected, piece of the ski racing success puzzle and make it a priority during the off-season. Let me elaborate in three ways. First, I speak to racers, coaches, and parents around world about the psychology of ski racing. Whenever I get the [...]
Here's a great article about Rafael Nadal in which he describes struggling mentally this year on the pro tennis tour. Roger Federer also discusses his mental difficulties. For most people, it's hard to imagine that such such gifted and experienced athletes who have had so much success in their careers could, for example, lose confidence and get [...]
I was recently interviewed by Glenn Whitney of SportsCoachRadio.com about the many different aspects of the psychology of sport. A good listen (scroll to bottom) if you want to learn more about how the mind impacts athletic performance.
I’m asked regularly by companies to help them find ways to increase their individual and organizational performance, productivity, and profitability. In these situations, two old adages come to mind: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” “If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever [...]
In a recent post, I introduced you to The 5 Things Great Leaders Do Very Well, in which I described the five essential roles that leaders must fulfill to be successful: 1. Leader as person 2. Leader as performer 3. Leader as team builder 4. Leader as decision maker 5. Leader as change agent In the follow-up post, I explored Leader as Person in which I argue that who you are is how you lead. In this post, I will examine your role as Leader as Performer and how this focus ensures that you and your team have the necessary tools to maximize your performances and, as a result, your successes. Performance is so vital because it is the foundation for two higher-order goals of individual and organizational success in the business world: productivity and profitability. The only way to maximize these two is to maximize performance.