The Covid-19 crisis has certainly presented me with new challenges in my work with athletes, whether juniors or professionals. It’s as if the pandemic has taken all of the normal challenges that athletes face and turned their volume up several notches. Whether motivation, confidence, fear of failure, expectations, or anxiety, whatever athletes are thinking, feeling, [...]
Is it just me or are other people seeing an increase in sports injuries since the Covid-19 epidemic struck a year ago? It seems as if, every week, there is more than one article in the sports media describing a heartbreaking announcement of another professional athlete whose season is shortened or ended by a serious [...]
A number of occurrences compelled me to write this article. First, a growing number of professional athletes are coming forward with their own mental-health challenges in the hopes of destigmatizing mental illness and encouraging others who are struggling to seek help. Second, the Covid-19 crisis has seen an increase in mental-health issues, particularly among young [...]
I was recently interviewed by The Coaches Network about how coaches develop their leadership style (Spoiler alert: There is no such thing as leadership style). In the interview, I suggest that coaches' leadership is a reflection of who they are as people. I describe how coaches can figure out who they are and how that [...]
The ski racing season (and the start of other sport seasons) appear on the horizon and we all have our fingers crossed that Covid-19 won't derail all of the amazing efforts of sports organizations, from local to international. Now is a great time to offer your club's or academy's community workshops that will provide deep [...]
This article is my fourth (and, I think, final) in a series exploring Fear of Failure in ski racing. If you missed the first three articles, you may want to catch up before reading this article (Part I, II, III). In those first three articles, I examined my evolving perspective on fear of failure and [...]
In Part I in my series, Fear of Failure, I introduced you to the epidemic presence of fear of failure in ski racing. The article describes what fear of failure is and its causes. I also describe three ways that racers attempt to avoid failure: they quit racing, they cause themselves to fail, but have [...]
Episode #25: What is Intensity? of my Train Your Mind for Athletic Success podcast is the first of two episodes in which I will explore the impact of intensity on sports performance. The topic for today’s episode is: What is Intensity? What I mean by intensity is the amount of physiological activity you experience in your [...]
I just did an interview on a great podcast called As We Get Older with Bob Pessemier. He's a former firefighter helping guys learn to how to navigate life better. My interview is wide ranging covering topics such as sports, aging, family, emotions, and life.
Whenever I speak to racers and coaches, I ask them how important the mind is to ski racing success. With few exceptions, the response is that the mind is as or more important than the physical and technical side of our sport. I am obviously biased given what I do for a living, so I [...]
