Why this book: I’ve been exploring mental performance on my own and at work for quite some time. This book was given to me as a gift by my friend Doug Watterson, so I gave it a try. So glad I did.

Summary in 3 sentences: Gary Mack is a professional sports psychology consultant and shares his insights after years of working with professional athletes from many different sports.  He offers key principles, but also underscores their value and importance with fascinating vignettes from the lives of  celebrity athletes. But his book is also about mental performance for the rest of us, and is full of ideas and tools for performing and living well, not just in the arena of sports, but in the arena of life.

My impressions: So much wisdom, not only for high performance athletes, but for all of us. This book is a compendium of wisdom from great players and coaches from his experiences as a sports psychologist consultant for professional athletes in the 80s and 90s.   That wisdom applies not only to how best to succeed (however you define success) in sports but also how to succeed in other endeavors in life.   He makes his points and then backs them up  with vignettes and quotes from the greats in many sports.

It was a joy to read.  I’m way past my athletic prime but there is so much in there that I can still use.  It is a book for anyone who wants to perform better, and each person can take from it which ever gems can help them perform better in life.

A few examples:

His chapter “Riding the pines” – a euphemism for sitting the bench – advises players to “Inc themselves,” meaning to see themselves in a broader context – as an incorporated business – and he reminds them that they are writing their career resumes with everything they do – with every performance, including with how they respond to every setback.

His chapter “Hurry, Slowly” (in Navy SEALs lingo: “slow is fast”) is followed by the chapter “Try Easier” – both about relaxation and against over-trying, recommending  effortless power, not powerful effort.

His chapter “Be Here Now” is all about mindfulness.

His chapter “Simply Observe” is about focus.

His chapter “White Moments” is about being in “flow” or lost “in the zone.”

His chapter “Paralysis by Analysis” is about slumps, getting into them and getting out of them.

His chapter “Trust your Stuff” is about being decisive and committed, and overcoming self-doubt and tentativeness.

He has separate chapters on dealing with fear, dealing with strong emotions, dealing with failure and disappointment, and includes a chapter on what he calls the ugliest label in sports – “choking.”

HIs chapter on “Paradoxes of Performance” is really interesting – and includes explanations of 10 head-shaking paradoxes that are common in sports such as: less can be more, slowing down can make you faster, playing safe can be dangerous, a step backward is a step forward…

His chapter “The Hero Within” tells about how training the mind can unleash the hero in each of us – that with the right mental attitude and focus, “ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

He makes clear in his chapter “Bottom Line” that self confidence and belief in oneself  are the most important part of the mental game.  The rest of the techniques are basically designed to support that one.

He concludes Mind Gym with a chapter entitled “The Big Win” which explicitly points out some of the implicit key points about how one performs in sports are analogous to how one lives a good life. Winning and losing are not the most important things – character, effort, attitude, grace and gratefulness – if these can be nurtured in how one plays – that is the Big Win.

Criticism – this is one of the earlier books on mental performance. It is organized to be easy and fun to read, but not as a good reference.   Some of the chapter titles are clever, but you have to get into the chapter to find out what it is about.  It was published in 2001, and probably written in 1999-2000.  Meditation in the 20 years since has become a recommended staple in high performance athletes, but it is not mentioned in this book – I assume because it was not a tool he recommended back in the 90s.  But the chapters on focus and visualization, and mindfulness and emotional control come at the same objective from a different direction.

This is not a criticism, but remembering that this book was published in 2001 it was amusing to read great quotes on performance from Mark McGwire, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods before they fell from grace.

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Some (a LOT of) Quotes from the book for my (and perhaps your) future reference.  I had great fun going back through this book and reviewing these many quotes and what I regard as highlights. (Page numbers refer to the paperback copy:)

p. ix-x Alex Rodriguez:  I try to attain my goals mentally first…I believe a champion wins in his mind first, then he plays the game, not the other way around.  …During tough times I don’t worry. I don’t judge my performance by results.  Most important is my physical and mental preparation.

p 4 The world’s greatest athletes and the most successful people in other walks of life know this to be true – that once you reach a certain level of competency, the mental skills become as important to performance as the physical skills, if not more so.

p. 7 What you think affects how you feel and perform. Training your brain is as important as training your body.

p. 9 One key to achieving success in sports is learning how to focus on the task and not let negative thoughts intrude…..In working with place-kickers, I use a distraction technique. I ask them to create a word that, when said to themselves, will block out all negative thought and help relieve tension.

p. 11 I give athletes  I work with a three-by-five card. On one side I have them list their personal keys to success; on the other, their performance keys to success.

p. 12 By changing your thinking – and you can choose how you think – you can change your performance.  Put another way, if you don’t like the program you are watching, switch the channel.

p. 14 The power of visualization and mental rehearsal has been demonstrated in dozens of research studies. If you take twenty athletes of equal ability and give them mental training,  they will outperform the ten who received no mental training every time.

p. 15 I still remember what Pele said: enthusiasm and the mental edge are the keys to winning.

p.17 To get the head edge, try creating your own mind gym.  You always can do mental practice, even when you are physically tired or injured. Make your images as vivid and as clear as you can.  See yourself overcoming mistakes, and imagine yourself doing things well. Remember, confidence comes from knowing you are mentally and physically prepared. ….Mental skills, like physical skills, need constant practice.

p. 18 Scott Hamilton: “Under pressure you can perform fifteen percent better or worse.”    Ken Griffey Sr. “When you have fun, it changes all the pressure into pleasure.”

p. 22 In a study on the experiences of athletes during their “greatest moment” in sports  (the researcher) found that more than 80 percent of the athletes said they felt no fear of failure. They weren’t thinking about their performance. They were immersed in the activity.

p. 24 Chris Evert: “Competitive toughness is an acquired skill and not an inherited gift.”

p. 25-28 Seven characteristics of mental toughness:

• Competitive Nancy Lopez; “a competitor will take bad breaks and use them to drive themselves just that much harder.  Quitters take bad breaks and use them as reasons to give up.
• Confident.  Tiger Woods:  “Every time I play, in my own mind, I’m the favorite.”
• Control. The hallmark of mentally tough athletes is the ability to maintain poise, concentration and emotional control under the greatest pressure and the most challenging situations.
• Committed.  Mentally tough athletes focus their time and energy on their goals and dreams.
• Composure.  Mentally tough athletes know how to stay focused and deal with adversity (and the inevitable bad referee call or unfair bad break.)
• Courage. A mentally tough athlete must be willing to take a risk. Are you a mountain climber who will get to the top, or a camper?
• Consistency.  Mentally tough athletes possess an inner strength. They often play their best when they’re feeling their worst.

p. 41 Arthur Ashe “you are really never playing              an opponent. you are playing yourself.”

p.41 In psychology there is something we call the self-consistency theory. It means we act consistent to our self-concept – our self-image… we will talk about the importance of seeing yourself as being successful.

p. 42-46.  Here is my check list of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors that undermine performance. I call them gremlins.

• Fear – usually it’s a threat to our self image.
• Anger – we have to learn to control our emotions or they will control us.
• Anxiety – a sense that something bad is going to happen.
• Self- consciousness  – being afraid of looking bad.  Ozzie Smith: “Show me a guy who is afraid of losing bad and I can beat him every time.”  You can’t perform well if you’re afraid of embarrassing yourself.
• Perfectionism. Perfectionists often have a very critical, self-condemning voice and are never satisfied with their performance.
• Stubborness. Some people are stubborn, unwilling to learn..in sports you must learn how to fail successfully.
• Lack of Motivation.  Joe DiMaggio: “Motivation is something nobody else can give you.  Others can help motivate you, but basically it must come from you, and it must be a constant desire to do your very best at all times and under any circumstances.”
• Competitiveness.  When people lose the willingness to do the work to be as good as you can be.
• Distractions. Unwillingness to discipline oneself to give up the things that impede one’s performance – booze, partying,drugs, other things.
• Persistence – unwillingness or inability to look at setbacks as opportunities.

p. 46 It’s important to look at yourself and identify your gremlins. In sports as in life, the first step to success is getting out of your own way.

p. 47 Ealr Weaver: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”                        Knute Rockne: “Build your weaknesses until they become your strengths.”

p. 47 One thing I learned from my association with Japanese Baseball was the concept called kaizen which means constant daily learning…

p. 49 I believe in the parachute principe. The mind is like a parachute – it only works when it’s open.

p. 55 Lou Holtz: “You must have dreams and goals if you are ever going to achieve anything in this world.”

p. 58 It is said the extraordinary people live their lives backward. They create a future, and then they live into it. ACT backward.  Accept your present state, Create your desired state, Take action to achieve your goals.

p. 60 Goal setting is a master skill for personal growth and peak performance.

p. 61 You should develop performance goals as well as outcome goals.  A performance goal, or action goal is something you can control.

p. 61 Greg Norman: “Setting goals for your game is an art. The trick is in setting them at the right level, neither too low nor too high.”

p. 64  Seek progress, not perfection.

p. 76 Jimmy Johnson: “Really it comes down to your philosophy.  Do you want to play it safe and be good or do you want to take a chance and be great?”

p. 76-77  Fear of failure, more than any single thing, keeps people in sports and in all avenues of life, from realizing their full potential.  ….Fear makes you play safe. Fear makes you play small.

p. 79 Athletes should look at failure as feedback.  Greg Maddux:  Failure is the best teacher in the world..you get to learn from what happens to you – both good and bad – in a real-live game situation.

p. 80 Michael Jordan and many other great athletes learned to turn fear into anger.

p. 80  Learn how to fail succesfully.  Hate to fail but never fear it. Learn to view failure as feedback.

p. 81 Dennis Connor: “You can’t outperform your self-image.”

p. 84&86 Limits begin where vision ends.  You have to see yourself as a no limits person.  Visualize success and give yourself permission to win.

p. 88 An athlete’s success is said to depend oupon four factors – physical ability, physical training, mental training, and desire or drive.  The desire to succeed needs to be stronger than the fear of failure.

p. 93  Learning how to use one’s mind can be as potent as any performance-enhancing drug. In medical studies, many patients report improvement in their physical condition after they are given placebos, or sugar pills. Why? The power of the mind.

p. 94-96  The Four D’s

• Desire -“want’ power is as important as will power.
• Dedication – turning desire into action with a lasting commitment.
• Determination – an unwavering resolve to achieve one’s goals and succeed.
• Discipline – self-discipline -the only kind that lasts is action oriented. doing what you have to do when you need to do it, whether you want to or not.  Tom Landry: “Setting a goal is not the main thing.  It’s deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with the plan. The key is discipline.”

p. 99 Scott Hamilton: “I firmly believe that the only disability in life is a bad attitude.”  Payne Steward: “A bad attitude is worse than a bad swing.”

p. 99 Atitude is like a pair of eyeglasses. It is the lens through which we view the world.

p. 100 Talent being equal, players with a positive, optimistic attitude will outperform those with a negative, pessimistic one.

p. 103 There are three P’s for changing pessimism into optimism:

• Permanence. Optimists experience setbacks and these disappointments are temporary.
• Pervasiveness.  Optimitst are able to put their problems in a “box” and not let them distract them or affect every other area o their lives.
• Personalization. Optimists internalize victories and externalize defeats.  The pessimist does just the opposite.

p. 103 It is said that 10 present of life is what happens to us and 90 percent is how we choose to react to it.

p. 103  Your attitude determines your altitude. If you think you can, or can’t, you’re probably right. The choice is yours.

p. 106 (after a setback -Erik Hanson🙂 “ I learned ten times more from one night of not throwing a ball than I have my whole life in pitching -all from observing, visualizing, and going through it all mentally.”

p. 107 It doesn’t take talent to hustle and work hard.  Invest in yourself with a positive attitude and “can-do thinking.”

p. 109. In psychology, the term self- efficacy is the belief in one’s own ability to be successful. Simply believing in yourself doesn’t mean you’re always going to win.  But believing in yourself can help enable you to put yourself into a position to win.

p. 112 In truth, life is based upon failures. If you don’t fail, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough.

p. 112 Muhammad Ali “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best.  If you’re not, pretend you are.”

p. 117 Ted Williams: “If you don’t think too good, don’t think too much.”

p. 118 (on self talk)  Which voice do you hear? Which is louder, the negative critic or the positive coach? You can choose to listen to the voice that offers and reinforces positive thoughts. It has been said that thoughts become words. Words become actions. Actions become habits. Habits become character. Character becomes your destiny.

p. 124  Be the solution, not the emotion. When you let anger get the best of you, it brings out the worst in you. The key question is who is in control – you or your emotions?  Remember, before you can control your performance you need to be in control of your self.

p. 126 When I’m nervous or trying too hard, I don’t perform well. Instead of playing my game, I play it safe. I play not to lose; I play small; I play scared…What I’ve had to learn – what I’m still working at – is not to let fear control me. Stop worrying about making a mistake.

p. 127  Fear lives in the future.  These (the best) athletes live in the present – the here and now. Their participation is fun and rewarding.

p. 129  Remember, fear doesn’t keep you safe. our training does.  Don’t let fear scare you. Feel the fear and do it anyway.  Fear is often false evidence appearing real.

p. 130 “Choker.”  It’s the ugliest label in sports. …There is no more damning gesture than a mocking hand to the throat, the choke sign. Yet choking happens every day. It happens at Wimbledon. It happens at the Olympic Games. No one is immune.

p. 132 Choking is a normal human reaction, a physiological response to a perceived psychological threat.

p. 132 When you are under stress, deep breathing helps bring your mind and body back into the present….Breathe in energy.  Breath out negativity. Breathe in relaxation. Breathe out stress.

p. 132  Over the years I have handed out thousands of little stickers to athletes that read “Breathe and Focus.”

p. 134  Choking is nothing more than paying attention to your physiology when you should be focusing on your opponent and the task.

p. 135  Billy Jean King: “Each point I play is in the now moment.  The last point means nothing, the next point means nothing. ”

p. 136 Alex Rodriguez: “My only goal is to learn how to play one entire game in the present.”

p. 136 Bobby Jones: “It’s nothing new or original to say that golf is played one stroke at a time. But it took me years to realize it.”

p. 136 Successful athletes who speak of “playing in the zone” are describing what it feels like to perform in the present, mind and body attuned, working together. When you are playing your game right on time, in the present, you perform at your best. Why? because in the present, there is no pressure.  Pressure is created by anxieties about the future and remembered failures from the past.

p. 137 Worrying about a mistake will usually get you another one just like it.

p. 139  Learn from the past. Prepare for the future. Peform in the present.

p. 144 The more you hurry the later you get. When you find yourself rushing you are no longer in the present. Pace instead off race.

p. 149 If you can relax your body, you can relax your mind. Quiet mind, Quiet body.  Relaxation happens when you stop creating tension. Over-trying leads to under-performing.

p. 151  Some well- meaning instructors make the game too complex.  The old joke is that if golf instructors taught sex education, it would be the end of civilization as we know it.

p. 151  This should be your goal: Play with your eyes, not your ideas….”I see the ball, I hit the ball,” Ken Griffey Jr. says.

p. 152  Jack Nicklaus calls concentration  “a fine antidote for anxiety.”

P. 154 If your mind starts to wander, so will your performance. Keep your eyes centered on the target and your mind set on the task at hand.  Focus on the process and let go of the outcome.

p. 156 What do you think is the most important part of the mental game? It’s a question I’ve asked hundreds of managers, coaches, and professional athletes during plane flights and bus rides to stadiums one rthe past twenty years.  The answer is always the same.  It’s confidence  When you’re confident you can relax, trust your stuff, and perform at your best. Confidence is the bottom line.

p. 156  Where does confidence come from? Great athletes say that confidence is knowing they are prepared physically and mentally.  .Confidence is the emotional knowing that you are prepared, mind, body, and spirit, for anything.

p. 157 Louis Pasteur: “Chance favors the prepared mind” or as golfer Tom Kite said, “Give luck a chance to happen.”

p. 157  Confidence is the result of preparation, and preparation begins with forming a mental game plan.  Reggie Jackson called winning the science of preparation. “And preparation can be defined in three words: Leave nothing undone. NO detail is too small.”

p. 159 when you’re relaxed, you’re in a more receptive state for positive affirmations and visualizations.

p. 164 When asked for golfing tips, I tell friends that the best advice I can give is that it’s better to be decisive than right..

p. 166 In practice, you learn to train your brain as well as your body. Sam Snead said that practice time is when you put your brain into your muscles.  The conscious practice of routines leads to the unconscious habits of success…Routines are comforting mechanisms – triggering mechanisms.

p. 167 Switch from the thinking mode to the trusting mode.

p. 169 Many people who play sports long enough  or work at their craft hard enough experience those magical moments where their training and trust in themselves come together in perfect harmony. Their performance flows smoothly, effortlessly, and almost unconsciously.

P. 169  All great athletes know the feeling . They use different words to describe it.  They’re on autopilot; they’re tuned in; in total control; in the groove; locked.  Japanese players have their own word for it , loosely translated, it means ‘no mind.”  Tennis star Arthur Ashe called it “playing in the zone.”

p. 171 When you’re in the zone, you have switched from a training mode to a trusting mode.  You’re not fighting yourself. You’re not afraid of anything. You’re living in the moment, in a special place and time.  As a certified hypnotist, I see similarities between people who are in a trance and those in a performance zone.

p. 172.  Tiger Woods  “You ever go up to a tee and say, ‘Don’t hit it left, don’t hit it right?’  That’s your conscious mind. My body knows how to play golf. I’ve trained it to do that. It’s just a matter of keeping my conscious mind out of it.”

p. 173 The harder you try to get into the zone, the further way you get. The zone is the reward for all your hard work and preparation . Just go with the flow and enjoy the moment.

p. 174  Johnny Bench: Slumps are like a soft bed, easy to get into and hard to get out of.

p. 179  The key to overcoming a slump is finding a difference that will make a difference. Usually this means doing less rather than more.    Sports is filled with ups and downs. Remember the first rule of holes is to stop digging.  Go back to basics and keep things simple.

p. 181  You have to be wiling to get worse before you can get better, which is one of the paradoxes of sports.

p. 183 Trying easier can be harder.  Remember the golfer’s prayer: “God, grand me the strength to swing easier.

p. 183  Over-control gets you out of control…Performance improves when they surrender to the process.

p. 187 Sport psychology is especially prescribed for two kinds of athletes.  Some perform well in practice but break down in competition because they become self-conscious or overanxious. Others possess worlds of talent but can’t perform consistently. Consistency separates good athletes from great ones. The best athletes win consistently because they think, act and practice consistently.

p. 188  Chris Evert boiled inside when she played. If her confidence was shaky, or she was losing her composure, she worked very hard not to show it.  “If you give in to your emotions after one loss, you’re liable to have three or four in a row.”

p. 189 “The trick,”  Arnold Palmer said,  “is to stay serene inside, even when things are going badly outside.”

p. 189  Jim Colbert echoing Sam Snead:  “My reaction to anything that happens on the golf course is no reaction. There are no birdies, or bogeys, or eagles or double bogeys. There are only numbers. If you can learn that, you can play this game. ”

p. 189 All performers can act themselves into a way of thinking just as they can think themselves into a way of acting.  Mental attitude is very important.

p. 189-90 Dave winfield, a member of the 3,000-hits club knew that what he thought affected how he performed. “Sometimes you have to say to yourself that you’re going to have fun and feel good before you go out there.  Normally, you have fun after you do well, but I wanted to have fun before I did well.  And that helped.”

p.190 To perform consistently you must prepare consistently.  Act the way you want to become until you become the way you act.

p. 192  Shaquille O’Neal: “It was Aristotle who said ‘ Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you repeatedly do.’”

p. 193  People with inner excellence look at competition as a challenge.

p. 193  Ten qualities of Inner Excellence:

• The person who is a winner within has a dream. Eleanor Roosevelt: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
• Commitment  to do the hard work.  Joe Frazier:” You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you’re down to your reflexes – your training. That’s where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of morning, you’re getting found out now, under the bright lights.”  (Great quote.)
• Responsibility – Those with the inner quality of excellence take responsibility for themselves and their actions.
• Openness to learning and growing.  Kaizen.  Learn how to play with the paradoxes of sports. We don’t grow old. We get old by not growing.
• Optimism  A positive mental attitude is essential to becoming the hero that is within you.
• Self Confidence.  No one can outperform his or her self image.  The greats believe in themselves and their abilities and they know how to do within, when they’re doing without.
• Emotional Control. Ask yourself – Was that appropriate? Does that serve you well?
• The adversity quotient.  An MVP looks at obstacles as opportunities and views setbacks as springboards for comebacks, stumbling blocks as stepping stones.   “Act like a champion.”
• Those with inner excellence posses the backbone of character.  Success with honor. Pick people up; don’t put them down. Walk your talk. Live by your principles. If you don’t stand for something, you can fall for untying.  If you stay in the middle of the road, the chance of getting hit are doubled.
• An MVP is persistent and patient.  Don’t give up on your dream. Hang out with people wh o stoke your fire, not soak your fire.

p. 196 When times are good, be grateful, and when times are bad, be graceful.

p. 196  Working on the inside shows on the outside. What lies ahead of us or behind us is of little matter to what lies within us.

p. 197 Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A hero is no braver than the ordinary person. He is just braver five minutes longer.”

p. 198 Dr Thad Bell “You can rise above almost any obstacle if you’re willing to work hard and believe that you can do it.  I want everyone to remember that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.”

p, 211 Great athletes strive for balance in their lives. On game day they find the warrior within.  They know when and how to turn it on, and when the game is over, they know how to turn it off.

p. 211 When the lights go on, it’s showtime. Be prepared mind, body, and spirit to do battle with everything you have, so when the contest is over you can leave the game behind, with no regrets.

p. 214 John McKay: “You shouldn’t worry about the fans or the press or trying to satisfy the expectations of anyone else.  All that matters is if you can look in the mirror and honestly tell the person you see there that you’ve done your best.”

p.215-217 Harvard researchers collaborated on a project to define what makes a successful life. They produced a list calle the Five L’s

• Love Without love for your sport and those people who are important to you, you aren’t living. Fall in love with what you are doing and the people you’re doing it with.
• Labor. Love what you’re doing, and you never have to work a day in your life.
• Learn  Frank Howard: “The trouble with baseball is that by the time you learn how to play the game, you can’t play it anymore.” Dan Fouts:  “I felt I can’t play forever but I’m learning more every day.”
• Laughter. Don’t let competition kill your sense of fun.  Life is to important to take too seriously. If you learn to laugh at yourself, you will enjoy a lifetime of entertainment.
• Leave, or let go. Charles Barkley:  “I’ve never believed my critics or my worshippers and I’ve always been able to leave the game at the arena.”   Sparky Anderson: “Win or lose, the game is finished. It’s over. It’s time to forget and prepare for the next one.”

p. 219  Success in life is peace of mind, the feeling of having no regrets.  It comes from knowing you did your best, on and off the field as a player and as a person. When you leave the game how do you want  to be remembered. How do you define success?

p. 220 Emmitt Smith:  I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated.

p. 224  the greater victory is the victory over ourselves. Remember, it’s always too soon to quit.