HEADcoaching
Mental Training for Peak Performance
by
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Americans love sports. Why? Because sports are competitive. You keep score. And there are winners and losers. To succeed in sports, athletes practice; they play hard and they play to win. They can tell how well they’re doing by the scoreboard. And, when they get real good at what they do, they also have fun. They enjoy themselves while performing at high levels.
Top performers – athletes and coaches – are the same way. They practice their skills. They work hard to be the best. They know if they’ve won or lost by how well they or their teams perform. And, they view themselves as winners. However, not all performers enjoy what they do, even if they are successful. That’s because there is sometimes a difference in the mental approaches used by average performers and top or peak performers.
The major difference between high level performers such as Olympic or professional athletes and mediocre or average performers is that top performers use more mental strategies and psychological techniques than their counterparts do. Where some people may develop a positive mental attitude and repeat positive affirmations–for example, “I’m the best golfer in this whole country club”– athletes and other top performers go way beyond that. They actually practice their mental skills, such as visualization and imagery, as much as or more than they practice their physical skills. They become HEADcoaches – athletes and coaches who use their brains to help themselves deliver peak performance.
I have helped hundreds of professional and collegiate athletes – in golf, soccer, basketball and dozens of other sports –as well as hosts of amateur athletes who play sports for the sheer joy it gives them. The athletes I’ve worked with and taught these skills to understand that they must first win the game in their minds before they actually play it. They believe in themselves totally. The same is true for the other top performers that I’ve worked with. After training in the mental and psychological skills used by athletes and adapted for the general public, people believe they can successfully HEADcoach themselves anytime, anywhere. And they not only have a great time – they become winners.
It’s the mental and psychological skills the great athletes use that separate them from the rest of the pack. They know their mind affects the way they think and feel about a performance, and the way they actually perform. And now, for the first time, the majority of coaches, students, business people and average athletes will be introduced to those sports psychology techniques that top athletes use to be peak performers.
Yogi Berra once said that the game is 90% mental, and the other half is physical. While his math may not be correct, you get the idea he was trying to convey. Tennis great Jimmy Connors has said that at the highest levels of tennis (or any sport, for that matter), the difference between winners and losers is the mental and psychological skills rather than physical talent. And every sports psychologist or coach will tell you that the athlete who is mentally tough, who can perform under pressure, and who can psychologically come back from adversity and loss, will most often be the winner.
To me,
this sounds a lot like someone who is always mentally prepared.
In fact, we know for certain that performance outcomes are determined first in your mind before you ever actually do something. You’ve got to win inside before you can win outside. You’ve got to have the confidence that no matter what happens, you will be successful.
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Book Details
About the Book
Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you had the power and capability to achieve anything you wanted to in life. And that you could overcome any obstacles or challenges that came your way.
Now, imagine that the only thing holding you back was what was in your head. And all you needed was a Coach to help you “use your head to get ahead”.
That’s what you have here in HEADcoaching: Mental Training for Peak Performance. Your very own personal, private coach in the pages of this book. You’ll learn how to set and achieve goals in all areas of your life, how to deal with stress and anxiety, how to perform under pressure, and how to relax before every performance. You’ll also learn how to use visualization and mental rehearsal to improve your skills in sports, sales, school and life.
If you are a sports or business coach, you’ll be able to use these HEADcoaching principles and techniques to help your athletes and clients become better at whatever they do. The book is written from two perspectives: the coach and the athlete/performer. So, everyone benefits.
The HEADcoaching principles and techniques are based on proven methods that research has shown enhance and improve performance. They are also based on the more than 25 years of work that Dr. Richard Gerson has done with clients in sports, business and academics to help them increase their performances.
Work on these principles for only 15 minutes a day and you will realize a tremendous improvement in all areas of your life.
About the Author
Richard Gerson, Ph.D. is president of The HEADcoaching Institute, a training and consulting firm specializing in elevating the performances of people, teams and organizations by helping them identify and manage their thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes and behaviors.
Richard was one of the pioneers in the performance psychology field, having developed training programs and consulting services in this area since 1979. He is an expert in identifying behavioral and mental strategies that people use to perform at a high level and then developing training programs to both improve the performance of the exemplars and transfer those strategies to other performers. Richard’s strength in helping others achieve high levels of performance and success lies in his abilities to coach and mentor people in such a way that they expand their comfort zones, stretch their limits, and turn the stresses of their lives into the successes of their lives. He uses a variety of techniques from sports and performance psychology, cognitive-behavioral psychology, and NeuroLinguistic Psychology to accomplish these goals.
Richard has a Ph.D. in Sports Psychology from Florida State University. He has published 18 books and over 350 articles in journals, magazines, newspapers and newsletters. He is also a Certified Management Consultant, a Certified Performance Technologist, a Certified Professional Marketing Consultant, along with several other professional certifications. He is a much sought-after speaker in the areas of performance psychology, performance improvement, motivation, sales, marketing and customer service. His use of sports and performance psychology applied to the business world helps people achieve their goals, motivate themselves to become peak performers, and continually increase their levels of skill to achieve measurable performance improvements.
Richard can be reached at 727-726-6508 or at