How Champions Think

In Sports and in Life
by Bob Rotella | Simon & Schuster © 2016 · 304 pages

Dr. Bob Rotella is widely recognized as the world’s leading sports psychologist. He’s coached everyone from basketball stars like LeBron James to rock stars like Seal. The golfers he’s coached (including greats like Rory McIlroy) have won an astonishing 80+ major championships. Want to know how champions think in both sports AND life? Well, here you go. Big Ideas we explore include the importance of going for "exceptionalism" (by definition, to be great/a champion you need to be an "exception" to the norm so...), a message from God (key takeaway: focus on the process, results are all good), train it and trust it, enthusiasm (it's the catalyst of champions), how to create your own reality (hint: don't do what average people do), and how to win the ultimate game of life.


I’m always telling people that I don’t care what their families or their schools or their communities said or thought about them. I tell them, ‘You’re an adult now, and you get to decide.’ So what’s the decision going to be? You get to write your life story. Will you be heroic or just someone trying to get by? Will you be the star or someone sitting on the end of the bench?
Bob Rotella

“I have been privileged to spend my life helping people who want to be exceptional. A desire to be exceptional may not in itself strike you as unusual. Everyone, as a kid, has daydreams in which he catches the touchdown pass as time expires to win the Super Bowl, or she pole-vaults sixteen feet to win an Olympic gold medal. But I’m not talking about the unrealized fantasies of many adults. I’m talking about a desire so fierce that it changes a person’s life. Exceptional people begin with just such ambitions. From them, I’ve learned how a champion’s thoughts are different from the thoughts of most people. That difference is what this book is all about.”

~ Dr. Bob Rotella from How Champions Think

Dr. Bob Rotella is widely recognized as the world’s leading sports psychologist. He’s coached everyone from basketball stars like LeBron James to rock stars like Seal. The golfers he’s coached (including greats like Rory McIlroy) have won an astonishing 80+ major championships.

In this book, he tells us, as the title suggests, How Champions Think—in, as the sub-title suggests, both sports AND in life.

Although we covered his uber-bestselling classic Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect (check out those Notes), I hadn’t heard of this newer book until Ben Bergeron referenced it in Chasing Excellence. So, of course, I immediately Amazoned it and immediately read it.

It’s a SUPER-inspiring read. I highly recommend it if you’re into peak performance in general and especially if you’re into becoming a Champion at whatever it is you do. (Get a copy here.)

Of course, it’s packed with Big Ideas. I’m excited to share some of my favorites we can apply to our World Champion Training Camps, so let’s jump straight in!

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About the author

Authors

Bob Rotella

Famed sports psychologist.