The Champion's Mind

How Great Athletes Think, Train, and Thrive
by Jim Afremow | Rodale Books © 2015 · 288 pages

Jim Afremow is one of the world’s leading sports psychologists and this great book is packed with Big Ideas. We explore: the vision of a champion (and how to fuel it), what mental toughness *really* is, how/why to be ugly but effective, how to evaluate yourself (3 q’s: good + better + best), and creating sustained obsession as you take the champion’s honor pledge.


You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.
Herb Brooks, Coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic ‘Miracle on Ice’ team

Champion yourself. We all experience similar struggles and deal with demanding challenges in our pursuit of excellence, regardless of the sport or fitness activity. To be a champion, your true best self becomes key to personal and athletic greatness. You know, as we all do, that only those performers who think gold and never settle for silver will continue to strive for and reach their highest, or gold, level. A champion makes greatness happen, despite what may seem impossible odds.

Of course most of us are not Olympians or professional athletes. But all of us can acquire a champion’s mind-set. Any athlete can learn to think like a champion. Every one of us can be peak performers in the game of life by achieving our own personal best. We can strive to be the best version of ourselves. It is possible for us to stay ‘professional’ whenever adversity strikes. It is possible to ingrain mental fortitude that drives us forward. And it is possible to take a championship approach.”

~ Jim Afremow from The Champion’s Mind

Jim Afremow is one of the world’s leading sports psychologists who works with some of the top performers in all major sports.

This is a great book—a collection of bite-size Big Ideas on how we can develop our Champion’s Mind covering everything from goal setting, visualization and self-talk to breath control, confidence and mental toughness.

My copy of the book is *all* marked up. Get a copy here.

As I’ve mentioned in other Notes in our growing collection of sports + mental toughness books, I love sports books because sports are such a great metaphor for life.

As Afremow puts it, we can all be “Peak performers in the game of life.

We can all be Champions.

Here’s a fun little fact: Did you know the word champion comes from the medieval Latin campio(n-) which means “fighter”?

Yep—which immediately makes me think of winning the ultimate combat Socrates talks about in The Gorgias: “I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can… And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same… I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

With that, I’m excited to share a few of my favorite Ideas on how we can become Champions of our own lives so let’s jump straight in!

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About the author

Authors

Jim Afremow

Leading mental performance consultant and the author of The Champion's Mind.