“Ask any elite athlete what percentage of their sport is mental, and you will get a huge number back. The statement I hear most often is “My game is 90% mental!” Now, I ask the second question. “If your game is 90% mental, what percentage of your time and money have you spent learning mental skills?” The answer I receive most often is 5 to 10%. Now that just doesn’t make sense. The thing that is most important is the thing that we tend to ignore.
If the mental game is so important where are the mental coaches in our schools? There are plenty of technical coaches on the football field. Every team from baseball to track has a coach for technique. There are golf pros and tennis pros in every country club that can teach you to swing the club and the racquet. But where are the mental coaches? They are hard to find, you might think, but you would be mistaken. In fact, they are everywhere. They are the first person the young athlete talks to after the game or practice. They are in the stands, shouting encouragement. They share the joy in every win and the pain in each loss. The most important mental coach in every athlete’s life is the parent that drives them home from the game.
Parents are unprepared for the job, and though they love their children, they will likely do more harm than good as their mental coach. But that will not happen if you read on and implement the principles of this book. I plan to make you a skilled mental coach for the sake of your children. You are about to learn about Mental Management®. Prepare to be enlightened and empowered.”
~ Lanny Bassham from Parenting Champions
Lanny Bassham is one of my favorite teachers.
He’s an Olympic Gold Medalist and World Champion rifle shooter. He won a silver medal after having what he calls a “mental meltdown” in the 1972 Olympics. Then he spent several hours a day for the next couple years talking to every gold medalist he could find about how they were THINKING while they were performing at such an elite level. In the next Olympics in 1976, Lanny won the gold and then began teaching his “Mental Management System®.”
Since then, he’s coached Olympic teams from all around the world (including Great Britain, Canada, India, Japan, The Republic of China, Korea, Australia and the United States). He’s also worked with the Navy SEALs, Fortune 500 businesses, the PGA and its players and other elite performers in sports and business.
He boiled decades of wisdom into his fantastic book With Winning in Mind. He and I connected for an interview and I’ve been personally practicing many of his ideas for years. So… When we decided to create our Optimize 2020 event, Lanny was on the top of my list of people I wanted to be there so a) I could give him a thank you in person and b) we can share his wisdom with you.
I reached out. We had an amazing chat. (He’s on!) That’s when I heard about his latest book—this one. He sent me a copy. I read it the next day. It’s AWESOME. And, well, here we are.
Of course, it’s packed with Big Ideas and, as always, I’m excited to share some of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!
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