Mental Toughness and The Leaders Mind
Dr Jim Afremow
Dr. Jim Afremow is a much sought-after mental skills coach, licensed professional counselor, and the author of The Champion’s Mind: How Great Athletes Think, Train and Thrive (Rodale, 2014), The Champion’s Comeback: How Great Athletes Recover, Reflect, and Reignite (Rodale, 2016) , and The Young Champion’s Mind: How to Think, Train, and Thrive Like an Elite Athlete (Rodale, 2018).
He is the founder of Good to Gold Medal, PLLC, a leading coaching and consulting practice. Though his practice is located in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Afremow provides individual and team mental training services across the globe to athletes, teams, and coaches in all sports, as well as to parents, business professionals, and all others engaged in highly demanding endeavors. He is passionate about helping others achieve peak performance and personal excellence, and reach their true potential.
For over 20 years, Dr. Afremow has assisted numerous high school, collegiate, recreational, and professional athletes. Major sports represented include MLB, NBA, WNBA, PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, NHL, NFL, and the UFC. In addition, he has mentally trained several U.S. and international Olympic competitors. He served as the staff mental coach for two international Olympic teams, the Greek Olympic softball team and India’s Olympic field hockey team. He served as a senior staff member with Counseling Services and Sports Medicine at Arizona State University, and as a Mental Skills Coach and the Peak Performance Coordinator with the San Francisco Giants MLB organization.
Phil White
Phil White is an Emmy-nominated writer and the co-author of The 17 Hour Fast with Dr. Frank Merritt, Waterman 2.0 with Dr. Kelly Starrett, Unplugged with Dr. Andy Galpin and Brian Mackenzie, and Game Changer with Fergus Connolly. He is also a frequent contributor to Onnit, Momentous, HANAH, StrongFirst, TrainHeroic, and TrainingPeaks.
Phil lives in Evergreen, Colorado, with his wife and his two sons. When not writing about himself in the third person, he can be found hiking, sipping stout and single malt at Revival Brews, paddleboarding on Evergreen Lake, shooting hoops with his family, or swinging a kettlebell.
BOOK: The Leader’s Mind: How Great Leaders Prepare, Perform, and Prevail
In today’s podcast episode, I chat with Dr. Jim Afremow and Phil White who have written an excellent book to be released in December 2021, called The Leaders Mind. I tap into their expertise to help you, where we discuss modern sport psychology as well as different elements of the book and link it to mental toughness. For example, we chat about a pilot, Tammie Jo Shults and how she took control of a stricken plane when there was an engine failure and how she went on to manage the situation and herself. We discuss Nic Gill the All Blacks Strength and Conditioning coach and the All Blacks dedication to continued excellence. Lastly, we talk about Donald Robertson, an advocate of using stoicism to achieve your goals.
Key Takeaways include:
- To think like a champion in your sport you must look to get the best out of yourself.
- There’s no health without mental health, and obviously without mental health you’re not going to find peak performance.
- A common misconception is that you’re either born with confidence or you’re not. It can be developed and improved upon.
- Tammie’s ability to trust her training and go into “autopilot”, as well as her interpersonal confidence shone through in such a difficult situation.
- Nic Gil and the All Blacks have a mindset to keep on learning and that they can always achieve more.
- In Sports Psychology we often mention “controlling the controllables” which is a stoic philosophy.
Connect with Dr Jim Afremow:
Connect with Phil White:
Book
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Helpful Podcast Episodes
Podcast Ep001: Doug Strycharzch – The Importance of Mental Toughness
Podcast Ep 013: Karl Morris – How to Stay Present like a Major Champion
Podcast Ep 028 Peter Clough MBE – Why is Mental Toughness Important
Podcast Ep 037: Penny Mallory – World Class Thinking, World Class Behaviour
Podcast Ep 061: Paul Lyons – Why You Should Build Your Mental Toughness
Other Useful Resources
Blog – 9 Tips for Children from Olympians
Click the button below to join The Sports Psychology Hub a Facebook group that David hosts to help ambitious athletes, serious sport coaches, sporting parents, sports psychologists and mental game coaches to support each other.
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Best Wishes
David Charlton
Global Sports Psychologist who is located near Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK and willing to travel Internationally. David also uses online video conferencing software (Zoom, Facetime, WhatsApp) on a regular basis and has clients who he has supported in USA, Canada, South America, UAE, Australian and New Zealand.
Managing Director – Inspiring Sporting Excellence and Founder of The Sports Psychology Hub. With over 10 years experience supporting athletes, coaches, parents and teams to achieve their goals, quickly.
T: +44 7734 697769
