Welcome to my blog. Mike Margolies The Athlete within You
This is my space for writing about all things in my world of sports, mental training and to be honest, anything that strikes me at the time. Some of these posts ended up in my book “The Athlete within You. Some are stories from any of my presentations. I hope you spend some time to explore my world. It’s about mental toughness, success and the fun involved in sports, business and life. There is also a bit about Mike Margolies and my journey working with athletes for close to 40 years. To learn more about how I work with people, please go to The Mental Game. To have me speak to your group, go to my Speaker page at MikeMargolies.com. Thank you for following Mike Margolies The Athlete within You. Be well.
Game within the Game Bahrain
Game within the Game Bahrain As I said I had a great experience presenting the Game within the Game Seminar in Bahrain. It was really fun working with the coaches, athletes and administrators there. I didn’t know it until I arrived that this was going to be the very first commercial sports seminar ever conducted in the Kingdom of Bahrain. I feel very honored to be the first guest presenter in sports, EVER. AS people often say you are often regarded much more by people further away from your home base. I just didn’t know I had to go that far (11 time zones). Here are just a few pictures from the seminar. We started at 9:30am and finished at 5pm. that is 10:30pm Seattle start time finishing at 6am. Fortunately coffee and adrenalin work wonders. The participants were engaged and happy. I received a kiss from one of my volunteers. An Arab custom much like the French as a way of greeting friends. Had not expected that. I was introduced in Arabic by a wonderful woman. I talked with her prior to the start. She was a friend of the event manager. A friend here asked me was it different presenting the seminar in Bahrain. The answer is not really. People are people the world over. Customs are different, but the thirst for knowledge and good presentations is the same. I hope I provided that. Are there things I would do differently. The answer to that is always. I always want to learn from a presentation to make it better. The biggest thing I would add would be more engagement within...
Mental Trainer is Back
Mental Trainer is Back Well the Mental Trainer is back from Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain. All good intentions sometimes get swept away. I’d intended on blogging from Bahrain. each step of the journey. For lots of reasons it didn’t happen. Even after I got back I couldn’t seem to catch up and report like I wanted to. There was always a self-created roadblock. Sound familiar? Just because I help others with their mental training does not for a moment make me or any other mental trainer perfect. It is too easy to blame jet lag and the holidays. So here is my report. IT WAS GREAT! OK, not what you were likely looking for. Alright, a bit more. Flew out of Seattle via British Airways. A bit of a cluster as the ticket said American. One end of the airport to the other. Flight to London was comfortable. I’ve not flown business class in a while and was glad for it. Worked on finalizing presentation and working on book. 9 hours as they say flew by. Landed at Heathrow and got through the Que. Business class meant being able to hang at the Business class club for a few hours without having to drag a bag around. I remembered that I had not printed a letter before I left for customs in Bahrain saying I was a presenter at a Government approved seminar. Spent a bit of time trying to hook my laptop to one of the printers at the club, gave up and printed through web mail. Printed two copies. Figured redundancy was important. Note to self. When you make a list of things not...
Traveling Mental Trainer
Traveling Mental Trainer Travel Blog Series It’s Wednesday the 17th of December, 2013. I am a little more than 24 hours away from flying to the Middle East to do a one day seminar for 70-100 athletes. I thought I would blog about the adventure, about the travel, food and the people I meet of course with pictures. This is exactly the way I have been envisioning my work as the Traveling Mental Trainer. Seminars and workshops around the world. Talking with Athletes, Teams, Coaches and businesses about sport psychology and how it can solve issues and help others perform at the highest levels. Now it’s true that this vision of mine is 25 years after I first planed on working around the world. I’m getting better as some will remember it took me 32 years to finish my book. Ha- so there. I am getting better on my time table. Things get done sometimes in their own time, but it helps to follow through to encourage things along. What I find so fun is the opportunity to meet with and help people of different cultures in different environments. Sports bring people together and I am really looking forward to being part of that. So this trip is to the Kingdom of Bahrain. I was engaged back in July by the National Sports Management Group. It was an interesting process as I needed to be approved by the government and that included my book and all of my handouts and my curriculum vita (resume). The seminar will be at the Crown plaza Hotel in Manama. this will be Saturday the 21st. On Sunday I am scheduled to do a two hour...
Mental Training Are you
Mental training Are you? Are you mental training? My biggest wish is that we all understand the importance of mental training in everything we do. Yogi Berra regardless of what he meant or how badly he is misquoted was certainly right. Ninety percent of sport is mental and the other fifty percent is physical. The more important aspect of this Berra-ism is not simply our understanding that the mental side of performance is important, but that just like everything else we do in life to get better at something we must practice those skills. If we want to be a better writer, then we better write. Want to be a better musician, then you better practice if you want to get to Carnegie Hall. It’s that practical. If you are going to achieve anything, use your mind. There are plenty of techniques you can learn to help you succeed, but just as most athletes spend ninety percent of their efforts purely on physical training (and most do), we need to change our perspective. The trouble is that many successful athletes did learn to train using their minds at an early age. They put little thought into the mental game because it is a natural part of sports for them. They can achieve excellence with the ease of angels. Maybe it was an early coach or teacher. Maybe it was their parents and family or friends, but they picked up things along the way, that made succeeding easier. So when you hear an athlete or coach scoff at mental training and they point to their own success through dedicated practicing,...
Review Athlete within You
Review Athlete within You Please review Athlete within You. I am looking for some new reviews of my book “The Athlete within You – a mental approach to sports and business”. I need these on amazon.com. The link will take you there and you can just add a short review. So if you have purchased a book and would kindly add a nice review I would appreciate it. If you have not yet read my book, I will make you an offer that is tough to beat. email me and I will give you a PDF version of the book for you to read and review (and I trust enjoy). There are no conditions. Oh except that you need to email me for the book request. I promise not to sell or otherwise disrespect your privacy. all you need to do is email me at margolies@themental-game.com Just put review athlete within you as the subject header and I will gladly email you a copy. When you finish, if you liked what I had to say, then all you need do is click on the amazon link here and add your review. Couldn’t be easier. I am grateful to all that help me out. Thank you. ...
Two Cs
Two Cs Some time ago I wrote a post called Five Frogs Sitting on a Log. You might want to re-read it now. I wrote about the difference between deciding to do something and actually doing something and that they are different. I trust that it made sense to you. The next step is the Two Cs: Commitment and Conviction. I want to start by telling you about an athlete. About a year and a half ago I got a call from the mother of a gymnast. Her daughter was a junior in high school. She had been a gymnast since she was like 5. She wanted to be on a gymnastics team in college (@ an Ivy League School no less). She had been to Nationals the last several years, but now she was unable to do her release on the uneven bars. That’s a reverse double somersault She needed to do well at State to make Regional’s, and then Regional’s to go on to National’s. Failure at any stage would impact her competing in college at the level and school she wanted. There were college coaches who wanted to see her at Nationals. She was on their radar. Could I help her daughter? Oh and by the way State Championships are tomorrow! So I went to the gym and watched her be stuck. We talked, she got unstuck. Then we worked on keeping her at a level where she could perform. End of story is the young woman is at an Ivy League College and she is on the Gymnastics Team. She was just missing a small thing that...
Mental Minutes
Mental Minutes I have been doing a series called Mental Minutes for Junior Hockey dot com for the last few months. I’ve posted them on The Mental Game website under radio so they may be found easily. I thought what I would like to do is write about them here as well, but perhaps go a little more in depth or add a little something. So here goes. Mental Minute # 1 The week prior to a game don’t change what you typically do with regard to your normal preparation (warm-up, routines, food, etc.). Yes, my first tip is to be cautious about what tips you add! However, there is one big exception – sleep. I strongly suggest preparing yourself for games by going to sleep and getting up at approximately the same time for an entire week prior to a game if you can. Trying to play after getting a few less hours than you’re used to, or getting up a few hours earlier than normal, can affect your coordination, emotion control and decision making (ie. your performance!). You’ll have a big advantage over other players. Added info: NAPS Something else you can use to help in your recovery. NAPS. If time allows taking a Power Nap will help you get refocused. The science of sleep has been giving us insight into understanding about NAPS. You know many great and creative people have used power naps to allow themselves to do incredible work and athletics is no different. What we have learned however has to do both with duration and timing. 10-20 minute power naps give you the best bang...
Is your Life Ambition to be GM of the Year?
Is your Life Ambition to be GM of the Year? What Team Building in Sport offers the Business World! Great Sports Teams have always had great General Managers. Is your life ambition to be GM of the year? Then see what team building in sports will do for you. If you head a project, a business unit or the entire company, you want that title of GM of the Year, because it means your efforts are creating meaningful relationships, products and reputations. I don’t often post about The Mental Game Programs, but I thought this one would be of value. I think many of the components of this program are critical to businesses and there are things that offer transference to the business world. Team Building for Businesses, Non Profits and Direct Sales Organizations. Let me show you why the sports world offers you great insight into how your organization can function at the highest level even under pressure. Great teams and GM’s create an atmosphere that instills Cooperation and Cohesion even in a competitive work environment. Not every team starts with good chemistry, but every team can have it. Every wonder why people who played on sports teams miss them so much? What if you could create a corporate culture that no one ever wanted to leave? Let me help get your organization moving in the right direction. Respect, admiration, discipline, cohesion and even competition are all attributes of good teams. A competitive environment is not in opposition to a good working environment. Respect and Cohesion are easier to achieve when missions and goals are clearly defined. Learn how...
Stillpower and other tools in Sports
Stillpower and other tools in Sports What’s the line from the movie Network, “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore”? This post is all about Catharsis, Stillpower, Mindfulness and Hypnosis and other tools in Sports. Well maybe it is more about professional approaches to helping athletes perform their best. I read a blog post by an author named Garret Kramer called Stillpower. I bought Kramer’s book several months ago as it was recommended by Amazon when you buy my book, “The Athlete within You“. In and of itself the book is useful. It is about his technique of Stillpower. It can be known in other terms as mindfulness or even Gap Training. I appreciate his presentation and the writing is FINE. (yes I meant to do that) Here is what has me mad as hell. I love tools, tools to help athletes and business people with their skills so they can achieve their dreams and goals. I call them tools where others might say techniques or even philosophies, but I’m going to stick with the metaphor as tools because a wise person once told me there is a right tool for every need. Both in his book and in his blog right away he starts in on how sport psychology is all wrong. His blog titled “Do You Use Mental Techniques? Here’s Why They’re Not Working” goes along with the side note in his book. That basically those of us who do and teach mental training are ineffective and it is all about Stillpower. I’m not going to disagree that “Stillpower” as he calls it...