As I discussed in my last post, regret is one of the worst emotion you can experience after a race day, season, career or life. I also described how much of the work I’m doing these days with ski racers is as focused on developing the right attitude toward racing as it is on learning [...]
The Internet, and all of the new computer and communication technology that has sprung from it, have been a boon to the information age, making information available at children’s fingertips instantaneously. The sheer volume of information now accessible online is staggering; there are around 50 billion pages on the Web. Information continues to become more available [...]
Over the last few decades, I have worked with many ski racers, from juniors to World Cuppers. One thing I have noticed is that the most powerful work I do with racers isn’t your typical mental training where I teach them about positive thinking, mental imagery, routines, and how to stay intense and focused (though [...]
Thinking. The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It’s what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized. Thinking encompasses so many aspects of who our children are and what they do, from observing, learning, remembering, questioning, and judging to innovating, arguing, deciding, and acting. There is also little doubt that all of the new technologies, led by the Internet, are shaping the way we think in ways obvious and subtle, deliberate and unintentional, and advantageous and detrimental The uncertain reality is that, with this new technological frontier in its infancy and developments emerging at a rapid pace, we have neither the benefit of historical hindsight nor the time to ponder or examine the value and cost of these advancements in terms of how it influences our children’s ability to think. There is, however, a growing body of research that technology can be both beneficial and harmful to different ways in which children think. Moreover, this influence isn’t just affecting children on the surface of their thinking. Rather, because their brains are still developing and malleable, frequent exposure by so-called digital natives to technology is actually wiring the brain in ways very different than in previous generations.
Values are a pretty darned touchy subject to bring up these days when it comes to raising children. Values have gotten a bad rap because of how they are discussed in politics and as they relate to religious beliefs. When most people hear the term values used, they often think of the hot-button value issues [...]
The San Francisco Giants’ surprising World Series victory in October led to mass celebration and ticker-tape parades in the City by the Bay. It also produced the usual theorizing about how a team could go from being down 0-3 in the National League Championship Series to sweeping the favored Detroit Tigers to win the Fall Classic. And the success of the Giants caused many to ask if their “secret formula” could be learned by teams in the corporate world. There were the usual clichés about the power of teamwork, players peaking at the right time, plain dumb luck and, of course, divine intervention. But none of these explanations really gets at how the Giants were able to overcome the longest of odds to become the World Series champs. One particularly common conversation has brought up the mythology that winning teams win by having players who have no egos. In fact, the noted business guru Jim Collins argues that the best leaders are “egoless,” that they are humble, unselfish and have little ambition. We’re here to tell you that is simply not true.
I have found that a simple distinction appears to lie at the heart of whether racers are able to ski their best or crumble under the weight of expectations and tough conditions on race day: Do they view the race as a threat or a challenge. What happens when you are threatened by something (think [...]
Confidence is the single most important mental factor in cycling. Confidence is also a mental area that is ripe for change and I will not only be offering you insights into how confidence impacts your cycling performance, but, in my next several installments, I will also offer you many practical tools for developing confidence in [...]
I just wanted to share a very kind review of my latest parenting book, Raising Generation Tech: Preparing Your Children for a Media-fueled World, by Dr. Marilyn Price-Mitchell.