This page is a list of books that you should read if you’re interested in learning the Mindset Of A Champion that by definition requires Mental Toughness.
For now, I offer a list of the books, eventually, I will add a summary of each, but for now you know I endorse and recommend them because they are listed here.
You’ll surely notice that even though I am a squash player, many of the books are about tennis. That doesn’t matter because most of the strategies and techniques for the MENTAL aspect of the game are the same. That is one of the strategies I teach my clients – to seek out the information they need means they often need to go looking where the information is rather than where they think it is.
Squash has not received the same amount of attention as tennis has, so tennis books are unfortunately one of the best sources of mental toughness strategies for squash players. Most squash players would not think of searching in this stream of research… That’s why when you adopt an Exponential Mindset™, you can achieve extra-ordinary results.
If you come across any titles related to this, please let me know. As a speed reader, I want to get my hands on as many books as possible!
The Making Of Champions: Roots Of The Sporting Mind
Expertise and Expert Performance
Tennis – Winning The Mental Game
Biographies with a focus on Mental Toughness,
Deliberate Practice Strategies and The Champion Mindset
Biographies of champion athletes are valuable to read because they reveal what makes them tick. Often, the most important insights and revelations are read in-between the lines, acquired by osmosis as you re-live their accomplishments and setbacks. You don’t necessarily need to read the biography of an athlete in your sport, but I would suggest you select between team and individual sports as a first filter. If you play a racket sport, start with tennis, squash, racketball, badminton and table tennis champions – then venture out into other individual sports.
Of course there are exceptions – such as Michael Jordan‘s authorised biography by award winning author Bob Greene. Rebound: The Odyssey of Michael Jordan is a surprisingly honest and revealing account of his first retirement from Basketball to try to play professional baseball – his first love of sport.
There are 3 lessons from Michael Jordan’s biography that really stand out:
(1) Champions are made – not born. Not many people know Michael was cut from his high school basketball team. He became the greatest basketball player of all time by sheer determination and discipline.
(2) He was then (in high school) and now (trying out for professional baseball) willing and eager to learn AND LISTEN. Unlike too many people (business entrepreneurs and elite athletes) who can’t and won’t listen to a coach, Michael Jordan was the ultimate student. He soaked everything in WITHOUT questioning it. He would accept what was being said and try it out for himself before rejecting it or making it his own. He was able to do this because he had a PROCESS. The same process he used to become the all-time great basketball champion.
(3) The process Michael Jordan used to learn and master sports was the achievement of autonomy reflexes – to acquire game excellence. Easier said than done, it meant that the body would instinctively know what to do – without thinking. His ability to create that level of excellence in baseball in less than 2 years was proof positive that it’s a PROCESS, not something you’re born with.
Michael Jordan - The Ultimate Basketball Champion
A Champion’s Mind by Pete Sampras
Venus & Serena: My Seven Years as Hitting Coach for the Williams Sisters
This is a great book if you’re an antimimeticisomorphism aficionado. There are countless tennis training tips and techniques you’d never think of that are just ‘brilliant’ – like throwing an American football to warm up and mimic the serve motion, using sparklers to capture the real movement of each stroke – if you don’t have time lapse photography equipment…
All in all, it’s a priceless analysis of how champions are made and NOT born. Just about anyone with this level of training, coaching and follow through would have been successful.
For me, the key aspect of Mr Williams’ coaching and mentoring was to keep it “fun” so they would not burn out and get tired of the drudgery of training and then competing. That attention to the psychology of winning is what set him apart from all the other parents who never got ‘it’… That’s why his daughters are champions and all the others are not.
Simple as that – of course hindsight is 20/20, but in this instance, Mr Williams has 20/20 Foresight!
Tennis My Way by Martina Navratilova
(I only recommend this one for die-hard tennis fans, it’s not that insightful and outdated with the training regimen and nutritional advice).
More Than A Match by Chester Barnes
This book is an autobiographical look at an English table tennis “child prodigy” as he transitions from Junior Tournaments into the Men’s Professional Circuit. The book’s charm is the time-sensitive context of the 1960′s with the trends and internal politics of what he calls “Officialdom”.
Chester holds no punches as he describes the non-local officials as “control freaks … possibly to make up for a nagging wife at home … frustrated trying to make up for not having much success in life…” Obviously that was a long time ago, but many sports today remain riddled with incompetent officials and bureaucrats who slowly suck the life force out of the sport’s players and fans. Wasting time effort and resources that could be better invested in the promotion and growth of the sport.
One last insight gleaned from this autobiography that is brutally honest. Chester readily admits to hating to lose, that he was (and remains) a sore loser and that he finds no drive to fight to lose when it’s a hopeless fight. All competitive and elite athletes have had days when nothing is going right and whether or not a loss is 21-13 or 21-7 it’s still a loss. That being said, this is counter-balanced with an insatiable desire and drive to WIN against any and all opponents.
What’s refreshing is that Chester is not pandering to what people want to hear, he’s telling his story as it is. because of that brutal honesty required that what he says must be taken in its proper context and never extrapolated to wide-ranging generalisations.
Winning Squash by Jahangir Khan with Rahmat Khan and Dennis Eaton
If you’re a squash addict, this thin, 93-page book is worth its weight in gold. It’s a very genuine and authentic revelation of what it took for Jahangir Khan to become the ultimate, all-time best player to hit a squash ball.
Out of print, it’s worth searching online or in used bookstores to get as I did recently while on vacation on the Gold Coast.
Getting into the Mindset Of A Champion is priceless for elite athletes who have mastered the mechanics. Even though many of the technique recommendations are outdated with today’s high tech rackets, Jahangir’s approach to hitting the ball and executing drills is timeless and priceless. He has a lone player drill named after him – I’ll leave it up to you to find out what it is.
During his career Jahangir Khan won the World Open six times and the British Open a record ten times. Between 1981 and 1986, he was unbeaten in competitive play for five years. During that time he won 555 games consecutively, the longest winning streak by any athlete in top-level professional sports as recorded by Guinness World Records.
Fighting Spirit by Lauren Burns.
This is a great autobiographical recount of a champion’s challenges and as the book’s title extolls, her fighting spirit. Even though I am not a martial artist, the play-by-play analysis was beyond my interest. The self-analysis and honesty revealed was quite remarkable and refreshing to read to get into a champion’s mindset – especially when she failed or came up short.
She is a true champion with laser-focused concentration on the ultimate goal – the Olympic Gold.
A must-read for anyone who wants to know the inner workings of the Mindset Of A Champion.
No Limits – The Will To Succeed by Michael Phelps with Alan Abrahamson
You don’t need to be a swimmer or even a fan of swimming to enjoy this remarkable and revealing view into this champion’s psyche and mindset. This autobiographical memoir takes you through what it takes to be the ultimate, all-time best at anything. Discipline, perseverance, tenacity and purpose combined with outstanding coaching and mentoring. Granted physical attributes have a lot to do with Michael Phelps’ and Ian Thorpe‘s dominance in the pool, but just like Usain Bolt on the running track, these champions re-defined the mechanics and metrics of their sport.
The mechanics are their physical attributes – height, arm spans, foot size, stride length, etc. In Michael Phelps’ case he has a wingspan (arms stretched to the side of 6 feet 7 inches = 3 inches wider than his 6 foot 4 inches of height). He has the torso of a swimmer 6′ 8″ with the legs of a 6 footer which means there is less drag in the water.
But that alone does not a champion make. What is unique about these particular champions is how they leveraged those attributes to leave their peers seconds or meters behind, with astonishing regularity and seemingly effortless elegance.
This memoir by this generation’s greatest swimmer is a must-read for elite athletes of all ages, shapes and sizes. It is especially well written for a sports biography that often fills pages with statistics and play-by-play commentary that serves more as filler than value-add. This one had a great editor OR more likely Michael just cut to the chase and got down to the basics.
A truly enjoyable and memorable read that has already changed several of my training practices which don’t even include any water!
The 4 Minute Mile By Roger Bannister
Sometimes being at the right place at the right time is all it takes to make history.
I have to admit I was expecting this to be an epic story of grit, determination and focus, but the reality is Roger Bannister was just the first man to break the 4-minute mile because it was inevitable and overdue. I don’t want to take away from the fact that he was the first, but his autobiography reflects no particular discipline or focused effort to break the mental barrier – it just happened to be an account of the person who looked back to tell a story.
I guess that’s why he’s never been more than the guy who did it.
That’s why sometimes – just being there is enough to achieve greatness. He could not have done it if he didn’t run. Simple as that.
Many people struggle with the complexities of training while the act of just showing up can be enough.
Enough to break an unbeatable record.
Enough to make history.
Enough to inspire others to just show up.
The autobiography is only recommended for die-hard running and athletics fans – it reveals very few insights beyond recounting the events that led to the all-important sub-4 minute mile.
The Champions: The Secret Motives In Games And Sports By Peter Fuller
This book reveals the secret motives in games and sports from a Freudian psychoanalytic perspective. It’s not for the casual sports psychology reader or social athlete. You need to be a fan of Freudian Analysis and fully appreciate the relationship of the Id, Ego and Superego to benefit from this exhaustive analysis of Champions including: Bobby Fisher, Muhammad Ali and Jackie Stewart.
I would recommend this to any Psychology 101 students who want a practical application of Freudian Analysis.
The big take away from this book is that even though it’s outmoded, there is a lot to be said for the in-depth analysis that is possible. All champions (today) need self-awareness to fully understand and respect their inner and outer motivations and drives. Whether you believe in the Oedipus Complex is not the point – self-analysis and understanding is a priceless tool for athletes to get a better sense of who they are, why they are and what they want to become.
Bobby Fisher and Muhammad Ali fans will relish the detailed retrospective analyses offered by a Freudian master.
Steve Jobs – The Exception
The Champion In Business
Champions by definition are exceptions to the rule and Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, is no exception (excuse the pun). His authorised, but uncensored biography written by Walter Isaacson is a must read if you want to get IN the mind of a take-no-prisoners champion.
I am not advocating you have to be hurtful, self-centered and egotistical to be a champion, but Steve’s undeniable intensity, concentration of focus, clarity of purpose and unrelenting discipline are prerequisites for achievement at the highest level – in sport or any other endeavour.
I highly recommend since it is an unflattering revelation of what it took to become the ultimate product innovation company that changed the world in more than a handful of industries. If you want to become a champion, you simply must read this book, and then make up your own mind if you’re willing to do what it takes and who you will become as the process becomes all-consuming.
Quite the dilemma as the decisions need to be made on a daily, on-going basis. Just never forget one of Steve Jobs’ classic quotes “The journey IS the reward.”
