In the Zone: How Champions Think and Win Big

Great Read. Filled with quotes from the most famous sportspeople on what it takes to be the best.

This book gets a little repetitive, but the message is clear and strong. My college team read this before our season started and it really helped us mentally and physically prepare for what was to come. I think I'm a stronger athlete mentally, after reading this book. Would recommend.

Awesome read!

My review title says it all. The accounts of champions in car racing (Senna), tennis (Djokovic), swimming (Spitz), running (Moses) and so on are fascinating. In short, recommended!p.s. Below please find some favorite passages of mine for your reference.To learn requires a process starting with a deliberate decision to go for it, then continual conscious affirmation that it’s still worth dedicating all the necessary time and effort. But all this conscious exertion is really aimed at filling the subconscious bag until it is equipped to take over on the biggest stage. What sifts gold from dust is the ability to pull it all back out again when it counts. A friend of mine who regularly topped the Cambridge U engineering exam described a similar enviable ability: the minute he stepped into the exam hall, every single thing he had ever learned about a required topic came flooding back to him. Pg10It’s about simulation, study and mental preparation. You think through all the variables so you’ve got a tightly tied mental picture of exactly what you expect to see….I’ll go through the profile in detail several times so I know it, including the specifics of when I’m going to press each button. Years ahead I’m already visualizing: What will it be like? What can help me? Which display technology and helmet? Will my head be leaning forwards when I’m accelerating in 2.5G or do I need an energy absorbing head pad?….. Pg55Champions are not born free of the worries and inadequacies that plague the rest of us. The only difference is they find a way to block them when it really matters. Pg123When we see athletes choking, they start to become preoccupied with their own feelings and thoughts, internalizing and overanalyzing things. That leads to what we call conscious control of movement. In essence they are using the wrong part of the brain, which is very limited in its capacity to process information to control their skills. In extreme cases, that’s when we see athletes reverting from being experts in autopilot mode to novices…. My role is to condition the mind to execute the right skills at the right time under high levels of competitive stress. Pg139Performance psychology helps bridge the gap between technique and skill. Technique is being able to do a maneuver under low pressure, but skill is when you can do it no matter what – like walking across a plank 100 feet up instead of on the floor. That’s what differentiates between good and great. It’s ensuring the correct part of the brain is driving skills and decision making. Pg139It’s about getting perspective, dealing with pressure or perceiving it as not being pressure. Pg142So for me the idea was not to confuse one day’s activities with another day. I wasn’t thinking about what I had to do tomorrow, I had to stay focused. – Spitz pg158When the brain is entirely engaged in what it’s doing, our inner critic has no option but to shut up….Indeed mindfulness isn’t just about sitting cross-legged in meditation; its aim is to bring our attention back to the present moment no matter where we are. Whatever challenge we face in sport or life the ability to concentrate – longer, harder, deeper – is the way to better performance. Pg183Negative words are as disempowering as Kryptonite is to Superman…..changing your words into something more positive is a mental skill and , like all skills, the more you practice the better you become. It is vital to recognize when your Kryptonite is present, and release the antidote immediately: positive words. It’s not about a complete removal of all negativity, just rebalancing in favor of the positive. Negative thoughts tend to be stronger than positives so the more you let them roam freely in your mind, the stronger they become. Don’t suppress or deny them, just zap them with a more positive word like changing the channel when you don’t like what’s on TV. Control your words or they will control you….You perform how you think you will perform. Pg211I use the metaphor of our brain being like a library, You have to pick the right book for a given scenario. The more experience you have, the bigger the library. Pg216You just do what needs to be done. It’s a lifestyle – and most of it had nothing to do with winning. You get up and think about how bad it would feel before the sun sets and how you’d get through that process. People said: “You made it look easy.” But what everybody forgets is that to win you had to spend so much more energy and run so much harder; that you were the guy who was hurting the worst. Everyone thinks it’s the opposite, but to get there first feels worst. You hurt bad. – Moses pg263 It is apt that the word “passion” derives from the Latin word for suffering. It’s not just physical pain but the sacrifices and dedication required to push any limits. Pg263These mind movies (via visualization) turbo charges your confidence because the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between the real thing and something imaginary. Like all skills, the more you practice the better you get. But your brain loves a target, so give it a big one like a great success. When you have burned into your subconscious mind, switch focus to the process by visualizing how you’re going to get there, step by step. Pg287

I came across this book when I heard Clyde Brolin interviewed (on Chris Evans’ Radio 2 show). It was when Vasos Alexander, Evans’ sports reporter, described it as the book he’d wished he’d written that I ordered it. Human psychology fascinates me, but particularly the facet of how people improve. Of course I was going to buy it.It isn’t a self-help book (thank goodness) but a wonderful narrative of years of Brolin’s work and interviews with some sporting greats. Brolin has an easy, engaging, uncluttered way of writing. This suits the subject matter, somehow (more of that later). That said, I was in two minds whether to continue after the first 50 pages or so, because of the huge bias to motorsport narratives. Motorsport is not my thing, and the detail in their narratives didn’t excite me. I am hugely glad that I read to the end, through the conclusion to the acknowledgments. Part of the joy of In The Zone is reflecting upon its content, and fitting it to my own experience.So, as a book, I wish that elements of the conclusion were in the set up. In The Zone isn’t just a story of champions, it is a story of all of us. The book in itself is Brolin’s ‘think and win big,’ because of what he was driven to understand, research, and share. It took him seven years, six without a publisher, and this deeply impresses me… and inspires me.I think the book grows in confidence, with a move to the wider message of the elements of what makes those champions think and win big, but how that applies to all of us… ‘to be the best we can be’. That is a phrase that speaks to me, inspires me. That there is repetition in the book helps build towards Brolin’s crescendo of a conclusion. It is a collection of voices with the same themes, but different experiences. That Brolin has boiled them down into chapters is a reflection of all the ‘data’ he has collected in his interviews, and the book needs it. Without a structure it would have been a rather rambling narrative. Is this a blueprint for ‘thinking and winning big’? I’m not sure (which is why it isn’t a self-help book). All the stories point, potentially, to another conclusion, which isn’t directly picked up, that each of the ‘champions’ have a deep self-knowledge. Self-acceptance in order to make the improvements necessary.One lasting thought that I have is that the chapter titles are rather ‘left brain’. Conceive. Believe. Achieve. I can see the flowchart that goes with it. But this is at odds with the language of the champions who speak of ‘passion’, ‘drive’ ‘energy’, ‘improve’ and of something bigger. This seems far more right brain, and more intangible. I wonder, the construct of the publisher? But perhaps the chapter headings actually don’t really matter at all, given that the magic comes from the narratives, Brolin’s included.A gift of a book, that grows and grows. Thank you Clyde Brolin.

I don't normally read this type of book but came highly recommended. A lot of work has gone into this but I cant help feeling it lacks depth despite the obvious amount of research. It borders on motivational but lacks some edge in that it doesnt give you that get up and do it feeling. I am involved in a very competitive sport that has one GB a few medals recently, is dependant on Sport England funding and there are only so many places at the top so I was looking for something that would inspire my athlete and light that fire, not sure this is the book to kindle that fire

This New Book by Clyde Brolin is really worth reading if you want insight it how people like Usain Bolt ,Lewis Hamilton ,Cathy Freeman,Novak Djokovic think and how they prepare for the different things they are involved in.Made up of three sections C B AConceive -Believe -Achieve in other words if you can conceive -if you can -Believe it -you can Achieve itClyde Brolin himself a formala 1 Racing driver at one time spent some time finding out how these different champions at one time or another stayedfocused to stay in or get in the Zone (prepared for the moment) for their events.Felt compelled to send off for a copy of this book having listened to Chris Evans interviewing Clyde Bolin on Radio 2 about it,knew it would be good and it is.

An excellent read by Clyde Brolin again - like his first book the level of detail is heavy and I think for a book on a topic like this it is a benefit to give the interviewees room on the page to talk and describe things in great detail, with great stories from competitors in sports like athletics or air racing that I did not know much about before reading. The last section of the book is more 'motivational' than his last book, and combined with the hugh quality of the work means I will definitely be referring back to it in future.

Lots of useful insights