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offer you an archive of over 124 leading-edge articles on peak performance,
success, the mental game, mental toughness, mental training, sport
psychology, the psychology of high achievement, motivation, workplace
productivity, team-building, leadership, creativity, sales, coaching,
customer service, speaking, stress management and other topics of
interest to organizations and high achievers. Many of these articles
have been read by millions of people in publications the world over
to help improve personal and organizational productivity, teamwork,
motivation and to impact the bottom line. Click on the links below
to go to the section you want.
- Achievement, Productivity, Motivation
And Success
- Peak Performance, Performance Enhancement
and Mental Toughness
- Sports Psychology, Mental Training,
Mental Fitness and Mind Tools
- Leadership, Managing and Coaching
- Organizational Development And Team-Building
- Speaking, Training and Presentation Skills
- Selling and Customer Service
- Interviewing Skills
- Stress Management
- Test Stress Management And School
Success Strategies
- Stage Fright, Actor's Nerves, Performance
Anxiety and Writer's Block
These Articles Teach Practical Strategies to Help You Create
Success
Use these articles:
- To publish in your magazine, bulletin, newsletter or e-zine.
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Our Most Requested Titles
You will enjoy reading and using them because
they are reader-friendly, fast-moving and easy to understand. There
is no jargon, and they are concrete and practical, loaded with ready-to-use
tips. They're easy to insert into one or more of your company publications
and are immediately applicable to your workplace and performance-based
needs. A word count is provided for each article along with an extract
to help you determine how each article may meet your needs.
Virtually every article has been directly applied to business topics
such as sales, customer service, workplace efficiency, team-building,
time management, stress control, self-coaching and personal excellence.
Bill has personally interviewed hundreds of world-class athletes,
coaches, executives, artists, writers, musicians, military personnel,
academicians, actors, sales people, customer service people and
leaders from all walks of life to tap their achievement wisdom and
secrets of success.
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Achievement, Productivity, Motivation
and Success
Championship world-class superstars walk the
talk of excellence, achievement and peak performance. Champions
are accountable and know what it takes to get to the top and to
stay there. Learn 10 key attributes of these super-achievers and
how you can emulate them in your personal life and career life.
665 words.
Is the fear of success real? How could anyone
possibly fear such a wonderfully positive thing as success? As strange
as it sounds, many people do fear success. This fear holds them
back from achieving their goals and dreams. It may sound more reasonable
to fear failure, and not to fear success. What is this all about?
Here are some reasons people fear success. Think these through and
you'll begin to resolve these issues within yourself. 593 words
How would you rate yourself on personal productivity?
Top achievers have a systematic plan for motivation, self-coaching
and focusing on successful behaviors. Learn the 10 special ways
top producers are able to drive themselves up the ladder of success.
782 words.
Who is your all-time favorite star athlete? What
is inside them that drives them to the heights? All great athletes
have common attributes that propel them to be excellent. Learn 10
characteristics common to all superstars and how you can develop
them yourself to grow and achieve more than you ever thought possible.
670 words.
Are superstars born or made? How do they succeed
so often? How do they dream so big and achieve so big? Learn the
8 secrets superstars have that you can start using now. Let them
tell you what it takes to make it in the big-time. 749 words.
Learn these 12 principles and laws of training,
performing and winning in sport and use them to succeed more in
your life. Find out how top performers raise their games under pressure,
how they play to win and avoid playing not-to-lose. 750 words.
Is your work and life organization out of control?
Do you read all the time management books but still never seem to
have enough time? Take a page out of the peak performer's book of
life and hear what they do to organize, choose tasks wisely, execute
well, achieve highly and enjoy their success at the same time. 725
words
Do you feel that the pace of life is sometimes
more than you can handle? Do you feel even more at a loss for time
after "getting organized"? Today's world of hyper-communication
demands that we be accessible by phone, fax, beeper and all things
high tech that seem to come on the scene daily. Here's how to get
organized. 720 words.
What rating do you give yourself on personal
productivity? Do you have a systematic plan for improving your effectiveness
in your daily work? Superachieving business people and athletes
know what it takes to motivate themselves, stay on track, maintain
focus in the face of obstacles and drive forward to completion of
their vision and dreams. Top ten tips of how superstars do this.
795 words.
How can being a success possibly be a problem?
Don't we all want to be winners? In fact, there are potentially
negative consequences in achieving our goals and in being known
as a successful person. This article takes a look at the 20 paradoxical
factors in success and formulates some strategies to deal with the
inevitable challenges that surround anyone who strives for success.
796 words
How often do you evaluate your sport competition,
speech, interview, job evaluation, class tests and papers in win-loss
terms? Either you succeeded or you failed? Either you won or you
lost? Isn't this an unhappy, pressure-packed way to go through life?
Is there a better way? Top performers use internal goals, called
process goals or performance goals, in these specific ways. 790
words.
Are you living the life you want? Are you settling
for less than a full, vibrant existence? Are you living someone
else's definition of success? What is your definition of a successful
life? Read this article to discover how to avoid false happiness,
redefine success your way, and continually reinvent yourself so
you can follow your bliss and create true meaning in your life.
Bill Cole interviews Ed Brodow, the author of the book Beating
the Success Trap, to discover these answers. Brodow tells how
anyone can be a winner in life if they live life on their own terms
and realize that "life is not a trial run" -- it's the real deal.
607 words.
Are you satisfied with the velocity, quality and
level of your achievements? Are you living a full, satisfying existence?
What makes you happy and helps you reach your full potential? This
tool can help you quickly discover your personal strengths and pinpoint
those areas you still need to work on. Take this 69-item personal
assessment and discover what's holding you back from reaching your
full life's potential. 874 words.
Do you have co-workers or acquaintances that seem
to get more done in one day than you do in a week? Productivity
often boils down to well-ingrained work habits that help maximise
time and improve the chances of a successful outcome. By following
the tips in this article, you'll find you can boost your productivity
at work and improve your chances of success. 596 words.
Peak Performance, Performance Enhancement
and Mental Toughness
Athletes, sales people, teachers, public speakers,
media people and anyone else who "officially performs"
successfully uses pre-performance routines or rituals. This article
tells why you need them, how they work, and reveals the top 20 strategies
peak performers use to psych up for top performances. 888 words.
Do you ever wonder why you perform with excellence
one day and can't get out of your own way the next? The answer might
lie in how you prepare. To not prepare is to begin to fail, but
psyching up with purpose can light the fire of greatness inside
you. Here are seven top tips to get you focused and ready to take
on the world-for any task or performance. 414 words.
In what arenas do you want to perform better?
To improve your performance abilities, you need to recognize, understand
and be able to avoid the myths surrounding performance. Top performers
have seen all the traps, pitfalls and blind alleys about performing,
and have devised methods to overcome them to be able to sustain
high levels of performance under all adverse conditions. Why are
these myths dangerous? If you don't handle them, they will creep
into your performances and sabotage you. And you may not even know
that's happening. Learn to avoid these twenty peak performance myths
and you will immediately see your performances soar. 1887 words.
Are you happy with your productivity? Could you
get more out of yourself on a daily basis? Do you have a system
for creating more self-discipline in your life and for becoming
better at achieving your goals? Learn about the special system top
achievers use to reach for the stars. 760 words.
The United States military has historically done
a very good job of instilling mental toughness in its people. Military
officers in particular require stringent mental toughness in order
to perform and lead to their utmost under pressure. The U. S. Navy
has a time-tested, rigorous system of ingraining that mental discipline
in its Naval officers. This article examines how this is accomplished,
starting at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. 2714 words.
Sports Psychology, Mental Training,
Mental Fitness and Mind Tools
Bill Cole is also the Founder and President
of the International Mental Game Coaching Association (www.mentalgamecoaching.com)
, an organization dedicated to advancing the research, development,
professionalism and growth of mental game coaching worldwide. Go
there to read hundreds of additional free
articles on sports psychology.
IMGCA has the world's largest collection of mental game articles
from experts around the world, including leading-edge strategies
on the mental game, mental training, peak performance, sports psychology,
sports psychiatry, sports philosophy, sports sociology, sports medicine,
human performance, exercise psychology, stress control, youth sports,
motor learning, sports coaching, teaching, teamwork, sports ethics,
mind-body disciplines and human movement.
This article gives you an overview of the field
of sport psychology. This exciting field addresses critical sport
learning and performance areas such as mental readiness, concentration,
motivation, teamwork, communication, the zone and managing a sport
career. Discover ten ways sport psychology can help you as an athlete,
as a parent of an athlete, or as a coach. 1244 words.
Top professional athletes and coaches know how
important it is to have a solid mental game. In pro golf alone,
it's been estimated that over 80% of men and women pro golfers use
a sport psychologist or mental game coach. Here are seven major
ways you can utilize a sport psychologist to help you improve faster,
and create sustainable success in your sport. 567 words.
This article gives you a broad overview of the
world of sport psychology consultants. You will learn who uses sport
psychology consultants, how they operate, and what they can do for
you. A sport psychology consultant addresses critical sport learning
and performance areas such as mental readiness, concentration, motivation,
teamwork, communication, the zone and managing a sport career. Discover
the many ways a sport psychology consultant can help you as an athlete,
as a parent of an athlete, or as a coach. 1672 words.
A mental coach helps you learn faster, groove
your skills better, and perform consistently under pressure, when
it counts most, in competitive arenas. A mental coach helps to improve
an athlete's mental readiness, focus, ability to relax, energy and
emotional control, mental control of thoughts and images, and all
other mental factors involved in training and performance. This
article helps you discover how a mental coach can help you reach
more of your athletic dreams. 783 words.
This article tells you how to select a mental
toughness coach. Whoever you hire as your mental toughness coach
needs to have experienced what you are experiencing as an athlete.
They also need to have had success themselves as coaches, teachers,
researchers and academically. Learn the six things you want to look
for when you are researching a mental toughness coach so you can
make your hiring decision with peace of mind. 871 words.
Do you have the right mental approach in your
sport? Are you playing head games to your advantage? As a leading
mental game coach, I use mental training in my practice to help
my athlete clients achieve higher levels of success in their learning,
training and performances. How about you? Are you using mental training
to enhance your sport success? Let's discover what it is all about.
Here are five aspects of mental training I suggest you incorporate
into your game. 548 words.
What mental tools do you have in your peak performer's
tool kit that will propel you to excellence? Peak performers have
a wide array of mental technologies to help them overcome obstacles,
prepare for performances, and review and adjust their mental game.
Here's a list of superior psychological tools you can use to create
your own custom mental training system. 748 words
How fit do you consider yourself? You can be fit
in any number of arenas--financial, health, physical, etc. But have
you ever thought about the level of your mental fitness? Have you
stopped to consider that it might make sense to take an inventory
of your mental wellness? Take this quiz and find out your MFQ--your
Mental Fitness Quotient. 730 words.
Sport is a mind game. A place where a small difference
in mental powers often makes a big difference between winning and
losing. The field of sports psychology can help athletes and coaches
succeed faster and achieve higher sports goals than they ever dreamed
possible, but there are many myths and mysteries surrounding this
fascinating field. This article examines 32 sport psychology myths
and offers facts and analysis to shed new light on age-old misinformation
and misunderstandings. 2858 words.
Many people are reluctant to go to a physician
out of fear. Many athletes also steer clear of sports psychologists
out of fear, and worse, the social stigma that still exists when
asking for mental help. When an athlete does call a sports psychologist,
it is often when all else has failed, they have an important event
coming up, and they need mental help--fast. Virtually every college,
national, professional and Olympic sports team has a sports psychologist
on staff and countless individual professional athletes work closely
with sports psychology consultants. Learn the 72 reasons athletes
avoid sports psychologists. Discover the many benefits of sports
psychology training, and what to expect in a sports psychology session.
6602 words.
Someone who has a strong mental game of wellness
operates on a higher plateau than from basic mental health and lack
of dysfunction. A person who is in the zone around wellness is operating
at a high level of excellence in all spheres of their life. They
are on their mental game. They are positive minded, optimistic,
full of energy and living life to its fullest. This article examines
the top ten aspects of the mental game of wellness. 723 words.
Three of the biggest legends in pro tennis history
-- John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and Jim Courier -- all say that the
psychology of tennis is critical to their success. How about you?
Do you use it to get that special edge? Here are eight major ways
you can utilize the psychology of tennis to help you improve faster
and create more sustainable success in your tennis. 491 words.
Top tennis professionals know how critical tennis
psychology is to their success. The smart players know it, use it
to their advantage, and are continually learning more about it.
Here are seven major ways you can utilize tennis psychology to help
you improve faster, and create sustainable success in your tennis.
485 words.
This article presents competition tips to help
you tune your mind up to compete at your best. Included are examples
of behavior to avoid and questions to ask yourself about your competitive
attitude. 870 words.
What factors prevent you from playing your best
game? Why aren't you fully confident and self-assured every time
you step into the competitive sports arena? Why can't you enter
the zone at will, and stay there under pressure? Do you know why
you practice well, but consistently under-perform in a real contest?
Perhaps you have stress, personal, practice, mental, coaching, parent,
or communication issues that negatively affect your sport performances.
Take this quick 65-item assessment and discover what's holding you
back from reaching your full sports potential. 921 words.
Leadership, Managing and Coaching
This article describes 23 differences between
coaches and therapists with regard to their training, background,
focus and philosophy so you can decide which professional you need
to hire to advance your goals. In addition, there are nine warning
signals of how to tell if you may need a therapist, not a coach.
1425 words.
You're familiar with psychologists, psychiatrists,
psychotherapists, peak performance coaches and sport psychologists,
but you may be wondering, what's a mental game coach? Read this
in-depth article about how to choose the best type of this unique,
specialized mind coach who will help you reach more of your potential
in business, sports and life itself. 2004 words.
Do you have a special competitive edge in your
career? Smart executives and professionals have a trusted advisor
who can help them navigate the ins and outs of personal and professional
life so they can keep stress low and burnout at bay. An executive
coach can raise executive awareness and assist in devising peak
performance strategies to create invaluable career velocity and
momentum. Read this article to learn the 16 reasons executives and
professionals make executive coaches an integral part of their success
team. 1790 words.
A tennis coach, golf coach, swim coach, personal
coach, business coach, executive mentor, financial planner, personal
trainer, sport psychology coach. What do all these coaches have
in common? Why work with a coach? A coach won't do the work for
you, but here are ten top tips how a coach can help launch you to
the next level. 373 words.
What are the core principles of great coaching?
How does a highly effective coach operate with a client? How does
a coach help a client get the most out of themselves? These answers
depend on the coach, the client and many other factors. This article
gives you Bill Cole's top ten core features that all good coaches
have in common. 366 words.
What makes for an excellent coach? Is it something
that can be learned, or are great coaches born? Of the coaches you've
had, what made them stand out? Read this article to discover Bill
Cole's view of the top 15 characteristics of excellent coaches.
400 words.
How can you as a coach bring the world of peak
performance to bear upon your life and your work? How can you embrace
the ethic and abilities of the peak performer to raise the level
of your entire life's functioning on a daily basis? How can you
help your clients to become their own best coaches? How is your
own mental game? Learn the secrets peak performing coaches use to
inspire others. 1226 words.
How well do you learn from your own experience?
How coachable do you think you are? Do you actively use one of the
most powerful tools in the peak performers armamentarium, self-coaching?
The secrets of self-awareness as applied to coaching are revealed
here. 790 words.
Volumes have been written about the MBA-driven
attributes of top business leaders. These are the button-down, rigorously
mandated strictures of executive leadership that every "proper"
leader shall possess. But is there more than this neat list when
it comes to leading others? Yes. There's an art to leadership. Learn
the 15 inner qualities that top leaders possess. 589 words.
What makes a good leader? What have people who
have led you done that you admired? What qualities should more leaders
possess? What are the most valuable qualities a leader should possess?
What are the most basic qualities a leader should own? Most of us
would agree that we need to respect a leader we would follow. Some
leaders have feet of clay, but we might follow them anyway. What
are the qualities that might disqualify someone from being a leader?
Read this list and discover the top ten characteristics of excellent
leaders. 261 words.
Do top level, highly effective executives think
differently than lower level, less experienced executives? Do top-notch
leaders have different thought processes than those who are less
accomplished? The answer is yes to both these questions. Read this
article to learn how the mental game of top-achieving leaders differs
from the approach of those with less experience. Learn the top ten
key questions to ask yourself daily that can propel you into the
ranks of highly accomplished leaders and executives. 255 words.
Leaders who fail to provide true and proper command,
inspiration and strategic vision for their company leave a battered
organization. They delude themselves and mislead others within a
losing legacy. This article examines the causes of squandered leadership
opportunities and offers solutions for salvaging the leadership
imperative: strategic planning and mental toughness. 1045 words.
Are you satisfied with the velocity, quality and
level of your achievements? Are you a respected leader who gets
results? Are you reaping the benefits from all your hard work in
the executive suite? Is there more you want from your career? This
tool can help you quickly discover your executive strengths and
pinpoint those areas you still need to work on. Take this 73-item
executive assessment and discover what's holding you back from reaching
your full life's potential. 875 words.
Organizational Development And Team-Building
How well are your teams performing? The traditional
way leaders built teams may not work anymore. Modern team-building
approaches are needed. If you want your teams to rise to their potential,
you have to approach team-building from a different mind set. Here
are 12 executive leadership strategies for building a world-class
team that can compete with anyone. 598 words.
Not all teams are created equal. Some teams clearly
are better than others. Keeping in mind there are various definitions
of teams and their purposes, we can paint a fairly clear picture
of what we want in the ideal team. Here are 17 things we know that
peak-performing teams have in common. 498 words.
Corporations today are committed to helping organizations
empower their people with high-performance work styles. People who
are identified as peak performers, even in high stress environments
have mastered the skills top achievers in all disciplines possess.
The secrets of renewing oneself in a high-stress world are revealed
in this cogent work. 1899 words.
Did you know that you might be a team-building
coach but may not know it? If you influence others as a group, you
are a team coach. You might be a parent and coach your kids. You
might be a manager and coach your subordinates. You probably coach
teams more than you realize. Learn ten mental game success strategies
that team-building experts use to help their teams reach for greatness.
711 words
How well are your work teams functioning? Are
they reaching their potential? Are they fighting and imploding?
Or are they a business asset? As leader, what is your role in their
success? All teams, even superbly functioning ones, have some conflict.
Your job as leader is to assist them in surmounting these inevitable
troubles. This article describes how to analyze the potential problems
in your teams before they happen, and to devise plans and systems
for successfully dealing with these normal issues before they become
business liabilities. Your role as leader calls upon you to be a
catalyst, orchestrator, cheerleader, counselor, coach, consultant
and organizer. This article shows you how. 763 words
Why do some work teams soar and succeed and others
crash and burn? Why do some teams eat stress for lunch and others
let simple stress cause bad work digestion all day? The answer,
in part, may be in the team leader recognizing the early signs of
stress and burnout and having a plan for dealing with these problems.
Your mandate as team leader is to be a combination cheerleader,
navigator, counselor, analyst, orchestrator, catalyst and all-around
facilitator of good team things. The team can use you as a fixer-upper
of issues and strains that befall the team. This article lists the
15 potential signs of team stress and burnout, explains how much
of this is normal and predictable and presents 13 strategic ways
leaders can help their teams handle stress. 742 words
You're a leader in your organization. When you
have great ideas for the business, but no one is buying into them,
do you know why not? Do you know how to handle the inevitable resistance
that comes from the change process in an organization? This article
helps you manage organizational change through your own mental toughness,
employee attitudes and the bell-shaped curve. 633 words.
Speaking, Training and Presentation Skills
Can you play at the top of your game on demand?
Mental toughness is the ability to thrive on stress and to perform
in the upper ranges of our potential more often. The top athletes
who possess mental toughness live this every day. Professional speakers
are the pro athletes of the business world. The speakers who continually
perform to their potential over a lifetime know what it takes to
build and maintain a strong mental game. Read about ten powerful
strategies that can propel you into top form on the platform each
time you speak. 758 words
The book entitled The Mental Game of Speaking has over 50 chapters in 13 major sections. Here you will learn about the skills and knowledge top speakers possess, including strategies for writing speeches, practicing speeches, analyzing audiences, mentally preparing to speak and to overcome stage fright, how to become confident as a speaker, the use of humor, dealing with question and answer periods, and how to become a persuasive presenter. There are many unique one-of-a-kind checklists on virtually every aspect of speaking you'd like to know. This is an excerpt from the book, The Mental Game Of Speaking: Building Composure, Confidence and Credibility, by Bill Cole, MS, MA, to be published by Albert-Brownson Publishing in July 2017. 1186 words.
If you have that burning desire to share with others what is inside you, professional speaking is for you. If you know you have valuable content that can help others, you should be on stage. If your audience thinks differently, feels differently or behaves differently at the conclusion of your presentation, you have done your job as a speaker. You've made a difference in their lives. If you have a solid work ethic, want to learn every day, and have a positive, can-do attitude, you will do well in this business. This article is an excerpt from the book, Free To Fee: How To Move Into The World Of Professional Speaking, by Dr. Michael Soon Lee, CSP and Bill Cole, MS, MA, published by Albert-Brownson Publishing in June 2017. 1614 words.
Do you usually perform well and learn from your
speaking experiences? Or are you your own worst enemy on and off
the platform? Do you use one of the most powerful tools in the peak-performing
speaker's armamentarium, self-coaching? This article reveals 5 secrets
pro speakers use to improve and 3 crucial steps to putting these
strategies into immediate action. 538 words.
Do you have the desire to become a speaker of
excellence? Do your dreams take you to the heights of platform greatness?
If you have a strategic plan and work hard, those dreams can come
true for you. This article gives you a quick snapshot of what great
speakers do to achieve excellence in speaking. 306 words.
How many of your speeches could be considered
in the artistic category? Do your audiences view you as a master
speaker? What would you have to do to boost your speaking to the
next level? Highly experienced speakers not only know their subject,
they know themselves, their audiences and their craft. They know
how to write, stage and organize winning presentations that engage
the audience at all levels. To kick your speaking up a notch, take
any of these 13 tips on as a project and watch your investment in
yourself as a speaker grow. 486 words.
When you sit in the audience enjoying a wonderful
speech, the speaker's words seem to all make sense. The speech is
logical, interesting, convincing, entertaining and has a nice flow
to it. There is a reason for this. It's the writing. Do you have
a speech coming up soon? Need to write a talk that will grab your
audience and make them sit on the edge of their seats? Take a moment
to learn these ten essential elements of speech-writing and you
may just give the speech of your life. 806 words.
Did you ever notice that it often takes far longer
to write a shorter speech than a longer one? That's because some
people tell almost everything they know in a long one, and they
also fail to highlight what's important for the audience. Short
speech writing and giving is an art. This article tells you how
to craft the short speech and how to deliver it for maximum impact.
654 words.
Do you fall victim to speaking nerves? Do you
have so much anxiety about performing that you avoid giving speeches?
Do you have a plan for conquering your nervousness before a speech?
Help is on the way! This article gives you eight tried-and-true
ways to overcome the jitters before every speech you give. 571 words.
If you are a less experienced speaker than you'd
like to be, you probably make some errors on the platform that could
be easily fixed. If you just knew what they are!! Here we describe
the 15 most common speaking mistakes made by people who are new
to speaking. Once you know these, your confidence and effectiveness
as a speaker will multiply many fold. 813 words.
With all the hundreds of books, videos and DVDs
on how to write and give a speech, why would anyone want to hire
a speech coach? Why would people feel the need to take group classes
on presentation skills when they can simply learn the material on
their own? But many people like the guidance of a private speech
coach. Discover the many reasons you may benefit from having your
own presentation coach at your side. 607 words
Hiring a professional speaker can be a substantial
investment. The important realization? It's not what an investment
costs, it's what the investment returns that is important. This
article takes a look at what savvy and cost-conscious meeting planners
are doing to maximize their speaker investments. Read this to learn
the 21 additional ways you can use one professional speaker to make
your event be better than ever. 592 words.
Do you know the ins and outs of hiring a professional
speaker? Do know the right questions to ask? How to determine if
a particular speaker is a good fit with your meeting needs? This
article serves as a handy speaker interviewing checklist to help
you get the perfect speaker for your next event. 1097 words.
Who do you call when you need a speaker for your
next meeting? A local college professor? Someone you once heard
at Rotary? Lance Armstrong? Probably none of the above. You want
a speaker who is an expert in their field, someone who can hold
an audience's attention and someone you can afford. This article
explains the four main classifications of speakers for hire and
the strengths and weaknesses of each, so you can make an intelligent,
informed decision and improve your meeting ROI. 732 words.
Do you know how your audiences perceive you as
a speaker? What do they like about you? What about your presentation
skills and style annoys them? Can you get in the performance zone
every time, or do you struggle with stage fright and nerves? Do
you give consistently solid performances, or are you erratic? Perhaps
you have stress, practice, mental, staging, readiness, voice, technique,
mannerism, writing or organizational issues that negatively affect
your presentations. Take this quick 68-item assessment and discover
what's holding you back from reaching your full platform potential.
788 words.
Selling and Customer Service
Are you working longer hours but getting less
done? Are you being asked to do more in less time? Productivity
problems can make you feel incredibly stressed--and then you're
just spinning your wheels. But there is help. You can use your mind.
You can win the mental game of personal productivity. Peak-performing
sales professionals work smarter, not harder, by using these 28
mental strategies for improving personal productivity. 610 words.
You're competitive-minded, or you wouldn't be
in sales. Here's how you can develop and maintain a can-do, can't-wait-to-get-going,
nothing-can-stop-me, I-hate-to-lose mind-set. Learn how other successful
professionals think for success and how they approach building their
mental game with these three powerful mental strategies. You'll
sell better with a stronger competitive mind-set. 608 words.
People are always observing you and determining
if they want to do business with you. Do you pay attention to how
ethical your business practices are? Do you set high ethical selling
standards for yourself? Do you assess your level of ethics on a
regular basis? Do you leverage your honesty as a business advantage?
As you go through your selling day, consider these five critical
quotations and questions about ethics and honesty. 607 words.
What's the most pressurized selling situation
you have ever found yourself in? How well did you perform? I traveled
to Austria as the sport psychologist for the Israeli Davis Cup Team
under severe counter-terrorism security conditions and watched them
competing under international pressure. In tennis you either win
or you lose. In selling you either hit paydirt or you walk away
empty-handed. What's the common secret? Having a strong mental game.
Learn how you can improve your own selling, using their secrets.
620 words.
You miss an important sale. You have a series
of bad days. You can't sell to your potential. This article takes
a snapshot of what slumps are, how to get out of one, and how to
avoid them altogether. You'll learn how to get out of the dreaded
sales slump syndrome so you can reach more of your selling potential.
588 words.
A superstar sales professional performs deftly,
smoothly, seemingly with no obvious selling techniques. But he completely
knows his sales methods, is highly aware of himself and his surroundings
and makes things happen. He's in the zone. How would you rate your
selling skills? Amateur? Professional? All-Star? Hall Of Fame? No
matter what the performance arena, there are four levels of skill
attainment. Learn how each level works and how this knowledge can
make you into a top sales pro. 619 words.
Is Tiger Woods the greatest golfer who ever lived?
One thing's for sure. Tiger Woods' mental game is absolutely the
very best on the pro golf tour. Here are four peak performance strategies
sales professionals can learn from a mental master like Tiger. Manage
your mental game like Tiger Woods and soon you'll be reaching more
of your selling potential. 627 words.
People don't plan to fail...they just fail to
plan. Powerful performances must provide perceptive pre-performance
procedures so poor performance is precluded! Here are ten pre-performance
sales psych-up strategies from some of the world's top selling professionals
and others who have achieved preeminence on the platform of life's
stage. 524 words.
How many of your sales are won or lost starting
right in your mind? Are you giving yourself every opportunity for
victory and success by using the full potential of your mind? This
article gives an overview of Timothy Gallwey¹s Inner Game method
and shows how you can use its tenets to invigorate your selling
game. Build the powers of your mind and you¹ll be an inner winner
all the time. 599 words.
Do you know how your customers perceive you in
a selling situation? What do they like about you? What about your
style and behavior annoys them? Do you give consistently solid performances,
or are you erratic? How expert are you at the wide variety of sales
skills that top selling professionals need to possess? This tool
can help you quickly discover your selling strengths and pinpoint
those areas you still need to work on. Take this 66-item sales assessment
and discover what’s holding you back from reaching your full selling
potential. 889 words.
Interviewing Skills
In my many years as an interview coach, I've continually seen clients come to me with a number of misconceptions about how to practice for interviews, and how to perform in them. I'm in no way blaming them for having these views, because the interview game is a highly counterintuitive one. It really goes against anyone's common sense, and it is not what it seems. People are very surprised to learn that their thinking that seems so obvious and natural about interviews is actually the direct opposite. These commonly held beliefs can be extremely harmful. This article lists 32 myths and the truth about each myth. 3243 words.
Have you ever wondered if the interviewer was trying to intimidate you? Maybe even trying to get you to say something negative about your current or former boss, or your organization? Did you sense they were trying to see if you could be bullied? Did you sense they were trying to see how you react to a hostile, stressful interview? Well, if you interview long enough you'll run across interviewers like this. Your job in the interview game is to use mental toughness as your secret weapon. This article helps you become more resilient and poised in the face of unpleasant situations like this and to understand the four levels of an interview so you can master challenging interview encounters. 1584 words
I wrote the book Interview Mistakes You Don't Even KNOW You're Making, published by Albert-Brownson Publishing. This book is designed to help you become aware of the pitfalls that many interviewees fall victim to. As you become familiar with these, you can watch for them in your own behavior. If you don't know what they are, you can't be alert to them. On the Internet we all see articles that describe the top five or ten or 20 worst mistakes you can make in an interview. The largest number I have ever seen was 50. This book is the largest compendium of interview mistakes ever assembled—1765. You will never find a larger collection of interview mistakes anywhere. This article gives you many insights into these mistakes people make.
1638 words.
Behavioral interviewing techniques use open-ended
questions that require you to tell timelines of your behavior, thoughts,
analysis, values and character, in story form. These are known as
"competency-based" interviews that attempt to gauge your "behavioral
competencies", where traditional interview questions cannot. This
article describes this approach and gives you guidelines on preparing
for and performing well in a behavioral interview. 656 words.
Preparing for an interview is not difficult,
but it does take an eye for detail. That's why you need interviewing
skills training that is targeted at very specific, granular strategies
aimed at overcoming the roadblocks put in your way by the interview
situation. Here are five interviewing skills training tips that
give you the inside story about how to prepare for an interview,
and perform like a pro once you get there. 354 words.
The Multiple Mini Interview (MMI) may be the
wave of the future in medical school interviewing. The MMI is now
utilized at over 50 medical schools around the world. I have been
helping prospective medical students prepare for the MMI format
for some time now. This article lists a set of 12 success strategies
that have helped them do very well on it, and a checklist of 14
mistakes candidates make on the MMI. My clients have access to a
list of hundreds of examples of MMI questions, scenarios and tasks,
some of which are shared in this article. 2620 words.
Why Are You Being Rejected For Medical School, Medical Residencies And Medical Fellowships? Discover The Reasons Your Medical Interviews Go Bad. There's nothing worse than walking out of your medical school interview, medical residency interview or medical fellowship interview feeling shell-shocked, knowing that it did not go well, and then wondering WHY it didn't go well. You're at a loss for how to make sense of it all. Ultimately, it's all but impossible to get feedback on what the interviewer thought of your interview abilities. All you're left with is a gut feeling that the "vibes were not good". And you don't know why. Most medical candidates just don't have the interview skills or strategies in place yet to avoid these mistakes. I help medical school candidates and physicians overcome all of these problems listed here, every day in my interview coaching practice. Which ones are holding you back? Which ones do you need to fix first? This article describes 38 mistakes people make in medical interviews, medical residency interviews and medical fellowship interviews. 2181 words.
What appears to be common sense or obvious about
medical school interviewing is often quite counterintuitive. As
a medical school interview coach of many years, most clients who
come to me are still harboring many dangerous ways of thinking about
their upcoming medical school interviews. These incorrect thoughts
cause all sorts of troubles for them when they prepare to interview,
and in the actual interview. I designed this so you can easily see
the incorrect thought, why it is a problem (and how this is perceived
to be undesirable by the interviewer) and most importantly, what
you can do to PREVENT this from happening. 874 words.
As a dental school interview coach of many years,
most clients who come to me are still often harboring many dangerous
ways of thinking about their upcoming dental school interviews.
These incorrect thoughts cause all sorts of troubles for them when
they prepare to interview, and in the actual interview. What appears
to be common sense or obvious about dental school interviewing is
often quite counterintuitive. I designed this article so you can
easily see the incorrect thought or mindset, why it is a problem
(and how this is perceived to be undesirable by the interviewer)
and most importantly, what you can do to PREVENT this from happening.
840 words.
One of the hardest things about going on interviews
is the uncertainty. Did you give a good performance? Did you connect
with the interviewer? Did they think you were a good fit? This article
gives you 10 ways that tell you how the interview is going, in real
time, and two warning signals, with remedies, about a bad interview.
855 words.
Success in giving a good interview is 90% preparation. Your goal is to prepare so extensively in advance that the interview seems easy and predictable in comparison. If you practice correctly and diligently, you will gain a sense of high confidence and deservedness to succeed. People tend to deceive themselves about how ready they think they are for an interview. This article describes six major ways people deceive themselves into thinking they are ready, and 25 ways to know when you are truly ready to give a great interview.
1307 words.
As an interviewing skills coach, I help people
navigate their job campaign from the moment they realize they need
or want a job, to the time they shake hands and sign the employment
contract. Since I am also an experienced sales coach, I can help
my clients gain that extra special edge in promoting themselves
to an interviewer, to convince the interviewer they are indeed perfect
for the job. 534 words.
A high-quality job interview coaching program
should include everything you could need to conduct a highly successful
interview campaign. You need to cover company research, questions
and answers, how to practice, stress control, contingency planning,
body language, eye contact, posture, hand usage, rapport building,
selling yourself, negotiation, following up and self-coaching. As
important as it is to know what you should be doing, it is very
instructive to know what NOT to do. Here are a dozen things you
should stop yourself from doing during any job interview. 870 words.
Preparing for an interview can be an arduous,
painstaking process. It should be thorough, if done properly. Unfortunately,
there are many major areas you cannot practice effectively by yourself.
You definitely need some personal feedback and guidance from someone
who knows what to do. Interview skills coaching has become a highly
specialized area and can be your secret weapon when you are in the
job hunt. This article describes these ten areas where you can't
go it alone as you prepare to interview. 801 words.
As a job interview coach part of what I do is
to help my clients manage illegal job interview questions they may
encounter. Every job interview you go on has the potential for the
interviewer asking questions that are too personal, too intrusive
or downright illegal, so you need to know what these questions are,
have strategies in place for dealing with them, and practice your
responses so you feel comfortable in advance. This article identifies
nine illegal interview question areas and six potential strategies
for handling them. 566 words.
If you interview, you will experience interview
anxiety. It's a given for any human being. To conquer this performance
anxiety, you need to know what causes your interview nerves, what
the symptoms are and how to control the performance stress. Take
a 75-item self-assessment on the symptoms of stage fright as applied
to interview stress. Discover a master mind tools plan to beat interview
stress and you'll rise to the occasion to reach your full performance
potential. 1029 words.
Do you know how people perceive you in an interview
situation? What do they like about you? What about your style and
behavior annoys them? Can you get in the performance zone every
time, or do you struggle with self-consciousness and nerves? Do
you give consistently solid performances, or are you erratic? Perhaps
you have stress, practice, mental, staging, readiness, voice, technique,
or mannerism issues that negatively affect your interview situations.
If you are called upon to do media interviews, job interviews or
school/exam interviews this tool can help you. Take this quick 65-item
assessment and discover what's holding you back from reaching your
full interview potential. 866 words.
Stress Management
Why do some work teams soar and succeed and others
crash and burn? Why do some teams eat stress for lunch and others
let simple stress cause bad work digestion all day? The answer,
in part, may be in the team leader recognizing the early signs of
stress and burnout and having a plan for dealing with these problems.
Your mandate as team leader is to be a combination cheerleader,
navigator, counselor, analyst, orchestrator, catalyst and all-around
facilitator of good team things. The team can use you as a fixer-upper
of issues and strains that befall the team. This article lists the
15 potential signs of team stress and burnout, explains how much
of this is normal and predictable and presents 13 strategic ways
leaders can help their teams handle stress. 742 words.
Do you feel out of control, overwhelmed or burdened
with stress and problems? There are smart ways to deal with these
stressful feelings. This article lists six stress reduction approaches
that are easy to learn, simple to use and powerful. They'll help
you get back in control of your life. 414 words.
There are many stress myths bouncing around out
there, and what you don't know about stress can hurt you. Here are
six of the most common myths about stress you should know so you
can create and execute an intelligent stress management program.
321 words.
Not all mental health or medical practitioners
are trained in stress management approaches. The stress management
field is a specialized one, requiring specific training and experience
to be fully effective. There are many myths floating around about
the field. This article uncovers five of them so you can understand
who you need to help you learn the best stress management strategies
and techniques for your particular situation. 313 words.
When someone calls me for stress control coaching
they are usually at their wit's end. They are feeling out of control,
overwhelmed, full of anxiety, and with no realistic plan or idea
of how to right their foundering ship. I assess them, support them,
teach them stress control and coping tools, and bring them out of
their funk and help them re-engage with life, on new terms. Here
are the top five most important things to know if you are about
to embark on a stress management program. 505 words.
What do you think is your most powerful stress
tool? Your mind. You can make the fastest and most powerful shifts
in your life simply by looking at life differently, making your
own reality and by helping yourself find the now. 333 words.
This assessment is meant to quickly provide you
with the big picture in stress management skills. It will help you
begin to identify your strong points in this area and reveal your
needed development areas. It will also serve as a launching point
for understanding how the stress management coaching process works.
Take this quick 61-item assessment and discover what's holding you
back from managing stress. 844 words.
Test Stress Management And
School Success Strategies
Do you like to take tests? Do you see them as
a challenge and a puzzle to be solved? Or do you see test taking
as a threat and something to be avoided at all costs? Whichever
camp you are in, test-taking does carry some stress. Read this article
to discover the 50 stress factors that surround test taking. 564
words.
What would you say are some of the myths surrounding
test stress and how to control it? It is very helpful to know these
myths so you don't fall victim to them. Remember that being test
savvy is only one part of being a good test taker. The other part
is being able to handle your anxiety so you can maintain a good
mind-body state that allows you to be mentally clear, calm, poised
and to have wonderful recall and be organized and sharp. Here are
ten common myths about test anxiety. 692 words.
Some people just work themselves into a frenzy
before a test. It doesn't have to be that way. Read this list of
27 ways people scare themselves before and during a test, so you
can stop creating your own fear. 485 words.
What have you tried in attempting to get your
test-taking stress under control? Maybe you have already been through
a study skills program to see if that would help your test-taking
anxiety. Clearly, a listening skills class or note-taking course
won't help you with test stress, and a time management or personal
organization course will only have minimal effect. These skills,
while worthwhile alone, don't directly address stress control. You
can be the greatest student, the smartest academically, but if you
don't get your stress under control, you just won't perform to your
potential on tests. This article examines the ten major ways students
create needles stress for themselves by violating the psychological
basics of preparation for test taking. 768 words.
Do you know the best ways to handle test stress?
One critical reality is that if you wait until the test arrives
to begin applying these stress remedies, it's already too late.
You need to certainly have stress strategies in place for use in
the test, but many of the stress methods that work best should be
applied immediately prior to the test. That way you keep stress
at bay, before it has a chance to amplify out of control. Here are
my top ten stress control approaches for handling test anxiety.
608 words.
How is your poise under test pressure? Does your
mind hold up? Do you choke? Your testing performance is only as
good as your mental game. Where are your prime test choking arenas?
Essays? Short answers? Multiple Choice questions? Timed tests? Does
the pressure of the situation get to you? Can you handle the stress?
This article explains choking and gives you and understanding of
mental toughness, with three key strategies for learning it. 620
words.
Do you have a system for defeating exam anxiety?
Do you know how to prepare mentally to be at your best for a test?
Discover what exam anxiety is, what causes it and how it affects
you. Read 10 mental readiness strategies that will help catapult
your mind into the "ideal test-taking zone" no matter how much pressure
you feel to perform. You'll learn how to conquer the performance
anxiety that sabotages your exam abilities by creating a winning
mind set that can't be beat. 961 words.
The big test is coming up soon. You see many
of your friends stressing out. Some are not even studying, and tell
you they can cram the night before and "It will all be fine". Others
say the test stress is really getting to them and are showing signs
of stress and anxiety. How about you? Do you know how to properly
study so the test stress is manageable? This article gives you 26
test preparation strategies that are simple, yet powerful, so you
stay on track, stay composed, handle the stress and learn the material.
1345 words.
Being test savvy is knowing how to be a good
test taker. Those skills transcend studying and content mastery.
You can be test savvy if you simply know the test-taking rules and
guidelines to follow. Every good student who has ever gone through
school has learned them. Here are 23 test success strategies you
can use during the test itself. Students who do consistently well
are the ones who understand how to be test savvy. This means they
know specifically how tests should be managed from a strategic standpoint.
1052 words.
After the test you might be relieved, emotional,
worn out physically, mentally tired, jubilant, confused, or a mix
of all of these, depending on how things went. You just went through
a performance, so you may well feel spent and in need of a break.
Your goals now are to recover, refresh yourself, review what happened,
and improve your study skills and test-taking skills for the future,
based on an analysis of your strategies and how well your executed
them. Here are ten things to focus on after the test. 440 words.
Do you review your performance after every test?
If you do, it will help you immensely. Here are 18 test taking questions
you will want to ask yourself after every test. Through this analysis,
you'll see what you liked and what you didn't like about your test
taking skills. 448 words.
How test savvy are you? How knowledgeable are
you about "Test Psychology"? That's the knowledge about tests and
your ability to apply it to test taking so you can succeed. It can
be learned by reading about it, by lots of trial and error, and
by working with a coach. Take this self-assessment of 44 test psychology
factors and discover your strengths and weaknesses. 618 words.
Learn the 56 symptoms of test stress and how
they hit you personally. This test anxiety assessment is meant to
quickly provide you with the big picture in test stress management
skills, and provide suggestions for reducing stress. This assessment
is very simple and easy to complete, and should take you around
five minutes. 861 words.
Stage Fright, Actor's Nerves, Performance
Anxiety and Writer's Block
Here are five peak performance strategies that
we used to help a first-time stand-up comedian gain control over
her performance nerves. You can use these too. 597 words
What kind of performer are you? Actor? Stand
up comedy? Improv? Musician? Reality TV contestant? Dancer? If you
audition or perform, you probably have experienced performer's nerves
(stage fright). The good news is, you are not alone. Even better
news? There are very, very well known performers who have experienced
this, and conquered it. The best news? You can overcome it too.
This article shows you how. 572 words.
Do you get the shakes and quakes, the upset stomach,
the spinning mental state where your thoughts run wild with visions
of you crashing and burning during an audition or performance? If
so, you are not alone. Surveys show that the fear of public speaking
is the number one fear people have in the entire world. Overcoming
my own fears, nerves and scary emotions were one reason I have been
able to help so many comedians, dancers, musicians, athletes, business
people, speakers and other performers handle their stage fright
issues. This article lists five strategies to help you conquer your
actor's nerves. 773 words.
Do you suffer from stage fright? Is it so debilitating
that you wonder why you even drag yourself through the torture of
auditions and public performances? This article will give you insight
into motivations for performing and strategies for handling performance
nerves and getting into the zone. 904 words.
This article explains three important ways for
dancers to focus their minds with a mental readiness system to keep
performer's anxiety at bay and perform at the best of their abilities.
464 words.
You are about to audition and compete for a spot
on a reality TV show, but you have severe doubts, concerns and downright
nerves about performing. That's what I want to help you with. This
article gives you five stress-busting tips to help you banish the
nerves and get the zone to show up more often in your audition.
611 words.
All writers get their creative juices blocked
sometimes. Writer's block can seem like an insurmountable mountain
to climb, but it doesn't need to be that way. The trick is to have
a toolkit of writing peak performance approaches that work for you.
This article discusses three mental strategies and tells secrets
of famous writers for combating writer's block. 840 words.
Sometimes your writing mind does not seem to
want to cooperate. It's as if you can't unlock your brain or defang
your mental writing monsters. Writer's block wins. But it does not
have to be like that. You have options. Here are ten mental strategies
that can help you overcome writer's block. 304 words.
Additional articles of interest to CEO's, executives,
and professionals can be found at the CEO
Factor website.
We Seek Co-Authorship Projects
If you have an idea that you think we can incorporate
into an article for our e-zine or other publications, we'd be happy
to speak to you about it. If we use it, we will give you credit
in the article, with appropriate contact information. We also consider
co-authoring projects on books, CD's, audiotapes and videotapes
as well. Contact us for more information.
We're Looking for Stories for Our Books and Articles
We call for readers to submit stories, articles,
tips and suggestions that we would review, and consider for inclusion
in our books, articles and our free on-line publication, The Mental
Game Coach Report. Your submissions would reflect topic areas our
readers want. We may even interview you as a potential focus of
a story, if you have a compelling angle people would want to read
about.
Do You Need a Recognized Expert to Help Your Organization?
If your organization wants to gain the competitive
advantage in today's demanding world, call us and we will be happy
to speak with you about how our programs are designed to maximize
your ability to capture that winning edge. You can contact us at
the e-mail address or phone number listed below.
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