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From the Introduction:

There are no limits.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

Marianne Williamson from her book
A Return To Love

First and foremost I want to thank you for picking up this book. Many of the athletes I work with won’t read anything past a textbook that they have been assigned to read for school, so I appreciate that you are here.
This may be a really big read for you, and you may be thinking “I’m never going to get through this whole book, but I guarantee that if you read this entire book, you will reach your athletic goals faster than you ever thought possible..
I wish I had a book like this when I was starting out in sports. Although, I'm not sure if I would have had the guts to read it. There’s so much to learn when it comes to sports and our focus tends to be on the easy things. Either the ball is at your feet, the puck is on your stick, you’re lifting weights...or you’re not. It’s an on/off switch of training/no training, doing/no doing.
Then there is the whole idea of looking at those around you to see what it is you should be doing or not doing. An environment of constant self-comparison is a recipe for disaster and I want to help you so you know what it is you should focus on and what you should not!

What If

What if I told you that there was an activity you could be involved with where you could spend your time doing something that you really enjoyed. Would you be interested?
What if I told you that you might get in pretty good shape too? You might even get really buff. It would be hard work at times and you’re not going to like everything about it or all of the people involved while you do it, but it would teach you about hard work, dedication and time management. You’d also learn about healthy eating, visualization, meditation and maybe even some spirituality? (But in a cool way, not some woo-woo sort of way?)
What if I told you that by doing this activity, that you’d probably be introduced to after school, you may get a chance to travel around the United States and Canada. Maybe even the world! You’ll get to meet really cool people who are high achievers. Some own their own companies and others are the top performers in other companies earning hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars a year or more.
And what if I told you that if you spent enough time and got really good at this activity that there might be a chance you could get to hang out with movie stars, actors and actresses and even other professional athletes? Sound good?
And finally, what if I told you that even if you ended up not liking this activity after a while you would still get to keep all of the cool characteristics you developed while you were doing it. Attributes like grit and determination. Working well with others. An ability to teach and to figure things out on your own and in a team setting. All of those skills and attributes would stay with you. Pretty cool, huh?
Well those are just some of the attributes you will develop as you continue with the sport, or sports, that you love. And this book is in your hands to help you do that.

What You Will Hear

In the sports world today you will often hear people talk about how crazy sports has become. You will probably hear your parents, or other parents talk about how kids don’t have any free time because they are playing so much. Or that there are so many tournaments and showcases an other opportunities to compete. Or that it’s all just so demanding and not “fun” anymore like it was when they were young.
You’ll hear people talk about how kids used to just play outside for hours and hours and you had to call them in for dinner. Those same people will rant about evaluations and the cost of equipment and tournaments, too.
The truth is, it’s different today than it was years ago and that requires a new way of thinking. Today’s sports aren’t good or bad or harder or more difficult than they were years ago, they are what they are and this book will help you navigate the current landscape of sports, and most importantly, how to win.

Stop Chasing Fun. Understand Enjoyment

A common mistake of athletes (and parents) around you is that sports should be “fun.” Countless studies have been done that interview kids in sports and everyone of them will tell you that the number one reason they play is that sports is fun.
Well...what else is “fun”? How about this for a list:
Xbox. Eating pizza. Playing games and watching movies. Going on a road trip. Hanging out with friends. Graffitiing a wall. Watching “fail” videos. Watching cat videos. Watching fail videos of cats. Watching videos of the Kardashians. (That was fun until people realized just how stupid it really was.)
The bottom line is that “fun” has a lot of definitions. If you ask one hundred people what is “fun” you’ll get a hundred different answers.
The problem with the word “fun” is that when something isn’t “fun” anymore then what do you do? You quit! When something isn’t fun you just stop and find something else to do and replace it. It’s usually an even exchange. “This thing stopped being fun so I replaced it with this other thing that is also fun.” While you might be bummed for a nano-second you quickly forget that thing you just gave up. It’s almost like apps on your phone. “Well, this game bores me so I’m going to swipe over here and play that game.” You don’t get sad by shutting down the app, you just leave and head to the next one.
I want to encourage you to stop using the word “fun” to describe your sport experience. Why? Because there are going to be times when sports isn’t fun. (Although I argue in Chapter 10 that your beliefs can change that in a heartbeat.)
No, sports isn’t always fun. But overall sports are “enjoyable.” I want you to replace the word “fun” with the word enjoyable. While the word “fun” and “enjoyable” can sometimes be interchanged the word “fun” has an aspect of amusement to it. The word “fun” can mean “to have a good time” or to “be entertained”. It’s a distraction from something else. But in the definition of the word “enjoyable” there is an aspect of satisfaction to it. There are benefits to having an enjoyable experience even when it’s difficult.
I remember playing lacrosse when I was young in an absolute downpour. The field was so muddy that pigs would have liked to play on the field we were on. At one point I got so much mud in my eye that the referee had to stop the game while I flushed out my eyes. Was it fun? Not particularly. Was it enjoyable? Heck yeah! We even lost!
Another time I almost got frostbite on my hands while competing in Switzerland. It was bitterly cold and our start house had no heat. My fingers were in so much pain that it took hours for them to warm back up. Fun? Not really. Enjoyable? You bet. I was training to go the Olympics on the side of an Alp in Switzerland! It was one of the best experiences of my life.
When you talk about sports being fun you open yourself up for quitting very easily, so stop calling sports “fun” right now. If something isn’t fun the people around you will wonder why you don’t quit. But when you talk about your situation as being enjoyable, you can be working your butt off in the hot or the cold and still be having fun. Make sense?
I find it interesting that people will come home from a practice or a game and think, “Well that wasn’t much fun. Maybe I should do something else.” Yet I never hear people say that about math! If you came home from school and said, “You know Mom, Dad, math just isn’t much fun anymore. I think I’m going to quit.” Your parents would have said, “Suck it up Princess. You need math for college so get back in there and tough it out!” You may even spend money on tutoring or extra help. You may take a different class to get caught up. But you wouldn’t even consider quitting because it’s a law that you complete it and it’s just not an option for you.
But so many people will just quit sports because it isn’t fun. If you are seeking only fun in sports you will quickly be disappointed. Why? Because you will run into a coach or teammates who want you to do more be more and have more. They are going to make you work and work hard. Why? Because sports is tough and the goal is to win. If you aren’t winning now you’re going to need to work harder. Is that going to be fun? Not all the time. But is it going to be enjoyable? You bet.

People Love To Tell You The Odds

People are quick to spew statistics to completely demoralize you like: only 3-5% of high school athletes get to play sports in college. Or that the odds of getting a scholarship is really small and you shouldn’t “get your hopes up”. Or my favourite, “Only three men in the whole country make the Olympic team every four years!” (Haha. Did that one.)
What all of those comments are basically saying is, “You are crazy to think that little ol’ you has a chance to become anything in this world.” I hate those people. (Hate is a strong word, I know, but if there is one thing I can’t stand it’s when older folks do what they can to stifle a young athlete's dreams because they don’t want them to be disappointed if they don’t make it.)
Listen, I know what you’re trying to do and I want to tell you before I go on that if you can shut out the negative thinking of those unmotivated people who come around you and spew that crap, you have a huge advantage. See, those same people will go buy a lottery ticket after work tomorrow hoping that they will somehow win a game that has even worse odds than what it is you are trying to do!
The world is full of negative thinking and you will end up hearing some of the worst of it. It won’t be a matter of “if” you hear it but “when” and the odds are you’ve already heard some of it. This book is designed to give you a plan to reach your goals and not just “hope” for them. I’m going to give you hope by giving you the tools to navigate this crazy world of sports. Whether your goal is to play in college, get a scholarship, compete professionally, or compete at the Olympic games I’m going to help you create a plan to do so and to insulate you from the people who are more than willing to say that you can’t. When you have a plan you have armour against the dream-stealers. Consider it your force field of confidence. When you have a plan, you have confidence. And when you have confidence you can make ANYTHING happen.

You Can Be Awesome

You have in your hand something that I wished I had as an athlete growing up. You see, you are probably a thousand times better than I was at your age. As the son of two musicians, I didn’t grow up in a household that was surrounded by sports. As an only child, I didn’t have any older brothers or sisters whose footsteps I could follow, or who could wrestle with me or play sports with me. There was no one to toughen me up athletically. No. My Mom was an Opera singer and my Dad was a Music Director.
While my Mom will attribute my athletic success to her brief stint as a high school soccer player, and the most famous “sport” photo of my Dad is him holding a baseball bat upside down, understand that I didn’t come from athletic genes.
However, I did have an “interest” in sports and I vividly remember that day in third grade losing every event in the Sports Day at the Nash School in South Weymouth, Massachusetts. I also remember getting my butt kicked. literally, by our schoolyard bully Michael that same day after school; he’s in prison now for other things, but that’s another story not worth telling. I loved Sports Day...but I hated getting my butt kicked.
I would play street hockey for hours with my friend Wayne in his driveway. I’d then go home and we would throw tennis balls on the roof of my parents house for even more hours with the lacrosse stick hoping it would hit the peak of the house just right so it would take a funny bounce and I would have to make some daring catch in the yard to get it. (No wonder I became a goalie.)
In fifth grade I started to play soccer, hockey, and lacrosse and after a slow, unathletic start, got pretty good at all of them, becoming an All-American in lacrosse and an Olympian in the sport of luge (wut?!). While I bumbled along like most kids, I didn’t really have a “plan”; or not one that was particularly laid out. My success in sports was fueled by my interest in the sports I played and my enjoyment in figuring them out. Along the way I had some good coaches and some really bad ones, too. I was just really interested in solving the challenge that sports provided. The love of the games helped me reach some pretty cool heights, like going to the Olympics and becoming a recruit to play at a Division One school in the NCAA.

Sports Is Different Now. But The Same.

I know that the world around sports is a lot different now than it was back when I competed. There are a lot more kids involved in sports, and since 2000 the business of training and coaching youth sports has exploded into a multi-billion dollar industry. I know because I have had my own strength and conditioning business and I’ve helped others market and grow their businesses by helping young athletes get better. We have more resources now than ever before to play, compete, and get better. Whether it’s a piece of equipment, a tournament, or a training facility, there are more opportunities than ever to participate and improve and more people who have the money to take advantage of all of those resources. It feels like a buffet in Las Vegas. The offerings are endless and it all looks so good, but not all of it is good for you.
I still feel that something is missing in today’s athletic environment. Sure, there are lots of tips and tricks and techniques available. You can go buy a new piece of equipment to help you improve your game. You can go buy the latest Under Armour mouthpiece that will supposedly help you breathe better, or you can go out this afternoon and join a gym to try and get bigger, faster, stronger. But what is missing is a plan, the glue, the stuff that holds all of these techniques together. What people are missing is the overall philosophy of thinking that helps athletes make great decisions at all stages of their career. While people are happy to complain about the environment of sports today and how it should change, I’d rather focus on you, the athlete, and what you need to do to navigate your current sports situation. People can complain all they want about how sports shouldn’t be professional so early. How kids are playing too much, too soon. How it’s all too much. But while those people complain, your love of your sport will carry you through all of that. Odds are the sport you participate in isn’t going to change fast enough for you to reap those benefits, I’d rather help you get through it all successfully, now. If you want to help change it later, go right ahead.
I wasn’t very good at sports when I was young even though I loved to play and could have played for hours. No one taught me about rest and recovery, which is essential to becoming an awesome athlete. The approach I took, and that you are probably taking, is “more” must be better. More games, more training, more equipment, more gear, more tournaments. Get seen, get a scholarship, and hopefully make the team. But what no one talks about, until this book, is how it all fits together and how YOU fit into the entire picture. That’s what this book is all about.
I’ve been a student of sports training and tactics for thirty years now and what I’m laying out in this book is more than just psychology and mindset. It’s an overall approach to your athletic career that will take you from the beginning, all the way through to your highest athletic result. Whether you’re just trying to make the high school varsity, or play professionally, this book will help you.
This book is here to help you become awesome at your sport. I want you to be awesome, probably more than you want it for yourself. Whether you picked this book up on your own or someone who loves you gave it to you as a gift. I want you to know that I believe in you! Let me say that again I believe in YOU!.
“Why do you believe in me? You don’t even know me?” You might ask yourself.  Here is why I believe in you: I didn’t have a person in my life like me when I was young, and I made it all the way to the Olympics; I only wish I knew then what I know now because I would have avoided so many pitfalls and training mistakes and probably extended my career a long way. If you desire to be your best. I can teach you how to achieve your best.  Understand, I am in your corner and I have your back on this stuff. So let’s get started.

Don’t Cut Corners

You know how when you run laps with your teammates some of them will cut corners. They won’t run the whole distance, they slack off the pace, and then coast along. They are the ones who only run hard when the coach is looking. You might even find yourself cutting corners sometimes. The athletes who don’t finish their lap all the way, will not get past the first chapter of this book. Don’t let that be you! Your goal is to read this book as fast as possible. Start at the beginning and cruise through it. Don’t skip pages and don’t cut out chapters. Every page of this book is designed to help you understand everything you need to know to reach your goals so leave no page unread. In a few pages I’ll share with you tips I learned when I went to Stanford University, about faster reading, reading comprehension AND critical thinking. These are techniques you will be able to apply to your schooling and everyday life.

Unapologetically Obsessed

When you decide that you want to get really, really good at your sport, you will immediately want to do more than other athletes around you. You’re going to want to get to practice early and to stay late too. You’re going to want to ask more questions of your coach, and of other coaches too. You’re going to want to miss a party to study the film of your last game. And you’re going to want to be more meticulous (look it up) in how you care for your equipment.
That’s just a partial list of some of the things you're going to want to do when you become obsessed with your sport.
People marvel at athletes who train and compete at a high level. They look in awe at their dedication to their craft. The general public can’t comprehend the amount of work, and time, and commitment to their obsession with the detail that surrounds their training. To their level of “compete” when they get out on the field of play.
When should you adopt that level of obsession? How about, now? How about last week, or last month, or last year? The sooner the better, really.
How “obsessed” should you be with your sport? That is completely up to you, but let me ask you, if you had to go to a surgeon tomorrow for surgery, how obsessed would you want him to be? The truth is, only you know how obsessed you need to be about your sport. Obsession is completely personal because your obsession satisfies a need inside you and no one else. To the outsider, they may think that what you do is out of the ordinary but that’s perfectly fine. They aren’t living your dream you are. And that is why it is so important to be:

“Unapologetically Obsessed”

You don’t have to apologize to anyone for what is perceived as your “obsession” with your sport. Your goals are yours and yours alone and how you make them happen is up to you. Only you know what will satisfy you when it comes to your effort. I know countless athletes who share the same story: Of returning to the friends or family members who gave them a hard time for all of the time they put into their sport, but who were so proud of them for going for their goals. It’s odd really. The same people who were doing their best to pull them away from their training and competing were the most proud of them when they came back. If only those people had been more supportive! Who knows where you can end up!

How This Book Is Organized

I’ve divided this book into five main sections:
Intro:     The Introduction (that you’re reading right now)

1. Your Approach To Your Sport
   
2. Train. Recover. Compete. Recover. Repeat.
   
3. Game Day
   
4. Get Results. Review.  Keep The Lessons. Try Again.
   

In the Introduction I want to inspire you to go after everything you want in sport. There is more opportunity now for you to succeed than ever before. And while it may seem there is more competition I don’t want you to focus on that. People will get injured, get tired, or quit, but you will persevere in the face of everything that can and will come against you.
In Section Two: Your Approach To Your Sport I want to give the mindset you need to navigate the sports path that you are on so you can win. It doesn’t really matter if you’re in high school or you are a pro trying to extend your career, the attitude you have in your head is what will take you further. One of my favourite quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson reads, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within us out into the world, miracles happen.” You are bringing what is inside you to this world of sports and it will be awesome. In this section I’m going to give you an overall framework for how to think about training and competing and how to take advantage of all of the opportunities training and competing will provide you.
In Section Three: Train. Recover. Compete. Recover. Repeat., we’ll discuss your training and preparation for Game Day. I use the term Game Day because I think it’s appropriate to the largest number of athletes. Even if you’re a skier or a figure skater or a Nascar driver you can relate to the term Game Day as the day when it’s all gonna go down and you get to showcase your talents in comparison to your competitors.
In Section Four: Game Day, we’ll discuss how to be prepared and how to execute on your best Gameday experience so you have your best result. No matter how much work you do in Section Three, it doesn’t really matter if you can’t put in a good result on Game Day and I’ll reveal how to do that.
In Section Five: Get Results. Review.  Keep The Lessons. Try Again. we’ll discuss how to look at your Game Day results without losing your mind. Whether your Game Day results are good or bad, I’ll help you evaluate your results so you can keep improving while making you bulletproof the inevitable ups and downs of competition.
Finally, in Section Six: Ongoing Thoughts And Considerations, I’ll cover topics that every great athlete needs to be thinking of consistently. The topics in this section could be sprinkled throughout the book, however, I felt they deserved their own section because of their importance.

How To Attack This Book

“Before anything else, preparationis the key to success.”

Alexander Graham Bell. Inventor of the telephone, the metal detector, the wheat husker and the hydrofoil boat.

Just like you make a game plan for every competitive situation you are in, I wanted to give you a game plan for how to read this book so that you get the most out of it and win. When I wrote this book people asked me questions like, “Why is it so long? Nobody is going to read it.” And, “Why is the Table of Contents so long?” or, “Does every chapter need to have a Conclusion AND a Summary?” The answer was, “Yes”. And here’s why: I attended Stanford University for a Summer after I competed in the Olympics and one of the reasons I wanted to go there was to learn how really smart people think. So, that summer I signed up for a Faster Reading course which was one of the best investments I have ever made in my life.
In that course I learned how to read a nonfiction book. Books like the one you have in your hand. It also applied to school text books as well. I am sharing with you what i learned there. Would you like to read a book faster? Would you like to retain more of what you learn? Did you think that reading a book about how to win at sports would help you with your grades? Well, here it is. A step-by-step approach to reading that will change your life:

Step 1) Read the table of contents first.

Read the Section Headings and then go back and read the subheadings. This will give you an overview of the entire book and how it’s laid out. Just like scouting out a course before you run it, you’ll be faster if you do and slower if you don’t.

Step 2) Read the Introduction.  

This is where I’m going to lay out for you my approach to this whole process and why it will help you. Don’t just rush into the book. By listening to what it is I’m going to tell you, you will have an understanding of what’s to come.

Step 3) Read the Conclusion at the End of the Book.

You know that old saying, “Don’t spoil the story by reading the end first!” That’s bad advice when it comes to reading non-fiction or any story where you want to recall and remember what’s in it. It’s great when you’re watching a movie and you want to get surprised at the ending. You don’t want a “surprise” ending at the end of your athletic story do you? When you are reading a nonfiction book like this one you want to read the end first to see what the outcome is. You will get the idea of how this all fits together, so you have a framework for understanding my vision for you, and where I’m going to lead you. So read the last chapter and then…

Step 4) Read the whole book.

Now that you have an understanding of how the book is laid out, where it’s going, and how it’s going to get there, you are going to have better retention of the entire contents. By understanding what is coming next and how it all fits together you will better understand all of the concepts and how it all fits together. This will increase your retention and it will help you understand all of the concepts involved. Be sure to apply this approach to each chapter as well. Read the opening, then read the Conclusion and Summary and then go back and read the chapter from beginning to end.  This is powerful stuff so don’t discount the method. You will read faster and retain more.
The sooner you understand these concepts the sooner your game will improve.

Own This Book

If this book was loaned to you by someone, do yourself a favor and get online and buy your own copy. This book is meant to be written in and marked up. I want you to always have a copy nearby at all times and I want you to take this copy and mark it up. Dog ear it. Take notes. Journal in it. This shouldn’t be a nice and tidy looking thing on your bookshelf...it should be in your bag, beat up and read through multiple times so you can refer to it again and again.

I Love You

I spoke to a group of high school athletes once and told them that I loved them. I wanted them to know that I believed in what it was they were doing and that they could make their dreams come true. At the end of that talk, an athlete came up to me in tears and said, “You know, my father has never told me that he loves me.” I was shocked, but it made me realize that there are probably more athletes who grow up in environments like that. I don’t know if that’s you, but I want you to know that I believe in you, and I want you to know that I love you. Yes...I love you. We all need someone in our life who tells us they love us and I hope that you have that someone in your life. I know that it’s quite possible that you don’t have someone who is super-supportive of you or your efforts and want you to know that I love you. It’s quite possible that you are not in a place where you feel a lot of love directed at you, or to what you’re trying to get done. So understand this, I’m on your side. I want you to win. I want you to take all of what you’ve learned in this crazy sports scene and to take it with you for the rest of your life.

I Want To Hear From You

When you have a moment, send me a note at coachedwards@athletespecific.com I want to know who you are and what you’re doing. What sports are you involved in and what are your goals. Shoot me an email and tell me your story as it’s the “juice” that keeps me going. I respond to all my emails. :)

Pay It Forward

Finally, share this with someone who you know, like and trust. This book is fast becoming the most shared, gifted and otherwise referred to book of it’s kind and that starts with you. So take a picture of you with the book and post it to Facebook, share it on Twitter, Pin it, Instagram it. You name it. I sure would appreciate it.

You Can’t Lose

I wish you success and happiness and don’t forget...whether you win or lose in your sport, reach your dreams, or fall flat on your face, the lessons you will learn along the way will serve you for the rest of your life in ANY activity you choose. Work, school, life, or relationships, they will all be affected for the better. You will take these lessons with you your whole life.

I believe in you.

Jonathan Edwards - Olympian

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