Stillpower - Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life by Garret Kramer

I have to admit; I was a terrible athlete as a young man. I had poor vision, was uncoordinated and mostly unmotivated. Other than being an enthusiastic team member, cheering on my teammates, I was a lousy performer. I tried baseball, basketball, tennis, swimming and soccer, mostly due to the insistence of my parents. But I just couldn't seem to get the physical or the mental aspect of sports; not then, not ever.

Virtually every coach I had (and most were the dads of the excellent athletes on the team or P.E. majors at the local junior college) put me, and the other team members, through drill after drill and through lecture after lecture about focus, discipline and willpower. "Just gut it up and get it done" seemed to be the rigor of the day, day in and day out.

But fascinating to me was that when I was doing something that I really loved, I didn't have to be cajoled or forced into practice or into working harder or focusing more. The love of the activity seemed to me to be enough.

Garret Kramer, the author of Stillpower - Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life, suggests that maybe I had hit on something. He would suggest that my thought processes were the major hangup in my stinted athletic career.

"I believe that the finest competitors in every sport play with stillpower - not willpower. To them, trying hard and giving their best effort are not the same thing. These athletes feel a sense of cooperation with - and respect for - their teammates, coaches and even opponents, thus mental clarity is their norm. Men and women with stillpower excel in many fields and develop into our most prolific leaders. They naturally gravitate to their passions, rarely feel fatigued, and intuitively know what not to do if they drift off course."

In Stillpower, Kramer argues that getting into an appropriate mental state is more important than having a command of the skills and behaviors needed. Mental preparation for performance will lead an athlete to learn and develop the skills needed and will control behaviors on and off the field.

Mental preparation allows an athlete to experience "freedom" in his performance. The athlete puts aside all of the external forces like bad coaches, cheating players, inept referees and umpires and get himself or herself into "the zone" in which the athlete is free to perform with excellence.

For about four years, I had the opportunity to coach my sons in soccer. I knew little about the game and tried to learn enough about the game that I could teach these little guys from about 6 to 10 years old. Because of their age, we spent a lot of time on fundamentals like dribbling, passing, and teamwork. It was fun to watch as these guys started to develop an instinct for the game instead of just running in a little pack after the ball as they did when they first started.

Most of all, I tried to focus on the recreational aspects of soccer and less on the drive and will to win that I saw in many other coaches in our league. It was supposed to be fun; it was supposed to help them exercise; it was supposed to be about teamwork and sportsmanship.

While Kramer would agree that coaches need to work on the fundamentals of the game, he would also argue that the major purpose of working on fundamentals is to give athletes the freedom to perform well. Focusing on pressure, discipline and willpower is typical coaching behavior, but it misses the point of stillpower. Kramer remarks, "Rather than holding players accountable for their actions, hold them (and yourself) accountable to recognizing the thoughts and feelings that accompany high levels of well-being - and only acting from this mental state. Then watch what happens to the performance level of your team."

Stillpower - Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life is an extraordinary book that will turn traditional sports coaching on its ear if one reads and internalizes the concepts. Coaches would spend a lot more time on helping young athletes get into the appropriate mental state and less time on watching game film, learning about the opponents and reacting to the most recent performance of the athlete.

Helping an athlete develop confidence, find inner peace and freedom and letting peak performance come from within become the most important things a coach has to offer a young man or young woman.

I can recommend Stillpower - Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life without reservation to any father who wants to be a better coach, a better father and a better man. After all, peak performance as a father and a man is perhaps the most important thing to be sought after.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.