Someone wants you dead. But he doesn't want to kill you . . . He wants you to do it for him. He watches your every move. He studies you like a mouse in a maze. He knows everything about you—every dream, hunger, weakness, and strength. What you long for and what you fear most. What you live for, and what you cannot live without. He plans to take those things away from you one at a time, invisibly manipulating the events of your life until there is nothing left to live for. Then he wants you to take the final step. Or is it all in your head? Is he just a figment of your irrational fear, a face you've given to your terrible misfortune? Everything you love is slipping away. You want to fight back but who, or what, do you fight against? Let the head game begin.

WINNING THE "HEAD" GAME Key to Elite Athletic Status Attaining elite athletic status starts with the body, but ultimately, it is the substance of the mindset that speaks to the level of achievement an athlete experiences in sports. Every path which leads to elite athletic status may be a little different, but the ultimate goal of the journey is not. The higher any athlete expects to go on the route to athletic excellence, the more definitive is the quality of the mindset--possessing the right mix of ingredients to win the "head" game. Are you prepared to win the "head" game? The answer is probably circling around your brain in the shape of a question mark? You are not sure. Almost every elite athlete was or has been unsure at some point on their athletic journey. This book is about taking the guesswork out of winning the "head" game. Coach Sonny Smith, a retired Hall-of-Fame basketball coach, and Lou Vickery, a former professional baseball player, with over sixty years of athletic experience, have teamed up to provide a road map for the journey from where an athlete is to where that athlete wants to go. This book is about taking the guesswork out of winning the "head" game. A breakthrough is definitely on the horizon. It's all about making a deeper discovery of YOU! "WINNING THE 'HEAD' GAME is the most complete, thorough, and detailed discussion of one of sports and life's greatest challenges--The "Mental Game," which I touch on often on my nationally-syndicated "The Sports Doctor" radio show...Coach Sonny and Lou have put together a real gem here--so valuable for athletes, sports parents, and coaches at all ages and levels! Dr. Bob Weil, host of the nationally syndicated radio show, "The Sports Doctor"

Get Your Head in the Game is the first book to tackle the issue of mental health and its relationship with the most popular sport in the world, football. Football is more than just a sport; the pitch reveals emotion in the extreme, from the glory of goals, the thrill of comradeship, the rollercoaster of club loyalty, through to the immense pressure of expectation, fear of injury, and crushing defeat. Fans, players, managers, coaches, and even those new to the sport can't help but be swept up by the drama at the heart of the beautiful game. But when players at the peak of their physical fitness commit suicide, or poor mental health derails careers, there can still be a stunned silence in the community, a lack of connection. In Get Your Head in the Game, Dominic Stevenson, a writer, player, coach, and lifelong football obsessive, interviews a diverse cross-section of characters in the football world, from fans to managers, from players at the start of their careers to retired veterans, women's football stars, international celebrities, refugee footballers and mental health professionals. Football is more than just a sport. The pitch reveals emotion in the extreme: from the glory of goals, the rollercoaster of club loyalty, through to the immense pressure of expectation, fear of injury, and crushing defeat. Fans, players, managers, coaches and even those new to the sport can't help but be swept up by the drama of the beautiful game. But when players at the peak of their physical fitness commit suicide, or poor mental health derails careers, there can still be a stunned silence in the community, a lack of connection. Dominic Stevenson, a writer, player, coach and lifelong football obsessive, interviews a diverse cross-section of characters in the football world to try to understand this lost connection between the sport and the mind. This book contains contributions from internationally renowned players such as Sam Hutchinson, Chris Kirkland, Ella Masar, John Harkes and Iffy Onoura. From voices at top clubs around the globe including Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and DC United, to the stories of smaller clubs and unsung heroes behind the scenes, Dominic reveals personal battles both on and off the pitch, touching on anxiety, depression, discrimination, trauma, identity and recovery.

Lilah Stone has never followed football. She grew up in one of the country's biggest college football towns, but she's a painter. She doesn't go all weak-kneed for some jock. Especially not after the sex scandal that tore apart the team and destroyed her world. So when she takes a summer adjunct job at Mountain State University, the last guy she wants to see in class is an arrogant, cocky football player. Then Riley Brulotte walks in. He's everything she's sworn to hate ... and sexy as hell. He's all wrong for Lilah. So why does he feel so right? Riley "Lotto" Brullote knows one thing: How to play football. As one of the Mountain State Mustang's star players, this tight end has taken some hard hits on the field. But Lilah Stone is the first woman to knock him flat. With her abundant curves and bold nature, she'd draw his attention even if she weren't his summer art teacher. Riley has to play his best this season if he wants any shot at being drafted, but the toughest play of all might be for Lilah's heart.

An intriguing blend of science and sports that explores how some of the worlds greatest athletes are utilizing the last frontier of performance-enhancing technology—the mental mapping and engineering of their own brains—for peak performance, and what it means for the future of athleticism, sports, and the rest of us. Moneyball showed how statistics were revolutionizing baseball. The Sports Gene revealed the role genetics play in sports. Now, Head in the Game examines the next evolution: how mental engineering—the manipulation of the cognitive processes of the brain—can make gifted athletes even better. For years, technology—from EEG (electroencephalogram) to fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance imaging) to video games, tablets, and personal data collection devices—have been used with soldiers to understand their physical and mental functioning. Touching on brain functionality vital to sports—both the "hard" (coordination, stimuli processing, functional memory, decision-making, load-processing) and the "soft" (emotion regulation, visualization, psychology, mindfulness)—this tech is now being adopted by scores of championship franchises and top athletes—including scrappy underdogs forced to innovate and elite players looking for an advantage. Star NFL quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Tom Brady, the NBA’s Kyle Korver, and Olympic volleyball champion Kerri Walsh are using mental engineering to up their game. It’s not luck that has transformed the San Antonio Spurs into a formidable force—it’s science, Sneed demonstrates. As mental engineering becomes widespread—taking athletes who are already freaks of nature and making them better—the impact on the multi-billion dollar sports industry will be dramatic on players, managers, trainers, owners, and even fans. Interviewing athletes and coaches, visiting training camps and sports science firms, Brandon Sneed offers a firsthand, on-the-ground look at this exciting breakthrough that has the potential to transform to transform the game—and all our lives.

Become a High Efficiency Analytic Decision maker. We've all been there: faced with a major decision, yet overwhelmed by the very data that is supposed to help us. It’s an all-too-common struggle in the digital age, when Google searches produce a million results in a split second and software programs provide analysis faster than we could ever hope to read it. Adapting the geopolitical and historical lessons gleaned from over two decades in government intelligence, Philip Mudd—an ex–National Security Council staff member and former senior executive at the FBI and the CIA—finally gives us the definitive guidebook for how to approach complex decisions today. Filled with logical yet counterintuitive answers to ordinary and extraordinary problems—whether it be buying a new home or pivoting a failing business model—Mudd’s "HEAD" (High Efficiency Analytic Decision-making) methodology provides readers with a battle-tested set of guiding principles that promise to bring order to even the most chaotic problems, all in five practical steps: • What's the question? Analysts often believe that questions are self-evident, but focusing on better questions up front always yields better answers later. • What are your "drivers?" The human mind has a hard time juggling information, so analysts need a system to break down complex questions into different characteristics or “drivers.” • How will you measure performance? Once the question has been solidified and the "drivers" determined, an analyst must decide what metrics they will use to understand how a problem—and their solution to it—is evolving over time. • What about the data? Rather than looking at each bit of information on its own and up front, an analyst can only overcome data overload by plugging data into their "driver" categories and excising anything that doesn't fit. • What are we missing? Complex analysis isn't easy, so it is imperative to assume that the process is flawed, while also knowing how to check for possible gaps and errors, such as availability bias, halo effects, and intuitive versus analytic methodologies. Drawing deeply from his own harrowing experiences—and mistakes—in the line of duty, Mudd has spent years refining and teaching his methodology to Fortune 500 companies and government organizations. Now, in the best-selling tradition of Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit and Oren Klaff's Pitch Anything, Philip Mudd's The HEAD Game can change the way you both live and work.

Levels of the Game is John McPhee's astonishing account of a tennis match played by Arthur Ashe against Clark Graebner at Forest Hills in 1968. It begins with the ball rising into the air for the initial serve and ends with the final point. McPhee provides a brilliant, stroke-by-stroke description while examining the backgrounds and attitudes which have molded the players' games. "This may be the high point of American sports journalism"- Robert Lipsyte, The New York Times

"This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental skills which help speed you to your full potential."---Dave Winfield What does it mean to play heads-up baseball? A heads-up player has confidence in his ability, keeps control in pressure situations, and focuses on one pitch at a time. His mental skills enable him to play consistently at or near his best despite the adversity baseball presents each day. "My ability to fully focus on what I had to do on a daily basis was what made me the successful player I was. Sure I had some natural ability, but that only gets you so far. I think I learned how to focus; it wasn't something that I was necessarily born with." -- Hank Aaron "Developing and refining my mental game has played a critical role in my success in baseball. For years players have had to develop these skills on their own. This book provides practical strategies for developing the mental skills that will help speed you toward your full potential." -- Dave Winfield

Packed full of drama games, ideas and suggestions, Drama Menu is a unique new resource for drama teachers.

Motivational book written by Life-Coach ans Motivational Speaker, Shannon Beasley Taitt which relays life-changing lessons she learned from her mother, who often taught her life lessons through the game of basketball.