The Director of West Point’s influential Performance Psychology Program shares the secrets of mental toughness and self-belief in this definitive guide to mastering confidence, the key to performance in any field.
Dr. Nate Zinsser has spent his career training the minds of the U.S. Military Academy’s cadets as they prepare to lead and perform when the stakes are the very highest—on the battlefield. Alongside this work, he has coached world-class athletes including a Super Bowl MVP, numerous Olympic medalists, professional ballerinas, NHL All-Stars, and college All-Americans, teaching them to overcome pressure and succeed on the biggest stages.
Dr. Zinsser has come to understand that one single trait above all others makes peak performance possible: confidence, or the belief in oneself. Whether your mission involves leading a platoon into combat, returning an opponent’s serve, or delivering a sales pitch to a roomful of skeptical prospects, you perform best when you are so certain about your abilities that your flow of fear, doubts, and confusion slows to the barest minimum. What’s more, Dr. Zinsser has come to understand that confidence is a skill that can be taught, improved, and applied by anyone to enhance nearly every aspect of our lives and careers.
Now, for the first time, Dr. Zinsser distills his research and years of experience, offering a fascinating guide to the science of confidence and providing readers with a practical, step-by-step program to best harness their belief in themselves to achieve success in any field. TheConfident Mind is a complete guide to confidence: how to understand it, how to build it, how to protect it, and how to rely upon it when your performance matters most.
Nathaniel Zinsser, Ph.D., is the Director of the Performance Psychology Program at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the most comprehensive mental training program in the country. Dr. Zinsser has been the sport psychology mentor for two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning of the New York Giants for eleven seasons and mentored members of the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers for twelve seasons. He has been a keynote speaker for Staples, UBS, Salomon Smith Barney, Reader’s Digest, and the Federal Executive Institute, as well as a consultant for the FBI Academy, the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program (mentoring four Olympic medalists), U.S. Army Recruiting Command, the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, and the Fire Department of New York. He earned his Ph.D. in sport psychology from the University of Virginia and his senior black belt rank from Shotokan Karate of America.
Table of Contents
Preface xi
Introduction: What Confidence Is and Isn't 1
Chapter 1 Accepting What You Cannot Change 26
Chapter 2 Building Your Bank Account #1: Filtering Your Past for Valuable Deposits 53
Chapter 3 Building Your Bank Account #2: Constructive Thinking in the Present 76
Chapter 4 Building Your Bank Account #3: Envisioning Your Ideal Future 108
Chapter 5 Protecting Your Confidence Every Day, No Matter What 153
Chapter 6 Deciding to Be Different 188
Chapter 7 Entering the Arena with Confidence 223
Chapter 8 Playing a Confident Game from Start to Finish 252
Chapter 9 Ensuring the Next First Victory: Reflect, Plan, and Commit-or What? So What? and Now What? 283
Epilogue: The Bus Driver, the General, and You 292
