Through many years of mentoring athletes and other performers three vital lessons consistently surface as essential to success and satisfaction.

These lessons will be will be explained and illustrated using examples from the 2000 US Olympic Trials and the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

In brief, the lessons are:
1) It's all about confidence
2) The higher the level at which you compete, the "lower" many things become
3) The difference between victory and defeat is microscopically small

Workshop #115): Thriving Under Pressure

This is a workshop on bringing out one's best performance under highly pressurized conditions based on 20 years of work with elite performers and 30 years of study in meditation and martial arts. Participants will learn a pratical vocabularly for adressing the dynamics of stress management and a series of practical exercises for future use.

In September of 1999 I was selected by the U.S. Army's World Class Athletes Program to provide training in applied sport psychology to athletes who were training to represent the United States in the Olympic Trials and Olympic Games. In the course of this (and other) training experiences,three key mentoring lessons surfaced as being critical to the success of athletes and other performers, lessons that have continued to influence me personally and have the power to make a difference in all our lives.

This presentation will describe these lessons in detail and illustrate them with examples from the experiences of Olympic athletes.

Lesson #1 "It's all about confidence" will be dramatized by the story of U.S. Bobsled driver Jill Bakken who overcame a season of poor results and numerous injuries to win the gold medal in the first women's Olympic bobsled competition. Her story serves as a model for anyone pursuing success and excellence.

Lesson #2 "The higher the level at which you compete, the "lower" many things become" will be dramatized by the story of two U.S. track and field athletes who earned positions as alternates on the U.S. Olympic Team after rising above last second, unexpected, and discriminatory changes in their playing condidtions.

Lesson #3 The difference between victory and defeat is microscopically small will bre dramatized by the the story of the USA sled #2 in the 4 man bobsled competition at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. This team took advantage of s tiny window of oportunity to win a bronze medal in the competition, the first for the US in 46 years.

“Thriving Under Pressure'

An examination of the intangibles that facilitate great performance under extremes of pressure. The worshop is organized around three themes:
1.Confidence, which leads to Trust,Adaptability, Mental Agility, and Resilience
2. Energy, which allows for Sustained Preparation and Emotional intensity when needed
3. Focus, which leads to a state of Eagerness and quality execution.

The exploration of these themes wil be illustrated with video clips of elite perfomers and real world examples of performance under pressure.

C. Stress Response
D. Relaxation Response

Nathaniel Zinsser Ph.D.
Center for Enhanced Performance
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York 10996

phone: 845 938 7814

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Nathaniel Zinsser	Nathaniel Zinsser Nate Zinsser is currently the Director of the Performance Enhancement Program at the United States Military Academy’s Center for Enhanced Performance. He earned his PhD in sport psychology at the University of Virginia and has since become an AAASP Certified Consultant and member of the US Olympic Committee’s Sport Psychology Registry. Dr Zinsser also provides sport psychology training for the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL, athletes in the US Army’s World Class Athlete Program, and has conducted workshops in performance enhancement for neurosurgeons, musicians and management teams. He is the author of Dear Dr Psych, a sport psychology guidebook for youth sport athletes which won an American Library Association award, five textbook chapters on cognitive techniques for enhancing confidence, and numerous articles on applied sport psychology in trade publications. Center for Enhanced Performance United States Military Academy West Point NY 10996 845 938 7814 yn0808@usma.edu