The Inner Game

Malibu Times

Malibu author Tim Gallwey’s new book helps stressed individuals stay balanced.

“Inner Game of Stress” Malibu author W. Timothy Gallwey (center), with doctors and co-authors Edd Hanzelik, M.D. and John Morton, M.D. Through “The Inner Game of Stress” Gallwey hopes his readers outsmart and circumvent stress. Photo by Marie Catherine Toulet

By Patrick Timothy Mullikin / Special to The Malibu Times

Published: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 11:16 AM PDT

Stressing over which stress-relief book to buy?

Sounds silly, but minor stress, such as fretting over which book to buy, has become part of daily living. We simply grin and bear it and move along.

Major stress? That’s another matter. Malibu author W. Timothy Gallwey estimates that up to 75 percent of all visits to primary-care physicians are for stress-related complaints or disorders.

Simply stated: stress is making us sick, even killing us.

“The Inner Game of Stress: Outsmart Life’s Challenges and Fulfill Your Potential,” the latest in Gallwey’s “Inner Game” series, is being touted as the only book on stress you’ll ever need. And while that’s quite a claim, Gallwey is quick to back up this statement, making it clear his book approaches the stress issue from a completely different direction.“It doesn’t deal with stress management. The whole idea of the strategy around stress is not to try to fight it, but to try to build an inner stability so that when the inevitable stressors come your way, they won’t throw you off balance,” Gallwey said last week during a phone interview from his Malibu home.

“In other stress books we see mostly diets, exercise, buy a puppy, various things to alleviate your current stress. You have to have the stress already to apply those books.”

Through “The Inner Game of Stress” Gallwey hopes his readers outsmart and circumvent stress.

What he and co-authors Edward Hanzelik, M.D., and John Morton, M.D, offer readers in “The Inner Game of Stress” is a series of steps and exercises-preemptive strikes, if you will-to keep stressors at bay and “to discover your inner stability so you can respond to inevitable life stressors before they happen.”

At first blush this sounds like New Age psychobabble, but Gallwey et al. do in fact present the reader with concrete-some of it common sense-examples of how to discover this inner stability, including: The STOP (Step back, Think, Organize and Proceed) Technique; The Attitude Tool: Feeling resentment? Try gratitude; The Magic Pen: Use it to develop your ability to open up your intuition and wisdom; The Transpose Exercise that allows one to imagine what the other person thinks, feels, wants-and develop empathy, kindness, and better relationship skills; The PLE (Performance, Learning, and Experience) Triangle that uses goals to redefine success and enhance enjoyment.

The book can have the feeling of a PowerPoint presentation at times, making it an easy read, and Gallwey makes references to the stress seminars he and his colleagues conduct. (A few of the case studies are, in fact, about seminar attendees who have put Gallwey’s principles to test, with positive results.)

Sprinkled throughout the book’s three sections-“The Game of Stress,” “Outsmarting Stress,” and “The Inner Game Toolbox”-are case studies written by Hanzelik and Horton (hence their billing as coauthors) illustrating the effects of stress on health and showing how Gallwey’s principles have helped these patients. These “Patient Files” are at times austere, even Kafka-esque, in their descriptions: “When Ruth, a young woman in her thirties, first came to my office,” writes Hanzelik, “she was desperately unhappy to the point of being suicidal. On the face of it, Ruth had every reason to be happy, but she couldn’t find what she was looking for in life. She was consumed by a relentless inner dialogue led by the Stress Maker.”

The “Stress Maker” that haunts Ruth, we learn from Gallwey, “is another name for fear, doubt, confusion and ignorance, an inner voice that unless vanquished or diminished can lead to stress.”

Each chapter ends with an exercise to put Gallwey’s principles to test. In the case of the “Stress Maker,” it’s a how to bypass your stress maker: “Review the bothersome fear you noted above and see if you can bring the Stress Maker down to size. How much of the fear is real, and how much is invented? What would your voice say to bypass the Stress Maker’s concepts rather than buy into them?”

The obvious question: Does the book work?

Although the book was released on Aug. 18, the reaction so far has been positive, Gallwey said. “We had a book launching in mid-August and 400 people came to it. Lots of people had read the book already and were extremely enthusiastic about it,” he said.

Gallwey said he uses the book’s principles all the time in his own daily life, with positive results, and hopes the book will help others, too.

“I have a feeling of compassion for people who are depriving themselves of a really high-quality life because of stress. There’s a choice. There’s a real choice, and I hope more and more people will take that choice, through my book or any book or anything that can help them.”

Copyright © 2009 – Malibu Times

Tags: awareness, Edd Hanzelik M.D., inner game of stress, John Horton M.D., potential, The Inner Game, Tim Gallwey

Success Unlimited Network (SUN) offer a course in coach training & certification that is based on Tim Gallwey’s approach to coaching.

The SUN program is based on a model of Business Management /Sports coaching developed in England. The value of this approach to coaching is revealed in Tim Gallwey’s books, The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Work. In his tennis book, Mr. Gallwey noticed that most tennis coaches focus on the act of hitting the ball. His approach is to focus on what happens between hits. It is the focus on “between the meeting approach” that contributes to making SUN a unique and effective coaching program.

Tags: Certification, Coach, coaching, SUN, Training

Dr. Valerio Pascotto is the founder of EOS® – Effective Organizational Systems. Tim Gallwey attended Harvard University where he majored in English Literature and captained the tennis team. Together they have a company called IGEOS, the premier company in building the teams that drive corporate success.

Tags: corporate, drive, IGEOS, success, teambuilding

When asked how he remains so enthusiastic every time he plays, Paul Galsse, a world renown mandolin player cites his influence from The Inner Game of Music. Below is his quoted answer to that question. You can read the full interview at The Mandolin Cafe.

Question from Earl G: You have played with many great players and yet you still take the time to work with new players and teach at camps. What’s it like to switch gears from playing with Johnny Gimble (or somebody like him), to working with a room full of novices? Also, you seem pleasant and very excited any of the few times I’ve seen you play. How do you stay positive on days? when maybe your fingers don’t move well or you missed some sleep but you still have to play?

Paul Glasse with his Monteleone mandolin. Photo credit: Polly Reynolds for paulglasse.com.

Paul Glasse with his Monteleone mandolin. Photo credit: Polly Reynolds for paulglasse.com.

Paul Glasse: The short answer is that I love what I do. I think it’s one of the great treats in life to get to play music that you love and share it with other folks, either through performing or helping others through their own musical journeys. I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to “figure out” music and the mandolin. It’s nice to have an outlet for all of that.

As a teenager I certainly never thought I’d get to meet, let alone study or perform with, Johnny Gimble. While that’s an experience I’ll always cherish, working with a room full of mandolin pickers, trying to help them progress musically is also a real blast. I get a lot out of it personally, always have fun and always learn something myself.

How to stay positive? For me a lot of this stuff comes down to really being present, regardless of the situation you’re in. It can be a hard thing to do. It’s very easy to get distracted by any number of factors. I think part of the reason I like to play music and like to improvise is that it demands that I really be present in the moment. The mental spot that I need to be in to really play interactively with great musicians is a really joyful one, where I’m really not thinking about anything else that otherwise might bother me. There’s a great book called The Inner Game Of Music (Barry Green & W. Timothy Gallwey) that has plenty of tips in this arena. Check it out. Also, as many of you know, a few years ago I almost passed away due to a major auto wreck. One of the things that I try to retain from that experience is the awareness that any day I’m above ground is a bonus day. I’m really glad to be here.

Tags: inner game music, Paul Glasse

In a recent addition to the user forum over at The Sand Trap website, a reader addresses his newly developed problem with “shanks” and how The Inner Game helped him work through it.

Shanks!
Devoted the last 6 months of my golf life to short game practice, and mainly trying to understand and execute Stan Utley’s techniques. I had been happy enough with my long game and my distance and consistency, but was sick of not scoring any better for many many years.. perpetually stuck in the low 80s barrier.

So for about 6 months I averaged probably at least an hour per day of short game practice, overall. I didn’t playl. Occasional driving range to make sure my long shots were still ok. Usually I would head over to the practice area in a public course near my house, in the AM before work, and then sneak again over there at lunch, for another session. Logistically I was lucky in that it’s easy for me to get over there.

Yeah, that’s a lot of practice. Some days I would skip, but I would go more often then not. I was able to grasp, absorb and improve my facility with Utley’s various methods for chipping, pitching, putting, bunker and recovery. I read all his books and watched all his golf channel and youtube vids over and over again, religiously.

My technique improved. I often would find myself looking like a genius on the pratice area. But I started having a problem. It usually started when I would move to working on slightly longer pitch shots from tighter lies. I would start shanking– often combined alternatively with fat shots. Horrible!!

It started to become a very consistent pattern… I would get to the practice area, hit a bunch of great shots and then at some point start shanking. I would gradually deteriorate, shanking more and more until I would eventually stumble on something that would make them go away, I’d hit great shots again and feel like a hero once more. I would think it was licked, only to have it return again, the very next day, usually as soon as I started trying the tougher lies again. Frustrating!!

Very very frustrating. Started to get me thinking about throwing in the towel. One who shanks doesn’t deserve to play golf! The dreaded shank!! Most golfers don’t even want to say the word!

I developed all sorts of theories as to what was causing them: ‘Pitching from tight lies is hard and causes tension, and the tension makes me flinch and shank.’ or ‘I get tired and my swing stops working’ or..’i'm too old (48) and golf is just too hard’, or.. ‘my setup is wrong, Im too closed, and if I try to swing on a single plane (i.e. flat) as utley advocates, then I’m misaligned and at that point I have to shank.’

I started laying down a club as a reference point for my allignment, and that helped, but wasn’t a cure. They returned after I would stop using the club.

I firmed up my grip and left arm and increased my arm swing length somewhat and that seemed to help, but ultimately I knew that was a bandaid and sure enough they came back.

Finally I saw that they weren’t going away completely. I would need to come to terms with them, or just stop playing. Then I started to think more about shanks in general, and decided that shanks had a bad rep that was undeserved; I convinced myself that a shank was no better or worse than a fat or thin shot, just different. An unfairly categorized mis hit. That kind of thinking oddly seemed to help and reduce the tension or whatever it was that was causing them to begin with, but they still didn’t go away completely, and clearly I wasn’t going to be breaking 80 very much with them being so “abundant”.

Finally I decided that my only hope was to take it a step further. I decided I would truly welcome the shanks. I borrowed a method that I got from Tim Gallwey’s golf book that I read long ago, called “welcoming the yips”. Sure enough when I really allowed myself to shank and really started to feel and focus on what was actually going on, something really cool happened: I started focusing on the heel of my wedge. Without trying to control it, I just focused on it, to see what it was doing exactly. Then it happened: I felt myself leaning in towards the ball slightly during the process of the swing. And as soon as I became aware of it, the instability felt really noticable– like a big ship teetering in the waves.

The cure seemed clear.. stop doing that leaning thing!! It made sense that the leaning could cause both shankin and the fat shots. But I knew from the inner game book that trying to avoid something doesn’t nessesarily make it go away, and often strengthens it. So I focused instead on expressing stability during the swing, and kept on focusing on the heel of the club, and just noticing whether I leaned in or not and how much, without trying to control it.

Well– in short, Bingo. No more shanks. I’m happy to report that I’ve been doing much better the last few days, and ‘they’ are being held at bay. I’m feeling much more confident now and I even think I’m getting ready to play again. Will keep you posted as to my progress. Dang shanks!

Tags: awareness, Coach, coaching, Inner Game of Golf, Innergame, sports psychology, Tim Gallwey

Grant Brad Gerver is an entrepreneur and creative consultant for Filibi, a classified and online coupon advertising site and home business. He’s also a YouTube Channel (gbgerver) blues singer-songwriter and guitar player with The Buzzard Brothers. Additionally, Grant writes political humor, thousands of bumper stickers, and humorous movie reviews. He has also worked with various companies as a product-naming specialist. He’s a retired elementary school teacher and published children’s author who works in the health care field. Here is a recent article about his experience with Tim Gallwey.

What if you decided to quit trying so hard? I’m not talking about giving up. I mean holding on to your dreams, but not grasping for them like straws or brass rings. It seems like the harder you want something, like a better relationship, a mended fence, a new car, monetary success, paying off all your debts, the harder it is to accomplish it. It’s as if the more you yearn, the more you push it away from yourself. I don’t exactly know why, but I’ve found when I’m patient enough to look back on my life, the best things that have happened to me (and I’m grateful for plenty) come when you just let it go and let it happen.

I read about Tim Gallwey many years ago in Reader’s Digest. He wrote Zen-like books about sports: Inner Tennis, Inner Golf, and my favorite, Inner Skiing. He could have written Inner Whittling, but it doesn’t matter. He used sports as a vehicle to teach about not being so damn self-critical and letting your mind be free to achieve, allowing your body to follow.

Gallwey discovered this approach on a frigid night in the middle of nowhere in the wee hours of a dark, starlit snow-covered morning. He was driving in the backcountry of New England and his car died. He became panicked and fear-stricken knowing he might well freeze to death. There were no houses or signs of humanity anywhere for miles around. So, he decided that rather than freeze, he would walk until he found someone home, or until it was the end. As he walked in the brisk cold darkness with shining stars illuminating the way, he realized how entirely beautiful his surroundings were. He had a transformation. He no longer felt panicked, but rather, a sense of immense joy and awe at the beauty that enveloped him. He let it go and let it happen, leaving his sense of doom and gloom by the wayside. It undoubtedly saved his life. He finally happened upon a farmhouse where he was gladly taken in by the occupants.

I have embraced his philosophy of inner peace and the Zen-like qualities that can make a huge difference in the lives of anyone willing to give this path a try. It truly revolutionized my skiing and the other sports I’ve played over my 59 years. It helps you get in “the zone.” But, don’t try to recreate it, or think about how you got there, for it is a fruitless exercise in futility. You have to LET yourself find the sweet spot in life without grasping for it, owning it, or writing down the perceived “formula” as if it were a recipe. Just give yourself a break and see what unfolds.

I am in the process of trying to remember these timeless teachings without stressing about them. It is so easy to fall back into your old self-destructive mindset. You can’t get in the “zone” at will. It’s as if you need to be open to letting it find you. And when you do, boy is it a Godsend. Writing about this phenomena here has helped to pave the way for me to get back on track by not looking too hard for the rails, if you know what I mean. Thank you Tim.

Tags: Grant Brad Gerver, inner game, inspiration, sports psychology, The Inner Game, Tim Gallwey

The author of the Mud Ball Golf Blog talks about Tim Gallwey’s influence on one of the all time great golfers, Fred Shoemaker

Fred Shoemaker talks about how he himself went to see a coach to get rid of a bad habit – a swing fault. I too am trying to change my swing and form new and better habits – so I thought this would be useful. Fred talks about how he learned to be aware of his swing and experience the fault and by doing that it actually disappeared without any conscious changes! But, the coach Fred Shoemaker had been to see was not a famous Golf coach – but a Tennis coach called Timothy Gallwey. This intrigued me, so I bought his book next…

I’m still reading  Timothy Gallwey’s The Inner Game Of Tennis and it is brilliant! I’ve struggled for a long time to change a certain swing fault and now I really feel equipped to do so once and for all. He introduces the concept of Self 1, the Teller and Self 2, theDo’er and how to let them do their own jobs.

Tags: awareness, Fred Shoemaker, FredShoemaker, MudBallGolf, Tim Gallwey

A recent post ib the True Love blog relates Tim Gallwey’s principles in the Inner Game of Work to coaching. Here is what the author says:

Was reading the above book and wanted to share part of what I have read about his experience gained from being a tennis coach…

Learning takes place within the student. The student makes the choice that ultimately control whether learning takes place or not. He then realised that the student was responsible for the learning choices and the coach was responsible for the quality of the external learning environment. Allowing the student to be more aware of the choices he was making and the reasons behind those choices was an essential part of this learning process. The student felt more in control and as a natural consequence was willing to accept more responsibility, and exercise greater initiative and creativity in achieving their goal.

Experience comes with three principles – awareness, choice and trust. Awareness was about knowing the present situation with clarity. Choice was about moving in a desired direction in the future. Trust was the essential link that enabled that movement.

The greater the external challenges accepted by an individual, team or company, the more important it is that there be a minimum of interference occurring from within. No matter what culture you work in, what kind of work you do, or what your present level of competence is, both inner and outer games are always going on. Progress will always be dependent on both.

They are like two legs of a person; one leg represents the external challenges and the other represents self. As a culture and current situation, we have placed too much emphasis on mastering the outer game and making changes in the external world. With science, technology, and the modern information explosion, we have developed a relatively long outer-game leg. But our understanding and control of the Inner Game has not evolved equally.

We have a profound need to better understand, and learn to make changes in the domain we call ourselves. This will only happen if we change in ways that are in harmony with our true nature, not at war with it.

Tags: Coach, coaching, inner game, inner game of work, Innergame, Tim Gallwey

David-McCleary, author of “Leaving Prisons: Release Your Trapped Value!” recently interviewed Tim Gallwey. Here is a transcript of that interview for Dave’s blog, davemccleary.com.

In the 1970’s, Tim Gallwey wrote what is still one of the most crucial books for deeply understanding adult learning and change. He eloquently unlocked significant mysteries, mysteries with which most organizations and individuals unfortunately still struggle. The book he wrote then was The Inner Game of Tennis. If have not read this book, go get it now. It’s that important.

Tim reviewed my new book, Leaving Prisons: Release Your Trapped Value! Tim referred to the book as, “A bold guide for leaders courageous enough to engage in serious self-reflection; an invitation to explore what is perhaps the last frontier for excellence – self-interference.”

I recently asked Tim, who just published another book, The Inner Game of Stress, some of my favorite questions regarding leadership. Here are his answers.

What is one of the most critical questions leaders should consider today and why?

HOW TO CREATE A CULTURE THAT AUTOMATICALLY PROMOTES LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

IN ALL EMPLOYEES, NOT JUST THROUGH TRAINING, BUT THROUGH WORK EXPERIENCE AND

COACHING.

What are some of the wisest things leaders are doing now?

CREATING LEARNING/COACHING CULTURES TO DEVELOP THEIR PEOPLE

What are some of the most dangerous things leaders are doing now, and what should they do to minimize risk?

NOT PAYING SUFFICIENT ATTENTION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS CULTURAL FACTORS THAT

IMPACT PERFORMANCE, LEARNING, AND ENJOYMENT ON THE PART OF THEIR EMPLOYEES.

NOT PAYING SUFFICIENT ATTENTION TO GOAL CLARITY AND BUILDING THE FABRIC OF

TEAMS.

What is the most common form of self-interference that you see in leaders today?

IGNORING SELF-INTERFERENCE ITSELF AS IF IT DIDN’T EXIST OR AS IF THERE WAS

NOTHING YOU COULD DO ABOUT IT.

What opportunities for leaders are you most excited about?

THE CUTTING EDGE OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IS WHO DOES THE BEST JOB

DEVELOPING THE SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES OF THEIR PEOPLE.

Tim is the founder of The Inner Game Inc., www.TheInnerGame.com and co-founder of IGEOS, www.igeos.net. He is the author of The Inner Game of Work, and most recently, The Inner Game of Stress.

Tags: adult learning, change, Tim Gallwey, understanding

Here is a recent post from the “Train for Tennis Fun easy ways to learn how to Play Tennis” blog.

Can brain training help you in the real world? Definitely! Tennis Coach Timothy Gallwey has argued for years that you will do better at learning even a sport such as tennis if you become conscious of how your mind naturally learns. The same principle applies to most domains of experiences.

The human consciousness is the awareness of oneself as a being that thinks and learns. Consider the difference between your consciousness and its closest relation, emotional awareness. Since the time of Freud (who lived from 1856 to 1939), we as a society have become skilled interpreters of how dreams, fears, conflicts and emotional attachment affect our experiences and actions. In spite of our high level of emotional awareness, few of us achieve a high level of mind consciousness. Otherwise educated and sophisticated people have virtually no awareness of how they solve problems, discover ideas, assimilate and manage information, or adapt to change.

Is it is important to develop your mental prowess? A human mind is an instrument of enormous power. The similarities between the workings of your mind and the mind of a major scientist (such as Einstein) or a revolutionary thinker (such as Freud) are great, while the differences are subtle. To make the most effective use of your mind, you need to be aware of what it does as you think and learn. Strange as it may seem, you only have to learn to use the ability the mind that you already possess. That is why mind consciousness is such a powerful asset. With the right techniques, you can train your mind and improve your memory and accelerate your learning.

You can never totally be the master of your mind any more than you could ever totally be the master of your body, but you can guide it. Your heart keeps beating, your lungs keep breathing, your ears keep hearing, and the rest of our body keeps working, for the most part, whether you tell it to or not. In the same way, your mind keeps assimilating information and reinterpreting your experience. But neither are you obliged to let your mind master you. Think in terms of the analogy with your body. You can tell your eyes where o look and your feet where to step. With exercise you can influence how far you can run, and with training you can even affect how rapidly your heart beats. With memory training, if you observe your mind and understand it, it will exceed your expectations. If you continually train your mind with the right memory techniques, it will serve you well in years to come.

With subtle change in your observation skills, you can guide your own learning in the same kind of way that a government regulates a country’s economy. Economists offer methods for the government to avoid both an over heated inflationary economy and economic depression. They track business cycles and prescribe remedies to contain the excesses that could derail economic growth at any point.

Your mind goes through learning cycles in the same way that the economy goes through business cycles. If you understand the cyclical patterns of your own mind, you will be able to keep the growth of your own mind magic on trick as well.

Can brain training help you in the real world? Definitely! Tennis Coach Timothy Gallwey has argued for years that you will do better at learning even a sport such as tennis if you become conscious of how your mind naturally learns. The same principle applies to most domains of experiences.

Adapting to life in the information age will in essence be no different from adapting to any other dramatic change in living conditions. Futurists such as Alvin Toffler and business experts such as Peter Drucker tell us that power in the information age will come increasingly from the mind. That can mean only one thing, in the future, even more than before, you will have to rely on your own natural ability That should not be cause for alarm. Your natural ability is entirely adequate as long as you are skillful in putting it to good use.

Tags: awareness, Coach, consciousness, tennis, Timothy Gallwey