Stress Management

Introduction: A High Performer in the Making

Have no fear, dear reader! This isn’t about racing up the twenty-two floors of your office building or doing five sets of a hundred push-ups at your workstation. Being an Olympian at work is less painful but can be just as gratifying as being an Olympic athlete performing in front of a global audience.

The goal here is to transfer the mental training strategies that allow an Olympian to perform at any given time — whatever the circumstances — to your working life.

“Performance” is a concept that is often misunderstood and usually associated with a performer who is exceptional in their field. The goal of Train (Your Brain) Like an Olympian is not to make you the best in the world in your field, but to offer you ways to improve, period.

But why is it important to learn how to perform better?

Well, in the whirlwind of everyday life, we rarely stop to think about it, yet, for better or worse, we’re called upon to excel, just like an Olympian.

We all have to perform, whether we’re nurses, clerks, teachers, police officers, project managers, or parents, and we all have people who expect something from us, including bosses, customers, shareholders, bankers, colleagues, and children. The same principle applies to high-level athletes, who have to meet the expectations of their coach, their federation, their sponsors, and, ultimately, their country. So, without realizing it, you, too, need to perform, just like an Olympian.

We said it right from the start: it’s not about training your body like an Olympian, although a growing number of professionals find physical exercise, such as running or cycling, to be an effective antidote to stress. Instead, the book will focus on an aspect that both elite athletes and office workers need to perform optimally: mental training.

* Although the term “Olympian” normally refers to the gods of Greek mythology living in Olympia, we’ve decided to use it in this book to only describe high-level athletes who compete in the Olympic Games.