You help somebody, you help yourself.
Brian Sullivan is a former Division 1 basketball player at Davidson College where he is second-place on several of the schools three-point records behind Steph Curry, the greatest shooter of all-time.
Brian played professionally overseas and then served as Director of Student Athlete Development at Davidson for three years, working with his college coach, the legendary Bob McKillop.
Brian is now a graduate student at the University of Denver, earning his Master’s in Psychology with a focus on sport and performance psychology. He has a great Substack, 3 Points, where he shares what he is learning about peak performance.
In this conversation Brian and I talk:
-What conditions need to be in place to perform at your best?
-Tools to center attention.
-Judson Brewer’s mental push-up
-“Don’t think a thought for as long as you can… After seven seconds everyone’s hand was up.”
-The great athlete myth.
-“Can you be aware of what you are thinking?”
-The role of emotion in performance.
-Coach Bob McKillop and his “McKillopisms.”
-The continuing impact of coaches.
-Life is about relationships.
-“Every year Coach McKillop will go to four or five weddings.”
-A model for flow state.
This episode is a companion piece to my four part mini-series on positive coaching.
And I explore many of these topics in greater detail in my book Zen and the Art of Coaching Basketball.
60. Mindfulness and Peak Performance