The Mindful Athlete

Secrets to Pure Performance

By: George Mumford, Phil Jackson - introduction

Narrated by: JD Jackson

Michael Jordan credits George Mumford with transforming his on-court leadership of the Bulls, helping Jordan lead the team to six NBA championships. Mumford also helped Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom and countless other NBA players turn around their games. A widely respected public speaker and coach, Mumford is sharing his own story and the strategies that have made these athletes into stars in The Mindful Athlete: The Secret to Pure Performance. His proven, gentle but groundbreaking mindfulness techniques can transform the performance of anyone with a goal, be they an Olympian, weekend warrior, executive, hacker, or artist.

Mumford’s deeply moving personal story is unforgettable. A basketball player at the University of Massachusetts (where he roomed with Dr. J, Julius Erving), injuries forced Mumford out of the game he loved. The meds that relieved the pain of his injuries also numbed him to the emptiness he felt without the game and eventually led him to heroin. After years as a functioning addict, Mumford enrolled in Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program, and made meditation, on and off the cushion, the center of his life. He kicked drugs, earned a master’s degree in counseling psychology and began teaching meditation to inmates and others.

When Michael Jordan left the Chicago Bulls to play baseball in 1993, the team was in crisis. Coach Phil Jackson, a long-time mindfulness practitioner, contacted Dr. Kabat-Zinn to find someone who could teach mindfulness techniques to the struggling team—someone who would have credibility and could speak the language of his players. Kabat-Zinn led Jackson to Mumford and their partnership began. Mumford has worked with Jackson and each of the eleven teams he coached to become NBA champions. His roster of champion clients has since blossomed way beyond basketball to include corporate executives, Olympians, and athletes.

Must read

This book has become part of my "read every year" list. Great advices, and lots of wisdom.

good tips

I have listened to several books on sports mental performance and have liked this the best. the author makes the subject digestible and informative.

real good insight

read a few books on mindfulness and spprts performance. but this book really put it all together and made sense of it all. great read, great info, great insight!!!

Amazing and life altering

I LOVED this book and its performance. I have done some mindfulness stuff before but it never really stuck for me. But Mumford speaks my languished apparently. Every listen brought new personal insights and hopes to calm my anxious mind. I chose to do triathlon in part to tackle my anxiety head on - race week can really mess me up. Not only do I have knowledge of techniques and concepts to quiet that anxiety, but those methods are positively impacting the rest of my life including work and personal relationships.

The performance of the book was perfect!

Changed my life

Truly an amazing story one of the very few books in which I have been able to read and apply here with my fellow athletes friends to excel and better my team. Thank you