Steve Ward specialises in performance coaching and training, developing people and teams in risk-taking, high-pressure and results-driven environments, helping them to achieve and sustain high performance and to maximise their potential.
He has over 15 years of teaching, training and coaching experience and has worked with elite athletes and teams in over 30 sports, financial traders and institutions across the globe, sports traders, poker players, business leaders and managers and sales teams. Steve co-managed a large team of over 40 professional traders in London, was a consultant to the BBC TV programme Million Dollar Traders and is a regular trainer at the London Stock Exchange. He is also the author of High Performance Trading 35 Practical Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Your Trading Psychology and Performance, published by Harriman House in 2009.
Steve has a special interest in the demands of performing in conditions of financial risk and uncertainty and has extensive knowledge and experience of helping people in the financial and sports markets to develop the skills, attitudes and behaviours required to perform with discipline and to maximise their profitability. Utilising techniques and strategies from sports and performance psychology, behavioural finance, stress management, and cognitive, behavioural and solution-focused coaching, Steve provides practical, powerful, easy-to-learn and easy-to-use methods for improving performance.
High Performance Global Ltd
High Performance Global are leading providers of performance coaching and training, working with people and teams in risk-taking, high-pressure and results-driven environments, helping clients to achieve and sustain high performance.
To find out more, visit their website at www.highperformanceglobal.com or email info@highperformanceglobal.com.
Acknowledgements
There have been many people who have been instrumental in helping me to write this book and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support.
The following people have made key contributions and without them the book would have been far lesser in richness and in value: Bill Esdaile, Matt Finnigan, Peter Webb, Tony Hargraves, Pete Nordsted Compton Hellyer, Keith Sobey, Ian Massie, Wally Pyrah and Steve Taylor. (Further details of all of the above may be found in the core contributor profiles in the Introduction.)
Thank you also to all of you who took the time to complete the Sports Betting to Win survey. This provided many insights and ideas for structuring the book to meet the needs of potential readers.
The people at Harriman House have made the writing and publishing of this book as simple and as stress-free as it could have possibly been, and have demonstrated great support and professionalism along the way.
An important thank you goes to the three people who have significantly helped with their emotional support throughout the writing process my family:
Sabine, my beautiful wife, for plenty of understanding, encouragement and importantly... tea.
Ollie, for keeping me company in the office during the long hours of writing.
Casper, for his unbeatable smiles and laughter, the best tonic at the end of a session at the laptop.
Finally, thanks to all the others who have contributed either personally or through the writing of previous books or articles on sports betting, from which I have been able to capture gems of wisdom to pass on in this text.
Preface Bring Discipline and Professionalism to Your Betting
Sports betting is a huge growth area: the number of opportunities for betting both live and online, the number of sports and the number of markets available, have all increased significantly in recent times, especially since the advent of the betting exchanges. Meanwhile more and more people have moved beyond having a light flutter, or betting as entertainment; they now look to trade these markets with the intention of making serious money. And some have managed to create new careers for themselves as part-time and full-time professional sports traders.
This is not a book about sports-betting strategy. It is a book about sports-betting discipline what it is and how to get it. Discipline is key to long-term sports-betting success. There are plenty of books on betting strategy but little has been written on the area of sports-betting psychology and discipline. Nevertheless, it is the area of betting which causes most people the biggest challenges. Perhaps in the majority of cases of failed bettors, a problem here is what has prevented them from being successful.
This book does not present winning sports-betting strategies. It presupposes that you have, and know how to devise, such strategies. Instead, and more uniquely, it teaches you how to execute those winning strategies with discipline and professionalism, and helps you to establish a firm psychological foundation for long-term betting success.
This book has been written based on my own experience and expertise as a performance and psychology consultant, coach and trainer in the financial and sports markets. It is also built on the experience and expertise of leading people from within the world of sports betting and from the ideas and thoughts of people actively sports betting across the UK, who assisted in the research I conducted in the Sports Betting to Win survey. It was my intention to write something that is both interesting and useful, an easy but engaging read, that provides insights into how to become more disciplined in your betting. Most importantly, I have tried to write something that provides practical steps for you to implement within your own betting.