Amy Saltzman - A Still Quiet Place for Athletes: Mindfulness Skills for Achieving Peak Performance and Finding Flow in Sports and Life

Amy Saltzman takes the mystery out of mindfulness by introducing easily understood concepts and practical activities that can be immediately applied to any sport. This is a valuable resource for athletes of all levels, as well as coaches who want to help their athletes and teams perform mindfully.

Pete Kirchmer , mPEAK (mindfulness Performance Enhancement Awareness and Knowledge); director of the University of California, San Diegos Center for Mindfulness; mindfulness-based health coach

In every athletic career, there are crucial momentsmoments when an athletes inner voice can make or break her performance. Being mindful and present in these moments is the key to athletic success. And yet athletes, coaches, and parents often overlook how to do just that. This book will become your new guide and will ensure, when your moments come, that you will be ready.

John OSullivan , founder of the Changing the Game Project, and author of Changing the Game

In my experience, the path to being your best, in sports and in life, always passes through the Still Quiet Place. Learning how to get there will prepare you for any challenge you might face. If you are ready to put in the same degree of work mentally as you do physically, the steps outlined in this book will help you get to the next level of your game.

Cassidy Lichtman , two-time first-team All-American at Stanford University in volleyball; gold medalist in the Pan American Games, 2015; silver medalist in the Grand Champions Cup, 2013; assistant coach for the 2016 NCAA Champions at Stanford

Amy Saltzmans A Still Quiet Place for Athletes is a superb introduction to mindfulness and its practical application for athletes and coaches. This compelling, accessible book will help you achieve elite-level performance success!

Cornelia Cannon Holden, MDiv , team building, leadership development, and sports psychology coach for US Womens Ice Hockey (2006-2010); CEO at Mindful Warrior ( www.mindfulwarrior.com )

In A Still Quiet Place for Athletes , Amy Saltzman gives real strategies and techniques that are not just for athletes, but for coaches, teachers, and parents who see athletics as preparation for life. All I can say is I wish I had this book as a kid growing up in my sports-obsessed childhood.

Tim Ryan , US representative from Ohio and author of A Mindful Nation

A Still Quiet Place for Athletes is an instructive and interactive tool, tailor-made for athletes at every level of competition. The book offers a wide range of skills related to achieving peak performanceincluding mindfulness, self-care, how to face challenges, and creating habits of excellence. Overall, this book is a great instrument for practitioners and coaches who work with athletes as they pursue excellence in their sport.

Logan Lyons , PhD candidate and sport psychology consultant

Mindfulness is a practice to pay attention to the here and now. Every athlete and coach knows the value of that. This book helps you get there more habitually.

Dan Quinn , head coach of the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League (NFL)

I am energized after reading Amy Saltzmans A Still Quiet Place for Athletes . This unique text fills an important gap in our field, and has the potential to be a wonderful resource for athletes, coaches, and practitioners. The book affords the reader not just the what , but also the how when it comes to achieving peak performance. Specifically, it highlights strategies for readers to seek their own inner quiet through mindfulness, self-care, and the creation of habits of excellence.

Travis Dorsch, PhD , assistant professor of human development and family studies, and founding director of the Utah State University Families in Sport Lab

A Still Quiet Place for Athletes is an amazing, comprehensive book that covers all the bases and addresses the concerns of athletes, coaches, and parents, for both sports and life. Grounded in research, personal experience, and a lifelong commitment to training and developing athletes of all competitive levels to peak performance and access to a still quiet place.

George T. Mumford , author of The Mindful Athlete

Saltzman has written a practical guide for training mindfulness in sport. She provides concrete tools and real-world applications that are easily accessible for competitive athletes at all levels. A Still Quiet Place for Athletes is an outstanding new resource for mental training!

Kelli Moran-Miller, PhD , licensed psychologist and certified mental performance consultant

This book offers a step-by-step guide to the skills necessary in achieving peak performance while opening your eyes to the realization that you are so much more than your performance. As a former baseball player, I can see how the lessons taught here are so critical to success in my sport. These are the skills required to consistently slow down a 95-mph fastball, to work through slumps and injuries, and ultimately, to reconnect to ones true essence. Amy Saltzman has provided an essential guide for anyone wanting to find flow in sports and in life.

Shawn Green , two-time Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star, and author of The Way of Baseball

An astute and comprehensive manual for mindfulness training, A Still Quiet Place for Athletes teaches everything needed to achieve flow and peak performance. With a kind and curious voice, Saltzman brings together high intellect; clear, step-by-step instruction; and a warm approach that offers invaluable benefits to athletes in all sports. When a person gets deeply in tune with their thoughts, emotions, and bodily experiences, they can choose the path of awareness and successthis book teaches exactly that.

Lisa Mitzel , NCAA National Champion gymnast; international speaker, clinician, mental training expert, and author of Focused and On Fire

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2018 by Amy Saltzman

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

Material in chapters 3, 5, 9, and 14 has been adapted from Mindfulness in Sports by Amy Saltzman, in TEACHING MINDFULNESS SKILLS TO KIDS AND TEENS, ed. Christopher Willard and Amy Saltzman, copyright 2015 by Christopher Willard and Amy Saltzman. Used by permission of Guilford Press.

Autobiography in Five Chapters by Portia Nelson reprinted with the permission of Beyond Words/Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from THERES A HOLE IN MY SIDEWALK: THE ROMANCE OF SELF-DISCOVERY by Portia Nelson. Copyright 1993 by Portia Nelson. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Amy Shoup

Acquired by Tesilya Hanauer

Edited by James Lainsbury

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

With infinite gratitude for

The Team

Georgina Lindsey, by all accounts a masterful, transformational, and evolutionary coach, and my coach and mentor, thus far, for twenty-nine awe-inspired years;

Eric, my unwaveringly loving husband;

Jason and Nicole, our amazing children;