The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey

I don't even play tennis and this book has helped my mental and physical approach to and performance in sports, namely basketball. The Inner Game of Tennis is well written, engaging, and probably the most practical and applicable book to my own life that I have ever read. This was one of those books that I will never regret reading. The inner game is played to overcome the self-imposed obstacles that prevent an individual or team from accessing their full potential.

The inner game takes place within the mind of the player and is played against such obstacles as fear, self-doubt, lapses in focus, and limiting concepts or assumptions. The outer game is played on an external arena to overcome external obstacles to reach an external goal. In every human endeavor there are two arenas of engagement: the outer and the inner. One of the most well known exponents of business coaching is Sir John Whitmore, who popularised Graham Alexander's and Alan Fine's 'GROW' model of the coaching process. Tim Gallwey's work went on to found the current movement in business coaching, life coaching and executive coaching. Gallwey was one of the first to demonstrate a comprehensive method of coaching that could be applied to many situations, and found himself lecturing more often to business leaders in the U.S. If the observations are accurate, the person's body will adjust and correct automatically to achieve best performance. The 'inner game' is based upon certain principles in which an individual uses non-judgmental observations of critical variables, with the purpose of being accurate about these observations.

In 1997, Gallwey dedicated his book, The Inner Game of Tennis, to him. In a 1973 New York Times article he described his discovery of Maharaj Ji and his decision to live in an ashram and practice celibacy. In the 1970s he learned the meditation techniques of the Divine Light Mission's Guru Maharaj Ji, which Gallwey said enhanced his powers of concentration in a manner that improved his game.

In 1960, Gallwey was captain of the Harvard University Tennis Team. Besides sports, his training methods have been applied to the fields of business, health, and education. Gallwey's seminal work is the The Inner Game of Tennis, with more than one million copies in print. Timothy Gallwey (born 1938 in San Francisco, California) is an author who has written a series of books in which he has set forth a new methodology for coaching and for the development of personal and professional excellence in a variety of fields, that he calls 'The Inner Game.' Since he began writing in the 1970s, his books include The Inner Game of Tennis, The Inner Game of Golf, The Inner game of Music (with Barry Green), Inner Skiing and The Inner Game of Work.

The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey