Customer Reviews

S.C.O.R.E. for Life (R): The Secret Formula for Thinking Like a Champion

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Two weeks ago I read an article in the Boston Globe's sports pages about Jim Fannin that prompted me to buy this book. Apparently a lot of other people did as well; the day the article ran Score For Life jumped way up on the Amazon top 100 list.

I was intrigued by the idea that champions have fewer thoughts than average people. An average person has 2,000 to 3,000 thoughts per day (personally I think I have more) while champions have only 1,100 to 1,300 thoughts.

I've been following his program of setting goals, affirmations and visualizations for a week now. Already I've started running, am beginning to get my house organized, and feel more productive at work.

However I have a few caveats. Jim Fannin is the enemy of introspection. He regards it as the province of non-champions, e.g. losers. He has a five second rule for mistakes. You can think about a mistake for five seconds and then you should act like it never happened. I can see how this would be useful in athletics - they need to be playing in the now and not beating themselves up about not catching a ball. However in other arenas of life, such as one's personal life, you, at least occasionally, need to think about mistakes, why you made them, and how you can avoid making them again.

I feel that a lot of politicians might have read this book or taken his seminars the way they abnegate their personal responsibilities about mistakes.

In his final chapter, which he entitles WYOU You're On the Air, he talks about how everyone's thoughts produce vibrations that can be felt by the people around you and even those miles away. While I've often had these sort of feelings myself, intellectually I don't buy his explanation. He goes beyond trust your intuition into the realm of magical thinking. Basically he's saying people can hear your thoughts and you can hear theirs. It's a little crazy. But it's only one short chapter in an otherwise solid book.

All in all I gave it five stars because I've found it very helpful. If you were leaning towards buying the book, I'd say yes definitely buy the book. I'll update my review when more time has passed.

I found this book full of good, practical things you can do to have a "champion" mentality in all areas of life. The book is broken down into chapters that are easy to understand. Who can argue that optimism, relaxation, focus, and self-discipline are necessary to being a "champion" ? The book has something like 45 concrete things you can do to bring this winning focus immediately into your life. Alex Rodriguez (NY Yankee All Star) uses this program, and it would be hard to argue that it hasn't worked for him. If you think of people that are champions, they all show the characteristics of this program: relaxation, optimism, focus, etc. Michael Jordan sticking out his tongue as he drives for that winning shot, Joe Montana joking with his teammates on that final drive in the Super Bowl, all are examples of the SCORE program. I do agree with the first reviewer, who wrote that the one chapter that states that we basically use "vibrations" to send out our thoughts, even for miles, is a bit odd, and just to me unbelieveable. But if you ignore that chapter, this is an excellent book full of concrete things you can do now to be a champion in any area of life.

The best book I've read to take my professional game to a new level. I even gave a speech about it. I even keep a piece of paper in my wallet that says S.C.O.R.E. to remind me how to stay focused on my goals.

Life changer? Meh. The book definitely came along at just the right time.