Think Like A Champion: Building Success One Victory at a Time [Hardcover]

Mike Shanahan (Author), Adam Schefter (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 18, 1999

Mike Shanahan believes that the game of life is won--or lost-- before you take the field. You can&rsquot win any important game without a plan for how to win it, nor live a successful life or pursue a rewarding career without a clear outcome in mind and a detailed plan for how to achieve your goals. Coach Shanahan knows about achieving big goals. Armed with his plan, he and his world champion Denver Broncos have elevated themselves to spectacular levels of performance. In three amazing years, they transformed a "mediocre," aging" franchise--and their legendary quarterback who just "couldn&rsquot win the big game--into the most feared powerhouse in the league; with back-to-back Super Bowl rings to prove it. Now, in Think Like a Champion, Shanahan opens his playbook to show the X&rsquos and O&rsquos of winning, a detailed game plan to help you storm the field with foolproof strategies, confidence, and the indomitable will to win. Shanahan&rsquos principles of success are as deceptively simple as they are challenging. Everything in Mike Shanahan&rsquos life has prepared him to write this powerful book. He has worked with some of the best and some of the most difficult owners and coaches in the game, and he has coached a roster of players ranging from underachievers to All-Pros. In the ultra-competitive world of the NFL, he is a champion among champions. With his innovative mind, tenacity, and determined leadership, Shanahan has risen to the elite coaching ranks in the NFL. Armed with his vision, and these proven success principles, you can improve your chances on Game Day--or any day of the week.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

By becoming only the fifth coach in history to lead his team to consecutive Super Bowl victories, Mike Shanahan of the Denver Broncos has certainly shown that he is a winner. In Think Like a Champion, he explains (with help from Denver Post sportswriter Adam Schefter) just how he reached this rarefied level and exactly what it takes to join him there.

Even though Shanahan snared his first NFL head-coaching job at the tender age of 36 and joined its most elite ranks within just 10 years, he did not reach the top without working hard and paying careful attention to the steps he took to get there. And while football fans may find his examples more illuminating and entertaining than those who don't follow the game, chapters based on 16 traits he attributes to his professional and personal triumphs--including preparing, sacrificing, believing, taking risks, and persevering--inspiringly recount his principles and practices in a way that anyone can understand and emulate. In the chapter on setting goals, for example, Shanahan reveals that he is an inveterate list-maker. Each night, he notes, all tasks for the following day are carefully scripted so he can constantly review them, ingrain them into his thinking, and then check them off when they are done. "If you have a plan, and if you have your direction laid out, you can chart your progress to your dreams at each stop along the way," he writes. "And, just as important, all along the way you can see how far you've come." --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

The format is familiar: star sports coach offers wisdom gleaned from the field for armchair quarterbacks (and armchair CEOs). Shanahan, head coach of the two-time defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos, doesn't depart much from the expected, peppering aphoristic advice with anecdotes from practice and from big games. Each chapter (e.g., Preparing, Sacrificing, Believing, Taking Risks) ends with a brief testimonial to Shanahan written by a player or coach with whom he's worked (Joe Montana, Steve Young, John Elway and others contribute). Shanahan clearly prides himself on his direct personality and, writing with Denver Post sportswriter Schefter (TD: Dreams in Motion), he's winningly forthcoming about his experiences with players and the front offices (including being fired repeatedly), venting some simmering bile toward such figures as Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis and Dan Reeves, under whom Shanahan once worked as an assistant. (His rough treatment of Reeves is arguably a case of piling on, since Reeves is now head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, the team Shanahan's Broncos defeated in the most recent Super Bowl). In fact, Shanahan's pep talk is less interesting for its motivational truisms than for its dishy NFL gossip. 25-city radio tour; 15-city TV satellite tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: HarperBusiness; 1st Edition, 1st Printing edition (August 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0066620392
• ISBN-13: 978-0066620398
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,051,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "...if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail." February 2, 2001

By hypermark

Format:Paperback

Straight-forward, crisply articulated and with practically no unnecessary fluff, Mike Shanahan's book, "Think Like a Champion," compellingly argues that the game of life is basically won or lost before the "players" take the field. Shanahan asserts his point of view over sixteen easy-to-digest chapters (each about ten pages or less) on the diffent tenets of becoming the best at what you do.

What I liked about this book is that while the author culls specific examples from his football career, the "moral of the story" is clearly applicable to ANYONE seeking to become the best in any endeavor. Offering an excellent, enjoyable read to both sports enthusiasts and non enthusiasts alike, the author's writing style is to neither excessively arm-wave nor make unsupported generalizations.

In fact, part of the Shanahan's credibility here is in his willingness to name names when providing examples of people living up to a credo espoused in a given chapter or more dramatically, falling short.

Written with humility, Shanahan's book leaves the reader feeling that there is nothing magical to becoming a huge success -- other than having a plan and putting in the blood, sweat and tears required to make that plan a success. Or as the author concludes, citing legendary coach Vince Lobardi, "Your quality of life is in direct proportion to your commitment to excellence." So true.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Building success one victory at a time. August 14, 2002

By "repeatonceagain"

Format:Paperback

I have heard this advice before: If you want to be successful
at something, find the most successful person you can in that area, listen to what they say, and try to follow it. Well, its hard to imagine a football coach more sucessful than Mike Shanahan. Here's a guy who started with a dream: to be a head football coach, started as an unpaid volunteer for a college team, and worked his way to be one of the best, most respected, coaches in the NFL (winning 2 consecutive Superbowls) at a young age.

The great thing is, he has written a book that is designed to help people win beyond football, in any area of life. Shanahan breaks it down for you: the way he prepares, some struggles he's had, some ways he motivates people (including the little things that we learn are so critical), very good wisdom concerning life, and a lot more. Also very critical is the fact that this book is very easy to read and understand.

You even get a bonus section in each chapter written by some of the greatest people and minds in football: Paul Tagliabue, Jerry Rice, Bill Walsh, John Elway, Deion Sanders, Steve Young, George Seifert, Joe Montana, Marcus Allen, Al Michaels, and more. They give their own take on the subject being discussed in the chapter, which is not only informative, but like the book itself, filled with wisdom.

The chapters consist of 16 basic areas to focus on to become successful, things like: Preparing (all of life is preparation, and not preparing is preparing to fail), Sacrificing (don't expect to get anything good done without sacrifice, if it was easy, everyone would do it), Learning (without learning, you will be hopelessly stuck where you are), Detailing (the devil is definitely in the details and that's where things often break down). This is just a taste of the wisdom in this book. Highly recommended for people looking to improve themselves.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars What a Success Story! Motivational! May 25, 2001

By rodboomboom HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

A die-hard Broncos fan from the days dying watching those ridiculous striped socks and watching Fran Tripuka get killed, what a job Shanahan did turning it around into two Super Bowls in a row.

Learning of his background and his principles makes me now not only a more avid Bronco fan, but also a Shanahan fan as well. His perseverance from the days of his kidney injury to how he became part of Sooner coaching staff till today is truly one of principles of success through hard work, not gifts or who you know or any of the other myths most people who never get anywhere fall for and are unmotivated. Most of them just don't ever want to work hard at anything, but have it handed to them. Shanahan disproves all that bunk and shows how it came to be. Unbelievable that when given the Raiders head-job, didn't even have the downpayment for a house.

This guy is very endearing to so many of us who never had the backgrounds for those connections, but wanting something bad enough, and always believing it, achieve it one goal at a time.

Great advice, especially appreciate his concern for balance.

Excellent read. Thanks, Mike, from a new fan and admirer.