Customer Reviews

The Winner's Way : A proven method for achieving your personal best in any situation

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Pam Brill's new book is a great addition to the available knowledge about being "in the zone."

Being "in the zone" brings increased performance in most any field. You know when you're in the zone... and when you are not. Many authors and teachers have described the wonders of being in the zone how how to get there. Some of the methods really work.

Being in the zone is an important tool for me. I use it in sports (golf), when solving problems, and when working to be in just the right mindset for teaching and facilitating. Another label for this physical/mental state is being "centered." I've had some good teachers.

Trouble is, sometimes it's hard to stay in the zone. More troubling, when it's not working for me, I don't know what's wrong, don't have any diagnostics, and it's hard to get back.

Pam has some great insights about the details of what "the zone" is... She takes it apart into three A's: attitude, awareness, and activation, their mutual interactions, and how all this can go wrong. She has diagnostics which lead to "if this.. then do this.." strategies for getting back in the zone when it drifts away.

I can highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to make "being in the zone" a more reliable tool, ready at hand, for work or play.

-=- Richard Karash

p.s. I offer these disclosures: I am posting with my real name; my work is teaching and facilitating Organizational Learning (see works by Peter Senge, for example). I have bought Pam Brill's book, read it, and used it as I have described. I met Pam Brill socially, and we discovered our mutual interests. I have no financial connection in this matter. Interested parties may contact me (google my name to find me).

Pam's book provides diagnostic and motivational methods that are helpful for everyone, regardless of age or profession. As a school administrator, I find her methods applicable to both my team of teachers and to my students. Whether you're looking to make major personal or professional life changes or if you're feeling good, but want to be doing and feeling great, this book provides a valuable blueprint to help you.

Until I read this life changing book by Pam Brill, I had thought getting "in the Zone", that best of all places to be, happened by luck alone. Discovering that there is a method to systematically get "in the Zone" is cause for elation! Pam Brill's research and real-world testing are reflected in the case studies that weave throughout the book and prove the effectiveness of her method. In today's world of living on alert, Pam offers a simple and effective strategy we can all use to live our business and personal lives purposefully and fully.

How do you elevate yourself to a place where you can achieve anything you've ever wanted in life? Dr. Brill, in easily understood, and in poignant style, illustrates through real life examples what we can accomplish by living our lives in a space, familiar to athlete's, called the Zone.

In it's most simplistic terms, there are three components, Activation, Attention, and Attitude, that when aligned perfectly, makes us unstoppable in achieving ANYTHING.

As a tennis player, I bought this book with a desire to improve my game -- to get in that "place" where the Agassi's and Roddick's of the world operate in, that helps them to consistently win. I quickly realized, however, that sports is just a metaphor for life, and being able to operate in the "Zone" at all times, was what I was really after.

The real value in "The Winner's Way" is the idea that change is not an insurmountable task. Most of the time, only a minor tweak is necessary to elevate ourselves, and the larger issues are accomplished through identifying our shortcomings, and a commitment to achieving what we never thought was possible.

- And Dr. Brill is right by your side to help, every step of the way...

Now this is a book that kept me engaged! Dr. Brill has a writing style that captured my heart and mind--I have read a lot of books in the area of psychology, sport psychology & business (for academic, personal and professional reasons). This was a book I could really wrap my head around and apply immediately. The writing, structure and stories brought the strategies to life and helped me recognize their applicability to my own experiences. To be able to simplify a complex process and to know her tools are grounded in reliable and valid research make the book all the more powerful and usable.

Thank you Dr. Brill! Kudos to your major contribution to the areas of business, sport and life.

Andrea Wieland, M.B.A, Ph.D.
Olympian

Have you ever found yourself moving through a mountain of work with enthusiasm, energy and error-proof efforts? If so, you were probably operating in the "zone" -- that area where athletes report seeing everything moving in slow motion while they run circles around the opposition.

The opposite, of course, can come in two forms. Either the world seems impossibly fast moving while you feel weak and lethargic . . . and uncaring -- or you feel like everything is an attack on you, and you are angry!!

Dr. Brill dissects the bases behind these three states into the components of activation (your level and scope of response to the stimuli around you), attention (what you notice) and attitude (how you interpret what's going on). She explains that you can use your will power to take control over all three elements. Otherwise, your habits will take over and your body will be bathed in powerful chemicals that will cause you to over or under respond to the situation you are in.

Where many books about managing your state encourage you to do simple things like recreate times when you felt strong, or to do endless affirmations, or to simply meditate, Dr. Brill has developed a more complete and detailed program than I have ever seen before. With this program, you should be able to move away from harmful states faster and into better ones than you are usually able to grasp.

She does this by first helping you understand several extreme cases of people who are overwhelmed (a cancer patient who feels like he has a death sentence, an attorney who resents any dilution of his focus on his billings, and a team leader who senses resentment among her colleagues so doesn't ask them to do anything). Later, she adds herself as a case history for how she overcame bad mental attitudes about her expert witness work and her running. These case histories are continued throughout the book so you can see how they overcame their problems.

She explains in detail how we cognitively deal with activation, attention and attitude. Next, she describes the physiological basis for how these aspects of our mental processes are influenced by our thoughts and bodies. I thought that was a wise thing to do, because it will help people feel less guilty about when they get out of whack. It's just natural for that to happen, but you don't have to leave it at that.

The best part of the book comes in the self-help section in which she provides questions to help you realize what can trigger you into and out of the "zone" you want to be in. From that information, you can develop exercises that will use mental images and physiological changes (tension relievers in many cases) to adjust your state.

One resource that I particularly liked was the explanation of how being in the "zone" should feel and what it feels like to be over and under stimulated. This gives me a guidepost for sensing what I need to adjust in my own mind and body. Very nice!

If you repeat the self-help sections and keep careful notes over time, I suspect that you can achieve a degree of self-control for the good. I don't know of another book where the self-help coaching is as good as it is here.

Now for the bad news: This book will seem repetitive and slow to many. Dr. Brill uses extensive and lengthy repetition to help instill the points deeply into your mind.

You will probably like the book better if you just do a chapter at a time. If that seems too dull, just do part of a chapter. But stick with it until you get to the self-help section that begins in chapter 9. Then, you will want to take it slow because the material is very dense and valuable. You will feel rewarded for your patience with the first 8 chapters.

Float freely to your accomplishments!

I highly recommend `The Winner's Way.' As a lay person with the absolute minimal knowledge of psychology, I found the concepts to be understandable, and I was immediately able to apply the easy principles as I recently sat on the witness stand facing a belligerent defense attorney who tried every trick to shake my resolve. The `3As' worked for me! They are a set of useful tools to be added to our arsenal for coping with those adverse situations in life.

Ready to move to the next level in your life? Would you like to work with a coach who will give you a simple plan, convincing back-up research, and a sense of being challenged to perform? Warning: Simple as it sounds, this is not easy work. However, Dr. Pam Brill-psychologist, coach, seminar leader, and consultant-will be with you every step.

This is not a book that you can read quickly, toss it aside, and be cured of everything that has inhibited your high achievement. The pages are full of strong content that will take a while to get through. Reading, absorbing, and benefiting from "The Winner's Way" is more of a project than it is a pleasant Sunday afternoon read. If you're ready to make the commitment, investing your time, attention, and energy with this volume will pay great dividends.

The book is organized into twelve chapters, an appendix, endnotes, and an index. Well constructed. The first part of the book introduces the reader to a range of concepts that will help focus the attention on what needs to be done, and why. Brill starts with the idea of being in "the zone," an important part of her work and philosophy. Using vignettes to illustrate her points-and capture the reader's mind and spirit, the author presents the experience of the intensity, the full focus, that enables people to achieve at high levels.

Brill's research "concluded that there are three core elements that, when aligned at optimum levels, hold the power to boost you into and keep you in the Zone: Activation, Attention, and Attitude." Brill explains each of these elements, then works with you to activate these powers to achieve.

If you're not where you want to be, if you're not a winner in practically everything you do, this book can be a tool that will help you move to that special space in The Zone of achievement. If you're ready, I recommend you purchase this book and get to work.

Dr. Pam Brill's, "The Winner's Way" is an engaging book that facilitates living fully in the present moment. By fully, the author means incorporating her "3A's" into one's life to respond to stimuli (challenges, big or small): Activation (at any moment, your physical and physiological experience); Attention (the focus of your concentration); and, Attitude (one's psychological stance, which includes your outlook, beliefs, assumptions about the way things are or should be). By using your will, the author describes a methodology that aligns the 3A's and provides you with your best opportunity to excel with challenges in the present moment.

As an individual addresses any stimuli or challenges of the moment (phone call; tennis match; children's breakfast; staff meeting; etc.), you can utilize the "3 small a's" (awareness, assessment and adjustment) to optimize your 3A's in what Dr. Brill describes as your "arc of engagement." If you follow her methodology, you will adjust your "3A's" in the present, to the place where athletes describe themselves as being "in the zone," when they are at their peak of effort (one's personal "arc of engagement").

The author spends some time discussing brain chemistry; how stimuli produces certain chemical reactions in our brains -- the effects of which we are familiar -- and the process described is very interesting (I enjoyed somewhat of an "aha!" experience while reading this section of the book).

Dr. Brill then describes what she calls "The Winner's Way Attentional Style," four attentional styles in which each quadrant describes aspects of personalities with which we interact on a daily basis. By identifying attentional styles, you can optimize your ability to respond to challenges posed by individuals with these personality styles.
"The Winner's Way" is a methodology that is easy to adapt to address life's stimuli -- challenges large and small -- on a daily basis, and do so in an optimal manner in the present moment. Highly recommended.