Tim Gallwey has been called the catalyst for the era of sports psychology and the Godfather of coaching. Over 40 years ago, Tim wrote his first book The Inner Game Of Tennis and has since sold over 2 million copies. When major corporations like AT&T, Apple, Coca-Cola and Rolls Royce heard about his unique process of coaching and training, they began asking for Tim’s input in terms of change management, leadership and team development. Tim is now a sought-after speaker and seminar designer and his methods have impacted people all over the world.  

In Part 1 of his interview, Tim Gallwey describes the birth of the sports coaching industry and the fundamental difference between the traditional paradigm of training vs the way he learned to teach - allowing learning to occur naturally and more quickly and effectively.

Tim goes deep into the role of judgement in the learning process, the secret to having the mindset of a peak performer, the power of learning from experience, and a simple way of dealing with fear. He also unpacks his foray into working with AT&T, where his methods were used to successfully retrain 20,000 telephone operators and transform the culture of the largest company in the world - from a monopoly to a competitive enterprise.

A wise sage with decades of experience and insight, Tim Gallwey’s observations will enlighten and expand your ability to coach others…and yourself, for success.

Also check out Episode 142 – Part 2 for the continuation of our interview with Tim Gallwey.

Key Takeaways

1) Once you as the coach are no longer being the learner, the transformed, and the changer – the value of your coaching declines.

2) Learning is less about teaching and more about what’s happening inside the person, which they then express in behavior.

3) Judgement blinds you to what’s really happening.

4) It’s easy to change a backhand but it’s hard to change MY backhand when I’ve come to the point of identifying myself with how I do something or how I think. It then becomes a habit that I call ME. “This is the way I do it.”  You have to unhook the performance from your identification with it. And that’s what observation does.

5) Inner Game Formula: Performance = Your Potential to Perform – Interference (fear, doubt, identification)

6) Trying too hard can impede learning.

Tim Gallwey Bio

As a boy, Tim Gallwey was a nationally ranked tennis player in his division and later captained his Harvard University team.

On what was meant to be a sabbatical from a career in college administration, Gallwey worked as a tennis instructor in Monterey, CA. Initially, he focused his efforts on giving traditional instructions with mixed results. He soon discovered that if he simply invited his students to focus their awareness on their strokes as they were, technique evolved naturally and seemed to self correct. Players using Gallwey’s methods improved far more rapidly than usual and without self-criticism or trying so hard to “do it right.” By quieting self-interference, they were more able to tap into their natural abilities with greater ease.

From this discovery came Gallwey’s first book, The Inner Game of Tennis, which has sold over two million copies. Other books in the Inner Game series include applications to Golf, Skiing, Music, Work and Stress.

In the years after his first book’s release, readers even began to employ the Inner Game methods to their lives off court, and Tim moved into applying The Inner Game methods of change to corporate work. His long term clients included Apple, AT&T, The Coca Cola Company, and Rolls Royce where he applied The Inner Game of coaching for Leadership, Sales, Change management and Teamwork, Gallwey’s work has often been credited as the foundation of the new fields of corporate and life coaching.

Tim’s current focus lies in developing the Inner Game international School and the online implementation of Life U to make Inner Game tools available globally to aid individuals of any age or background in achieving their goals anywhere, anytime.

Episode Show Notes: https://leadersoftransformation.com/podcast/mindset/141-tim-gallwey-part-1-inner-coach 

Check out our complete library of episodes and other leadership resources here: https://leadersoftransformation.com

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