The Inner Game of Work: Focus, Learning, Pleasure, and Mobility in the Workplace
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Businesses "Best kept Secret"
  • New Inner Game
  • Great ideas for a better working life!
  • Not in the same league as the Inner Game of Tennis
  • The "Inner Game" applied to the workplace
The Inner Game of Work: Focus, Learning, Pleasure, and Mobility in the Workplace
W. Timothy Gallwey
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0375758178
Release Date: 2001-09-11

Book Description

Do you think it's possible to truly enjoy your job? No matter what it is or where you are? Timothy Gallwey does, and in this groundbreaking book he tells you how to overcome the inner obstacles that sabotage your efforts to be your best on the job.

Timothy Gallwey burst upon the scene twenty years ago with his revolutionary approach to excellence in sports. His bestselling books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf, with over one million copies in print, changed the way we think about learning and coaching. But the Inner Game that Gallwey discovered on the tennis court is about more than learning a better backhand; it is about learning how to learn, a critical skill that, in this case, separates the productive, satisfied employee from the rest of the pack. For the past twenty years Gallwey has taken his Inner Game expertise to many of America's top companies, including AT&T, Coca-Cola, Apple, and IBM, to teach their managers and employees how to gain better access to their own internal resources.

What inner obstacles is Gallwey talking about? Fear of failure, resistance to change, procrastination, stagnation, doubt, and boredom, to name a few. Gallwey shows you how to tap into your natural potential for learning, performance, and enjoyment so that any job, no matter how long you've been doing it or how little you think there is to learn about it, can become an opportunity to sharpen skills, increase pleasure, and heighten awareness. And if your work environment has been turned on its ear by Internet technology, reorganization, and rapidly accelerating change, this book offers a way to steer a confident course while navigating your way toward personal and professional goals.

The Inner Game of Work teaches you the difference between a rote performance and a rewarding one. It teaches you how to stop working in the conformity mode and start working in the mobility mode. It shows how having a great coach can make as much difference in the boardroom as on the basketball court-- and Gallwey teaches you how to find that coach and, equally important, how to become one. The Inner Game of Work challenges you to reexamine your fundamental motivations for going to work in the morning and your definitions of work once you're there. It will ask you to reassess the way you make changes and teach you to look at work in a radically new way.

"Ever since The Inner Game of Tennis, I've been fascinated and have personally benefitted by the incredibly empowering insights flowing out of Gallwey's self-one/self-two analysis. This latest book applies this liberating analogy to work inspiring all of us to relax and trust our true self."
--Stephen R. Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Businesses "Best kept Secret".......2007-09-22

W. Timothy Gallwey (Tim)has hit served another Ace! This book is a reference to be kept close! I am on my third read, although my first purchase was the day it hit the book stores. I buy it in quantity and send it as gifts to new friends.

John Kirk

4 out of 5 stars New Inner Game.......2007-01-21

I enjoyed Tim Gallwey's Inner Game of Work. It was great to see him apply his principles in general rather than the specific modalities of tennis and music which I had found valuable in his previous works. For those who have read his previous work he has continued to create new subtle distinctions and expand his models to make it a worthwhile read.For the new reader you are in for a great surprise to be exposed to his understanding and insight.

5 out of 5 stars Great ideas for a better working life!.......2007-01-19

I think this book can be extremely helpful for many people. It should be an aid to a less stressful working life with greater satisfaction and better work results at least in the long run. The ideas are very clearly presented with examples so chances are good that the readers will understand the potential benefits of so called self 2 thinking (as opposed the self 1 judgemental thinking). Self 2 is the natural, intuitive, and non-judgmental part of ourselves that contribute to a genuine interest in our work and not only interest in performance objectives. Another concept discussed is mobility, i.e. the ability to change and improve working life through deliberate choices.

A problem is that working life is not as well-defined as e.g. tennis or golf (topics previously addressed by the same author). There is presumably an extremly wide spectrum of work-related problems and the book focus only on limited aspects of those. Nevertheless, it would be inconceivable to write a book tha could help everyone and I think this one will be of great help in particular for readers that are too easily intimidated and are in general overly concerned with what others think about them.

3 out of 5 stars Not in the same league as the Inner Game of Tennis.......2006-09-11

I read the Inner Game of Tennis in the 70s, found it revolutionary and find myself dipping into it every few years. I picked up the Inner Game of Work with great expectations, particularly after seeing Peter Senge's endorsement as The Fifth Discipline is a great book. However, I am disappointed. The writing style is turgid, the arguments not as tight as the Inner Game of Tennis and overall, the effort to transpose Inner Game concepts to the world of work don't quite come off. Perhaps tighter editing would have made for a more cohesive work?

4 out of 5 stars The "Inner Game" applied to the workplace.......2003-06-01

This is a descent book including a lot of good advice on how to improve your performance and success within a business and corporate environment. The advice flows naturally from the author's foundation established with his first book `The Inner Game of Tennis.' However, the themes and methods are not too repetitive. The book reads very well and easily.
No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Some interesting facts in a soup of unselfconscious liberal bias
  • A bit dry, but informativeý
  • A wonderful book
  • No Shame in This Game - Must Read
  • Excellent Discussion of the Working Poor
No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City
Katherine S. Newman
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0375703799
Release Date: 2000-04-25

Amazon.com

Harvard anthropologist Katherine S. Newman explodes the myth of America's unmotivated poor in No Shame in My Game, a study of low-wage workers and their job-seeking peers in central Harlem. This is a frontline perspective: in addition to hundreds of interviews, Newman also put her research assistants behind the counters of the fast-food restaurants alongside the study's subjects. The results show that America's largest group of impoverished citizens is not the unemployed, but the working poor. But what will move readers most is the struggling workers themselves, who suffer the indignities, exhaustion, and low compensation of jobs as "burger flippers" because, as one fast-food restaurant employee, Larry, says, "It's my job. You ain't puttin' no food on my table; you ain't puttin' no clothes on my back. I will walk tall with my Burger Barn uniform on." Newman explains how obstacles such as cuts in welfare, lack of health insurance (almost half of employed Americans under the poverty line have no coverage), and substandard education undercut even the most determined efforts of working poor like Larry. Fortunately, she also offers a thick list of old and new potential solutions to this crisis, from Earned Income Tax Credits to new training programs linking private industry to public schools with at-risk youth. An essential, eye-opening read. --Maria Dolan

Book Description

"Powerful and poignant.... Newman's message is clear and timely." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

In No Shame in My Game, Harvard anthropologist Katherine Newman gives voice to a population for whom work, family, and self-esteem are top priorities despite all the factors that make earning a living next to impossible--minimum wage, lack of child care and health care, and a desperate shortage of even low-paying jobs. By intimately following the lives of nearly 300 inner-city workers and job seekers for two yearsin Harlem, Newman explores a side of poverty often ignored by media and politicians--the working poor.

The working poor find dignity in earning a paycheck and shunning the welfare system, arguing that even low-paying jobs give order to their lives. No Shame in My Game gives voice to a misrepresented segment of today's society, and is sure to spark dialogue over the issues surrounding poverty, working and welfare.

Customer Reviews:

2 out of 5 stars Some interesting facts in a soup of unselfconscious liberal bias.......2007-02-15

This book is interesting, both for the reasons intended by the author and otherwise.

What the author wants to write about are the working poor. She wants to give you a close-up view of the kind of people who work at fast food places in Harlem. She did study these people in detail, and she shows you alot about them. The book is certainly worth reading for this reason.

What the author does not intend to do, but does, is give an interesting example of the liberal bias which so pervades academics. Her basic unselfconscious assumption is that the poor should not have to work, that there is something morally wrong with a nation which asks the poor to take crappy jobs on their way up the economic ladder.

Newman does everything possible to present her subjects as the helpless victims of an evil system. Over and over, her subjects are people who have blown off school, refused to take the education offered to them by society, gotten no job training of any kind, had children when they were teenagers and otherwise done everything humanly possible to mess up their own lives and make it very unlikely that they will get ahead. Indeed, as Newman describes, most of the people in the area she is studying, in addition to having no useful skills of any sort, have an incredibly bad attitude; they feel compelled to be rude, surly and defiant toward society, which impairs their ability to be hired by service-oreinted business.

Newman NEVER looks at the role of these behaviors in producing the crummy lives of her subjects. She seems to think it is totally natural that an 18 year old will just exist in one of our cities, with no education, no family support, no work experience, no marriage but two kids. Newman never examines why her subjects of placed themselves in such bad situations. Instead, she just presents these people to the reader, as if they had fallen to Earth from another planet, and then asks us to applaud, with her, their moral magnificence, because, instead of joining gangs and turning into drug dealers they instead are willing to submit to the indignity of working for a living.

Newman never even tries for a neutral tone. America is an evil, hideous place that does horrid things to these fabulous people, who are responsible for nothing in their own lives. What is just fascinating about this is that Newman does not think she is writing a polemic. To her, this is science.

2 out of 5 stars A bit dry, but informativeý.......2004-06-27

I was actually assigned to read this book for my Introduction to Sociology class. While I might not have picked it up on my own, I found that it wasn't that bad. Newman tells us stories of the working poor in Harlem, many who work at the local "Burger Barn". Their struggles do really grip you and give you a different picture of these people. While a couple of chapters were a little bogged down in numbers, and Newman assumes her readers are familiar with some aspects of welfare and such, overall, the book was an interesting look into how people try to "make it", that is easily accessible to most.

5 out of 5 stars A wonderful book.......2003-01-04

This is a progessive yet rigorous look at the working poor in the inner city. Like Elijah Anderson, Elliot Liebow, Mitchell Duneier, and Barbara Erenreich, it demonstrates that the poor are more complex than [traditional types] or ideology. Newman is a very insightful scholar who never lets her scholarship get in the way of great writing or balanced analysis. I especially appreciated the way she debunked the notion that these low skilled jobs have nothing to teach.

5 out of 5 stars No Shame in This Game - Must Read.......2001-06-07

This is a hands-on, front line study of America's working poor, a subject so infrequently covered in news media, with gross misunderstandings and negative stereotypes. Katherine Newman and a group of her graduate students from Columbia University spent years learning virtually ALL there is to know about the lives of workers in a fast food burger chain in Harlem in New York City. Through Newman's very accessible language we get to understand who these workers really are, what makes them settle for the lowest of ranks in the American Society, and what motivates them to go and find and keep these jobs.

Newman's very interesting approach is to take us into the lives of her "subjects", we get to know how and with whom do they live, who do they befriend and socialize with, how did they get their jobs and so much more. Relatively early on Newman makes a very clear point; the lives of the welfare poor and the working poor is so intertwined, and changes in welfare laws particularly those related to families with dependent children can make it virtually impossible for the working poor to carry on working. This conclusion emerges so very clearly as we get to know working poor with children whose ONLY possible childcare option is a welfare receiving relative looking after the family's young.

Newman deals very effectively with the cultural misconceptions about the fast food industry, reading this book you can no longer think of hamburger flippers as unskilled underachievers. Often these are brave people who have rejected the easy money drug culture, or people who have had to compete very hard to get low paying low status employment, or have to travel over an hour each way and leave young children behind. And these are jobs that require far more skill in operating equipment, planning and dealing with difficult people on daily basis than many higher paid higher status jobs. When Newman got into the details of the what these jobs really entail, I found myself thinking of much higher status jobs as being lower skilled and these jobs and the people who hold them specially in the inner city, where these are real jobs not pocket money generators, as truly worthy of respect.

Newman work covered a whole range of topics affecting the working poor including a great deal on the values of the working poor, these she found to be so "mainstream" indeed often close to conservative. Those at the bottom of the heap who put up with so much for so little had little tolerance for the do-nothing swindlers, but they did have a high level of tolerance for people otherwise. No Shame in My Game also deals extensively with education, what it means for the working poor and how the employers in the fast food industry encourage it. Indeed we see an alternate culture that encourages achievement is formed around the workplace.

The book also deals with the issues of race, within Harlem along with few examples from the wider world outside of it. We see clear evidence of patterns of discrimination based both on race and on birth place, with foreign born Hispanics fairing best despite of language handicaps and black Americans worst, while mainland US born Hispanics ranked in the middle. Newman also dealt with the prospects for advancement and with the issues of role models at some length.

As I read the book, I often wondered about two issues that appear to a large extent self inflicted, the Teen-age pregnancy was for me an obvious issue. Surely, life would be simpler and potential for advancement would be greater for young women who avoided this trap. Newman dealt with this to some extent by presenting research evidence of young poor women making a conscious decision of avoiding pregnancy when they have a clear path laid ahead of them towards education and attractive employment. Newman also touched on the possibility that teenage pregnancy is related in part to desire to have children at an early enough age to be able to get help from mothers and other relatives; with single parent family being the norm, and with the poor ailing and dying at young age. The second issue was mobility, with so many more jobs available in the suburbs and indeed with unemployment at record lows, why stay in Harlem? As I read on a clearer picture emerges of the society many of the working poor really inhabit. There are, contrary to the popular belief and indeed to mainstream America, there are very strong family links and neighborhood links. These links become vital for the poor with children who need looking after and for immigrants who cluster in apartment ghettos and pool resources in every conceivable way.

The last part of No Shame in My Game presents recommendations for dealing with the urban working poor. There are many interesting new ideas and discussions related to projects tried successfully in other parts of the country. Most of the ideas are presented in a logical and politically neutral fashion that is truly helpful, with significant emphasis being placed on business-school-government programs. A suggestion for raising minimum wage is presented along with the other ideas; it is hard to see how that may help even the sample of the working poor this book focused on, as these working poor live, earn money and spend it mostly in their poor community, and those wonderful employers in the fast food industry, operating on very thin margins, will be forced to either raise prices or reduce labor.

Overall I found No Shame in My Game a wonderful book, full of a great deal of insight, it is so well searched and presented. Newman's language and approach are appealing and the way she builds her arguments and reach conclusion comes across very logical and persuasive. While the recommendations chapter of the book could be extended to a whole book in its own right, and the issues involved are complex and difficult, I felt that additional recommendations on the issues of mobility, teen parenting and race would have been helpful.

4 out of 5 stars Excellent Discussion of the Working Poor.......2001-06-04

Newman crafts an exceptional portrait of the working poor in urban America. The main strength of the book is the way it ties the plight of the working poor to the current policy debate. Particularly, the role of wefare reform in American cities. Although she writes before many changes in the social welfare system, she is able to identify issues that are now key. Unfortunately, some of her policy recommendations are not well suited for the setting that she describes. For instance, the recommendation to create employment cooperatives between primary and secondary sector employers seems underdeveloped, and somewhat inpractical. But, this does not detract from the thrust of the work, which identified employment as a central concern in poor communities. This argument represents the end of a long ugly discussion of social pathology in the inner city, and the start of a more productive discussion of poverty as a problem in mainstream America.
The Inner Game of Work
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Interesting new approach to learning and performing
  • Plugging into True Potential
  • Unleash the Natural Learner Within By Using A Changed Focus
  • The Inner Game of Work
  • This book is unique
The Inner Game of Work
W. Timothy Gallwey
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0375500073
Release Date: 1999-12-21

Amazon.com

Since the publication some two decades ago of his bestselling The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf, Timothy Gallwey has come to believe that those books' overriding principle--eliminate negative internal interference to bring about positive self-change--is applicable to virtually any activity. Now, in The Inner Game of Work, he applies that principle to the arena where the biggest turn-of-the-millennium game of all is being played. "We are constantly told that we live in an age of change," Gallwey writes, "and nowhere are we told more frequently that we have to change than in the workplace." As on the court and the course, he contends, those changes necessary to survive and thrive can be effectively realized by quieting our inner doubts and learning to rely on our own natural instincts and behavior.

How does Gallwey suggest we do this? His method is twofold: "focus of attention ... the quintessential component of superior performance in every activity" and "clarity of desire behind the focus." Through example and clear instruction, he shows how to minimize self-distracting thoughts that serve to undermine our confidence in the workplace and similar settings, and subsequently to begin "playing in the zone" like elite athletes who have learned to visualize their goals unerringly and proceed unremittingly (and almost unconsciously) in their pursuit. It will take no small amount of dedication to put these ideas into practice, but those who do should find that Gallwey's advice relates as well to the working world as it does to the sporting world. --Howard Rothman

Book Description

Do you think it's possible to truly enjoy your job? No matter what it is or where you are? Timothy Gallwey does, and in this groundbreaking book he tells you how to overcome the inner obstacles that sabotage your efforts to be your best on the job.

        Timothy Gallwey burst upon the scene twenty years ago with his revolutionary approach to excellence in sports. His bestselling books The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Golf, with over one million copies in print, changed the way we think about learning and coaching. But the Inner Game that Gallwey discovered on the tennis court is about more than learning a better backhand; it is about learning how to learn, a critical skill that, in this case, separates the productive, satisfied employee from the rest of the pack. For the past twenty years Gallwey has taken his Inner Game expertise to many of America's top companies, including AT&T, Coca-Cola, Apple, and IBM, to teach their managers and employees how to gain better access to their own internal resources.

        What inner obstacles is Gallwey talking about? Fear of failure, resistance to change, procrastination, stagnation, doubt, and boredom, to name a few. Gallwey shows you how to tap into your natural potential for learning, performance, and enjoyment so that any job, no matter how long you've been doing it or how little you think there is to learn about it, can become an opportunity to sharpen skills, increase pleasure, and heighten awareness. And if your work environment has been turned on its ear by Internet technology, reorganization, and rapidly accelerating change, this book offers a way to steer a confident course while navigating your way toward personal and professional goals.

         The Inner Game of Work teaches you the difference between a rote performance and a rewarding one. It teaches you how to stop working in the conformity mode and start working in the mobility mode. It shows how having a great coach can make as much difference in the boardroom as on the basketball court-- and Gallwey teaches you how to find that coach and, equally important, how to become one. The Inner Game of Work challenges you to reexamine your fundamental motivations for going to work in the morning and your definitions of work once you're there. It will ask you to reassess the way you make changes and teach you to look at work in a radically new way.


"Ever since The Inner Game of Tennis , I've been fascinated and have personally benefitted by the incredibly empowering insights flowing out of Gallwey's self-one/self-two analysis.  This latest book applies this liberating analogy to work inspiring all of us to relax and trust our true self."

--Stephen R. Covey, author of
7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Interesting new approach to learning and performing.......2001-02-09

This book presents a fundamentally different view on working and learning. This other view leads to more pleasure, better performance and more effective learning in work. The ideas in this book are so powerful and relevant and Gallwey describes them so clearly that it seems virtually impossible nót to apply them. Gallwey's core message is: the traditional way in which we try to improve ourselves and our performance -through (self-)instruction and supervision- blocks what we try to achieve. To be more specific: an instructive, controlling approach to performance improvement does not lead to better but to worse performance!

After Gallwey finished his English study at Harvard University in the nineteen seventies, he went to work as a tennis coach. Doing that, he discovered that nearly all his pupils tried very hard to improve one aspect of there play that they did not like, for instance their backhand. They expected Gallwey to give them the remedy for their problem. First, this was exactly what he did: "hold your racket like this, stand there, hit the ball then", etc. He instructed pupils but noticed that they showed resistance to his instructions and that their learning did not go well. Then he noticed, to his surprise, that the performance suddenly was better when pupils stopped trying so hard to correct their mistakes but instead just played tennis for fun. Based on this observation that the 'forced mode' of learning was less effective than the `natural' mode Gallwey built his approach. His book `The Inner Game of Tennis' became a bestseller.

Gallwey proposed that the ineffective, instructive dialogue between coach and pupil also existed within the head of the pupil. While playing, the pupil continuously gave himself instructions and comments: "that was really bad, hold your racket like this, do this, don't do that" etc. Gallwey called the coach inside the pupils head SELF-1. In Gallwey's words: SELF-1 is the collection of internalised voices from the outside world. To whom then did this internal coach speak? According to Gallwey it spoke to the person him or herself. He called this spoken-to self the SELF-2. The best learning took place when SELF-1 was turned off. How is this possible? Gallwey's answer: While SELF-1 is busy giving vague and (too) simple instructions, SELF-2 is doing something infinitely more complex and precise: computing the curve of the ball, instructing muscle groups, taking into account the wind speed, the speed of the ball, etc.

Gallwey concluded that SELF-1 was a from of interference that led to nothing else than an underutilization of the person's potential. In other words: Performance = Potential - Interference. In still other words: don't let SELF-1 distract you from your task and goal!

Gallwey formulated a different, more effective and more elegant way of coaching aimed at achieving three things: 1) Awareness: by letting SELF-2 do its work the pupil can focus on collecting information on the critical variables in the task (where is the ball landing? How fast is it going? How is it influenced by the wind? etc) which leads to a greater awareness of the task; 2) Choice: it is essential that the pupil determines what he or she wants to achieve. Without this choice there is no direction and focused attention is impossible; 3) Trust: trust yourself. This goes for both the coach and the pupil. This refers to the confidence that SELF-2 will be capable of fulfilling the task.

Galwey gradually started to apply his approach to others field that tennis: golf, skiing, music and ...work. He noticed that the effects were the same. For instance: a salesman who stopped instructing and commenting himself became more effective. In seminars Gallwey draws a triangle with on the corners the words: performance, learning en enjoyment. Gallwey claims that each of these are of great importance in work and that they are dependent on each other. When you neglect enjoyment, this will eventually also lead to performance problems. What Gallwey says about the relationship between performance and learning is interesting. Performance leads to an observable change in the external world. Learning, however, establishes a change within the person who learns. It is precisely because of this that learning results are hard to measure. Enjoymentis important according to Gallwey because it refers to the relationship the person has to him or herself. If you appreciate yourself, you won't deny yourself enjoyment for a prolongued period.

Since his discovery Gallwey's most important ambition has been to let himself and others enjoy the freedom to express in their work who they really are and what they really want. He says that human freedom is nowhere more constrained than in the world of work. Nowadays, the most prevailing experience of work even seems to be: someting I'd rather not be doing if I had a choice. Gallwey says that striving for freedom at work is not the same as wanting to avoid responsibility or bosses. It is about choosing a way of working which shows responsibility to oneself. A way which is aligned with your choices and values. Gallwey uses the word 'conformity' to describe the situation when an individual gives priority to extranl demands above his internal fire. Doing this brings the security of doing and being like others but it puts out our internal fire and it diminishes our chance of satisfaction. If life decisions are based on external demands instead of internal demands, someting of the greatest value can be lost. The conflict between external and internal voices seems unfair. There is constant pressure from the outside world to conform. Sanctions, corrections, instructions, rewards, etc. are everywhere. The external world is so large and the internal so small. But the internal has one advantage: it is always there. An important step would be to understand why conformity is so attractive to us and how it affects our way of working. As an alternative to conformity Gallwey names its opposite 'mobility': the freedom to move in any direction without self-restriction.

The central idea in this book is that there is a better way of thinking about working and learning that comes down to giving more priority to our inner capacities and whishes and less to external expectations, norms and instructions. I think this is a valuable book. The author gives good and convincing examples of the inner game, for instance applied to the field of sales. In this time of extreme change good and new ideas about how people can learn and perform are wellcome. Gallwey delivers this.

5 out of 5 stars Plugging into True Potential.......2000-08-05

The true achievement of Timothy Gallwey is his 'putting his finger on the exact, right spot'. Not only the spot where our barriers in achieving our full potentials lie, but also on how to evade and avoid these barriers. His book on Work (after his books on Tennis and Golf) is very well written. Through his natural flowing writing style he is able to establish a paradigm shift with the reader. Then, throughout the book, he keeps the reader firmly attentive to 'the inner game' paradigm and makes the subject come alive using theory and stories as building blocks. Once you have read this book, you will never look at achievement the same way. Not for yourself nor for anybody else. This book is an absolute must-read for all modern workers providing understanding of how true fun, learning and achievement works from-the-inside-out. Do not be surprised though when this book will also positively impact your view on, and handling of, many other aspects of life outside your work. Get it; you will not be disappointed.

5 out of 5 stars Unleash the Natural Learner Within By Using A Changed Focus.......2000-07-02

This book deserves more than five stars, because it explains how you can be most effective in learning, gaining experience, and achieving higher performance. The principles are based on Mr. Gallwey's earlier successful coaching experiences and books about the inner games of tennis and golf. That may sound like an unlikely way to approach becoming more effective at work, but it is unusually effective for those who have ever played tennis or golf by providing a visceral point of reference.

I could immediately relate to the book's ideas, because both my tennis and golf performances are hindered by the critical stream of commentary that flows in my head as I play these sports. Occasionally, I quiet the criticism and I play much better.

To me, the explanation of how to help someone improve their tennis or golf games, or do their work better was a real eye opener. If you encourage someone to simply notice what is going on during the performance of the act (where they strike the ball relative to their feet in tennis, the lie of the ball in golf, or the important circumstances of the work environment), the person will quickly and easily find their own solutions to becoming more effective. That made sense to me because I have been operating without taking golf lessons for about a year and a half now, and many parts of the game have improved in major ways. I have taken charge of making my own diagnoses of what I need to do differently, and have learned a lot that I did not grasp from taking lessons. That experience validated the author's approach for me.

The other reason it made sense is that in my own coaching activities with business executives about their work, I always find that people know the answer to their own issues if you can give them a more helpful focus to open their minds and help them recall information that they have observed in other contexts. That is exactly the coaching method that Mr. Gallwey describes in this book.

The model here is that our conscious minds tend to focus on harmful criticism that provides limited useful information about what we should be doing. On the other hand, our subconscious minds are very good at directing us when we let loose of the chatter from our conscious minds.

Mr. Gallway takes that observation and builds methods to help you set inspiring, authentic, and meaningful goals for learning, gaining experience, and becoming more productive. He gives you tools to shift you focus away from the concerns of the conscious mind, and how to coach others to do the same in their learning. He then links all of this to creating conscious choices to change your direction and behavior in ways that serve you better. To make this last step easier, he provides several alternative perceptual analogies to encourage you. The book has a series of effective exercises you can do to pursue those analogies. The book also provides many examples drawn from the author's consulting experiences to help bring the points home. I am sure that many of these will strike a familiar bell with you.

I plan to cite this book in my future writing, because it is an important contribution to how we can reestablish the wonderful learning capability we all had as children, in a way that is appropriate for adults.

Be sure to share this book with others you care about so you can learn to coach each other, as a way to reinforce your progress toward nonjudgmental learning. That will be a 2,000 percent solution for you both!

I also suggest that you reread this book from time to time . . . especially if you find that you are not accomplishing things as easily and as joyfully as you would like.

5 out of 5 stars The Inner Game of Work.......2000-03-20

The Inner Game of Work is the best book I've read yet on creating an environment in the workplace for optimal learning and productivity. Thanks to this book, I now see how the 8 hours each day I spend at work can be personally fufilling instead of a chore. He points out how I can actually integrate my experience at work to acheive my personal development goals. This book provided the tools I need to maintain my quality of life at work independent of the negative situations that inevitably occur in the workplace. I have shared this book with many people at work. Some have remarked that they are feeling the culture at work beginning to shift. People remarked that they are feeling more purposeful and less stressed. I highly recommend The Inner Game of Work.

5 out of 5 stars This book is unique.......2000-03-09

This book is unique from the many others on how to succeed at work, management, leadership, even life. All of the rest either give you great "principles" and urge you to pursue a higher purpose at work, or they are "packed with great ideas" for doing it better. This book is different because it is not preaching a principle or trying to sell you on the newest work fad.

This book gave me the insight, in simple terms, to learn my way of living up to any principle I choose, and then to determine if it really is a good principle for my work or the kind of leader I want to be.

The book teaches you how to work with your own best inherent desires and abilities in order to develop all the ideas, successful habits and best practices you will need. Not someone else's that they self-righteously prescribe for you, but your own genuine best.

So this is not about trying to implement the latest fad in how to be a highly successful professional and leader. This book is about a simple, elegant way of discovering and learning to be your best.
Inner Game of Work
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Inner Game of Work
    W Timothy Gallwey
    Manufacturer: Texere Publishing
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback
    ASIN: B000K7M18W
    The Inner Game of Work
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      The Inner Game of Work
      W. Timothy Gallwey
      Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf Incorporated
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Hardcover

      Job Hunting & CareersJob Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books | General | Guides | Interviewing | Job Hunting | Job Markets & Advice | Resumes | Vocational Guidance | Volunteer Work
      GeneralGeneral | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
      ASIN: 0752812017
      The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Cold Works Steels Businesses
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Cold Works Steels Businesses
        J Bowman J Orr
        Manufacturer: LTBR, Inc
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Audio CD
        ASIN: B000XEYNP6
        The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Cross-stitch Works Businesses
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Cross-stitch Works Businesses
          J Bowman J Orr
          Manufacturer: LTBR, Inc
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Audio CD
          ASIN: B000XERXA8
          The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Crosstitch Works Businesses
          Average customer rating: Not rated
            The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Crosstitch Works Businesses
            J Bowman J Orr
            Manufacturer: LTBR, Inc
            ProductGroup: Book
            Binding: Audio CD
            ASIN: B000XFOULW
            The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Hot Works Steels Businesses
            Average customer rating: Not rated
              The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Hot Works Steels Businesses
              J Bowman J Orr
              Manufacturer: LTBR, Inc
              ProductGroup: Book
              Binding: Audio CD
              ASIN: B000XETLBM
              The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Lattice Work Businesses
              Average customer rating: Not rated
                The Online Business Setup, Amazon Sales, Inner Game for Lattice Work Businesses
                J Bowman J Orr
                Manufacturer: LTBR, Inc
                ProductGroup: Book
                Binding: Audio CD
                ASIN: B000XD5OKK

                Books:

                1. The International Hospitality Business: Management and Operations
                2. The New Wellness Revolution: How to Make a Fortune in the Next Trillion Dollar Industry
                3. The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't
                4. The Nursing Mother's Companion: Revised Edition
                5. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal
                6. The Precipice (The Grand Tour; also Asteroid Wars)
                7. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power
                8. The Science of Success: How to Attract Prosperity and Create Harmonic Wealth Through Proven Principles
                9. The Secret
                10. The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero

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