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Who is the author of Boost!?

Boost! is authored by Michael Bar-Eli.

Career & Success

Boost! Book Summary - Boost! Book explained in key points

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Boost! summary

Name: Boost!
Rating: 4.1 (75 reviews)
Author: Michael Bar-Eli

Michael Bar-Eli

How the Psychology of Sports Can Enhance your Performance in Management and Work

4.1 (75 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

Boost! by Michael Bar-Eli, a sports psychologist, explores the psychology of sports, focusing on the impact of emotion, motivation, and confidence on performance. Through real-world examples and research studies, readers will gain insights on how to improve their own athletic abilities.

Topics

Sports Teamwork Leadership

Table of Contents

Boost!
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Learn how to apply some of the basics of sports psychology to your life.

You don’t have to be an Olympic athlete to benefit from the principles of sports psychology. As the author and seasoned Olympic coach Michael Bar-Eli explains, basketball teams and workplace teams alike can use the proven techniques of sports psychology to take their performance to the next level.

These blinks will provide you with some of the most reliable and beneficial methods to improve your performance, as well as some examples from history that highlight these methods and the amazing results they’ve produced. But even if you’re out of shape or just want to know how to improve performance and morale in the office, you’ll find some useful techniques ahead.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

what a backwards high jump can teach us about innovation;
which soccer team proves that friendship isn’t a requirement for success; and
how an active imagination can bring you better results.

Maximize motivation and productivity by setting specific goals.

In the winter of 1971, the author, Michael Bar-Eli, was in the Israeli military, undergoing a tremendously challenging basic training that included finishing a 3,000-meter run in under 12 minutes. Time and time again, Bar-Eli found himself running at the end of the pack during the practice runs. And then, the commanding officer threatened to punish him with four extra hours of night-watch duty if he didn’t shape up.

This proved to be just the motivation the author needed. Immediately, he set himself the goal of keeping pace with the front-runners who were always beating the 12-minute mark. And sure enough, when it came time for the official race, Bar-Eli managed to come in under 12 minutes.

This experience taught the author an important lesson about how goals can greatly influence outcome, as long as those goals are specific.

Being specific is crucial because it leads to a detailed action plan that you can focus on and measure yourself against – all of which will help you achieve your goal.

In the case of the author’s 3-kilometer run, the goal was specific – keep up with the front-runners – and this allowed him to plan, focus and measure his progress by comparing his pace against theirs. In tracking himself against their speed, the author knew precisely when and where he needed to adjust in order to stay on track.

If the author had settled on just “doing his best,” he wouldn’t have been so focused and motivated, since there wouldn’t have been anything to measure his progress against. The author’s “best” has no specific pace.

As for more long-term goals, you should use specific short-term goals as building blocks.

One of the greatest Olympic swimmers in US history was John Naber, and he used this incremental goal-setting strategy with historic success. His specific long-term goal was to cut four seconds off his personal best in the four years before the next Olympics. If he did this, chances were he’d win gold.

Now, to reach this primary goal, he set small, yet still specific, short-term goals of shaving off a fraction of a second in each practice swim. He knew that, by doing this constantly, he could reach four seconds by the end of his four years of training.

Naber’s strategy worked like a charm. The fractions of a second added up as planned, and his new time didn’t only win him the gold – it made him the holder of a world record.

Leaders can improve results by boosting players’ self-confidence and expectations.

In the ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor falls deeply in love with one of his statues, so much so that he prays to the goddess Venus that his statue may be given life. Venus sympathizes, grants the wish and the new couple have a child and live happily ever after.

This ancient story highlights what modern psychology refers to as a “self-fulfilling prophecy” – when you have such strong faith in a particular outcome that it indeed does come to pass.

Innovation is a process that includes testing unorthodox and unusual ideas.

1968 witnessed one of the greatest innovations in sports history. At the Summer Olympics in Mexico, Richard Douglas Fosbury, an Olympic high jumper, forever changed the event by doing something very silly looking. He forewent the traditional technique, known as the frontward straddle roll, and threw himself backward over the bar.

This unorthodox approach was met with a fair amount of skepticism, but the results spoke for themselves: Fosbury won gold and his new technique went down in history as the “Fosbury Flop.”

The most successful teams are cohesive.

In 2004, Heiner Brand was the coach of the German national men’s handball team. That year, he had an extremely close-knit group of players and won Germany's first gold medal at the European Championship. When asked about the team’s success, Brand was unequivocal: it was a result of the team’s cohesion.

So what does cohesion mean, exactly? Well, there are two types of cohesion you should be aware of, and both will increase a team’s success.

Effective teams have a clear hierarchical structure.

Franz Beckenbauer was one of Germany’s greatest soccer players as well as the captain of the German national team during the 1970s. Beckenbauer played the defensive position known as the “attacking sweeper,” but he was also known to go on offensive attacks downfield, leaving his defensive position open for another player to fill.

The teammate who would most often fill that vacant position was Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck, a very talented player in his own right, and one who didn’t feel insulted when he was referred to as Franz’s “shadow man” in the press. He simply agreed that it was his job to cover for Beckenbauer.

Effective leaders are humble, they always seek to improve and they’re flexible in their methods.

Every team, no matter how big or small, needs a strong leader – someone who can guide them through tough times and inspire them to do their best. A great leader is more than just a manager. So what are the precise qualities that make the best leaders?

First of all, an effective leader is flexible and able to adapt to the different scenarios that are sure to emerge. This means the leader is always aware of the changing environment and what the team needs at any given moment.

Visualizing a task through detailed imagination can help you improve performance.

Did you ever drift off into a daydream while sitting in a classroom? Most teachers aren’t too happy if students start paying more attention to their imagination than the lesson being given. But consider this: recent studies have shown that a vivid imagination can come in very handy to visualize tasks, make plans and envision future ambitions.

Imagination is a key part of visualization, which is recognized as a powerful tool to improve performance and reach your goals.

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What is Boost! about?

In his book Boost! (2017), author Michael Bar-Eli uses decades of experience with world-class athletes, and the many hard-won lessons he’s learned along the way, to explain the dynamic power of sports psychology. The author not only shows how athletes can use psychology to their advantage, but how this element can be used to improve the performance of any team player, whether on the court or in the office.

Boost! Review

Boost! (2011) by Michael Bar-Eli is an insightful book that explores the psychology behind athletic performance and how to improve it. Here's what makes this book worth reading:

The book is packed with research-backed strategies that athletes can implement to enhance their performance and achieve their goals.
By delving into real-life examples and case studies, Bar-Eli provides practical insights that athletes from all levels can relate to and apply to their own training.
With its engaging storytelling and fascinating anecdotes, Boost! keeps readers engaged and entertained, ensuring that the topic of athletic performance remains intriguing and never dull.

Best quote from Boost!

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream another dream. – C.S. Lewis

—Michael Bar-Eli

Who should read Boost!?

Leaders and aspiring leaders
Readers interested in how psychology can improve performance
Athletes and former athletes

About the Author

Michael Bar-Eli is a psychologist who specializes in professional sports and other high-pressure organizations. He has over 35 years experience in consulting some of the most elite sports teams in the world, including German and Israeli Olympic teams. He currently works as a professor at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel.

Categories with Boost!

Career & Success Psychology

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