Win the Inside Game: How to Move from Surviving to Thriving, and Free Yourself Up to Perform

Performance coach Magness (Do Hard Things) delivers a pileup of clichés in this vacuous program for adopting a more positive mindset. Encouraging readers not to beat themselves up over disappointments, he warns that competitors who view a loss as a negative reflection on their character are more likely to produce higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol after a defeat, which has been found to worsen performance in subsequent competitions. Magness’s contention that valuing external rewards (“achievements, money, status”) over pursuing intrinsic motivation makes people miserable is hardly novel, and his explanation that doing so amplifies “our threat system” while undermining “our contentment system” provides only a superficial representation of the science. Elsewhere, Magness cites a study that found subjects judged hills to be less steep when accompanied by a friend to make the obvious point that people with meaningful social relationships are “healthier, happier, [and] more resilient” than loners. Other claims are lacking in evidence, as when he asserts that a poor sense of self “is linked to materialism and compulsive buying,” and his framework for achieving “sustainable excellence” by gaining clarity on “who you are” and “how you fit in” is as vague about its intended outcome as it is about its process. This misses the mark. (Feb.)