Lanny Bassham

With Winning in Mind, 3rd Edition

$16.95

The book on the mental side of the match. Bassham shot for Olympic gold and wrote down how he thinks; every serious competitor has read it.

Lanny Bassham won Olympic gold in rifle in 1976 after taking silver in 1972, and this is the book he wrote about the difference: the Mental Management System, built not on psychology but on what he found works under competition pressure. His own framing is that it was written by a competitor, not a professor, and that his credibility is in his medals and his students' medals rather than in coursework. The system is the conscious mind, the subconscious mind and the self-image kept in balance, and the book walks through how to build a process for a shot, rehearse it, and keep the picture of yourself as the kind of shooter who wins. It has become the default mental-game text in shooting sports, and reads just as well for anyone who competes at anything. Third edition, 182 pages in the Mental Management Systems paperback, 208 in the Robert Hale hardcover. Riley's link is the hardcover, which now only turns up from third-party sellers at collector money; the paperback is the same book for a fraction of it.