Toughness Training for Life: A Revolutionary Program for Maximizing Health, Happiness and Productivity

I'm tired of self-improvement books that coddle the reader by focusing on relaxation and self-affirmation exercises, teaching us to shut out the trials of life instead of embracing and learning from them. This is not one of those books. Instead this book teaches that stress is key to personal growth. Loehr defines a "Toughness Response" to pressure - biochemical, psychological, and behavioral - and instructs us on how to develop it. The author's sports performance background is readily apparent: the book, while easily readable, alternates between scientific discourse and a life coaching tone. Loehr makes it clear that if we want to perform ideally under pressure, we must be willing to train for it. The essential message is that we can achieve the "Toughness Response" by carefully monitoring, understanding, and finally managing the ebb and flow of stress in our lives through discipline, training, healthy habits, and positive thinking. For those who are interested, Loehr even suggests a specific regimen in which readers take dozens of daily personal statistics from low and high pulse to productivity level to sleep quality to emotional state to exercise levels. But this book will still benefit those who are not willing to make that organizational commitment. While it's common sense, I was refreshed by the reminders to strive for an ideal balance of challenge and rest and to make an effort to benefit from life's unexpected variety.

This is one of the best books I have read on positive (what the author calls "tough") thinking, especially when feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, etc. It has piqued my interest and I will be doing more research into sports mindset training to find out what I can learn and apply for myself. I found this book as helpful or even moreso than THE POWER OF FULL ENGAGEMENT, which he cowrote much later. It has many of the same themes, but more focus on how to be confident, tough, and relazed and having fun.

We are taught through life that "we are strengthened by trials." That is not true. We don't grow stronger by adversity. We are made stronger through _healing_ from trials. The same applies to Nietzsche's popular sport/war chant "that which does not kill us makes us stronger." Anyone who has seen a homeless Vietnam Veteran knows that Nietzsche was wrong. "That which does not kill us, which we heal from, makes us stronger" is perhaps a better saying. WWII did not make us stronger. It made us dead, or at best, bitter. Yet a few were able to be strengthened by the combined process. What separated those few? What kept them alive, submissive to their captors, and able to transcend their adversity and use it to their advantage? This is the subject of Loehr's book.How do we balance our stress and recovery cycles so that we maximize our growth potential?This is one of my favorite books, because I, like everyone, am constantly seeking order and battling frustration...He has other books along these lines, but this is the newest and most comprehensive.--Colin Jensen