More Than Just Noise: What Trash Talk Can Teach Us About Dealing with Stress and Building Mental Toughness

Award-winning sports journalist and author Rafi Kohan taps into his years of reporting on the world's highest-level athletes and other top performers to share lessons from his latest book, Trash Talk, which explores the phenomenon of verbal gamesmanship in sports (and everywhere). In this highly entertaining yet surprisingly deep presentation, Kohan will touch on key principles of mental toughness—science-based strategies to build resilience, manage stress, and perform at your best—which are told through funny stories of on-field competition and are broadly applicable to coaches and athletes everywhere. Based on hundreds of conversations with athletes, performance psychologists, neuroscientists, and military officers, among many others, these principles offer not only valuable takeaways for teams and individuals to thrive under pressure—both on and off the court—but also unexpected insights into the pro-social qualities of challenge-based cultures and competition.