Today’s aerobatic pilots have available some of the finest engineered aerobatic airplanes the sport has ever known. Yes, sometimes these airplanes fail, but more often, it is the pilot flying the airplane who fails, and this failure is due to the lack of mental control. In terms of both precision and safety, aerobatics required absolute mental control by the pilot.

Excellent book that brings modern sports psychology to the demanding world of aerobatics. Mental training, neurology and energetics are all covered. Introduction by Patty Wagstaff.

The metaphor of ‘flow’ is one that many people have used to describe the sense of effortless action they feel in moments that stand out as the best in their lives. Athletes refer to it as ‘being in the zone,’ religious mystics as being in ‘ecstasy,’ artists and musicians as aesthetic rapture…. It is the full involvement of flow, rather than happiness that makes for excellence in life.

Mihaly is a professor who studies happiness at the University of Chicago, and has identified what he calls ‘flow experiences’ as a human high-point. This is a practical introduction to what has now become a well-researched area of human behavior.

Although talent feels and looks predestined, in fact we have a good deal of control over what skills we develop, and we each have more potential than we might ever presume to guess.

Very readable introduction to the powerful concept that deep play beats born talent. The author is an editor at Outside magazine, has written a couple of other good books, and so can communicate clearly and smoothly.

When I was Alex’s age, we called it ‘Kodak courage’ —the tendency for people to push beyond their limits when performing for the camera. Nowadays, in a world where fatal wingsuit accidents are captured by blinking, helmet-mounted GoPros, we might aptly call it ‘GoPro bravado.’ Even more insidious is the way social media has made it possible for people to feel pressure to perform, even when they’re alone.

Mark is a writer for National Geographic, Climbing, Outside and more. A close friend of Alex’s who has climbed El Cap over 20 times himself and was there when Alex climbed 3000 feet of sheer rockface alone, with no ropes. The world’s best climber doing the world’s most amazing climb. Book has lots of relevance for pilots; covers risk management, flow, practice, mindset, brain structure, and more. What is climbing? And why?