A New Book The Glyder Advantage Brings Home Champion Mental Skills of Performance from Sport to Everyday Work, Exams, and Life
Hyderabad — Elite athletes train their minds as much as their bodies. That’s what makes them perform consistently under pressure. A new book, “The Glyder Advantage – Beat the Pressure. Perform at Your Best”, launched. The book has taken twelve proven mental skills used by champions across sports and adapted them for the pressures of everyday life – at work, in exams, in sport, in business.
Reviewed on myglyder.com by some of the advance readers as “Timely and valuable book” is the need of the hour, as performance pressure rises across workplaces, classrooms and homes. The Glyder Advantage brings home practical, evidence-based mental skills used by the elite athletes for consistent performance under pressure. These skills are meant for everybody.
The book was unveiled by the badminton legend, Mr. Pullela Gopichand, a name that is shorthand for discipline and quiet resolve. Only the second Indian to win the All-England Open Badminton Championships, Arjuna Awardee, Khel Ratna Awardee, Dronacharya Awardee, and Padma Bhushan, and the only Indian coach to win the “Honourable Mention” by the International Olympic Committee at the 2019 Coaches Lifetime Achievement Awards, today, he is one of the country’s most respected coaches and mentors, having spent his life turning setbacks into the raw material for excellence. His endorsement lent the book a sense of lived credibility.
TGA is co-authored by globally renowned sport psychologist Dr. Sandy Gordon, alongside behavioural science practitioners and learning science experts Gopinathan C P (Gopi) and Ritu Vinayak. Their central argument: underperformance under pressure despite having the talent, is inevitable and common. The solution lies in mental skills – and mental skills can be learnt by anybody. Actor, presenter, and writer Anu Hasan guided the conversations on the topic of mental skills between the authors, the chief guest, and some other guests present during the event. Dr. Gordon also joined virtually from Australia.
“The game is won between the ears. I’ve spent thirty years on the field with elite athletes — across cricket World Cups, Olympic programmes, and more sports than I can count — and the mental tools that help a champion recover from a crushing loss are the same tools a student needs after a bad exam result, or an employee needs after a failed pitch. This book takes that lifetime of practice and makes it usable for anyone,” said Dr. Sandy Gordon, co-author, performance coach for three ICC World Cup finalist teams.
“Most of the mental strength conversation in India still borrows from Western books that need mental translation to make sense here. We wanted the opposite, stories our readers immediately recognise, so the science lands without any distance between the page and their own life,” said Gopinathan C P (Gopi), co-author.
During the event, Ritu Vinayak, co-author also mentioned that “Our goal was never to hand readers another list of things to reflect on. Every chapter ends with something you can actually use that same night — a technique, not a slogan. Pressure isn’t going away for any of us, so the least we can do is lay out a structured, learnable, and applicable way to meet it,”
Who Should Read this Book
The book is meant for two kinds of audiences: professionals aged 25–40 navigating daily performance pressures, and parents of school / college students preparing for boards and other competitive exams. Drawing on more than 25 years translating learning science and behavioural science across corporate and educational settings in 20+ countries, Gopi and Ritu have adapted the ‘sport mindset’ to apply to the everyday common life of people. For now, they have used the Indian context to introduce the concepts to the Indian market, so that everyone can relate before using them.
Training in Print, Not Just Ideas
Each of the 12 chapters follows a uniform structure to build familiarity: a relatable Indian story – a Bengaluru IT professional, a Mumbai biotech worker, a JEE aspirant to name a few – the mental skill at play explained in simple terms, concrete “Glyder’s Take” showing ways to build and practice the mental skill, and QR-based self-tests to know where you stand. It reads less like self-help, more like self-training.
