CTC Short: Remembering Dr. Jim Loehr — The Sports Psychologist Who Changed Tennis Forever

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Episode 281: Jim Loehr Short

Dan Kiernan (00:01)

Welcome to episode 281 of Control the Controllables. And we're bringing a CTC short to you today. Now, April the 20th, 2026, we had the sad news that Dr. Jim Loehr passed away age 83. And now anybody that hasn't come across Dr. Loehr in their lives really should.

I was very fortunate to have him on the podcast a few years ago. I received a call actually, I was at the SotoTennis Academy and my phone rang and probably the best story teller I've ever known is a captain Gully Tom, Tom Gullickson. And he just starts telling me a story, starts telling me this amazing story about how you know, when he was playing, you know, he was really struggling with his mind and he'd heard about the sports psychologist, but at the time it was like the undone thing. Just absolutely did not have a sports psychologist because it was seen as a sign of weakness. You know, this is back in the seventies playing against John McEnroe and these types of players. So he spoke to Dr. Jim and he said it just transformed his life, transformed his career.

But he had an agreement with Dr. Loehr that he either paid him he would do it for free, but he had to let everybody know that he was speaking to him. that was the reason why he'd had this upturn of fortunes on the court and this mental strength and all of these things. And Gully turned around and said, I'm going to pay you. I'll pay you any day of the week. I'm not letting anybody know that I'm so weak that I'm speaking with sports psychologist.

Now, fast forward 50 years and I think pretty much every single tennis player on the tour now will have someone. I call them mental fitness coaches. Often they'll have a couple different aspects of their life and obviously this area is just incredibly important. Jim was a star. He was our first superstar sports psychologist in the sport of tennis. I will be forever grateful to Gully for putting us in touch and for me having the opportunity. I've never met him in person, but to have that conversation with him on the podcast a few years ago, apart from the fact that I'd lost my voice completely when we had the conversation, but I didn't need my voice in that conversation because I had two ears and two ears to listen to the wisdom, you know.

He sadly passed away at age 83, so I would have spoken to him when he was late 70s, maybe even 80 years old. And what a delightful man. And we just thought, you know, in honor of Dr. Jim, we wanted to put out a Short, but then I've listened back to the little snippet that we're about to share with you now, and I will absolutely be going back and listening to the full episode as well because...

It is just pearls of wisdom after pearls of wisdom. yeah, so, so thank you to Gully. Thank you to Dr. Jim Lohr and thank you for everything that you brought to us in the tennis world, in the sports psychology field. And if any of your family are listening to this, your dad, your uncle, your husband, your friend was, was a delightful man and long will his legend live on in the sport of tennis and we're so thankful. But it's a short, shortish clip, 12, 30 minutes. Hope you enjoy it. Sure you'll take lots from it. I'll pass you over to the amazing, the late, the great Dr. Jim Lowe.

Dan Kiernan (03:55)

So can you tell us and tell the listeners about the Hidden Scorecard because I think this is an absolute gem for everybody and if you could then link that in with the Dan Jansen story I think it would be fantastic.

Jim Loehr (04:08)

Okay. So, you know, I've been very fortunate to work with all these world champions, people who've done amazing things. They climbed the mountain of success and they were at the pinnacle. They were number one in the world. And you would expect that these folks would experience this incredible fulfillment because their mission was complete. And not in every case, but those who had a particular mindset,

felt like is I've been working all these years for this. So I'm number one in the world. I'm the best in this, in this sport. I still feel a little empty. It doesn't feel like enough. Maybe I have to be number one for more weeks. Maybe I need to win another, this kind of tournament major event. And the more they would do it, the more they realized that the satisfaction didn't come from that. There was something else that they were yearning for that just, they never, they missed and

Andre Agassi went through that. you're looking for a book that helps people understand that, the book, open Andre Agassi's book is one of the best reads I have found that really helps people understand. He was told his whole life that he would be happy and fulfilled if he was, became number one in the world and had all the money and fame and everything. And he did it. And

It didn't happen. He was not that happy, not that fulfilled. And his ranking dropped at that moment to 141 in the world. And he just thought, you know, I can't do this anymore. And he and his trainer, Gil Reyes, pause, did a kind of a serious reflection. And they ⁓ realized that

that purpose wasn't very fulfilling. It wasn't all about him. And so he reinvented himself, so to speak. And this is getting into this hidden scorecard. And what he did was he decided to go back into tennis, ⁓ armed with a different purpose. And that was he had always wanted to reach out and help young people have them a really safe and really...

complete education in a way that maybe his life wasn't that way. And he saw lots of other young people in Las Vegas. They didn't have that opportunity. So he took his fame, his money, his sponsors and said, I'm going to devote my tennis to building a charter school for kids that they can have an opportunity in life that most kids from their socioeconomic level would never have that opportunity. And so

armed with that new purpose, he went back out and played the same sport and came number one again in the world. But this time he found fulfillment. He found a sense of peace and satisfaction because it really wasn't all about him. It was about what he could do for others. That was the most fulfilling thing. And I have had so many experiences with these very high performers. And there is this, I came to call it the hidden scorecard where

We have this extrinsic marker of success, but that's not the ultimate game. It appears though, that we are all operating on a different scorecard that's kind of hidden. And that is our treatment of others as we climb the mountain. And our connection to others, our connection to family, our connection to making our contribution that is beyond simply ourselves. It's called a self-transcending purpose.

that your ability to make a difference in the world above and beyond yourself, when you look at what people wanna be remembered for, it's not the number of titles, but the impact they had on others, most importantly, family and people they cared about, that's where the satisfaction came from. And that's what sustains greatness. So you can climb the mountain, but that's what you did. It's how you got there and your connection and purpose

in really scaling that mountain and chasing like a maniac to be a victor, what are the criteria of real success here? And so that was ⁓ for me a great insight and I've been able to help a lot of really talented world stars that really struggled with this. it happens in music, it happens in performance.

dancing, happens in just about every area of life that your connection to others, your treatment of others is probably the gold standard of a fulfilled and satisfying life. So, and the Dan Jansen story, I'll make it relatively brief, but Dan started his Olympic quest ⁓ in Sarajevo, he's a very young guy. And then

he quickly became known as the most extraordinary 500 meter speed skater in the world. And at Calgary, he was to win a gold medal. And about just a few hours before his race, he learned that the person that mattered most to him in the world, the person he was closest to was his sister Jane, that she had died of leukemia. And he thought that

there's any way that he would have known this. He would have flown back and he would have foregone the Olympics, but he didn't know that. And he broke down. He was emotionally just so distraught. First of all, that he wasn't there when she died. And ⁓ he was thinking very seriously of just leaving and not skating. And his father asked him, well, what would Jane, what would Jane want you to do? Would she want you to skate or would she want you to leave?

go to the funeral. And he said, well, I'm pretty sure she want me to stay and skate. And he says, well, why don't you fulfill that wish that she probably has for you? So he put his skates on and he was in tears, completely emotional, the fastest man on the planet in the 500 meter by far. And just a few meters out of the gate, he falls and Dan Jansen virtually never fell.

And he was in tears again as he fell, because he said, I can't do this. then four days later was the 1000 meter, which he was never really known his dad said, why don't you devote this 1000 meters race to her and give it everything you got. So he mobilized and he went to within just a few meters of the front of the...

goal of the finish marker. And he was ahead, he was ahead of everybody, which was like the most stunning thing ever. And out of nowhere, it wasn't even a turn, he fell hopelessly to the ice. And thus began the saga of Dan Jansen, what we call the, or what was called the heartbreak kit. And he repeatedly had difficulty after that, every press conference,

Have you forgotten the death of your sister? Will you fall again? You've fallen all these times. Now you're going to fall again. Couldn't get it out. And his agent called me and said, if we don't do something with Dan, he's going to go down as the greatest speed skater in history, never to have won a medal and maybe the greatest choker in sports history. And so I said, well, I'll do everything I can. So we trained for two years.

And just before we started, right about that time, he went into Albertville and again, he slipped and he didn't fall, but then he went into the thousand meter and he came in 26 in the world. And I had him in his, I have all of his training logs. I just looked at them the other day and at the top of his training log, I had a couple of things that I felt the 500 was so unforgiving.

that he could have, he could be a great thousand meter. He so much genius, so much skill. I said, you can be a thousand meter skater. want you to ride at the top of your training log. I love the 1000. And he said, that's not true. I don't love the 1000. I hate the 1000. I just do it for training purposes. I said, I want to teach you how your brain works. If you say that and you do it with intensity and intentionality, your brain will start changing your rearranging the furniture between your ears.

And I said, what do you really want to have happen before you finish? And he said, well, I'd love to get some kind of metal. ⁓ I don't, I don't know. I just like to end my career with a metal cause I got one more Olympics and that's it. I'm done. And I said, okay, so a metal and what else? And he said, I'd like to break if possible, the 36 second barrier in the 500 before I retire. That's like the Roger Bannister four minute mile. can never be broken.

So we wrote 35.99 at the top of all of his training logs. And broke the 36 second barrier four times before his final race at Lillehammer. he came in 26th in the 1000 two years earlier at Albertville. And in the 500 meter, I flew to Lillehammer because I never came to most of his events, but I...

I hit, I didn't even have credentials, because I didn't want him to know I was there. didn't want to add any additional pressure. But I wanted to be there in the event that he didn't win a gold medal or a medal in the 500 that we could mobilize for the 1000, his final race of his career. And he slipped slightly in the 1000, I mean in the 500 and he came in eighth. And so that was gone.

try to maneuver myself across the arena and to let him know I was there and had all these, you know, people, police officers and everyone else trying to keep me and I kept screaming it down and, and finally he heard me and he looks over to me about fainted that there I was. so we went down and for the next four days we trained and he remembered and he said, you know, I have to tell you.

I don't know. I would never have believed it, but I think I love the thousand meter more than the 500. And it was that race to the thousand meter that he'd come in 26 in the world two years earlier. He had seven people that had faster times than he had in his ever in his career. One of them being Kevin Scott, who was the world record holder. he won an Olympic medal and he broke an Olympic record.

and he got the monkey off his back and he demonstrated that no matter how bad it gets, there is always hope. And one of the big takeaways I think for Dan was that he would have been okay that he recognized that speed skating was a gift to him. No matter what happened, he would have been grateful for all the opportunities that sport had given him.

and that he was gonna give the best he could no matter what happens. And he would live, it would be okay with it. And he wanted to show how much joy and how grateful he was in his final race for having this opportunity and all the sacrifices that people had made so that he would have a chance to skate. And he blew the top off. He... ⁓

He just ⁓ astonished the world. It's one of the greatest stories I think in sports history. And the reason I felt that is he's such a good guy. I really appreciate and respect who he is as a person. And he did everything we had asked him to do over that course of that two year period. And the story ended the way it should have ended. Not always in sport does it end that way, but that story ended because he was the best in the world.

and he proved that he could be the best in the world in a race that everyone said was never going to happen for him. And he changed that mindset and he changed his history. And so that for me, it was a wonderful story, a wonderful guy, and I was very privileged to be part of

Dan Kiernan (17:02)

And as I said at the start, you would take a lot from that. And I'm sure you did. I absolutely did. Please do. We will have the link into the full episode as well. Go back and listen. You know, he's the fourth most downloaded episode that we've had, but let's make it the first, you know, that we've we've had some incredible people on the podcast, but, you know, to be getting these bits of wisdom and, know, the Hidden Scorecard.

You know, what, what great, you know, great idea. That's a massive takeaway that I took from it, it was something I definitely started trying to implement into my coaching. It's something, you know, we talk all the time about, you know, tennis is the vehicle, right? But it's, it's not the final destination and getting our players and getting people to understand where that fits in, you know, where you have that true purpose, you know, that's when powerful things happen. And, ⁓ you know, I actually want to shout out actually High Impact Athletes at this point. Marcus Daniel and his team, they do incredible job. It's another one we'll share the link. Marcus was on the podcast, you know, basically people giving part of their, part of their wage, not their wage, their prize money back at the end of every year. I Gabby Dabrowski is part of that. I've been lucky enough to coach for the last three years and many of the players, many players on the tour are doing it and they'll put a certain percentage of their prize money towards greater causes. And I know with many of the tennis players that's made a massive difference and that's been their hidden scorecard. know, it's not just about hitting tennis balls for themselves, but it's like winning more matches, getting better, doing these things. You know, that goes on and that is giving back to whatever the different causes are. And again, we'll put a little link into that for you guys to see on the podcast notes, but it's well worth looking into. these, this does make a massive, massive difference. And then I just wanted to kind of share one, I suppose, final thing. We can talk about manifestation, the Dan Jansen story, you know, all of these things, which is so important, but treatment of others is the gold standard of a fulfilled and satisfied life. 

And if we could all live like that, if we could all live by that and we could all look after each other in that way, I think we'll all have a very, very fulfilled and satisfied life. And that is how I'd like to leave this, this episode. I hope you enjoyed Dr. Jim Loehr, may he rest in peace and all of our love all of his loved ones. And thank you from all of us at Control the Controllables. 

But until next time, I'm Dan Kiernan and we are Control the Controllables.