Jim Taylor

Jim Taylor, Ph.D. Psychology, is an internationally recognized authority on the psychology of high performance, parenting, technology, and popular culture.

Dr. Taylor has been a consultant for the United States and Japanese Ski Teams, the United States Tennis Association, and USA Triathlon, and has worked with professional and world-class athletes in tennis, skiing, cycling, triathlon, track and field, swimming, football, golf, baseball, fencing, and many other sports. He has been invited to lecture by the Olympic Committees of Spain, France, Poland, and the U.S., and has consulted with the Athletic Departments at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Taylor speaks regularly to elementary and secondary schools, parent and education associations, and youth-sports programs around the country.

He has worked with the Miami City Ballet, the Hartford Ballet Company, and the DanceAspen Summer School, and performing artists in many disciplines.

Dr. Taylor has also worked extensively in the corporate world providing individual and group training to executives and businesses throughout the North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He is a frequent speaker at Young Presidents' Organization events internationally and a featured speaker for Natixis Global Associates, the 14th largest asset management company in the world.

Dr. Taylor received his Bachelor's degree from Middlebury College and earned his Master's degree and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Colorado. He is a former associate professor in the School of Psychology at Nova University in Ft. Lauderdale and a former clinical associate professor in the Sport & Performance Psychology graduate program at the University of Denver. He is currently an adjunct faculty at the University of San Francisco.

He has published more than 1000 articles in scholarly and popular publications, and has given more than 1000 workshops and presentations throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Dr. Taylor is the author of 17 books including Positive Pushing: How to Raise a Successful and Happy Child (Hyperion, 2003), the four-book Prime Sport book series (iUniverse, 2002), Your Children are Listening: Nine Messages They Need to Hear From You (The Experiment Publishing, 2011), The Triathlete’s Guide to Mental Training (VeloPress, 2005), Dance Psychology for Artistic and Performance Excellence (Human Kinetics, 2016), Raising Generation Tech: Prepare Your Children for a Media-fueled World (Sourcebooks, 2013), Your Children are Under Attack: How Popular Culture is Destroying Your Kids' Values, and How You Can Protect Them (SourceBooks, 2005), and I Couldn't Disagree More: Insight, Inspiration, Irreverence from an Idea Guy (Dictus, 2014), and Train Your Mind for Athletic Success: Mental Preparation to Achieve Your Sports Goals (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), and Raising Young Athletes: Prepare Your Children for Victory in Sports and Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and How to Survive and Thrive When Bad Things Happen: 9 Steps to Cultivating an Opportunity Mindset in a Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Dr. Taylor's books have been translated into 10 languages.

He is also the lead editor of four textbooks, Applying Sport Psychology: Four Perspectives (Human Kinetics, 2005), Developing a Consulting Practice in Sport and Performance Psychology (FIT, 2014), Assessment in Sport Psychology Consulting (Human Kinetics, 2017), and Comprehensive Applied Sport Psychology (Routledge, 2019).

Dr. Taylor blogs on sports, parenting, education, technology, and popular culture on this web site, as well as on huffingtonpost.com, and psychologytoday.com. His posts are aggregated by dozens of web sites worldwide and have been read by millions of people.

Dr. Taylor also hosts three podcasts, From Crisis to Opportunity, Raising Young Athletes, and Train Your Mind for Athletic Success.

Dr. Taylor has appeared on NBC's Today Show, Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends, ABC's World News This Weekend, UPN's Life & Style, and the major television network affiliates around the U.S.. He has participated in many radio shows. Jim has been a columnist for The Denver Post, and has been interviewed for articles that have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The London Times, The Chicago Tribune, U.S. News & World Report, The Christian Science Monitor, The London Telegraph, The Miami Herald, The Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, The Baltimore Sun, The Denver Post, Skiing, Outside, and many other newspapers and magazines.

A former alpine ski racer who competed internationally, Dr. Taylor is also a 2nd degree black belt and certified instructor in karate, a marathon runner, an Ironman triathlete, and a USAT nationally ranked age-group triathlete.

Dr. Taylor is a member of the Board of Trustees of Sugar Bowl Ski Team & Academy.

Dr. Taylor lives north of San Francisco and in the Sierra-Nevada mountains of Northern California with his wife and two daughters.