Shannon Thompson, M.A.P.P.

Belief Builder

This is My Story

For more than twenty years, Shannon was an internationally competitive equestrian and coach based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. Through hands on experience Shannon realized the enormous impact that a person’s mind has on his or her performance and experience. She watched riders with a joyful, hopeful perspective thrive, and noticed that her own energy had a profound effect on how her students rode each day.

During the summer of 2012, Shannon read Flourish by Martin Seligman. She realized that the field of Positive Psychology articulated the essential elements of outstanding performance that she had observed through her life in sport. Feeling ready for a career change, Shannon followed her fascination with positive psychology to the University of Pennsylvania and it’s Masters of Positive Psychology program where she graduated with distinction.

Shannon is currently based out of Hypo2 Sport High Performance Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. She offers mental performance consulting to a wide range of athletes, including the Division I teams at Northern Arizona University, and elite endurance athletes from numerous countries. Her approach is both science based and philosophical. She draws upon empirical research and the literary arts to help each individual perform at his or her best consistently. She truly believes she has found her calling in this work, and cannot imagine another vocation.

Shannon also conducts psychology research. She focuses primarily on the critical challenge (the specific “make or break” difficulty) in each sport, and has identified a mental orientation toward training called DARE state, which she proposes to be the state in which to train for optimal progress. Her current study incorporates the training and racing experiences of collegiate and world class athletes. She hopes to publish her findings in the fall of 2016.

Shannon writes monthly for McMillan Running, and runs competitively on the road and trail. She enjoys driving all the roads less travelled, and gets lost frequently.

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