For world-class athletes,
the body is not the limit.
The mind is.
The Institute for Individual High Performance Psychology works with elite athletes on their mental performance. Grounded in psychological science, strictly confidential.
High performance is not about being perfect once. It is about never being worse than very good.
Most people stop working on themselves once they have got it right. Those who stay at the top keep training – until it holds up on the days when conditions are against them. The same is true of the mind. Our aim is not the perfect mental day. It is a level that holds even when sleep was short or something happened at home.
01 / Clients
Clients
Our clients are at the very top of what they do. The disciplines differ, the situation does not:
- Their performance is public and continuously judged.
- They cannot afford a weak week.
- Much of it is decided in moments that cannot be repeated.
The same holds for senior executives. There, too, the limiting factor is neither knowledge nor experience. It is the same mind. A smaller part of our work therefore takes place outside sport.
We have worked with, among others
- Footballers in the Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga and the Premier League, several of them internationals for their country
- Basketball professionals in the German Bundesliga and the national team
- Olympians and World and European Championship competitors in Olympic sports
- Scholarship athletes in the US college system, including top-five finishers in their discipline
- Professionals at leading strategy consultancies, investment banks and private equity firms
Our clients compete in the following leagues and federations, among others
Anyone can hole in one.
Playing par on a bad day is what separates the best.
02 / Approach
Find the weak point. Then solve it for good.
Ninety per cent of our clients do not know what is behind their mental block. Unlike a visit to the physiotherapist, nothing hurts. The performance simply will not come, although the body is fit – and nobody can say why.
Finding that reason, naming it and giving it structure is the larger part of our work. Only then do we use psychological methods to turn the weak point into a strength. It takes longer than elsewhere, and that is why it works.
Theory and practice
We work psychologically and on scientific foundations – and we have been in the situations we talk about. That combination is rare. Most people in this field have either the training or the experience.
Methods
To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. We are not committed to a single school. Depending on what we find, we draw on systemic coaching, on cognitive behavioural therapy, and on work with the patterns that sit beneath performance. Mental techniques are part of that – as a tool, not as a programme.
Assessment and measurement
We begin with a structured intake assessment across several dimensions, using an instrument we developed ourselves. It makes visible, in numbers, where you are strong and where potential lies. What we measure beyond that is decided only after that assessment.
What we do not do
Psychotherapy. The Institute for Individual High Performance Psychology does not treat mental illness. If therapeutic or medical support turns out to be needed, we say so and refer on.
What mental work can achieve
In the short term, in competition: getting out what is already there. There is the athlete who is the best on the pitch all week and cannot deliver on matchday. Nothing is missing from his ability. He cannot reach his ability when it counts. That can be changed relatively quickly – and often it becomes slightly more, because tension starts carrying instead of braking.
In the long term, in training: moving the ceiling. And there is the perpetual talent who fails not at talent but at translating it into work. Anyone who trains harder and more intelligently than the man beside him is physically a different athlete months later. That takes time, and it is the part that genuinely shifts something.
No second-division player becomes an international overnight. But he develops faster than the one with the same body who does not train his mind.
In our first session, an athlete said he had to deliver in competition. We stopped at that word. Behind it lay an assumption he had never spoken aloud: that enjoying something means not taking it seriously. So he had forbidden himself to enjoy it, in order to stay serious – and the obligation was also his insurance, because someone who forces himself can at least say he gave everything.
We worked on that assumption for months, not on a technique. Only once it was dissolved did anything move. We have been working together for five years now.
03 / Founder
Julian Fornoff
- M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Psychology, University of Mannheim
- Former national squad sprinter, 100 metres
- Several years at Bain & Company
- CEO and CMO at venture-backed startups
- Working with elite athletes and executives since 2019
I know both kinds of high performance from the inside: the kind where months of work are decided in ten seconds, and the kind where you deliver a hundred hours a week for years. I ran my personal bests at championships, not in training.
What interests me is the other side of that. At 23, four years after returning to football, a coach offered to introduce me to the third division. I did not allow myself to go – I was 23 and studying psychology, and that was not the path. I did not fail. I never even started. Today, seeing the careers of my clients, I know it would have worked.
The body only reaches what the mind believes is possible.
04 / Working together
Working together
- First conversation, 30 minutes, free of charge. We establish what you want to work on – a specific situation, or a knot you cannot yet name. And whether we are a fit.
- Intake assessment. Completed online, results in writing and discussed in person.
- Ongoing work. Usually two sessions a month, weekly on request. Remote or in person, in English or German. Plus availability between sessions.
- Implementation. What we develop moves into daily life – into routines before the match, before the meeting, in the morning. That is the part that stays.
What changes
You can name what is going on. „In certain situations it always happens to me“ becomes a subject you can describe precisely yourself. And you have routines that hold – built around what we found, not generic techniques. Together, the two raise the floor. That is the point.
Confidentiality
Our client is always the person in the room – even when a club, an agency or a company pays the invoice. Third-party payers receive no content, no assessments, no feedback. This rule is part of every agreement and is not negotiable.
Who we work with
After the first three sessions, both sides decide whether it fits. From then on we work on a committed basis, because what we work on should not be left halfway.
And we work with people who want to change something. Something has to press – even if it cannot yet be named. A finished problem is not required, but the will to move something is. Anyone who wants a coach because having a coach is the done thing is in the wrong place.
We take on a limited number of clients.
05 / Contact
Contact
A first conversation takes 30 minutes and commits you to nothing. Write us a few lines about what it is about.
kontakt@ihp-institut.de
Berlin · English and German