About my work
My role is to support athletes and leaders in navigating pressure, maintaining mental balance and performing consistently at a high level.
Mental performance under pressure
Focus and concentration across long seasons
Motivation and emotional regulation
Dealing with expectations, criticism and uncertainty
Recovery, regeneration and mental balance
Leadership communication and decision-making
Sustainable performance and mental health
The goal is not short-term activation, but long-term stability and clarity
Focus areas
Professional and semi-professional sports clubs
Elite athletes and coaches
Management teams and executives
Companies operating in high-performance or high-responsibility environments
Principles from elite sport can be transferred effectively when adapted with care, structure and psychological depth.
Who do I work with
Formats & Services
Individual and confidential sessions for athletes, coaches and leaders.
Focused on clarity, self-regulation, performance routines and long-term development in high-pressure environments
1:1 Coaching
Interactive sessions tailored to teams, organisations or leadership groups.
Practical, experience-based and directly applicable.
Workshops and Group Formats
Support for teams and coaching staffs to create environments that allow healthy high performance over time.
Includes communication structures, role clarity, trust development and mental resilience.
Team Consulting
Thought-provoking talks designed to create reflection rather than motivation.
Topics are adapted to the specific challenges of sport, leadership and business environments.
Keynotes and Impulse Talks
My method:
Debrief. Detach. Detox.
High performance environments demand constant focus, emotional regulation and fast decision-making.
What often gets overlooked is what happens after performance.
Mental recovery does not begin with rest. It begins with structure. Because without structure, pressure accumulates.
The method Debrief, Detach, Detox provides a simple and effective framework to process intense situations, reset the nervous system and create psychological readiness for the next challenge.
Reflect before you release.
Debrief means consciously reviewing a performance, a match, a meeting or a demanding situation.
The goal is not judgement, but understanding. Key questions include:
What actually happened?
What was within my control?
What worked, what did not?
What can be learned for the future?
By separating facts from emotions, debriefing prevents experiences from remaining mentally “unfinished”.
Unprocessed experiences stay active in the mind. Processed experiences can be let go.
1. Debrief
Create distance from performance.
Detach means intentionally stepping out of the performance role.
High performers often stay mentally connected long after the event has ended.
This continuous activation keeps the stress system running and blocks recovery. Detachment helps to:
reduce mental rumination
restore emotional balance
protect motivation and energy levels
Detaching is not avoidance. It is a deliberate shift of attention from performance mode to personal mode. You are more than your last result.
2. Detach
Reset the system.
Detox refers to active mental and physiological recovery.
This includes reducing stimuli that maintain stress activation, such as constant analysis, screen exposure or performance-related communication. Instead, detox focuses on:
recovery routines
sleep quality
physical movement without performance goals
social connection
moments without evaluation
The aim is to reset the nervous system and rebuild mental capacity. Only a regulated system can perform again.
3. Detox
Management & Contact
For inquiries concerning keynotes, coaching formats or press requests, please use the form.
Dr. Maximilian Pelka is represented by Maison ACME.