The biggest mental load in performance, that an athlete must cope with, is in dealing with failures – both in the moment and after the fact. Yes, it’s the obvious ‘failure’ associated with a loss. Yet, more significant, and less obvious, are the micro ‘failures’ that accumulate over the course of a game (and even season). …
Seems odd – at first – to connect coaching to vulnerability. Doesn’t it? It definitely felt that way for me too. Yet, after watching Brené Brown speak about the power of vulnerability, it dawned on me: how can one claim to have fully accessed the essence of what it means to be a master coach unless …
I promised I’d bring you useful ideas from teacher-coaches regardless of their sport (or non-sport) of choice. Well, here’s an outside-the-box idea that I’m borrowing from tennis. More DIY videos at 5min.com How do you help your players adapt to errors? Give me some feedback in the comments section. Curious to know what things other …
“Back in the day” before email (…okay, I officially feel old writing that, but it’s true…), my college basketball coach photocopied the chapter below and gave it to me and my teammates. It resonated true for me then as an athlete, as still does for me now. It’s worth printing off and passing along to …
Thought by many to be the greatest tennis player of this generation, Rafael Nadal‘s story is atypical to that of most stars in sports. The “great irony” of Rafael Nadal, as journalist Jeff Pearlman calls it, is that he’s a “singularly relentless player… But it’s not his forehand or his backhand; it’s his will. He …
Mental mistakes. If you want to minimize them, then take these two phrases out of your vocab: IT’s – “I’m tired” DFLI’s – “I don’t feel like it.” If you do, I’d argue that you will have essentially removed over 50% of the negative mental habits you’ll face as a high performance athlete. Those two …
DEFENSE… It’s a favourite teaching topic of mine because. To be honest, it’s the one thing that I could do, as an athlete, as an all-the-time, every-time thing. If you watched me play, the one thing you could count on me for, was defense. [I’m sure I have teammates that will go to their grave saying, …
Those driven toward excellence and winning, should never view failure as something that saps your energy, enthusiasm and vitality. Instead, it provides an opportunity to respond famously by animating, increasing your focus, and viewing the experience itself as an opportunity to learn, develop and adapt. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying significant failures won’t …
This is great insight into the impact that Buzz Williams is making on the lives of the young men that come through his program. This video on Marquette Basketball’s “Life Lessons” a testament – in more than one way… Here’s another video (via Coach Starkey’s Hoop Thoughts) of Marquette’s head coach, Buzz Williams, mic’d up …
I’ve always had a latent fascination and interest in the training that goes into ‘making’ a Navy SEAL. What’s involved in the training that yields an individual with mental make-up, self-awareness and discipline to warrant being able to be one of the few selected? (And, selfishly, what learnings can be extracted from this training that …