Note: This is part one of a to-be-determined, maybe, series on how I've learned to learn outside of my niche. My hope is you'll be able to possibly relate to the experience, maybe find some cool resources, and think about whether you could benefit from doing the same. There is, after all, a whole world out there.
My background up until a few years ago was in baseball. I loved it growing up, played it averagely through college, and coached it for the first seven years of my teaching career. When I first started in sport psychology, naturally, I loved reading all of the books on baseball's mental side I could get my hands on. The Mental Keys to Hitting sparked it all for me. Others that had a strong personal impact were Intangibles, Baseball's 6th Tool, The Mental ABC's of Pitching, and Heads Up Baseball. One of the things I loved about each of the books is they were easy to apply. The authors told me what to do. Then, I did it. Simple enough. Then, after a few months of obsessive reading, a terrible thing happened. There were no more "you may also be interested in" books on Amazon that were mental baseball books. What was I to do?
My feeble, narrow-minded baseball brain was at a crossroads. "No more reading" was one option. That sounded good, in some ways. I knew it all, after all, after reading those books (yeah, right). No, that can't be right. There was another option, but it was a scary one. Read...a book...that...isn't....a baseball book. As I said, it was scary. Opportunely, a conversation with a colleague (our school's technology and learning coach) led to Mindset's recommendation. Hmm...I liked that it had the words mindset and success in the title. I liked the colleague and respected her opinion. I did not like that the author's name included the letters Ph.D. in it. What could she possibly have to teach me that would make me a better baseball mental skills coach? On the cover were the topics parenting, business, school, and relationships? Wtf? Where was baseball? Anyway, I took the plunge into the dreaded unknown, and a funny thing happened.
I loved the book. I loved that it made me think of things differently. I love that it explained how I felt about some aspects of teaching and the potential of students. But most of all, I loved how it got the hamster wheel in my brain churning with how I could take these concepts that were not directly about coaching baseball and apply them. Praise for effort instead of natural skills? I can do that when a player has a great game. See feedback as an opportunity instead of a threat? That would be great to help players understand coaching. Fixed mindset thinking sees their value as their performance? Ouch. I need to do a better job of making sure I let players know I care about them and am interested in them beyond the field. It was challenging, and it was great. These, and other realizations, made me take action to be a better coach and teacher. Beyond that, the book provided an a-ha moment that there was so much more to learn outside of my specific sport or even sports in general. Since then, some of my favorite books have had nothing directly to do with sports. Below I've decided to share a few. Sometimes, we say we learned a lot from a book but then not actually applying what we say we've learned. Our supposed learning is more like interest. With that, I've only included books where I can say something has actually stuck with me and changed how I think, coach, or even live. My takeaways are, of course, mine. All of the books below are ones I'd recommend and, I am confident you'd learn much more than what I did.
*Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck
What's Stuck: The overall concept of growth and fixed mindset has been transformative as a teacher and coach. We talk about it in our sport psych class. Students usually point to a better understanding of failure and getting out of their comfort zones as major takeaways from the experience. Certain teams have gravitated to it a lot as well. Our girls golf team, for example, focused on it during a season to help them focus on growth versus just their scores.
*Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
What's Stuck: There is quite a bit in this one, but something I loved and have used with our girls soccer team and volleyball team is the concept of The Braintrust. The Braintrust is a group of people at Pixar who meet throughout the making of a movie. They have a certain way of doing things that involves hearing from everyone and being candid. Both are really helpful in working with teams and groups as a whole. Beyond that, there are infinite nuggets for anyone trying to build a culture.
*Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think, by Tasha Eurich
What's Stuck: Self-awareness has been a pillar of mental performance for me since really the beginning of my exploration. This book provided one of those, "Oh, you think you've been doing okay, huh? Well, what you have been doing it stupid!" moments in the discussion of "why." "Why?" used to be my favorite question. Among many other takeaways, this book got me to realize "Why?" may actually be unimportant, ineffective, and even harmful in some cases. A total shock to the system that made me better.
*Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by Matthew Walker
What's Stuck: Everything. Sleep is the most important thing we do. I'd been interested in sleep for some time, but this book made me realize just how important it is and what we can do about it. I'd been hesitant to teach sleep or done it poorly with surface level, "You need to get 8-10 hours of sleep!" like people hadn't heard that over and over. This book helped me better understand and teach the why. It also helped me help others with the how. Maybe another blog, but sleep is one of the most powerful topics for students in our class. Yes, they can put their phones down. Soapbox: I really wish teams would invest in sleep beyond just getting someone to do a one-off session. If you have an interest in chatting more about how, please reach out.
*Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain
What's Stuck: This one is probably a bit more personal than most of the others. I'm an introvert, and it's something I'd grown up feeling bad about. I blame you, Myers-Briggs. All of your questions made extroverts seem cool and fun, and introverts like we are some sort of alien lifeform. This book gave me such a greater understanding of what it means to be an introvert. I also read it in a time where I was burning myself out doing sessions all day, all week, at school, and then spending all day on Saturday with a college baseball team. I'd spend all day on Sunday feeling hungover, sans the night full of stories the night before. It's a great book for all you coaches who have been told you have to be "outgoing" to have an impact.
*Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable Conversations, by Paul Axtell
What's Stuck: As the subtitle (how long are these subtitles, by the way?) suggests, the book is about more than meetings. That said, one takeaway from me was trying to shift how I viewed meetings. In school, like many other places, I'm sure, they can feel pointless pretty often. So many of us view meetings from the perspective of, "What can this meeting do for me?" The book challenged me to flip that to, "What can I bring to this meeting? How can I help others?" I'm not there all the time, but it's been helpful. Beyond that, there are countless learnings and a good sampling of small activities to help your group be better at meetings and with communication as a whole.
*Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success by Adam Grant
What's Stuck: Individually, the book made me reflect on who I am in the spectrum of givers, matchers, and takers. Something else I remember, which you may get if you're in an earlier phase of your career, was feeling bad about reaching out to others for help. Especially with a matcher mindset, it was frustrating not to feel able to do anything to give back to those offering time and wisdom. The book made me realize my giving did not have to be so direct. Doing other things to help others was just as, if not more, important. The concept of being a giver and still achieving success has been crucial for helping student-athlete leaders at our school as well.
*Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
What's Stuck: The main concept of the book has stayed with me. I try to start with why in almost any presentation or project of any kind. I've found it helps others understand the importance of what we are about to do or discuss. It's also been helpful to me to remember the point of the project. Sounds simple, but I think we can often drift from purpose and get focused on other things. Getting back to the why helps significantly.
*Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein
What's Stuck: One professional and one individual here. Professionally, the book made me think about education differently. It discussed how school was really more about learning to follow procedures than actual learning of concepts pretty often. Wow. The book was right and made me challenge myself to help students and athletes explore more instead of following a prescriptive path. Individually, my interests have shifted multiple times. I'm now in a degree program that, on the surface level, would not seem to align with what I've been working towards. In my Twitter profile, I joke about being an inefficient degree collector. At times, I'd questioned myself with these shifts and how they were impacting my effectiveness. The book helped me better appreciate what I was doing and understand how the range was actually helping me with whatever I do.
*Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, by Herminia Ibarra
What's Stuck: Authenticity is one of my three core values. It's important to be that I can be myself. This book really challenged me to view authenticity differently. For example, I'd have viewed being authentic as sticking to myself whenever our faculty gets together in a large group. "That's just who I am." Ibarra said that authenticity is less about certain behaviors and more about being authentic with our values. My number one value is having a positive impact. To have the impact I hope for at our school, that means in situations with larger groups, I need to talk with people and see how they're doing, even if I don't feel like it. Understanding that is being authentic has helped me, and it's helped some of our more "lead-by-example" student leaders. Plus, as Insight taught me, I can go back to my portable and take some time to myself right after!
*The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, by Amy Edmondson
What's Stuck: Psychological safety is the most important characteristic of a high-performing culture that you probably either aren't creating or aren't creating as well as you could. So much of psychological safety has helped drive the environment I hope to create in classes and work with teams/groups. I'll tell you about one. In psychologically safe cultures, people admit mistakes that are made. I want any group I'm a part of to do the same, and I've found modeling to be one of the best ways to help create that. If I make a mistake, I let them know and let them know the adjustment I'll make moving forward due to what I'd learned. That's it.
*The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, by Chip and Dan Heath
What's Stuck: The big impact this book gave me was a better understanding of exactly what the title says. Doing so made me realize the value of creating the opportunity for moments that are a little more impactful. Sure, I know that the real way to being a better performer is to embrace the boring consistently. Good luck keeping a group motivated with that. I've learned, not only is it okay to do that activity that may not look like textbook learning from the outside looking it, but it's likely going to be what students remember more than the daily routine. Plus, who cares what it looks like from the outside looking in? In the words of Donovan Mitchell...
Happy Birthday to You!, by Dr. Seuss
What's Stuck: While certainly not on the same academic level as the other books on the list, there is a lot of power in simplicity. This book provided my favorite quote and helped inspire my purpose of helping empower others to help themselves perform and enjoy revolves around: Be you. It's certainly stuck with me, and I've had the great pleasure of seeing it benefit others as well. Here's the full quote:
