Crucial Conversations A quality book on a topic that everyone in sport needs to deal with – it is a must-have on every sports coaches’ bookshelf (and ideally well read!). In sport, stakes are often incredibly high and it is these times that miss-handling the situation can be extremely costly. This book provides a ‘how-to’ guide for success in any conflict.

While written back in 2007, unfortunately many of the cautionary lessons from Game On by Tom Farrey remain unlearned. This book should be read by every sport development professional, coach, parent and really anyone involved in sport, is involved with children or is a human! While it does get a tiny bit opinionated in places, the book pulls together an enormous wealthy of research, coupled with stories of people Tom has met.

If you are interested in emotional intelligence, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman answers everything you need to know on the topic. It isn’t for the faint-hearted and you’ll know what I mean when you see the thickness of it and the size of the print. But it is the ultimate guide and reference point and we highly, highly recommend it. Make sure you mark the pages in the book or on your device as you go, as it is a book that you’ll want to go back to time and time again. Goleman is the man on emotional intelligence! (Click here to read our article about Emotional Intelligence where we refer to this book.)

‘Deliberate practice’ is probably one of the most important concepts that have a significant impact on sporting success and improving skill acquisition.