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.
Nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics Click here to buy The Boys in the Boat now. Why
GOLF The Ultimate Mind Game is not only for golfers. What we love about this book is that it takes sport psychology principles, explains them in plain English and gives relevant examples of the application. Few sport psychology books can claim this. While obviously all of the examples are golf examples, it is very easy for you to extend the content to your own sport. If you’ve been hesitant to learn more about sport psychology or previously put it in the ‘too hard basket’, this book will very simply and effectively teach you more than enough to make a step change in your program.
An unlikely book for our recommended list but a client recommended it to us and when we read the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, we all really enjoyed it. Very little about sport directly but some great gems within that you’ll be interested to know and keen to implement. (Click here to read the article that we refer to The Checklist Manifesto book.) More for the avid reader than someone looking to build their knowledge on sport and coaching, but if you have any family or friends in the medical industry – it is a must-read for them.
To bring some lightness and fun to our book recommendations, it wouldn’t be complete without this one. Not only a cheerful children’s book, we can all benefit from the great insights this book shares on the highs and lows of life. Along the theme of teaching our athletes to be resilient, use it as an activity or case study on how to bounce back from a poor performance.
As one of the leading management and leadership writers of all time, Covey’s books are outstanding and this book is one of his best and most popular. We regard it as a ‘must read’ and while written over 25 years ago, it is more relevant than ever.
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.
Why we recommend it: All of Gladwell’s books are exceptional reads, but Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell is our all-time favorite. If you only read one book, this is it. His specific gift is in taking complex research and concepts and explaining them in an easy to understand way. Most importantly, when you read his work, you can start applying the lessons in your own situations.
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