Book Review

The Books' Topics:

This is a motivational book. You can consider teachers to be motivators of their students, and you can substitute the word "Teacher" for "Coach" through most of the book.

The central themes of this book are:

• Coaches have to walk the talk before they have the authority to motivate


• Honesty and integrity are for a coach to loose, and regaining trust takes a long time

• Conviction-Driven: Never compromise your beliefs


• Overlearning: Practice until it's perfect


• Audible-Ready: Know when to Change


• Consistency: Respond predictably to performance


• Honesty-Based: Walk your talk

Main Idea:

Tough, street-wise students will over run a teacher that is not prepared.

However, the teacher that is prepared can do the job with a minimal skill set, and very basic tools.

Quotes:

"What do you stand for?...What is the main message you broadcast to people based upon your daily actions and words? Remember, if you don't stand for something,
you'll fall for anything."

(p. - 9)

"Beliefs are what make things happen. Beliefs come true. Inadequate beliefs are setups for inadequate performance. And it's the coach's --the leader's--beliefs that are most important, because they are self-fulfilling."
(p. - 13)

"It sounds trite, but one of the marks of real success in life is to believe that there's a reason for everything. We can't control every event, but we can control our response to it. Life is unpredictable. What makes a winner is that when something happens, that person's brings forth attitudes that can take good events and make them better; likewise it transforms bad events into opportunities to learn."
(p. - 27)

"...Remember, there is no easy walk to excellence. You and your team have to train so hard that you are almost perfect on the day of the game. The best of the best know that there is no such thing as a shortcut. All great results are built on the foundation of practice and preparation."
(P. - 33)

"I ask people all the time, 'Given the amount of time you spend at work, would you rather spend that time being magnificent or ordinary.' 'What do you think they say?' They shout out, 'Magnificent!' And yet, are most of the people in organizations performing magnificently? Of course not. And a key reason is the self-fulfilling prophesy that starts in leaders', managers', coaches', and parents' heads, what the belief that most people are lazy, unreliable, and irresponsible. This belief plays out in how they treat people, and ultimately how these people perform."
(p. - 41)

"...setting goals is important, but most organizations overemphasize this process and don't pay enough attention to what needs to be done to achieve the goals. More important than setting the goals is the follow-up--attention to detail, demand for practice perfection, and all the things that separate things that separate teams that win from those that don't."
(p. - 43)

"Many people are struggling right now because they haven't learned the power of flexibility. They are still living in the past. They are scared to move forward. You know why? Because they don't have the confidence to do so. They are afraid of failure. They are fearful of looking stupid. They doubt themselves. They are stuck in a rut."
(p. - 53)

"There are four consequences or responses people can receive after they perform or do something. The most common response people get for their performance is no response. They do something and no one says anything. The next most common response is negative--they get zapped. As a result, many managers are seen as 'seagull managers.' They are not around until something goes wrong and then they fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on people, and then fly out. Not a very helpfulway to be managed.
The last two responses--redirection and positive--are the least used and most effective. When someone does something wrong, redirection focuses his or her energy back on what the original goal was. A positive consequence is welcome when a person does something right or makes progress."
(p. - 69)

"Perhaps today's leaders are too focused upon what's
urgent to take time for what is important."
(p. - 77)

"Redirecting is the way to correct a mistake when an individual or team has not learned to do what you want them to do. If people make mistakes while they are learning and you yell at them or punish them, you'll only increase their anxiety and motivate them to avoid the punisher--you."
(p. - 79)

"We promise you that you can only be your best when you are entirely authentic. That means you're not trying to be anybody else. You are being your own true character. You are being honest, not just with other people, but with yourself as well."
(P. - 85)

"A lot of leaders want to tell people what to do, but they don't provide the example. 'Do as I say, not as I do,' doesn't cut it when leading people to a destination of success."
(p. - 91)

Issues Addressed by the Book:

This book addresses the attitude and motivation that all teachers need to internalize and actualize.

Basics that are explored include:

The attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of a record holding professional football coach.

The Book's Shortcomings:

The authors assume that everyone wants to contribute the best of themselves and do whatever it takes to actualize unqualified success in their lives.

The book is long on motivation and a philosophy of success, but does not offer a roadmap of how we turn our character into this kind of competitive personality.

Also, the book assumes that everyone wants to compete and win.

But, some people want to share, teach, heal, inspire, and love.

Others want to create music, dance, poetry, song and literary works...and their passion is not to lead others, but to actualize only the best from within themselves.

Some people want to cooperate on a team, others find that a team
limits their contributions because their gifts are individual, unique and exquisite. For these people, the rule of being authentically themselves overrides the rule about teamwork because the team "waters down" their contributions.

Comments:

Easy to read book. However, the full price seems steep for the amount of information that is contained in the book.

Coaching a professional football team would be like teaching a class with students who all had IQs of over 150...students who were paid thousands of dollars an hour to study.

If professional football players have to be motivated despite their talent and high pay, how much more motivation would ordinary students require?