I recently was invited by the Huffington Post (for whom I blog weekly) to write a post about a TED talk by Aimee Mullins, a double-amputee who has received world-wide acclaim as an athlete, actress, model, inspirational speaker, and an innovator for the physically challenged. How we look at so-called disabled people is certainly changing [...]
Not long ago, I gave a keynote address and participated in a Q & A based on my latest parenting book, Raising Generation Tech: Prepare Your Children for a Media-fueled World. Both are now available on my YouTube channel.
This article is a must-read for any parent struggling to maintain control over the runaway train known as youth sports in their family's lives. This is a topic that is near and dear to me because it is something that my wife and I are facing with our two daughters who are now 9 and 7. Like [...]
Not long ago, I completed what has turned out to be a three-week international tour of sport psychology. During my trips, I have worked with athletes and coaches from the U.S., Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Russia in Argentina, California, Oregon, and Switzerland. One question that has emerged during my travels involves the role of mental preparation in athletic development. But before I get to that question, let me provide some back story. Whenever I speak to athletes and coaches, I ask them how important the mind is to sport success. With few exceptions, the response is that the mind is as or more important than the physical and technical side of sports. I am obviously biased given my work in sport psychology, so I won’t take a position on which I believe is more important. But I will say that the mind is an essential piece of the sport performance puzzle. Consider the top-10 athletes, male or female, in any sport. Are they all gifted? Yes. Are they all in exceptional physical condition? Yes. Are they all technically sound? Yes. Do they all have the best equipment? Yes. So, on game day, what separates the best from those who are close, but can’t quite get to the top? All of these other factors being equal, it must be what goes on in their minds.
Words have a powerful influence on children. What we say and the words we use impact their thinking, emotions, and behavior. Early in children’s lives, emotions and behavior are the dominant forces that guide them. But as they develop their cognitive and verbal skills, words begin to play a leading role in their internal and [...]
A compelling article in the New York Times titled All Played Out, written by an orthopedic surgeon and sports father, nails the problem with youth sports directly on the head. Every parent of a young athlete should take a long and hard look in the mirror at why they have their children participating in sports. [...]
Raising compassionate children is no small feat these days. Because of the egocentrism of children's early years combined with the increasingly prevalent messages of selfishness, narcissism, and indifference that popular culture communicates to them, children are not likely to readily learn compassion on their own. This means that you have to make an extra effort to [...]
Very much in line with my own views on the overuse of technology, this article describes 8 Ways Technology Makes Us Stupid. I'm quite sure that the majority of us can relate to each of the eight.
Disruption is certainly in vogue these days in the business world. Yet, an interesting and contrarian article in The New Yorker challenges the conventional wisdom that disruptive innovation actually work. The writer debunks much of the findings of the Harvard professor and business guru Clayton Christensen that businesses and industries evolve or die through disruptive innovation.
In a recent post, I introduced you to The 5 Things Great Leaders Do Very Well, in which I described the five essential roles that leaders must fulfill to be successful: 1. Leader as person 2. Leader as performer 3. Leader as team builder 4. Leader as decision maker 5. Leader as change agent In the follow-up post, I explored Leader as Person in which I argue that who you are is how you lead. In this post, I will examine your role as Leader as Performer and how this focus ensures that you and your team have the necessary tools to maximize your performances and, as a result, your successes. Performance is so vital because it is the foundation for two higher-order goals of individual and organizational success in the business world: productivity and profitability. The only way to maximize these two is to maximize performance.