Raise Your Game
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Things I Highlighted is a bulleted list of particular sentences in a book that stuck out to me. These cannot be viewed as general summaries of books, but rather parts of books that struck me in a way that demanded more of my attention. Typically I share one thing I highlighted from each chapter, so they will appear in the same order they appear in the book. This version of Things I Highlighted will cover Raise Your Game, a book written by Alan Stein Jr. that shares high-performance secrets from the best of the best.
Raise Your Game
Chapter 1: Self-Awareness
The most dangerous people in the world are the ones who don't know what they don't know. Taking a bad shot is one thing. Not knowing it was a bad shot? Now you have a problem.
Chapter 2: Passion
When Bill Gates was starting Microsoft, he always promised more than he could deliver. He just said yes, and then he would figure out how to do it afterward. Steve Smith, his marketing director, said, "Virtually everything we sold was not a product when we sold it. We sold promises." Follow that: sell promises. You'll be amazed what you can pull off when it's time to produce.
Chapter 3: Discipline
Every researched who has looked at multitasking has come back with the same conclusion: it's a myth. We don't do two things at once; we move back and forth between two tasks, never getting into the flow of either, each task feeling like a distraction from the other. We like to think we can multitask but we're just half-tasking two things at once.
Chapter 4: Coachability
If a basketball player does a thirty-minute ball-handling workout and never loses the ball, then he did not get any better! All he did was replicate what he was already capable of doing. In order to progress, he has to push past his current limits. If you're not losing the ball, then you're not getting any better.
Chapter 5: Confidence
When I asked him [Mark Cuban] his definition of success, he answered immediately: "Waking up every morning with a smile on my face knowing I'm going to make this a great day."
Not that it was going to be a great day, but that he was going to make it one — that's the key. It's in his hands. That's the power and reach of confidence.
Chapter 6: Vision
Know your vision, and communicate your vision.
It's no good being able to spot the iceberg if you can't get the ship to alter its course.
Chapter 7: Culture
Buy-in means that the members of your organization choose to embrace, share, and maintain the culture a coach is trying to create. A culture doesn't exist because someone at the top says so. It's brought to life by being accepted and reinforced among the rest of the group. Culture requires consent.
Chapter 8: Servant
A leader has to adapt and modify his communication style to each individual person who works for him. Remember: attempting to treat everyone the same means connecting with none of them. A spork isn't both a fork and a spoon. It's neither.
Chapter 9: Character
You earn your reputation through your repetitions. The example you set trumps the instructions you give. A leader's character is fundamental to earning others' respect; without their respect, they won't follow you anywhere.
Chapter 10: Empowerment
A leader's primary job is to find out what each team member does really well and how to best utilize that skill for the team's benefit.
Chapter 11: Belief
When belief is shared in a group, it expands. It latches on to every member of the team and even on to those who are supporting that team. The more people add to that shared pool of belief, the more power it has. Everyone is responsible for carrying and exhibiting that belief, ensuring that it's always present in the group. When one person is having an off day, he can rely on the others' beliefs to power him through. It's a collective feeling that lifts everyone up.
Chapter 12: Unselfishness
Even top talent is not enough to overcome a selfish attitude. For instance, Netflix openly advertises the fact that they don't hire "brilliant jerks" because "the cost to effective teamwork is too high."
Chapter 13: Role Clarity
A leader must examine every person on the team, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what motivates them. Remember: the right role isn't always what a player wants to be; it's what he needs to be for the puzzle to come together.
Chapter 14: Communication
Coach K has long been a huge promoter of honest and consistent communication. His players always had to say each other's names during drills as they passed the ball, which instilled the behavior into their brains and into their game.
Not only was communication necessary at Duke, but Coach K framed it as an attitude issue. When a player was too quiet or introverted on the court, Coach K would attribute it to selfishness. Think about it: when you are not communicating with your team, who is in the dark? You always know what you're thinking so it may not matter to you. But to those around you? It's poison.
Chapter 15: Cohesion
Cohesion means "the action or fact of forming a united whole." It means unity and togetherness, but as the definition states — it is an active thing. It's something a team has to work on. It's something that is done, not something that is.