Book of the Month: Deep Work by Cal Newport

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We live in a distracted world.

Whether it’s our jobs, our homes, or even in public, our worlds are full of stimuli competing for our attention. Technology, for all its advancements, can be the biggest distractor of all. But as the hustle and bustle of our everyday work and home lives continues to bombard our attention, our brains are processing, absorbing everything around us. We’ve become proud of our multi-tasker badges and our to-do lists and our mottos of getting shit done.

But are we as productive as we think? Some days we may feel accomplished, while on other days we’re just trying to keep up.

Most athletes reading this have had many experiences with flow, the term coined by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, which describes a state of concentration or complete absorption in an activity. When we’re engaged in activities that align with our passions and require intense concentration, we’re more likely to feel “in the zone.”

How many times did the referee’s halftime whistle leave us thinking where the half went? For most us, playing in the moment was part of why we made so much progress.

How well have we transferred flow to our everyday work and personal lives?

In Deep Work, author Cal Newport explores how we can produce more by organizing our time to maximize flow. Newport considers deep work the “Professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit.” Deep work, as opposed to shallow work, which entails less cognitive demand and can often be completed while distracted. Along with the work from Czikszentmihalyi, Newport also references the impact of deliberate practice, referenced in a previous post, as a foundational component of deep work. As distractibility becomes even more progressive in our lives, Newport’s argument is for taking back our time to accomplish the tasks that demand our full selves.

One of the disadvantages of multi-tasking and constant interruptions is attention residue, a term coined by researcher Sophie Leroy from the University of Minnesota in 2009. Attention residue describes how when we switch from one task to another, our minds can still remain stuck thinking about the original task. In multiple studies, Leroy explored how switching tasks affects performance and found that “People experiencing attention residue after switching tasks are likely to demonstrate poor performance in the next task.”

Newport uses researcher Adam Grant’s methods of deep work as one of his many examples. Grant, also referenced in a previous post, is an organizational psychologist at Penn who runs a top podcast on top of his teaching and publishing schedule. The key to Grant’s productivity, according to Newport, is his focus on extended deep work. Grant is able to teach all his courses in the fall then dedicate the spring and summer to his research, effectively dedicating each period of time with his full attention. He’s also known to bunker in his office for days or weekends, unplugging from his world, and reminding others he is not available even when they know he’s in his office typing away.

It might seem harmless to take a quick glance at your inbox every ten minutes or so. Indeed, many justify this behavior as better than the old practice of leaving an inbox open on the screen at all times. But Leroy teaches us that this is not in fact much of an improvement. That quick check introduces a new target for your attention. Even worse, by seeing messages that you cannot deal with at the moment (which is almost always the case), you’ll be forced to turn back on primary tasks with a secondary task left unfinished. The attention residue left behind by such unresolved switches dampens your performance.

When we step back from these arguments, we see a clear argument form: To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction. Pu another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work. If you’re not comfortable going deep for extended periods of time, it’ll be difficult to get your performance to the peak levels of quality and quantity increasingly necessary to thrive professionally. Unless your talent and skills absolutely dwarf those of your competition, the deep workers among them will outproduce you.

Grant’s method of deep work may not be viable for everyone. Throughout the book, Newport provides several examples of how creatives, craftsmen, and businessmen alike have patterned their time for deep work. Some prefer a monastic approach, cutting people off with no electronics whatsoever in order to commit to the solitude of their work. The famous 20th Century psychologist Carl Jung used to escape to his retreat in the mountains for a few weeks at a time, where he would write, mediate, and walk before returning to his busy practice and social life in Zurich. Others have found a ritual of time blocks, whether daily, weekly, or monthly, to reserve specific parts of the day to their deep work. There are also experts at short time blocks, like biographer Walter Isaacson, who’ve trained themselves over time to set aside short burst of time throughout the day without any attention residue. Many writers, such as JK Rowling, have even locked themselves away in hotels or retreats for a day or two, or longer, just to get away from everyday responsibilities and engage in a pressing part of their mind.

Whichever method you prefer, the argument is simple. If your goal, like mine, is to be more productive in 2026, it’s up to us to prioritize that time in our day to dedicate to the work. Time blocking is a valuable tool for initiating deliberate practice. The others in your lives—children, spouses, friends, colleagues—may not appreciate being shut out of your life completely for a period of time, but if the work is important to you and they care about you, they’ll hopefully realize the necessity of your deep work and support your intentions.

If not, there’s always the personal vacation.

Book of the Month: Mastery by Robert Greene

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Did you know Albert Einstein finished near the bottom of his class in college? Or that Mozart, although a child prodigy, never composed his greatest music until he escaped his controlling father’s influence? Or that Henry Ford failed repeatedly on his first prototypes of the quadricycle? Or that the Wright brothers were among many inventors and engineers trying to build the first airplane, most of whom were much more experienced, educated, and funded?

In an ever-changing world, where wins and achievements are posted daily across social media and news feeds, it’s easy to get caught up into keeping up. I’m no different than anyone else, trying to improve and grow in multiple areas while managing change. During the journey of being a better father, teacher, writer, and real estate agent, my search has led me toward established processes, action goals, and a drive toward overcoming resistance and boredom. But while my previous book review focused on the role of deliberate practice and increasing deep work, I’m always searching for a greater understanding of the overall journey one takes from amateurism to professionalism, and eventually professional to expert.

Mastery, the best-selling book from Robert Greene, explores the process of growth, breaking down the various steps in which we improve and overcome obstacles in our quest to become better. The book, which is a meaty read, highlights the journeys of numerous successful people, including the periods when they weren’t so successful. With focused dives into the lives of known masters like Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, the Wright brothers, John Coltrane, and Henry Ford as well as lesser-known masters like Yoky Matsuoka, Martha Graham, Cesar Rodriguez, Freddie Roach, Greene establishes there is no singular path toward greatness but enough of a blueprint for others to follow.

Greene breaks the process of mastery into several steps: finding your life’s task, the apprenticeship, the creative-active phase, fusing skills and intuition, and eventually mastery, with numerous examples detailing how those before us navigated the process. One common denominator in every one of Greene’s examples is that no true master skipped steps. Each individual, even the ones we refer to as the geniuses, had to go through each phase before reaching a level at the top of their chosen field.

The first step in the process of mastery involves getting on the right track. Greene highlights masters who found their calling at different stages in their lives. The second step, the apprentice phase, takes the longest of all the phases, and involves learning from more experienced individuals or organizations. Greene breaks down the three phases of the apprenticeship into

1) Deep Observation: The Passive Mode. In the beginning, the apprentice learns by using their senses as the mentor displays the craft.

2) Skills Acquisition: The Practice Mode. The second phase is active. The apprentice learns the requisite skills and progressions with feedback from the mentor.

3) Experimentation: The Active Mode. During the apprenticeship phase, the apprentice becomes an experiential learner, gaining knowledge through trial and error, successes and failures, developing the growth mindset.

One of Greene’s examples follows Cesar Rodriguez, a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, reflecting back to his journey during the apprenticeship of becoming a fighter pilot. A successful high school football player and Citadel graduate, Rodriguez passed his flight training with ease, but when he entered flight school, he struggled initially in the unpredictable, competitive environment with other “fly boys,” highly-touted pilots with more experience and skill. As students dropped out weekly due to the high demands of the program, Rodriguez found himself near the bottom before he had to dig in and refer back to what made him a successful football player. Eventually, he finished third in his class and went on to become one of the brightest pilots in the Air Force, with three air-to-air kills in the 1990s, two away from being designated an ace.

Connecting Rodriguez’s journey to the apprenticeship phase, Greene writes:

What separates masters from others is often something surprisingly simple. Whenever we learn a skill, we frequently reach a point of frustration—what we are learning seems beyond our capabilities. Giving in to these feelings, we unconsciously quit on ourselves before we actually give up. Among the dozens of pilots in Rodriguez’s class who never made the cut, almost all of them had the same level of talent as he did. The difference is not simply a matter of determination, but more trust and faith. Many of those who succeed in life have had the experience in their youth of having mastered some skill—a sport or game, a musical instrument, a foreign language, and so on. Buried in their minds is the sensation of overcoming their frustrations and entering the cycle of accelerated returns. In moments of doubt in the present, the memory of past experiences rises to the surface. Filled with trust in the process, they trudge on well past the point at which others slow down or mentally quit.

It's during the apprenticeship phase where the rubber meets the road. We learn the value of hard work, deep focus, resilience, commitment. Most of all, we are guided by our passion for our chosen field with the assistance of others who offer their support. Eventually, every person must walk their own path, but we often share roadblocks and dead ends that force us to bust through or turn around and re-assess.

Greene believes that once we transition out of the apprenticeship phase, we enter the creative-active phase where we apply our knowledge and begin to bend and shape the rules of our professions, like Neo in The Matrix. We experiment and test boundaries, but because we are at a much more advanced stage than when we were beginners just playing around with our clay, our efforts have the potential to transform our teams, our fields, and our lives, leading us toward the point where our skills become fully immersed with our intuition and our wisdom becomes unmatched.

What makes Greene’s book so unique is the complexities of each individual and their journey toward mastery. We won’t always see ourselves in every model, but there are enough models to gather bits and pieces and utilize the information in our own journeys. Several times while reading I said, “That sounds like me” and put the book down to troubleshoot my own process. It’s both scary and reassuring to know that whatever phase we’re in, a beginner, an apprentice, or a master, trailblazers before us experienced the same. Mastery is not some golden ticket handed out a birth but something each one of us control.

  

Book of the Month: Notes from a Deserter by C.W. Towarnicki

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Under the backdrop of rural Montgomery County, Pennsylvania during the Civil War, Notes from a Deserter delivers a fictionalized account of a real local soldier, William Henry Howe, a war deserter whose grave still sits on his Perkiomenville farm, near where Towarnicki resides. Much of Howe’s life remains largely unknown, but as Towarnicki dove into America’s deadliest conflict and the effects on local farmers joining the cause, he connected the dots between Howe’s 275-mile journey from the Battle of Fredericksburg to a reported firefight with a bounty hunter at Howe’s homestead to the end of a rope at Fort Mifflin, where Howe’s initials are still carved into the jail cell wall. Branching from the main character, Towarnicki captures the period through the points of view of many secondary characters, among them farmers, doctors, soldiers, runaway slaves, and business owners, linking their stories around Howe’s journey.

Towarnicki, born and raised in Warminster, PA, where he graduated from Archbishop Wood, followed his love of the outdoors to the University of Montana before returning home to earn his M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Arcadia University, where we first met. As a writer of historical fiction, he encapsulates the natural world prior to industrialization and the surrounding Philadelphia counties that still cling onto those ideals. While spending a week of residency in Edinburgh, Scotland, with our Arcadia cohort, Towarnicki took several of us to Dunbar and the home of John Muir, the unofficial father of the U.S. National Park and one of our country’s greatest preservationists. He also introduced me to the writings of John McPhee, whose work has had a tremendous impact on my own writing the past ten years.

Here, in the book’s opening, Towarnicki introduces the reader to the main character among his surroundings.

The early glow of dawn emerged with the light of a hovering moon, and blushing red clouds cast faint shadows over the open meadow beside the farmhouse. A barred owl called out in echo of herself, with only a rooster answering.

In that dim beginning of day, William emerged from the wood line holding two rabbits hanging stiff by their feet in one hand, and the traps he pulled in the other. He was a thin man with the hint of a beard. He walked with short, stiff strides as if carrying an invisible sack of feed at all times.

Stepping into the field, he looked uphill toward the stone farmhouse bathing broadside in the sunrise. The window where his wife may have been watching from was a golden mirror of the eastern sky. With a slight tilt of his head, the broad brim of his straw planter’s hat cast his face in a shadow.

The shortening of the days, the recent rains, and his evolving understanding of raising crops had yielded a disorganized patchwork of fields that had not yet produced their potential. He worked the whole growing season in the hopes that his family would be able to rely on the harvest while he was gone to the war. If winter lingered, they would need wild fare to sustain them. He knew this well and laid corners of a springhouse in his mind. Between this imaginary work and dreaming, he could never find the words to tell Hannah of his plans to enlist. Somehow, though, she already knew.

Dealing with tragedies and transformations, Notes from a Deserter effectively portrays the complexity of conflicts that defined our nation’s history through a localized lens.

Book of the Month: Atomic Habits by James Clear

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Our year started by turning fresh ideas into polished goals, waking those first days bright-eyed and coffee-fueled, ignoring the frigid cold, ready to take on the world. Our new fitness plan was going to burn off those dreaded extra holiday pounds or our pledge to quit smoking, drinking, or spending too much time on our phones was taking shape. Then the goal hit a snag. Research shows that New Year’s resolutions rarely make it past the second month, and eventually re-building areas of our life gets pushed aside with intentions of trying again next year. Building a positive habit doesn’t need to wait for the ball to drop. With the right approach, anyone can master the process of forming habits that last.

One of the more popular nonfiction books in recent years, Atomic Habits takes a simplistic approach to the not-so-simple phenomenon of building or breaking habits. James Clear, the well-known blogger turned habit guru, narrows the process of habit formation into four scientific laws, using the metaphor of minor increments of potential energy compounding over time to create life-changing results.

The first law states to make it obvious (or not obvious). Habits are easier to create when the cues are unavoidable. If the goal is to read more, get an exciting book and put it on a chair, bed, desk, or wherever it will be visible. Then prioritize time for the habit, even if it’s only a few minutes. If the goal is to eat more fruits and vegetables, stock the fridge with the essentials where the snacks would normally go. Or if the goal is to spend less time on the phone, put it in another room during dinner or important work that requires focus.

The second law says to make it attractive. Ever see a young player score their first goal? Parents go crazy, teammates swarm, and the coach gives a power high five. Are the reactions the same for giving an assist, blocking a shot, or making the bed? Behaviors that produce positive reactions inspire repeated behaviors. Positive habits can also be reinforced by the environment and people who support them. If we surround ourselves with fitness enthusiasts, we’ll want to go to the gym more. If we join a book club, our reading patterns will increase.

The third law says to make it easy. Action goals are the activities that progress us closer to our main goals. Often, habits fail because the expectations don’t align with our abilities. We tend to overcomplicate things. If the goal is to run a half-marathon by the spring, we wouldn’t normally start out by running 13 miles on day 1. Yet we approach many goals the same way. Lessen the complexity by focusing on the act of getting out of bed a half-hour earlier, putting the running shoes by the coffee pot, or laying out the gear the night before. Create small wins, and over time they’ll turn into bigger wins. Incremental action steps are the key to sustaining the larger habit.

The fourth law states to make it satisfying. What’s a win without a champagne shower and Queen’s “We Are the Champions?” When we make it six miles on a run without stopping or read a challenging book, we can celebrate by doing something enjoyable. Spent four hours without mindless scrolling on social media? Put another dime in the vacation jukebox, baby. Expanding the second law, the most fulfilling part of turning actions into habits is recognizing success so the behavior becomes even more desirable. Eventually, we wake up in the morning craving those positive rewards.

This all sounds legit, but how do we measure success? How do we know when we’ve progressed to a new level. Clear makes a compelling case for habit tracking, one of the simplest tools for maintaining our motivation and focus, and also a habit in itself. Here he writes about the power of habit tracking:

A habit tracker is a simple way to measure whether you did a habit. The most basic format is to get a calendar and cross off each day you stick with your routine. For example, if you meditate on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, each of those dates gets an X. As time rolls by, the calendar becomes a record of your habit streak.

Countless people have tracked their habits, but perhaps the most famous was Benjamin Franklin. Beginning at age twenty, Franklin carried small booklet everywhere he went and used it to track thirteen personal virtues. This list included goals like “Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful” and “Avoiding trifling conversations.” At the end of each day, Franklin would open his booklet and record his progress.

Jerry Seinfeld reportedly uses a habit tracker to stick with his streak of writing jokes. In the documentary Comedian, he explains that his goal is simply to “never break the chain” of writing jokes every day. In other words, he is not focused on how good or bad a particular joke is or how inspired he feels. He is simply focused on showing up and adding to his streak.

Maintaining the flow of action goals is integral to achieving new habit success. Tracking holds us accountable. Doing the activity and recognizing completion keeps the habit formation at the top of our mind. Over a period of time, those repetitive actions eventually evolve from a conscious to an unconscious activity. We can track anything. Gym goers track lifts or cardio sessions, some with the use of technology. Salespeople track phone calls and emails. Teachers track achieved lesson objectives. Business owners track transactions. It doesn’t matter the size of the activities we track, seeing the daily commitment maintains our focus. Even when there are days we miss, and there will be days we miss, starting a new streak without an implosion gets us closer to automaticity.

Book of the Month: The MetaShred Diet

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We all make New Year’s resolutions. Whether it’s to be more present, spend more time with family, or hit that business goal, the change in the calendar provides an opportunity to assess what’s working or not working in our lives and plan a new course of action. For many, that involves getting in better shape and committing to a healthy diet. However, too often those visions of being ripped on a South Jersey beach by July end a couple of weeks into January when life has other ideas.

Committing to healthier eating may be difficult because it requires preparation and discipline. We have to first finish the Christmas cookies, and those leftover bottles of bubbly aren’t going to drink themselves. Fortunately, Dr. Michael Roussell has taken care of the legwork. In his book The MetaShred Diet, the former Men’s Health Nutrition editor maps out a 30 (or 60) day diet plan that guarantees immediate results. I don’t mean the one and done approach where we drop a few pounds then gain it all back with one St. Patty’s Day bender. With preparation and discipline, The MetaShred Diet will help build that desirable physique, creating lifelong habits along the way.

What makes MetaShred so different than other diets? For one, the goal is eating enough food to satisfy daily needs, which are calculated prior to following one of six levels based on caloric requirements. Although the plan is ketogenic based, which means reaching a stage where the body burns fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates, Roussell considers the diet a metabolic reset and not a full-time guide, targeting a specific caloric intake while getting all the essential nutrients.

The plan is easy to follow. Prior to starting, the individual will calculate basal metabolic rate and energy expenditure rate using proven formulas to determine daily caloric needs then reduce that number by 500 calories, not a significant drop. We’re talking one to two fewer servings and eliminating sugars and sweets, empty-calorie foods, and yes, alcohol. The plans follow specific meals from Roussell’s database of recipes with the flexibility of mixing favorites as long as they are within the current phase (fat loss primer or fat loss acceleration). Even after the 30 (or 60) day plan is up, healthy habit formation will lead to MetaShred’s overall goal of building nutritional confidence.

Satiety is one of the core principles of MetaShred, and the feeling of fullness comes from eating enough of the right foods—vegetables and fruits, healthy fats, and protein, one of the most misunderstood macros according to Roussell.

One of the most common antiprotein cries you will hear is that people are already getting too much protein. You’ll then be told that women only need 46 grams of protein and men only need 56 grams. This is true. If you’re only interested in getting enough protein so that you don’t become ill from malnutrition, then please limit your protein intake to no more than 46 or 56 grams, respectively, per day. If you’re looking to get ripped without constantly feeling like you’re so hungry that you could eat shoe leather, you’ll want to take a different approach. The MetaShred Diet isn’t about preventing deficiency, it’s about optimizing and maximizing your progress. And you need more protein to do that.

Built within the MetaShred Diet are concepts that promote muscle protein synthesis. Research shows that getting at least 25 to 30 grams of protein each meal stimulates muscle protein synthesis, triggers satiety, and eliminates the condition known as “skinny fat” in which an individual loses both fat and muscle when trying to restrict calories, resulting in unhealthy weight loss and the body’s natural response to hold onto fat and burn protein as fuel. Roussell emphasizes protein timing, especially post-workout protein smoothies when synthesis peaks.

I found MetaShred over five years ago, after I’d turned forty. I struggled with energy and felt frustrated when minor injuries limited my workouts. I’d developed a bit of a dad bod because my workouts weren’t delivering the same results, yet the main issue was poor eating habits. The first time I followed the diet, I lost 3 pounds the first week and 5 more the second week, but by the third week, the fat burned away as if I were back in preseason training. I lost 8 more pounds over the final two weeks and was soon at my college soccer weight. More importantly, muscle definition returned without muscle loss, and my energy increased, all while maintaining my normal workouts. The only change was eating.

Sugar was the easiest ingredient to cut. I realized how many foods I was eating contain added sugars. It’s shocking. I still enjoy my favorite pizza sparingly, but I’ve learned the value of foods like almond flour and cauliflower rice in my meal planning, which centers around a protein and not a carb like in traditional dishes. I eat more than enough vegetables and fruits, adding variety, and I experiment more with simple spices, herbs, and minimal amounts of sauces like soy, teriyaki, and buffalo, which impact flavor without the need for heavy sweeteners.

At first, the plan can appear overwhelming. With so many new ingredients and so much meal preparation, the first time I followed the diet I felt like a full-time chef. I spent longer than usual in the supermarket finding ingredients and too much time in the kitchen. Soon, I became more efficient. Dinners are lunches the next day by preparing extra portions, and after morning workouts, parfaits make ideal breakfast choices because they’re quick and transportable. I don’t follow the plan throughout the year. It’s not designed that way. I stick to it one month, usually before summer or at the start of the year when the holidays get away from me.

The results are undeniable. Commit to the plan for 30 days (no cheat meals) and experience a new (or old) you.

For more information, listen to Dr. Mike’s podcasts, watch his videos, or read his articles for Men’s Health.

Book of the Month: How Champions Think by Dr. Bob Rotella

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There are books that reside on the bookshelf and there are books that remain bedside. Dr. Bob Rotella’s How Champions Think represents the latter. As a whole, the book can be a guide in teaching the methods and ideas used to help some the greatest athletes of our time prepare for mental success. But when time is limited and information can only be consumed between work, errands, mealtime, or the drive from one game to another, Dr. Rotella’s book becomes a masterpiece. Taken one chapter at a time, a simple phrase or passage can bounce around the mind for hours and provide the key to either unlocking a current problem or reinforcing the path to lucidity.

For decades, Rotella has been known among golf circles as one of the premier sports psychologists. Though golf and sports are an accurate metaphor for life, one doesn’t need to be a golfer or an athlete to find the value of his lessons. Insert work, family, relationships, hobbies, or passions, the comparisons are endless and the messages remain the same. Performance of the mind can be as important if not more important than the performance of the body.

The conversational tone and ease of Rotella’s writing makes it feel as if the reader is on a couch in his basement office surrounded by dozens of photos of the champions he’s helped reach the top. With my athletic days behind me, I’ve found the lessons applicable with the transfer of mastered soccer concepts toward everyday principles in teaching, coaching, writing, and real estate.

Mental health has been a hot-button topic for obvious reasons, but one doesn’t need to be dealing with failure, rejection, or depression to seek mental clarity. A healthy mind can lead to a greater quality of life, but if one’s goal is to be exceptional in a given field, Rotella makes the case that a positive mindset separates the champions from the contenders on a consistent basis.

There are many valuable quotes and passages, but here is one of my favorites:

It’s no coincidence that Phil Mickelson has been a highly successful, exciting golfer, and that he likes to say, “The birdies are in the woods.” What Phil means is that he remains optimistic even when he drives the ball off line, into the woods or rough instead of onto the fairway. That optimism is one reason he sometimes hits amazing recovery shots, like the one he hit off the pine straw to the 13th green en route to taking the 2010 Masters.

The opposite of this sort of situational optimism is an attitude of fear, concern, and doubt. In a word, pessimism. Pessimism tends to rouse the conscious brain and get it engaged. Our minds are programmed to work that way. In certain kinds of difficult situations, it helps to think things out calmly and rationally. I wouldn’t want my financial consultant, for instance, to pick investments for me without engaging it. But the conscious mind isn’t good for shooting or putting. It tends to make basketball players and golfers move stiffly and awkwardly. Balls clank off the rim and putts lurch past the hole.

“The birdies are in the woods” is a phrase that applies to all facets of life, and the message is the foundation of Rotella’s latest book Your Best Shot is Your Next Shot. We make mistakes. We call bad plays. Make the wrong substitution. Hit bad shots. Lose games. But many of us who possess an athlete’s brain continue to command our quest for improvement. Remaining in the present and focusing on the next play (shot/conversation/deal/test/moment) could be the single-most important piece of advice from a legendary mentor whose clients include the exceptional.

As a soccer player, I dabbled with visualization, meditation, progressive relaxation, goal-setting, and self-talk. I consider myself confident, but in hindsight, had I embraced the full power of mental clarity—performing without interference, accepting mistakes, finding and maintaining a flow state, loving the grind, achieving learned effectiveness—I would have spent as much time training my mind to reach its full potential as I did running, lifting, or shooting into a goal. Following Mickelson’s advice, we don’t need to look back to move forward. Whether standing over an approach at the par 4 16th at Five Ponds or preparing for the next sales call, the next moment represents a new opportunity to display that champion’s mindset.

Book of the Month: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant

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Since early adulthood, my bookshelf has been filled with the latest and greatest in the fields of psychology, success, and performance. Recently, I discovered Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton Business School whose primary research is in motivation and meaning. He has given numerous TED Talks, most of which can be viewed online, and his podcast Re:Thinking is a weekly staple. Hidden Potential helps readers recognize and understand qualities that lead to overall success in a wide range of fields. Many former and current athletes may not be surprised that possessing a growth mindset, pushing discomfort, being coachable, and embracing failure are among the many topics discussed.

Grant’s chapter Transforming the Daily Grind narrows down the importance of deliberate play. In particular, he highlights the relationship between trainer Brandon Payne and Steph Curry in which Payne transforms Curry’s intense training sessions into a game. I’ve long believed passionately about the value of deliberate play, which began with my time as an athlete and continued into my teaching and coaching practices. It is the secret ingredient in athletes and teams transferring skills and concepts from the training ground to the competitive field.

Here's a brief passage:

To make practice fun while building technical skills, Brandon created a menu of deliberate play activities. In Twenty-One, you get a minute to score twenty-one points with three-pointers, jump shots, and layups (worth one). But after each shot, you have to sprint to the middle of the court and back. Getting out of breath during the game stimulates the fatigue of the real game. “Every drill is a game,” Brandon explains. “There’s always a time to beat. There’s always a number to beat. If you beat the number and you don’t beat the time, you still lose.”

The downside of competing against others is that you can win without improving. They might have a bad day, or you might benefit from a stroke of good luck. In Brandon’s form of deliberate play, the person you’re competing with is your past self, and the bar you’re raising is for your future self. You’re not aiming for perfect—you’re shooting for better. The only way to win is to grow.

The basis of deliberate play is finding a flow state that balances fun and focus. It’s the understanding that how one practices is what separates great people, teams, and organizations from the rest. It’s been a philosophy long adopted by Brazilian soccer players, award-winning writers and musicians, and many other successful creators.

Grant’s work in not only primary research but in compiling the research of others draws upon a wide range of thinkers and doers. Even in his previous books, Think Again and Originals, he explores small characteristics successful people and groups share that may just help the rest of us find what we need to move that needle closer in our favor.