The Curious Case of Nick Kyrgios
Up until about 12 months ago, when talking about Australian tennis you could quite comfortably lump Bernard Tomic and Nick Kyrgios into the same too hard basket. Kyrgios had just returned from a ATP suspension for giving up during a match at the Shanghai Masters, whilst Tomic was embroiled in a war of words with Roger Federer after Rog suggested […]
Read MoreChatting with Carol Dweck
Many of you would be well aware that much of my coaching and consulting work revolves around Mindset, and in particular the implications of Fixed and/or Growth Mindset thinking. The world’s leading researcher in this space is Professor Carol Dweck from Stanford University. She was in Australia last week and I caught up with her to […]
Read MoreCoaching: Do You Wanna Impress or Improve?
Imagine a young cricketer who is regarded as an excellent prospect. Let’s call her Sara. She gets selected for a representative training squad, thus getting access to a higher level of coaching than she has had before. As a right-hander, Sara regularly scores runs, but knows she has a weakness when a ball is pitched […]
Read More3 Myths of Mindset
A couple of years ago I tweeted – what I thought – was a great quote from Michael Clarke that illustrated an attitude that could be described as a growth mindset. I was surprised to receive a few responses along the lines of (and one verbatim): “But if he really had a growth mindset then he’d […]
Read MoreCould having goals contribute to depression?
We’re told that having goals is important. At school we teach kids the importance of them whilst there wouldn’t be a boardroom in the country that hasn’t hosted a goal-setting workshop. But what if your goals were making you depressed? Read on… Last week I ran 10km. It took me just over an hour. Whilst […]
Read MoreWhat Tennis Tantrums Teach Us…
Yesterday, Roger Federer won through to the semi-final at the Australian Open beating Tomas Berdych in straight sets. Nothing too surprising there you might suggest, given you know Roger but probably wouldn’t recognise Tomas even if you bumped into him on as he walked off court. But interestingly, Berdych beat Federer in their two previous encounters at Major […]
Read MoreDeveloping a Minecraft Mindset
What’s in this post: How I used Minecraft to discuss Mindset with kids for whom mainstream education doesn’t work Access to the materials I created in order for you to do similar if you wish Of late I’ve found myself working with kids from some fairly tough backgrounds. Whether it’s kids who are wards of the […]
Read MoreLearning about Mindset from Stan
Up until around 12 months ago – unless you were a tennis fanatic – you’d probably not heard of Stanislas Wawrinka. The reason being, Stan is the second best tennis player in Switzerland. The best being… oh you know. Anyway, it was at the 2014 Australian Open when Wawrinka was drawn against Novak Djokovic – a bloke who had […]
Read MoreIf I was interviewing for teaching staff…
Recently I was chatting to a principal about what we would look for in potential staff members if we had the opportunity to build a school from scratch. I scribbled down some notes, and later copied them onto my Tablet. I tweeted it out on my #DoodlesByDan tag and within about 2 hours it had […]
Read MoreWhat do we lose when everyone wins?
We won’t grow resilient kids if we only talk about resilience. Kids need to experience struggle, setbacks and failure if they are going to develop the skillset and mindset to be resilient. If a child only ever experiences success, then we as adults have failed. This is the topic of my latest #OffCampus segment for […]
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