Hiccupps

I am awesome! I must be, because Matthew Syed told me I am in his book. I bought it for my daughter, to help her to see how awesome she is, and Matthew said it was true. Then my wife read it and apparently she's awesome too. Matthew is promiscuous in his assertions of awesomeness. That's because he believes that everyone can be awesome at almost anything, and in You Are Awesome he explains, in simple terms, how: People who are great at things have always practised really hard. Always. People you think are naturals look that way because all their practice has made their skill second nature. To be awesome you should practice, too. And cultivate a growth mindset, accepting that you can learn, and change, and challenge yourself to do more. Oh yes, and be prepared to fail along the way. But take positives from those failures. Each one contains a suggestion for improvement. And strive for those improvements, particularly continuous micro-improvements. Focus most ...

"Mastering the twelve traits that trap us." That's the subtitle of The Coach's Casebook by Geoff Watts and Kim Morgan, and the traits in question include impostor syndrome, fierce independence, and perfectionism. Varied as they are, they share a few characteristics: they can become problematic for some of those who have them, they have potential upsides, and the authors believe that most people will experience some sense of at least one of them. There are, I estimate, about ... erm ... ten trillion books on coaching out there but a few nice touches set this one apart from others that I've seen. The first is the chapter structures: each starts with a case study of a composite character (based on Watts and Morgan's experience) suffering from one of the traits, is followed by a set of exercises that might be used for others with that trait, and ends with an interview with someone famous who is said to exhibit the trait, and sometimes harnessing it to their...