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.
A fascinating article describes research that is both counterintuitive and has potentially important implications for the worlds of business, sports, education, and beyond. The basic finding, not surprising, is that internal motivation (drive from your values, meaning, passions) produces the best outcomes. What is surprising was the finding that when internal motivation was combined with [...]
I have been working for the past year with a collegiate team with realistic aspirations of winning an NCAA championship. They have been an amazing group of athletes who struggled through challenges, stayed committed to their goals, and came together as a team. It has been a privilege to be a part of the team. [...]
No, this article is not a lame attempt at self-promotion. Rather, it is a challenge for you to take an essential, yet often neglected, piece of the ski racing success puzzle and make it a priority during the off-season. Let me elaborate in three ways. First, I speak to racers, coaches, and parents around North [...]
It’s hard to believe, but there is only about a month of the race season left. After many days of training and racing, the end is in sight. At this late point in the season, you will have fallen into one of three camps as far as how your season has gone. First, you may [...]
‘Tis the season for qualifying. You may want to make the cut for the state championships, U16, U18, or U.S. nationals, or the NCAA championships. You may even have been hoping to qualify for the Sochi Olympics. I can assure you that you are not alone whatever your situation or whatever you are feeling. This [...]
I thoroughly enjoyed Gever Tully’s TED video of “5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do” and agree with his thesis that parents these days are far too protective of their children. Paradoxically, in parents’ well-intentioned attempts at protecting their children from harm, they actually leave them less prepared for the real dangers that your kids will face later in life. I also concur that exposing kids to a little danger can be beneficial to their development. Exposure to what are for them risky experiences, such as using power tools, fire, or a pocket knife, can build confidence, resilience, competence, respect, and responsibility, as well as develop cognitive, emotional, and motor skills that will help children as they transition into adulthood. Of course, it’s easy for Mr. Tully to make this argument when he doesn’t have kids; he doesn’t have the hard-wired “protect your children to ensure their survival” instinct kick in at the first sign of danger. Though exposing children to Mr. Tully’s tangible dangers offers many benefits, I would argue that the dangers that he wants you to expose them to are far less threatening than they actually are because the potentially harmful consequences are immediate and will surely be mitigated by a watchful—though hopefully not overly intrusive—parent. In contrast, I would suggest that you can do five things to your children that are far more “dangerous,” yet will have a far greater impact on them as they develop.
I was recently interviewed for this article on how to develop self-esteem in your children. The writer did a nice job of covering all of the bases.
It's hard to believe, but I’ve been back on snow working with racers since October 16th and that rollercoaster called another winter of ski racing is well underway. Racers aren’t only members of the ski racing community who experience the intense ups and downs of our sport; their parents do too. The fact is that [...]
In recent years, our parenting culture began to send the message that competence was important for building self-esteem and that parents needed to do everything they can to convince their children how competent they were. All very reasonable, to be sure. However, that same parenting culture made a big mistake by telling parents that the way to instill competence in their children was to tell them how competent they were. Parents bought into this message and starting telling their children how smart and talented and wonderful they were. But here's the problem. Children can't be convinced that they are competent. When parents try to convince their children of how competent they are, they often have the exact opposite effect. There is this little thing called reality that children have to confront on a daily basis; life has a way of sending messages about competence that can be in sharp contrast to the out-sized messages of competence that parents send their children. When children are faced with the conflict between what their parents had told them about how good they are and what reality is telling them, the result is the bursting of the “You are the best” bubble that their parents blew up for them. The result: disappointment, hurt, and an actual loss of sense of competence. Let me be clear here: The only way for children to build a true sense of competence is through first-hand experience that includes travails, triumphs, struggles, setbacks, and successes.