I always enjoy reading books about how other people work. I always enjoy learning from their approaches, their methods and their strategies and thinking about what could be beneficial for my own practice and the teams I have the pleasure to be working with. I always enjoy learning new stories about how coaches work with their athletes in order to help them develop personally and enhance their performance at the same time and how these stories can help athletes, teams and coaches I am working with. In The Barcelona Way author Damian Hughes shares exactly these information that are helpful to me and my work, and he combines the stories with scientific theories and models, which makes the book be anecdotal yet (as far as possible) “scientifically” explained.

The Barcelona Way is the right book for you if you are interested in football and if you want to learn how FC Barcelona works with their players in order to be one of the most successful teams today. The Barcelona Way is for you if you want to learn from coaches like Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola and adapt some of their approaches for your work with your teams – no matter if you are working in sports or in business. The Barcelona Way is the right book for you if you want to learn about how the education in La Masia – the youth academy at FC Barcelona – educates young players and how that influences the transition from youth teams to the first team. The Barcelona Way is the right book for you if you want to read about different stories that occurred over the decades at FC Barcelona, because most often they are very powerful to share with your own athletes or coaches.

To make one thing clear at the very beginning: Tiger Woods is an unauthorized biography. Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian conducted hundreds of interviews with people who surrounded the Woods’ family in the past 40 years and who didn’t sign a confidentiality agreement during that time. They read thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, read every book about Tiger Woods, just to write an exhaustive and comprehensive portrait about one of the most successful golfers in history. This diligence and their willingness to show the world who Tiger Woods really is (or seems to be) created a portrait of a person that is highly insecure, has done many things wrong in his life and that still astonishes and fascinates people from around the world with his abilities and skills. As soon as you start reading Tiger Woods you will learn about his parents, about the fact that his name Eldrick was chosen because the first letter “E” refers to his father Earl and the last letter “K” refers to his mother Kultida showing him and the world that he will always be surrounded by his parents. Always. You will learn about his academic life in Stanford, about him being an introvert, about women approaching him, about marriage, about his addiction to sex, about pain killers, about health issues and about him being raised as a “cold-blooded assassin” who dominated the world of golf. If Tiger Woods wouldn’t be a biography it would be a perfect Shakespearean novel, telling the story of the rise and fall of a human being.

Tiger Woods is the right book for you, if you enjoy biographies about people – especially if they seem to live at least two or three lives at a time, without anyone realizing it. Tiger Woods is for you, if you want to learn about parenting gone wrong (that is my personal opinion) and if you would like to have stories to tell during parent-coach meetings or other workshops. Tiger Woods is the right book for you, if you want to learn about the personality of one of the most successful golfers in history, and if you want to see if there is anything you can and want to learn from Tiger Woods – and I am sure and convinced that there are a lot of things someone who wants to become and stay (!) successful in sports or any other domain can learn from him. Apart from his character especially off the golf course. Tiger Woods is for you, if you want to practice yourself in not-judging someone solely based on his or her actions, and to understand and accept him or her the way he or she is.

Everyone knows how it feels when the going gets tough. Not only during important matches, at iconic competitions or very difficult training sessions, but also in life in general. Sometimes those situations might feel overwhelming. However, some athletes have the ability to push through those situations and successfully cope with the various stressors compared to others. The question that many people and athletes ask me and themselves is: “How do they do it?” What distinguishes those “strong” athletes from “weak” athletes – and I know that strong and weak are not the right words – but these are the words many coaches, spectators, coaches, and even other athletes use when they talk with me. I can’t tell, what those successful athletes exactly do to “push through”, but I know from what I read, what I observe, what I learn and what I do that one key ingredient to a successful life and career is resilience. Resilience in its essence has been scientifically described as the mental processes and behaviors that protect individuals from potentially (!) negative effects of any stressor. Now, does that sound a bit complicated? Maybe. And that’s why I really like Resilience by Eric Greitens, who has written a book that is straightforward about what resilience is, how exactly it might help every individual to deal with almost any kind of stressor, and what everyone of us can do to develop resiliency – and how we can help others develop their resilience, no matter if they are an athlete, coach, a friend, a colleague, a client or someone else who asks for our help.

Resilience is the right book for you, if you are struggling with anything in your own life right now – or if you are working with people who face any kind of challenge at the moment. Resilience will help you get a new perspective on what is happening in your life right now, what it could mean for your personal development in the long run, and how to deal with it today. Resilience is the right book for you if you want to learn more about how philosophy can help you and your athletes change their habits and sometimes maleficent behaviors. Resilience is also the right book for you if you want to learn about how some of the presumably strongest and best warriors of today, the U.S. Navy SEALs, are prone to impaired mental well-being and how one man tries to help and support one of his former comrades in dealing with PTSD. Resilience will show you how you and your athletes can develop resilience on a very practical level, based on Stoic philosophy, previous experiences, the focus on the present moment and finding a purpose in life.

People want to hear stories. Personal stories, fictional stories, non-fictional stories, tales, wonders, fables, experiences, adventures and so on and so forth. There is a clear rational why children want to listen to stories. We learn so much from such stories, because we know or at least have the feeling that we can relate to what is happening to the protagonist or how he or she behaves, thinks or feels. However, when working with other people it is sometimes difficult for me to find another story I can tell this athlete or that client. Sometimes I have the feeling that I have told all stories I know already – maybe even twice. Thus, I’m always looking for new stories I can share with my clients. Stories from other athletes, from teams, and coaches, but also from politicians, ordinary people like you and I, tales, fables – literally everything I can find. With its 50 stories, tales and fables Let me tell you a story is the perfect book for everyone who loves to tell stories, and I am more than grateful that I received this book as a gift from a very good friend and colleague.

Let me tell you a story is the right book for you if you are looking for stories that help you improve your work with your clients. Let me tell you a story is the right book for you if you personally like to listen to stories and tales and fables that have a meaning, and might be able to change your perspective on what is happening in your life or in the life of your clients. Let me tell you a story is the right book for you if you are looking for a small book that you not necessarily need to read from front to back, but that you can pick up whenever you feel like reading another story. Let me tell you a story is the right book for you if you want to improve your own storytelling as an educator, sport psychologist, teacher, parent or simply as someone who enjoys telling stories and helps other people understand the wonder of life a little better.

Most books about sport psychology are either too scientific or too shallow in their content. In my opinion, most authors who write about sport psychology and how it might help athletes and coaches don’t really help the reader understand what mental skills are, how the brain works, and how the readers are able to change their behaviors, their thoughts or to regulate their emotions. Moreover, what most books about sport psychology lack are real life examples from athletes, how they struggled to deal with pressure, injuries, poor performances, anxiety or impaired self-confidence. From all the books I read so far about the background, the strategies and the application of sport psychology, I must admit that there are only very few books that explain the mechanisms behind human behavior in general and an athletes behavior in particular as well as the much needed strategies in an comprehensive, correct and compelling way. The Brave Athlete is different.

The Brave Athlete is for you, if you truly want to understand the mechanisms behind human behavior and learn a new way on how to talk about these mechanisms with your athletes. The Brave Athlete is for you, if you want to learn more techniques and strategies to deal with low self-confidence, high pressure, injuries, or deal with adversity, which you can teach your athletes or apply them yourself. The Brave Athlete is also for you, if you want to get an idea of how other athletes (not necessarily famous elite athletes, but athletes like you and me) deal with challenges and how they cope with the different situations and how they apply the presented strategies. The Brave Athlete is quite entertaining from time to time, and if you like the written style of the book you will definitely benefit from it.

Most of the time I wonder which strategies I can teach athletes and coaches to help them improve their physical and mental performances, their reaction time, their attention, or reduce their perceived stress. Although I know that our ability to perform (physically and mentally) depends largely on what we eat, I seldom look at what athletes eat or drink – because that’s the job of their nutritionist, right?! No! It can and should be also our job to recommend food that is beneficial for the athletes’ mental performance. Athletes and coaches often talk about which diet affects the athletes’ fitness – but most often they forget how the diet affects the hungriest organ in the body: the brain.

Brain Food by Dr Lisa Mosconi is a great source of knowledge for you and your clients. It will provide you with evidence-based research results that highlight the nutrition-brain connection. Brain Food will support you to slightly adjust your diet in order to improve your own and your athletes’ mental capacities. Brain Food will also show you how changing your diet is able to reduce stress, cognitive decline or memory loss, and increase your focus, your attention and how you cope with certain situations. Most importantly, by reading Brain Food you will learn some brain-boosting recipes and lists of what to eat and what to avoid, when striving to improve your cognitive and mental performances.

Have you ever wondered why some athletes seem to have no problem whatsoever to deal with pain, heat, cold, fatigue, challenges, hunger, rain, problems, thirst etc., whereas others surrender as soon as the first cloud appears in the sky, a muscle doesn’t feel well, or a toe nail is hurting? I do. On a regular basis. Moreover I always ask myself, how to teach the ability or skill (by the way: what is it exactly?!) to cope with all of the above; how to help athletes better deal with adversities during training and competition; how to explain what it takes to endure exhausting and strenuous trainings, competitions and tournaments. As soon as I read the subtitle of Endure by Alex Hutchinson I knew I had to read this book. The subtitle says: Mind, body and the curiously elastic limits of human performance. Although this book has been written for endurance athletes in the first place, I knew that there is a lot inside the book that will also help me understand why some athletes are able to suffer more than others, understand the mechanisms behind it and get an idea of how to train and practice the ability to endure and suffer when it is needed.

Endure is definitely the right book for you, if you are an endurance athlete or working with endurance athletes, and if you want to understand how to improve the performance both during training and especially during competition. Endure is also for you, if you want to understand the underlying and innate mechanisms that prevent us from harming ourselves and our health during physical activity – and that does not only relate to sports, but also to everyday life. Moreover, Endure is the right book for you, if you want to understand why some athletes seem to have no problem to suffer and cope with exhausting and strenuous situations during training and competition, and what distinguishes them from the rest. Having said that, Endure is for you, if you also want to learn about different ways on how to train the brain to be better able to deal with pain, fatigue, thirst, heat, etc., and how to teach this to various athletes from different sports. Endure made me think differently about how some aspects of how I work with athletes, and I’m sure that you will learn a lot from this book as well.

In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin shared the most important lessons they learned while serving in Iraq for the U.S. Navy SEALs – a book I really enjoyed reading, because it describes not only a life I can barely imagine for myself, but because they transferred their experiences on the battle field into businesses and sports teams. Now, with The Dichotomy of Leadership they take the next step by clarifying some questions that have been left unanswered in Extreme Ownership and adding even more experiences from their deployments to Iraq and how these might help people in other contexts better lead their teams. Just like in their first book, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin divide each chapter into a real-life story from their deployments and combat training, the underlying leadership principle from that story, and how this principle can be applied in business. Thus, it is very easy to follow and understand the content of the book, because the two authors explain and transfer their knowledge and experiences well-orchestrated.

The Dichotomy of Leadership is the right book for you if you want to learn how U.S. Navy SEALs lead under some of the most violent conditions on earth, and how their experiences can help coaches, teams, athletes, business leaders and entrepreneurs in other contexts. The Dichotomy of Leadership is also for you, if you are interested in leadership challenges U.S. Navy SEALs and other special forces around the world face and how they deal with such situations. In addition, The Dichotomy of Leadership is for you if you generally want to learn from professionals in other contexts and see how they can help you lead your team, class or company. I personally enjoy reading Jocko Willink’s books and listening to his podcast Jocko Podcast, because he shares a lot of value with his readers and listeners.

Right now, at the beginning of a new year people are setting new goals and resolutions for the future and are eager to achieve these goals. Unfortunately, by mid-February most of the goals are nothing but smoke and mirrors. Either the goals were too ambitious, too easy, not attractive, didn’t fit the person or didn’t satisfy the needs of the individual. Today, many people only talk about goal setting and what one needs to do to keep the motivation as high as possible. But let’s be honest: sometimes it’s not easy to be motivated to get up at 5.15am to work out, although you don’t have any time for sport during the day. And sometimes it’s not easy to resist that cookie (and the additional 6 cookies) because they’re just too delicious. If people decide to hit the Snooze button or eat these cookies, they didn’t give up on their goals – they just had a weak moment. They’re still motivated. But their needs, desires and old habits just got in their way. How we all can deal with such situations is what James Clear talks about in his book Atomic Habits, and he shows us exactly what to do to create habits that help us achieve what we want in the long run.

Atomic Habits is the right book for you if you want to change your own behaviors in one way or another, or if you want to help others adjust their behaviors. Atomic Habits is also for you, if you don’t want to be among those who put #resolutionfail under their Instagram posts by mid-February. Atomic Habits is also for you if you want to learn several methods you can directly apply to change your own behavior, and thus stay on track in order to achieve your goals. To be honest, I think everyone who deals in one way or another with behavior – may it be as a coach, sport psychologist, teacher, parent, athlete, manager, physician, therapist etc. – should read Atomic Habits. It will help you work better with the people around you, help them change their behavior for the good and probably resist these delicious cookies on the table.

Only a few years ago I learnt about the incredible power of slow paced breathing, mindfulness practice and meditation. Today, I’m practicing mindfulness and meditation on a daily basis and it is one of the first methods I encourage athletes, coaches or students to learn, if they want to be better able to deal with stressful situations. To me, one of the most important sentences from Wherever you go, there you are is “You can’t stop the waves from coming, but you can learn to surf”. As a surfer myself I know what waves feel like that are breaking right over your head and then put you into a relentless washing machine. But this sentence does not only resonate with surfers – I believe and I know that this sentence perfectly fits as a description for all of our lives. We never know what might be happening next – like we never know which wave will come at us next and how big it’s going to be. We are not able to fight these waves. If we try, we are very likely to get tired and exhausted, lose our power and strength and maybe even drown. But, if we accept that waves are coming at us and that these waves are simply part of the ocean and of our lives, there is one thing we can do: learn to surf and use the power of the waves to our advantage. If you don’t believe me, take a closer look at my logo! In my opinion, Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book Wherever you go, there you are is THE book you should know and read if you want to 1) understand the real notion behind mindfulness and meditation yourself and if you want to 2) help others learn about mindfulness meditation and how to integrate it into their lives.

Wherever you go, there you are is the right book for you if you are basically interested in mindfulness and meditation, but you really do not know what it is. However, Wherever you go, there you are is even more for you if you think that mindfulness and meditation is NOT for you. Jon Kabat-Zinn will show you exactly what mindfulness and meditation is, how it helps millions of people in the world every day to cope with all kinds of situations, live in the present moment or overcome anxiety. Wherever you go, there you are will help you and your clients understand the power of mindfulness and meditation, and suggest several techniques, methods and strategies on how to integrate both in your everyday life. For me personally, this book has clarified many things about mindfulness and meditation, and after reading it I understand the concept and the idea behind it a lot better, and I think I’m more capable of telling other people about mindfulness meditation.

I have heard about Mindset before, I read many reviews about this book and I always thought: “Well, what’s the new thing about that book? We either believe we can’t improve our abilities a lot and our abilities are pre-determined and fixed, or we believe that we can learn, improve and grow. I see that every day at university, in sports and my private life. Why should I read a book about that topic?”. However, after some of my students told me that they really enjoyed the book and one particular athlete told me how much he enjoys reading Mindset I thought: “Ok, let’s give it a try. I’ve read a couple of bad books last year, so it can only be better.” You know what? It’s one of the best books I’ve read in 2018 and probably over the past two or three years.

Mindset is for everyone who wants to understand what makes some people put in more work and more effort, and what makes other people give up quickly. Mindset is for everyone who is working with human beings in whatever context, and who wants to learn what behaviors are helpful and beneficial, that really help your athletes, students, clients etc. to improve and learn, and develop a growth mindset themselves. Mindset is for everyone who thinks that you already know everything about attitude and mindsets of different kinds. Mindset will show you evidence-based results on why it is so important to have a growth mindset, and how it impacts our lives. …and to be honest, Mindset changed my personal mindsets in some contexts. I hope it will do so for you as well.

One of the most common conversations with team sport coaches is, how they can make the quiet players talk more and louder. I bet that if you’re into team sports you have heard a coach say: “You’ve got to talk more!” To be honest, I’ve thought about methods and strategies how a coach, team mates or I can support a quiet player to talk and communicate more. I mean, in many situations in sport it is absolutely crucial to communicate. At some point I thought, that I need to find out more about why some players (and people) talk more than others do. Obviously, the topic of introversion and extroversion (to stay with the more common spelling outside of psychology) and the underlying concepts of personality aren’t new to me. But I had the feeling that I didn’t know enough about it – and that was when I came across Quiet by Susan Cain. In my opinion, Quiet is a very good book that gives great insight into the difference between introverts and extroverts, explains the several underlying mechanisms science identified over the past decades, and shares many advices on how to work with introverts and empower them to use and apply their strengths in whatever context you and they are in. …and when you know that 30-50% of all human beings are introverts, it is very likely that you’re working with some of them, and it would be a good thing to know what drives them and how to approach them.

Quiet is for everybody who is interested to learn more about the differences between introverts and extroverts – may it be out of personal interest and curiosity to learn more about yourself (because you might think that you are an introvert) or because you want to learn more about how to live, work or coach someone who is rather introverted. Quiet really offers some interesting facts and research results about introverts and extroverts, and how we could all adapt our coaching, parenting or working style to meet the needs of the person and especially the personality and character in front of us. All in all, Quiet has helped me see myself, my students and clients from a different angle, and it provides me with various information about why people behave the way they do and develop new ideas and strategies to support them in order to be able to use and apply their strengths for their own and their teams’ benefit, whereas at the same time it’s our job to support other introverts to stay true to their own character and personality.

I often talk to coaches, parents, my students and definitely with athletes and we discuss why some people are more successful than others. Quite often people start talking about talent and that some athletes are lucky to be born tall, with a lot of fast twitch muscle fibers, and a near perfect aerobic capacity. Well, is this it? Do our genes define if we will be successful in sports, business, arts etc.?! After many years in sports, after reading a lot about successful people and what helped them achieve their goals and after observing others who didn’t make it to the top there is not only one answer to that question. But many books exist out there that try to solve at least part of the puzzle, and one of the more interesting books is Outliers.

This book is for you, if you’re interested in more factors that impact the development of an athlete, employee or child, apart from genes, motivation or a positive mindset. Outliers will assist you in answering the question, if what you see is really what is present. Sometimes there are more influences than are evident at first sight, and Outliers might be a source to broaden your perspective once more. Or at least, Outliers will remind you to think about more factors than only body height, weight or IQ. If you’re curious about talent identification, you could also read The Goldmine Effect by Rasmus Ankersen, which focuses solely on sports and successful athletes. However, I prefer Outliers because it includes many scientific studies and statistics, whereas The Goldmine Effect is rather anecdotally. Nonetheless, The Goldmine Effect includes countless interesting stories about some of the best and most successful athletes in the world that illustrate how these athletes achieved their goals.

Usually, coaches don’t share their strategies. They want to keep their secrets to success to themselves, so that no one will be able to have as much as – or even worse: more – success as they have. Coach K is different. He shares all of his strategies (well, at least many of them) with us, and shows us how he works with his teams during pre-season, regular season, post-season and all year long. Coach K describes in detail what he says to his players, what he does with his athletes and how he strives to make each and every one of them better. Leading with the heart is not the best book I’ve ever read, but it is a wonderful source of inspiration for every coach who not only wants to shine through teaching sport-specific techniques and tactics – but who also wants to develop the character in each athlete, team member, and form a successful team (whatever “successful” means here…!).

Leading with the heart is for everyone who is eager to learn from one of the best basketball coaches in the world. Not about basketball. But about how a coach can inspire others; how a coach can create strong bonds with his or her athletes; how a coach can lead a team of individuals; or how a coach can develop relationships that help everyone achieve individual and common goals. Leading with the heart is for you, if you’re looking for simple strategies everyone can implement in his or her training, teaching, coaching or leading sport or business teams. I always take notes in the back of the books, and the back of Leading with the heart is covered with ideas, strategies and methods that I think are helpful and that I want to try and apply with my athletes, teams, coaches and even students.

Have you ever wondered why you made a specific decision, and you are absolutely not able to explain WHY you made that decision? Or did you ever ask yourself why your athletes are not able to make the “right” decisions during a match? Or where our intuition comes from, and if we can (and should – or should not) trust our intuition? I mean, there are some athletes in the world who just play their sports by intuition. They seem to have a talent that others don’t have. How do they do it? If one of these questions sounds somewhat familiar to you, Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman will provide you with many answers and possible solutions.

Thinking, Fast and Slow is for you, if you are interested in the psychology of judgment, decision-making, and intuition. It might sound really complicated and scientific, but Daniel Kahneman did a great job in breaking his invaluable knowledge down into short chapters in which he is totally able to deconstruct and easily explain all the processes that are going on in our fantastic mind, so that everyone can understand it. Once you read about all these great experiments and what they mean for our personal lives, you will directly generate new ideas how you could implement one finding or another into your own personal life or the work with your athletes, coaches and teams. Think slow, make a concentrated decision – and get that book FAST!

Just to be clear: you’ll need a year to read The Daily Stoic. This is not the typical book you pick up once, read it from front to back and put it into your bookshelf. Instead, The Daily Stoic is a book you pick up every single day, read one page and put it back in its place where it waits for you until tomorrow. For me personally, The Daily Stoic rests on our dining table where it reminds me every morning to read today’s teaching and think about what it might mean for my own life and the people around me.
Nowadays – somehow unfortunately – most people only follow other so-called influencers or celebrities and believe that what ever these people are saying is true and right and should be done in their own lives as well. But from my point of view we almost totally neglect the knowledge and wisdom of people who have lived hundreds and maybe even thousands of years ago. If we take a closer look at what they (or their students) wrote down, we come to realize that their experiences still resonate with our lives today as well. We are not much different compared to people in Rome or Athens 2,000 years ago. They might have faced different challenges in their daily lives; they did not have cell phones, computers or TVs. But they asked themselves the same questions we do: Where can I find joy? What does success mean to me? How can I deal with anger? Why am I doing what I am doing?

The Daily Stoic is for you, if you are interested in what you can learn from philosophy, and how the experiences of emperors, philosophers and slaves can help you to better deal with stress, anger, or grief, and lead a joyful life. You should read The Daily Stoic if you think that you can benefit from Stoicism, but reading the original texts and interpreting them for yourself seems too strenuous and difficult. Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselmann take you by the hand and help you make the first step into the wonderful land of stoic philosophy. You don’t want to miss that journey!

I heard about Happy teachers change the world a couple of months ago, but it wasn’t until I read more on mindfulness and Zen meditation, that I realized just how impactful Thich Nhat Hanhs’ teachings on mindfulness and compassion are. I read only few things about Thich Nhat Hanh and how he describes the importance of being mindful, having a compassionate heart and learning about the art of mindfulness to finally pick up Happy teachers change the world – and I am happy I did.

I recommend Happy teachers change the world to everyone who is interested in new ways that help him or her to teach and facilitate mindfulness in a given setting. Again, this setting can be anything from kindergarten, to school, university, a sports club or a company. With some of the practices you might think “That’s totally not for me”, and with others you might think “Yes, I could try this with my class, team, group”. Happy teachers change the world will definitely help you understand the benefits of using mindfulness with children and young people, and it will take you by the hand and lead you to find the right method you can apply with your target group.

On the journey through this book, Ryan Holiday shares a lot of stories about Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, George Washington, Arthur Ashe, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, just to name a few. All of the stories have in common that the different protagonists focused on what they could control and what they couldn’t – the basic, 2,000-year-old principle of Stoicism, one of the most influential Greek philosophies. We all can definitely learn a lot from Stoicism, if we want to lead happier and healthier lives.

I definitely recommend The Obstacle is the Way to everyone. It’s not only athletes, coaches, students, or rocket scientist who need to deal with adversities: everyone does. Some people struggle more, some struggle less. But at some time in our being on earth life throws some mean jabs and uppercuts at us. As soon as that happens it’s better to be prepared, to know that they are an inherent part of our lives and that they are meant to be dealt with. It’s better to expect them. It’s better to know that you can either be knocked out, or dance with them. If you want to choose wisely, The Obstacle is the Way will help you find a way.

The Push by Tommy Caldwell is the biography about his life and adventures as a son, friend, husband, father, athlete, and adventurer. From my perspective, The Push is an excellent example for what traits and attitudes successful athletes need, how they apply some of the most basic sport psychological techniques and how that again helps them to achieve their goals. This book will give you immediate insight into the pain, the hard work, the discipline, the mental obstacles, the losses, the joy and the perseverance Tommy Caldwell experienced on his years-long journey to finally push through the Dawn Wall at El Capitan.

You should read The Push if you want to look outside your own sport and learn how a world class climber prepares himself and his trips for establishing and pushing through new climbing routes. Moreover, you should read this book, if you want to learn how Tommy Caldwell pushed not only through the walls he climbed, but also how he pushed through all the adversities and challenges life threw at him. You will not only learn about his life, but also about some other incredible climbers like his climbing partner on the Dawn Wall, Kevin Jorgeson or Alex Honnold. The Push is a great source of knowledge and experience from one of the most successful climbers in the world and in my opinion everyone can learn and benefit from Tommy Caldwell’s experiences out their on his various routes on different walls and mountains distributed across our beautiful planet.

Turn the ship around is not just the description of David Marquet’s journey of becoming and serving as captain aboard the USS Santa Fe. Turn the ship around is a book about leadership – more specifically, about his leader-leader approach and how he managed to transform his ship and his crew achieving the highest retention and operational standings in the U.S. Navy. The approach David Marquet takes and describes in his book is not limited to commanding a submarine, and you will definitely learn a lot about how you can improve your own leadership by using some of the strategies he shares with you.

Turn the ship around and its message is totally in line with how I am working with athletes, coaches, students, and every other client. The core message of Turn the ship around his that a leader has to build leaders and help others become (better) leaders themselves. This book is about empowering others, about giving autonomy, teaching the right strategies to more efficiently solve problems and achieving excellence in whatever you are doing. This book is for everyone who is working with teams, and who wants to develop a leader-leader, instead of a leader-follower relationship. This book is about creating an empowering and positive motivational climate in your team, and helping your team members to motivate themselves (and stay motivated in the future!). If you want to become a (better) leader yourself, you should definitely read this book.

Is this the best book I’ve ever read? No. Then why do I recommend this book to every athlete, coach, sport psychologist or someone who is interested in personal development? I do recommend this book because from my perspective it is an essential book everyone who is actively involved in sport should have read once. I think everyone should know about Michael Phelps’ victories, performances, how he trained, prepared and finally broke a 2.168 year old Olympic record, set by Leonidas of Rhodes, after winning his 13th individual gold medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in London (his 28th medal at Olympic Games overall!). To me, Michael Phelps is a role model in the way he trains, prepares and competes, and his races gave and still give me goose bumps.

Who should read this book? I think every coach, athlete or simply everyone who is interested in sports and who wants to learn from the best should read No Limits. If you’re a swimmer you should definitely read this book. If you want to know what it is like to be the youngest world-record holder in swimming and competing at Olympic Games at age 15, you should read this book. If you want to know what it means to be 100% committed to achieve your goals and dreams you should read this book. If you want to understand what the life of someone who is constantly competing against the world’s best athletes is like, you should read this book. Finally, if you want to know the story behind the most successful Olympian, you should read this book.

When I’m working with athletes (and coaches), one thing I regularly hear is that they are having problems to fall asleep in the evening, are waking up in the middle of the night, are feeling drowsy in the morning and as a consequence underperform in their sport, school, university – and even their personal lives. I have dealt with sleep quality in athletes at university before, but the scientific literature I read didn’t give me a good answer on how I could really help my clients to improve their sleep quality. Then I found Sleep smarter. In his book, Shawn Stevenson really does a great job by combining the overall existing scientific (!) literature on sleep duration, sleep deprivation, sleep quality, etc., “translating” it into our everyday life with his very own words, before finally describing and developing easy to use strategies and tips that will help you and your clients to eventually sleep smarter.

If you want to improve your own sleep quality or if you want to able to help your clients to optimize their sleep, Sleep smarter is the perfect book for you. To date, I’ve not seen a book on sleep and sleep quality that explains scientific research in such an interesting and appealing way. Sleep smarter is definitely able to transform your sleeping habits to the better. Sleep is the secret sauce – and with Sleep smarter you’ll certainly learn how to utilize sleep to improve virtually every function your body and mind have.

“Mindfulness and meditation is not for me.” I have heard and even said that sentence many times before – and I still hear it today from athletes and coaches (and students, colleagues, friends etc.). I used to ask myself and the people around me, why they think what they think about mindfulness and meditation, and how I would be able to change their attitudes towards this very helpful approach in order to reduce stress and pressure. One of the answers is the book The mindful athlete. With this book, George Mumford shares with you how he taught world class athletes like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan to practice mindfulness and this “Zen Buddhism stuff” (as Michael Jordan used to call it) on a daily basis, and how this practice enabled them and many other high achievers to perform on the level they did.

The mindful athlete is for you, if you want to learn how to stay calm amidst the constant storm and pressure around you – may it be in sports, business or your personal or academic life. This book is for you, if you realized that you can’t control your mind with force. This book is for you, if you want to learn how to present mindfulness to other people in a practical and down to earth way, that isn’t esoteric and relates more directly to your athlete’s world. This book will show you the way out by finding the way in.

Many books have been written on leadership. Most of them have been written from the perspective of the individual leader – may it be a coach, a manager or a politician. However, only few books have taken a look at teams that successfully perform due to leadership that comes from within the team – leadership that comes from the athletes and that has not to be re-enforced through praise and punishment by the coach. Legacy is such a book.

If you’re interested in how to develop a functioning team, with a positive leadership structure and athletes who don’t have to be constantly reminded to meet the teams values and norms, Legacy is the right book for you. You should read this book if you’re interested in how you could shape and improve your teams’ or organizations’ identity. You should read this book if you want to know what is going on inside one of the most fascinating and successful sport teams in the world. You should read Legacy if you want to take your own standard of performance to the next level and become an even stronger role model for your fellow team-mates, colleagues, students or simply everyone around you. Legacy is a must-read, if norms, values and attitudes are the most important characteristics that define your performance, your work ethic and your life’s path.

Viktor E. Frankl wrote a book that everyone should read. No matter if you’re young or old, sick or healthy, poor or rich. Man’s search for meaning is able to change your perspective on life and everything that life is about. Interestingly, when Viktor E. Frankl published this book in Austria and Germany for the first time in 1946, it barely sold. It took another 13 years until it was published in English in the USA where it was named “one of the ten most influential books in America” by the Library of Congress.

You should read this book, if you need a new perspective on your very own situation, and if you want and need to change your perspective out of which you see and evaluate your current life. You should read this book if you want to understand what detainees during World War II did to survive a concentration camp, and how they managed to help and support each other not to surrender. You should read this book, if you want to understand how people who suffer a lot are able to keep their own flame of life burning, accept what they can’t change and step out of the darkness suffering creates around them. “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

Bill Walsh is without a doubt one of the most successful coaches in sports. His leadership, his knowledge about football and the way he worked with his players, assistant coaches and everyone who is not directly in contact with the team but works for the team was outstanding. It is his philosophy of leadership and how a coach should work with his or her team that transformed not only the 49ers into a dynasty, but that also made many of his assistant coaches become head coaches for other teams, and that still helps coaches today to form functioning and successful teams in all kinds of sports. With The score takes care of itself Bill Walsh offers the blueprint based on his own experiences and his success for everyone, no matter if he or she is working with a sports team, or leading a big or small business.

This book is for you if you’re interested in leadership, team development and coaching and how to take your team to the next level, because it is a great source of knowledge from one of the best coaches in NFL history, no matter if you are working with a sports team or in business. I have very seldom enjoyed a book from a sports coach like I did with Bill Walsh’s The score takes care of itself and I know this book will also take your coaching, teaching and leadership to the next level.

Have you ever wondered how some people seem to have no problems at all in having a great relationship with almost everyone they are working and interacting with? For them, it comes naturally to know what to say, what to ask or when to keep silent. They instinctively make a great first impression, people like them and at a party or meeting everyone waits for them to arrive – because everyone knows, they will have a good time when he or she is around.

If you are working with people and you want them to like you, you want to win them to your way of thinking, or you even want to lead them, How to win friends and influence people will be a great read for you. This book contains so many recipes that are ready to be applied right away and that will help you improve your relationships regardless of whom you are working with in the blink of an eye.

I bet you know what it feels like when life gets in your way. When an empty fridge forces you to cancel training tonight because you have to go to the supermarket instead. When you are writing your thesis and the dishes have to be cleaned. When you are preparing tomorrows presentation and you remember that you need to buy a birthday present for your wife. When you are preparing for your upcoming match and you start thinking about your next vacation. Trust me, I’ve heard all of those stories from friends, colleagues, athletes, managers, coaches etc. – and they happen every day. If you can picture yourself thinking one of those or similar thoughts Getting things done is the perfect book for you.

It is a book that helps you implement and apply different techniques and tools and become more efficient in what you do – and teach others how to do the same afterwards. It helps you to clear your brain and use your brains’ capacity for the important things your brain needs to do. It is basically like removing redundant and useless data from your hard disk on your laptop. Your laptop will run faster and more efficient afterwards. And that is what it is all about: Becoming more efficient.

One of the most important things about Siddhartha is that (like in previously recommended books) even in this book the author deals with the several problems boldness and arrogance can cause. Although Sidhartha was an ascetic and he learnt a lot before, Siddhartha becomes a rich merchant who starts gambling in the course of the story. It is then when he realizes that he has lost all his virtues through his wealth, and that both, prosperity and his ego are his worst enemies. From what I learn every day when I read the news, work with other people, observe what people do in our world or even take a look in the mirror I realize that all authors and philosophers can’t be wrong when they write about this topic. It is money and ego, which destroy lives and prevent people from being happy and at peace with themselves and their world.

Siddhartha is the right book for you if you want to learn about how people change and develop; if you want to reflect on yourself and your behaviors; if you want to read beautiful sentences of wisdom and clarity; if you want to read an extraordinary book about finally finding inner peace. Some time ago someone said that Siddhartha is like yoga and meditation – everything flows and leaves you with a calm feeling inside. You have to read this book. If not today, then in a month, in a year, or in ten years. But you have to read this book – and I know you will.

There are numerous books about how people should work and interact with other people. Some of these books are based on practical experiences and personal preferences of the authors. Other books are only based on theoretical knowledge, theories and models. Still others lack both, practical and theoretical knowledge. Most importantly, there are almost no books on coaching behaviour for sports coaches available. Most books that deal with how you can work with other people and help them to become the best version of themselves are written for business or therapeutic contexts. Of course, you can transfer and apply the information to a different context – however, you have to make this transfer by yourself. Conscious Coaching by Brett Bartholomew is different.

Conscious Coaching is for you if you’re looking for a book that supports your coaching, offers you new perspectives about how to work with your athletes or simply self-reflect about your own coaching style. I think especially the latter is important. Without self-awareness and on-going self-reflection about what we do and how we do it we don’t get any better and as a consequence we’re not able to help our athletes and clients get better, and reach their goals.

Some time ago I wasn’t much of a friend of relaxation, meditation and all this stuff for many, many years. I always thought that relaxing and meditation is for …. let’s say “other people”. When living in Cambodia I tried it because I thought “Well, you’re living next door to a Buddhist monastery so this seems like a perfect place to learn something new and to convince myself that meditation is for me.” I failed. I couldn’t focus, I got restless, my back hurt, I was hungry, 1000 thoughts were in my head and the cars and motorbikes out on the street didn’t contribute to my inner peace. However, after some years went by, I learnt that there is more in life than speed, power and restlessness. That’s when I discovered some easy meditation exercises that helped me guide me to some advanced meditation practices – and Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Penman can help you learn meditation the easy way. I use some of the exercises myself everyday, and have taught some of them to athletes, coaches and other clients.

By reading Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Penman you’ll learn an excellent strategy to calm down, feel comfortable with all your thoughts and feelings you experience each day and to develop some much needed tranquillity. In detail, the authors provide you with numerous exercises you can easily integrate into your everyday life and relax within moments. These exercises are not randomly described. Instead, Mark Williams and Danny Penman developed an eight-week plan that will help you reach your goal of feeling serene and calm. If you follow the plan and its exercises you’ll see improved mental health, well-being and happiness – no matter if you’re an athlete, coach, artist, mother, leader, or bus driver. All in all, Mindfulness is a very practical guide for everyone who is looking for more tranquillity and peace in their lives – at least, it helped my clients and me.

In his new book Tim Ferriss has put together countless strategies, routines, and tactics developed and applied by high-achievers from different areas of expertise. From my perspective it is impossible to describe the most important things you’ll learn because it is simply too much you can learn. This is the first book EVER I made notes in, marked pages and took pictures of the content in order to be able to use it afterwards (and I usually keep my books nice and clean!), proving that there are tons of information put together that for me it is impossible to decide what’s most and what’s least important.

Tools of Titans is divided into three major parts: Healthy, wealthy, and wise. In every section you will find short profiles of the interviewees what Tim Ferriss thinks are the most important methods, routines, tactics etc. everyone should know about and use in their own lives. This goes from unusual but effective bodyweight exercises, diet hacks, warm up for “tough guys” (this one comes from big wave surfer Laird Hamilton), meditation, psychological warfare (from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also wrote the foreword for Tools of Titans), morning and night routines, amplifying your strengths, rather than fixing weaknesses, advices to younger selves, stargazing as therapy, good reasons to be an early riser or how Paulo Coelho (author of famous books like “The alchemist”) deals with being stuck during his writing process.

If you’re interested in how successful athletes, coaches, entrepreneurs, actors, writers, artists and many, many more design their days, what strategies they use and what you could learn from them, this book is definitely for you.

I have read numerous books in the past, and I often think that it is getting more and more difficult to find a new book that literally blows my mind. With Ryan Holiday’s Ego is the Enemy I think I found a book that will enter my personal Hall of Fame, and will most likely be at least amongst the Top 3 books I have ever read. From my point of view, everyone should read Ego is the Enemy, and this especially applies for every aspiring athlete, artist, coach, entrepreneur – literally everyone!

Ryan Holiday divides his book into three major sections, describing how and why our ego is your enemy when we’re about to aspire, succeed and fail in whatever we do – may it be sports, business, family etc. Once you’ve finished each chapter you’ll reflect about yourself and your attitudes, behaviours and habits. And if you’re like me, you’ll find some aspects inside yourself Ryan Holiday wrote about. You’ll find out that sometimes even your ego takes control about what you do and how you do it. Finally – at the end of the book – you’ll understand that instead of our ego it’s rather self-awareness, humility and modesty that take us to where we want to be – and even far beyond.

I read this book in no time. It’s truly fascinating how Sir Richard Branson built his empire from scratch, starting with nothing and finally becoming one of the most profitable businesses in the UK, and being knighted at Buckingham Palace in 2000. He sold records via mail, owned a record store, a music company, an airline and much more. How he did it? That’s what he describes in a very entertaining way in his autobiography.

I really don’t know what is the most fascinating about this book and his story. I shook my head and laughed at the same time when I read that book for the first time. Some things don’t really seem to be possible – however: he did it. And I think that’s what is the most important message I learnt from Losing my virginity: Even if someone else says that what you want to do is impossible – it’s not! Richard Branson fought against many odds and almost always won. Several times it was only (a lot) money that was at stake – other times it was his life. I think, everyone will benefit from this book and the story behind and around Richard Branson – no matter if you’re a student, coach, therapist, athlete, teacher or entrepreneur. What a story!

Mini-max interventions is easy to read, easy to understand, and (most importantly) the strategies are easy to apply in real life situations. For me, this point is absolutely crucial. Many books tell you allegedly easy strategies, but they aren’t that easy to use when working with other people. The strategies in this book are the complete opposite and instantly applicable.

If you are working with other people Mini-max interventions will be a huge asset for you and your work. It illustrates and solves common challenges in our every day communication. From my perspective, this small book is a must read for everyone who works with other people.

I really enjoy autobiographies. From my point of view we all can learn a lot from such books, because people share their stories about how they managed to be successful, win something, achieve something or simply be someone special. And because I am very interested in sports I really enjoy well-written autobiographies from former athletes and coaches. Open by Andre Agassi is an extraordinary example of such a book.

In his book, Andre Agassi will take you on his very personal tour through his personal life and his tennis life, revealing some secrets that you wouldn’t have imagined before. He shows you what it’s like to be standing amidst the public attention, having no privacy, and what happens to a world-class athlete if he doesn’t be cautious about what and where he says or does. I love this book, because it gives you a different perspective on professional sports.

When I read this book for the first time I was truly fascinated about the expedition, the team composition, the leadership skills of the expedition leader Sir Ernest Shackleton and how they fought to leave the hostile environment. I wasn’t able to put the book down because the story and everything that happened aboard the expedition ship and later on the drift ice and in small tenders really caught me.

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage is for everyone who is (1) interested in adventures and expedition, (2) in how others are or were able to deal with adverse situations, (3) in strong leadership, (4) team work under extreme conditions. From my opinion, this is a book everyone should read, because it will open one’s eyes on what people used to accept only to discover the world. I don’t know where we would be today without such adventurer and heroes – and maybe, this book will motivate you to become an adventurer by yourself in your personal world.

I originally bought this book to learn how to best train and educate our dog Emma. However, while reading this book I was amazed about all the knowledge that can easily be transferred into working with athletes, coaches, colleagues, kids, or parents – virtually everyone. Of all books I have read about motivation or forming behaviour, this one is the most helpful and unique for me, because its focus is only on positive reinforcement.

One of the most interesting chapters is the chapter on untraining a behaviour you don’t want. Here, Karen Pryor presents eight methods about how to use positive reinforcement when you’re having a messy roommate, a barking dog in your neighbourhood, noisy kids in your car, a bad first service in tennis or a lazy colleague at work (just to mention a few). The range of methods lasts from the extreme solution (e.g. shooting the dog – That’s where the book title comes from…! ☺ ) to the fundamental and most kindly method of changing the motivation (which finally is method number 8). Once you read this part of the book you will start seeing yourself in many situations, finally understanding what happens in this situation and why for some reason your behaviour hasn’t lead to a change in the other persons behaviour before. I LOVE this chapter!

Jocko Willink and Leif Babin made extensive experiences while serving for the U.S. Navy SEALs during the battle of Ramadi in Iraq. It was mainly their U.S. Navy SEAL Team “Task Unit Bruiser” that helped the U.S. Army to bring stability to the violent and war-torn city. Although I don’t admire what the military does to our world, I think we can learn a lot from how leaders in military contexts work – and I have learnt a lot from the book Extreme ownership.

This book will teach you how leaders in violent, and even life threatening contexts lead their teams. Most likely, your team will not face death and destruction (at least I wish you that!). However, in whatever context you work, you and your team will experience several challenges and problems on your way to win championships, become the No. 1 in your industry or reach your mutual goals. At this point, Extreme Ownership is for everyone who wants to improve his or her professional and even personal life, understand how to successfully lead others and overcome adversities as a team leader.

I think if coaches want to become successful, they don’t only need to be experts in their respective sport, but they also need to know how to interact and communicate with their athletes and teams. Furthermore, if working with teams, coaches also need to know how to build, form, and lead a team. Gaining all this knowledge can’t happen during a seminar or course. Learning and developing such crucial interpersonal skills is a life-long thing. And from my perspective, Phil Jackson shares some great insight into his interpersonal skills, everyone can benefit from.

You should read Sacred Hoops if you’re interested in leadership, teamwork, and acting with a clear mind in the midst of chaos. Moreover, you should read this book if you’re interested in how the most successful NBA head coach to date managed to build valuable and trustful relationships with many outstanding athletes, including Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman.