ZEPP FM 013 – My personal top 5 books of 2018

12/12/18 • 57 min

ZEPP FM | Sport psychology for athletes, coaches & future sport psychologists

Every year I’m reading many books to see what I can learn from them for me personally and for my work with students, athletes, coaches and other clients. A couple of years ago people started asking me which books I read, which books I can recommend, or which books I frequently give away as presents. After telling the same things over and over again, I founded my personal book club, where I review one book a month. The topics range from autobiographies, over leadership and motivation to Zen Buddhism.

Last year was the first year when I decided to choose the top books I read that year – and I wanted to continue this in 2018 as well. Thus, in this episode I’m reviewing the what I consider the five best books I read in 2018 and which I recommend to many of the athletes, coaches, students and clients I’m working with! However, I’m not only reviewing these books today, I’m also giving them away for free to one lucky winner.

The books I recommend in today’s episode are The obstacle is the way by Ryan Holiday (3:27), Quiet by Susan Cain (15:44), Mindset by Carol S. Dweck (25:04), Wherever you go, there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn (36:48), and The daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman (44:43). I’ve put the time stamps in brackets so you can easily navigate to the next book if you’re specifically interested in a certain book. I hope that you’ll benefit from these books as much as I did!

Previous Episode

ZEPP FM 012 - Sport psychology in eSports with Ismael Pedraza

Still, one of the very few sport psychologists working in eSports is Ismael Pedraza from Colombia. After playing football himself he realized during his studies of sport sciences how important the mental side of the game is, and he started to specialize in the field of sport psychology. Although he never really played video or computer games himself, he identified a huge demand of mental preparation in eSports, what lead him and some colleagues to found The Mental Craft – a company devoted to help athletes, teams and coaches in eSports improve their performances through sport psychology.

Ismael has been working in eSports for the last three years, which is an amazingly long time, because sport psychology wasn’t really popular in eSports a couple of years ago. While working with Misfits, one of the professional teams in the European League of Legends Championship Series (EULCS), they became the first Western team to take any games off of the then reigning World Champion SK Telecom T1. If – like myself - you’re not familiar what eSports competitions look like, you can get a great insight in the following video. I think, it’s somehow really fascinating.

In this episode, Ismael talks about his experiences in eSports, how he entered eSports as a sport psychologist, and how he thinks athletes, teams and coaches in eSports can benefit from sport psychology. Moreover, he gives some great advice for any sport psychologist who thinks about learning more about eSports and what is really necessary to know about eSports and the different video games in order to be able to successfully work in eSports. One important aspect he mentioned here was, that it can be even beneficial not to know anything or too much about eSports, and how this “not knowing” can set you up for a successful career as a sport psychologist in eSports.

Next Episode

ZEPP FM 014 - One toe at a time with Kevin Rempel

Kevin Rempel is a 2014 Paralympic Bronze medalist, author of the book ‘Still Standing: When You Have Every Reason to Give Up, Keep Going’, and founder of the Sledge Hockey Experience. Kevin has an incredible story that has captivated audiences across Canada. He firmly believes that the greater the challenges you face, the greater your story will be, and as you discover the mindset that enables you to unlock your unknown greatness you begin to rewrite your script and be the hero of your own movie.

Back in the early 2000s Kevin was a motocross rider with a dream of competing at the X-Games. On a beautiful day in July in 2006 he jumped with his bike high through the air, lost control over his moto bike, crashed and severely injured his spinal cord, which left him an incomplete paraplegic. Now, sitting in a wheelchair Kevin was desperate to take responsibility for his own life and prove his doctors wrong, who told him that he will never be able to walk again. Kevin not only regained his ability to walk – and ride a moto bike again – he also started playing wheelchair basketball and sledge hockey, and finally competing at the 2014 Paralympic Games.

In this episode, Kevin talks about his experiences after his accident, his mental health problems and suicidal thoughts, how he took responsibility and ownership of his life and his situation, bad recommendations he heard in the hospital, and what gratitude means to him today. I learned a lot from Kevin and how he approaches his life after being knocked down quite a few times.