This is not your everyday self-help Book, although it stands the risk of being branded as one. Whether it is overwritten, as past reviews have indicated, is debatable, but it is certainly underrated, just like its author whose dignified presence behind the movers and shakers of the playground seems ripe with vibes that invariably help great people stay good, even if they may not always help good people become great. The genre of motivational books has been abused for long and there are many Gurus keen to advice you on matters of life and work. Paddy’s heartfelt notes are far from sermons. His self-deprecating tone strikes immediate resonance, and his keenness to share experiences with the world at large seems organic, free of the agenda of trying to stamp his authority as a Mental conditioning coach; instead, he believes in “creating an enabling environment for players to learn, grow, and become their best self, as athletes and as people” rather than peddle muddled notions of mental toughness, which if not curated, he cautions, become the defining characteristics of psychopaths.
Paddy’s work has inadvertently taken the shape of an almanac of quotations packed with insights from maverick thinkers across different spheres and walks of life – Karl Popper, Elkhart Tolle, Paulo Coelho, G K Chesterton, Viktor Frankl, Laurens van der Post, Jim Collins, Malcolm Gladwell, Peter Senge, David Deida, Adam Grant, David Frith – besides extensive quotes from the greats including Socrates and Einstein, but you can’t accuse Upton of thriving on borrowed wisdom as he supplements the attribution with his wholesome ideology in the contexts of specific situations.
Like the one about cricketer Gary Kirsten’s transformation when he shunned the mental chatter of his thinking brain and learnt to master the self
Like the thoughts on personal mastery, which Paddy aptly says is about balancing talking and telling with listening and asking.
Like the distinction between talent, strength, and a learned skill - how talent develops into strength and how a weakness or acquired talent becomes a learned skill.
Many of his own quotes are super incisive and one never ceases to marvel how Paddy summarizes them so very succinctly:
“Personal mastery is a never-ending journey, bringing difficulty and reward, clarity and confusion, but also a deeper, fuller and more rewarding experience of life.”
“By relinquishing power and authority, the leader gains influence, which has become the ‘new’ power.”
“I wonder how many school children who are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder are that way due to being asked to do things in an environment that simply does not suit their learning preferences and natural talents.”
“Unfortunately, our strengths are often not easy to identify. When asked, most people draw a blank; they do not know what they are really good at.”
“Giving of unsolicited advice is coaching from another era, where the coach is the fault analyser and fault fixer. It’s overused and mostly ineffective.”
“Values are like the rudder of a yacht, invisible to the naked eye but critical in determining the direction of travel.”
“I have often joked, tongue not so firmly in cheek, that I coach cricket to support my surfing and fishing habits.”
“Focus refers to breadth and concentration to depth.”
“Most people operate short of their edge, living in the ‘comfort zone’ of low risk.”
“The more we dwell on it, the more closely we see the problem, and the larger it looms. This view of failure can become so all-encompassing that it eventually spills over into all areas of our lives. We take the work problem home, or the marital problem to work.”
“Failure is a reason to feel alive in the midst of the game of life, even though it feels downright shit.”
“Don’t be misled by the saying, ‘Winning is a habit’; it’s not. Winning is a result; one that follows the habit of planning smarter and working harder than the other guys.”
“Acknowledging and working with vulnerability and fear is a greater leadership and performance strength than the old model of avoiding or denying this human condition.”
“Whatever memory you choose to bring to the front of your mind immediately before you get into a situation, it prepares you for the best possible chance of that outcome happening.”
“From what I’ve seen in the world of professional sports, a high percentage of mental errors or mental factors inhibiting performance arise from within the environment itself (for which the leadership is responsible).”
“Often, celebrities buy into the image of fame that fans and the media create for them. They begin to see themselves as a superstar, a brand, and a celebrity, confusing being a special talent with being a special person.”
“Great cultures make it easier to weather stormy seas. Also, it’s in difficult times that coaches and leaders get tested. Dealing with victory is easy.”
My absolute favorites are these:
“How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure.”
“There are few things more telling than how we treat the ‘little’ people when no one is watching; watching; people like the restaurant or hotel breakfast waiter, the team bus driver, the most junior athlete in the team, or the fifty-first autograph hunter of the day.
“The one learning that many people neglect is what the opponents did well. Our competitive ego does not like to acknowledge that someone else was good, especially if we have just been beaten by them. Nonetheless, this remains a rich source of learning for those open to mining the opportunity it offers.”
The book is a treasure trove of 24-carat enduring material indeed, packed with actionable insights gathered from first-hand experience. A few chapters rise above the rest, with a truckful of takeaways for thought and action in respective spheres – across boardrooms, cubicles, shopfloors, playgrounds, and elsewhere. Don’t miss the ones that cite towering examples including the incredible explorer and adventurer Mike Horn’s sessions with the South African and Indian teams at Paddy’s behest, Hashim Amla’s unique conception of self-worth and contentment, Mark Boucher’s grit and gumption to rise above his devastating eye injury that aborted an otherwise blooming career, Rahul Dravid’s exemplary vision and values, Sachin Tendulkar’s awe-inspiring notion of greatness, Dhoni’s innate and earthy wisdom, and last but not the least, Paddy’s golden moments spent in the company of Nelson Mandela, as also enlightening anecdotes featuring cricketers including Gautam Gambhir, Virendra Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Dirk Nannes, and Paddy’s own backpacking adventures and his tryst with the “dark shadows of Cape Town’s underbelly”.
Upton steers clear of naming people in controversial contexts save for exceptions like ex-Australian captain Michael Clarke, where Paddy’s vote in favour of Clarke’s known adversary Shane Watson and his condemnation of Clarke seem too personal for comfort. His analysis of India and Indianness is discernibly hurried, based on an inadequate diet of a few history books, war chronicles, and Devdutt Patnaik’s glossy brand of mythology. Being a barefoot backpacker, wannabe surfer, and a genuine truth seeker who effortlessly finds his own space in the commonplace, Paddy didn’t really need Robin Singh to tell him about the enigma that India is, which can’t be bottled for the sake of a force-fitted analogy in the context of Indian cricket. The more he meets the special commoners of India, lurking in the crowd of marketeers who are keen to be heard, read and quoted, the more Paddy will appreciate the real India, and then perhaps he will realize the folly of taking the Indian media at face value, or relating the situation of a cricket match final with a Bollywood movie (which has neither a script, nor good actors prepared for their roles, as he wrongly presumes.)
Even if India had not won the world cup in 2011, most of what Paddy says in the book could not have been dismissed or negated. The question is would he have written it in that event? Perhaps yes, perhaps not, but given the non-conformist streak of his persona, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
This book can help each one of us give our work our best shot and make the most of Paddy’s profoundly simple affirmation: “Who you are, what you say, and what you do matters greatly.”
