I’m what you would call a classic ‘overthinker’. I’ve probably played out a million simulations of what might happen in a particular situation before I’ve got there. This is in stark contrast to the advice that I freely hand out to people. “Don’t analyze it too much. Keep it simple. work towards your goals instead of wasting your time and mind space on what-ifs”. Perhaps, I should record some of this and practice what I preach. But overthinking has been ingrained so deeply in me, I subconsciously refuse to move away from it.
Paddy Upton’s The Barefoot Coach is a masterclass on conditioning the mind towards a particular goal or an event. With his experience of having worked with world-class athletes across multiple sports, most recognizably the Indian and South African cricket teams, Upton talks about the mental side of the game in the depth. I know it’s cliched to say that half the battle is won in the head, but he goes on to establish the same with anecdotal evidence and supporting theory alike. Eckhart Tolle, Plato, Gladwell, Socrates all make an appearance as Upton discusses playing to one’s strengths, unlearning, personal mastery, collective intelligence, and combating fear. Sports fans will thoroughly enjoy the numerous anecdotes peppered throughout the text, ranging from the Proteas in the 90s, India’s run to the 2011 world cup team, the Rajasthan Royals CL affair, the Big Bash, and a smattering of other sports. But most notably, the best bits of the book involve Mike Horn, the adventurer, and motivational speaker. Horn transforms audiences he speaks to by talking about his thoroughly offbeat life experiences and remarkable achievements. You can feel the power of his aura even when paraphrased via a different person in the text. Upton does a great job by being fairly candid across the board: right from his experiences in helping out street children in Cape Town to the very minutia of things that didn’t work out or aberrations. This is, of course, in accompaniment to the numerous thought experiments and efforts he constructed along with his hillbilly pal, Gary Kirsten. Upton’s successfully managed to eke out space for himself considering the narrow isolation in which mental conditioning existed in the sport when he started out. It’s wonderful to read about his own evolution over the years, across the numerous teams he’s an integral part of.
The Read: The Barefoot Coach is exactly what you expect it to be. Upton’s life experiences, his learnings from business executives, understanding of leadership theory and sport combine well together. There is a lot of crossover learning and Upton bares it all, leaving it up to the reader to glean what they want to. He’s even frank enough to admit that he might have not necessarily known what he was doing starting out but built towards it, underlining his own grapple with the topic of personal mastery. Pick this up for the life lessons, an inside view on how effective leadership and conditioning can enable champions, and advice on re-aligning your approach professionally. Barefoot or not, Upton does coach well.
Trivia: The text mentions how Aussie spinner Arjun Nair modelled his bowling style by watching YouTube clips of Sunil Narine and Ravichandran Ashwin in the Indian Premier League and can bowl carrom balls with great accuracy. This reminded me of Kenyan javelin thrower Julius Yego who won a silver medal at the Rio Olympics, having picked up the sport via YouTube as well.
Documentation:
Book: The Barefoot Coach
Author: Paddy Upton
Year of Release: 2019
Publisher: Westland