The Inner Knight

My new book is available!

Here is the backstory on this project I’ve been working on for the last year:

On a Coach Your Brains Out episode, Bernie Holliday, the mental skills coach for the Pittsburgh Pirates, introduced us to the concept of the training and trusting mindsets.

Put into the character Gowyn’s words:

“In practice, there are two mindsets at play: the training mindset and the trusting mindset. The training mindset is used to acquire skill. It is the mindset for developing a specific technique, for evaluating a pass critically, for fixing mistakes. The training mindset is important, especially as you’re developing a new skill. But it is not the mindset you’ll use in competition.”

Seeing my confusion, Gowyn continued. “The trusting mindset is used to let skills out. It is the mindset for riding free and with conviction. It doesn’t judge. It accepts. While the training mindset seeks to make things happen, the trusting mindset lets things happen. It is important to balance both the training and the trusting mindsets in practice, but it is with the trusting mindset you will compete.”

This was an eye-opener and changed the way I approached practice. I have always been very technique-focused, even to the point of not caring as much if I’m winning in practice as long as I’m improving on a skill I’m working on. I lived in the training mindset.

According to Bernie, however, it is important to develop the mindset you’ll use in a tournament. If I’m always focusing on my technique and judging my process, I can’t expect to suddenly turn off my analytical brain and play loose in the Manhattan Beach Open final. The trusting mindset needs to be practiced.

John Mayer and I talked about writing a book about this concept. Then, he had the idea of writing it as a fiction book. A sort of sports parable, like Chop Wood Carry Water or Pound the Stone.

In other words, “Billy, you do all the work.”

I shied away from using volleyball as the sport in the story because I wanted the book to have a broader reach. But if I made it about another sport, like baseball, it would have the same problem. Would a soccer player pick up a book about baseball and vice versa?

In the end, I picked jousting. A sport no one plays.

I thought a medieval setting would serve as an archetype, and the life-or-death stakes would make an exciting story. And unlike sword fighting, jousting had rules and could therefore work as a sports metaphor that was relatable to a modern athlete.

Although it started as a book about the training and trusting mindsets, as I wrote, I kept wanting to share more lessons that have helped me as a player and coach. Lessons on mindfulness, values, specificity, reflection, controlling the controllable, ecological dynamics, differential learning, guided discovery, and on and on. The book grew bigger.

I was writing about jousting, but I was also sharing my own experience. The nerves of being in a big tournament, and the thoughts that go through my head. The grind of practice. The relationship between a coach and an athlete, and finding the right balance of care and challenge.

The book grew into what I would have wanted to learn as an athlete and a coach.

The hard part became finding the balance of story and lessons. I wanted to write an engaging story, not just a framing device for various coaching concepts. But I also didn’t want to turn off people looking for a coaching book by making them read through five chapters setting up the character’s family life in medieval Scotland. So, I leaned the book out while still keeping the story’s plot and payoff.

Hopefully, I succeeded, and you become invested in Meridian’s tale.

Who is this strange, mixed-genre book for?

I think it’s for athletes and coaches and anyone who is pursuing excellence. For those people who are looking for more than a bullet-point summary of ideas, and want to see coaching concepts brought to life through an exciting story.

Because stories have power.

As Meridian says: “They stay with us, their lessons burrowing a home in our hearts.”

I hope The Inner Knight does this for you.