What do surgery, bomb disposal, and exams have in common?  The need for a key performance asset - poise.  Poise is particularly important in moments when there are consequences for the performance, judgment, high expectations, and/or time constraints.  I think you can see the commonality of surgery, bomb disposal, and exams (excepting the fact that finals aren’t life or death, despite what parents and students might think).  Tune in as we define poise, look at it in different contexts, and describe how to perform with more poise.

This episode’s success behavior is gratitude.  As kids, one of the earliest lessons we were taught was to say, “Thank you,” yet we easily forget this behavior today.  It comes up again around Thanksgiving, and then is drowned out by the flood of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. In the last 20 years or so, psychologists have begun delving into what your grandmother already knew - gratitude is good for you.  In this episode, you'll learn from Lou Gehrig and the Blue Angels.  You’ll also find the six benefits of gratitude, the five types of gratitude, and how you can strengthen your practice of gratitude.

In the fourth episode of our series on Success Behaviors, we're talking 'bout practice - deliberate practice.  Check out the difference between Allen Iverson and Deion Sanders and their approaches to practice.  Learn what Anders Ericsson was really talking about (hint: it's not the 10,000 hour rule).  We'll finish by outlining the specifics of purposeful, deliberate practice.

This episode’s success behavior is Listen Up.  One of the great challenges for Generation Z is understanding what it means to listen and participate. Zoom has made this even worse, as students have become accustomed to a passive online presence.  Successful people are engaged, participating and listening. When they have questions they ask their boss, coach, or teacher for clarification. When it still doesn't make sense, they seek extra help.  In this episode, we talk about how this plays out for future Navy SEALs, students in my classes, and my own experience at IMG Academy.

In our second episode of the success behaviors series, we look at the importance of keeping up.  Whether it's running seven marathons in seven days on seven continents, conquering the challenges of chemistry, or winning gold at the Olympics, keeping up is essential.  Just because it's simple doesn't mean that everyone will do it.  In fact, keeping up starts with a decision and is reinforced by strategy.  Thanks for keeping up with us on this episode of The Ripple Tank.

We start a new series on success behaviors.  Success behaviors are the actions that "good" athletes, students, or employees utilize.  While they might seem like common sense, society and technology have conspired to make them less common than you would think.  Our first success behavior is showing up.  Baseball stars Jose Altuve and Cal Ripken, Jr. teach us great lessons about showing up.  Learn the fundamentals of showing up, and you'll grow your ripple of influence.

If the ability to learn quickly is a key advantage, what are some ways to do that?  In this quick-hitting episode, we cover a series of memory techniques that are research-based, user-friendly, and immediately applicable.  Approaches such as dual coding, memory palaces, and chunking utilize the brain's strengths to store information in long-term memory.  Learn how to put them to use in this episode of The Ripple Tank.

For 40 years, American education has tried to raise test scores by increasing class time and reducing recess, PE, and the arts.  It hasn't worked.  For thousands of years, humans have recognized the importance of movement.  Now, the neuroscience has caught up and shows us that exercise is essential for learning.  Learn the details behind the use of exercise as a learning strategy in this episode of The Ripple Tank.

Metacognition - thinking about thinking - is an exceptionally underrated aspect of learning.  Mindlessly going through lessons, practices, and meetings is a waste of an opportunity.  Instead, by understanding how the brain works, directing your attention, planning your path, assessing your progress, and reflecting on your learning, you can become a learner, and not just learned.

Have you ever thought you knew a concept, only to have it vanish when you really needed it?  It can happen when you rely upon recognition, rather than retrieval practice.  If you have to produce on command, then you better practice producing on command.  Retrieval practice focuses on pulling information out of your head, as opposed to cramming it in.  This episode focuses on how to implement retrieval practice in school, sport, and business.