Do You ALREADY Know How to be GREAT?

At eleven, Alan Fine pictured himself as a "severely asthmatic, skinny and painfully shy kid," desperately desiring to play tennis.  Pitted in tennis finals against a thirteen-year-old, six feet tall, captain of the Welsh school rugby team--"the school 'jock,'" Alan focused on his wins 6-4, 4-0.  When he thought he might be school tennis champ with just two more wins, he froze.   From that moment, Fine desired to be a tennis champ.  Through stories, Alan Fine shows uncanny insights that led him to understand the interference that holds people back.

Alan inspires everyone to develop a way forward for performance peaks. Alan Fine's GROW design, simply clarified in You ALREADY Know How to be GREAT, details how using inside out approaches, leads to removal of interference that stifles progress. 

Intriguingly, an unlikely source - a shy, uncoordinated, girl - provide Fine even bigger breakthrough answers to interference.  The nine-year-old had Fine's best instruction, yet she was barely able to hit a tennis ball over the net, five times consecutively. Fine experienced a eureka insight as he perceived his instructional tips were "getting in her way."  Not too surprisingly, Alan told her to forget his past instructions.   Instead, he simply told her to say bounce when the ball touched the ground and hit when the ball hit her racket.  The girl hit the ball over the net 53 times in a row.  Two simple words increased her performance 1000% or 10X.  Amazingly, each of us holds that same potential.  It's a matter of the athlete perceiving the strategy inside out rather than outside in.

For a performer's journey to be GREAT, Fine starts with Faith, Fire and Focus.  You ALREADY Know How to be GREAT, reveals Alan's inside out process to apply simple doable actions to leap forward.  Alan creates questions that connect the performer to the problem. Interestingly, he poses these similar to MITA Two-footed questions that tap into curiosity, because people are challenged to find answers.  Here's an example of Fine's questions a performer can reflect on to name a specific Goal: 

• What issue do I want to work through?
• What do I want from this GROW "session" (meaning time devoted to resolving the issue)?
• What are the consequences if I do not take action?

Reality questions direct the performer to consider obstacles and determine if the goal is realistic.  In thinking about Options, the performer contemplates what could happen if anything could be done to make progress.  In the Way Forward, a performer reflects on ways to act on options and how to go about it.  The process helps the performer to GROW.

Alan Fine creates more than mere intellectual understanding of inside out concepts by relating his personal experience, using anagrams that easily show processes involved for breakthrough performance as well as publishing stories from people who achieved breakthrough performance.  Additionally, Alan created a website so that people can access his blog and other free items related to his work.

With deep foresight, Alan tackles some of the difficult issues coaches or performers might face when they get stuck.  In Chapter Nine, "What do you do when. . .?"  Fine shares questions he was asked over the years and he shows what works and what does not.  For instance, some people think they need to be told what to do.  Though it takes time, he shows how to avoid merely giving advice, but to empower the person to create consistently high-performance.

You ALREADY Know How to be GREAT is a pleasure to read and leaves you wondering where you can use Alan's thoughtful processes to ante up performance as you tackle critical issues at work or sports.  In this innovation era, the inside out process empowers leaders and managers to find solutions to failing systems.  Fine's GROW resources can prime any athletes' or managers' Faith, Fire and Focus, for a transformational journey.