But it’s not his classics that should concern us, especially since Mark Twain once defined a classic as “something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”

Instead, Dickens influenced us not  just in the books that he wrote, but the way in which he wrote them. In essence, Dickens invented the soap opera, the work that leaves us hanging until the next installment.

He had to write that way to make money. He got paid for each of his articles that the magazines published,  but there was never any guarantee that the magazine would buy his next piece. Dickens solved that by forcing the magazines to come back for more. He wrote his stories with cliff-hanger endings that left his readers in suspense. They wondered, “What’s next?”

“What’s next” is a key question in life. Everyone would love to know what is around the bend. What will tomorrow bring? No one can be sure, of course, but you can do something way beyond trying to predict your future. You can actually create it.

Here are four key indicators of what your tomorrows will be like.

First, what you are doing today is a strong hint of what you will be doing tomorrow. So if you want to know your future, just look at what you are doing today.

Second, if you want to do more to shape your future, then form some goals. If your target is nothing, you will certainly hit it. Forming goals can tell you where to place your focus and your energy.

Third, to reach a higher degree of shaping your future, write down your goals. The minute you write them down, they stop being daydreams.

Fourth and finally, review your goals every day. Put them in three places that you will see daily: your computer, your mirror, the refrigerator, your locker, etc.

Dickens always left his audiences wondering “What’s next?” He used this mystery to make money. By forming goals, writing them down and reviewing them daily, you can take a lot of mystery out of your future.

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

How tough? Well, not glass-eating, phonebook-ripping tough, but tough enough to do this: Coughlin once asked a player to give him a top-to-bottom list of all the things he needed to do to become a better coach.

Could you imagine yourself ever doing that? Inviting someone to give you a complete critique of your performance? Most of us could never take it.

But that’s what Coughlin did, when faced with the chance that his fierce coaching style would get him booted out the door. As detailed by sports writer Doug Farrar on the Shutdown Corner blog, Coughlin asked quarterback Kurt Warner for a complete review. Warner played for Coughlin and the Giants in 2004.

“Go home and make a list of all the things you think I need to do better as a coach,” Coughlin told Warner, “and don’t hold back.”

Warner didn’t. Himself a class act who had won a Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams, Warner didn’t take the opportunity to rip Coughlin. He took the opportunity to help him.

Well, feedback is the breakfast of champions. Warner gave the critique, and Coughlin took it to heart.

Sure enough, Coughlin began to change. He didn’t change his principles or his standards, but he changed the way he talked about them. He found a way to reach his players. And the result is history — Super Bowl history.

And all because Coughlin was tough enough to ask what he needed to do better.

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

“I hit big or I miss big,” he once said. “I like to live as big as I can.”

Yet when it came time to give his Hall of Fame speech, Ruth showed a simple and profound eloquence. He began by acknowledging the game’s younger players, with the hope that they, too, would reach the Hall one day.

He mentioned his fellow Hall of Famers, and how hard they worked at their craft. He touched on the role of work in his own life, and expressed the hope that the younger players would work that hard, too.

Ruth even showed a reverence for history, by noting his own debut in the big leagues, which had come nearly 25 years to the day before his speech.

Yesterday’s post mentioned the role that New York Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter played in helping Giants quarterback Eli Manning ease into the pressure of New York. A few words of encouragement from his role model made all the difference to Manning, who has now led the Giants to a pair of Super Bowl wins.

Ruth, it turns out, was highly conscious of his status as a role model to many, and he took it seriously. He wasn’t always a model citizen, of course, and the press of the day gave him a  pass on many of his foibles.  Still, this speech, which I had never seen or heard of, shows me a side of Ruth to really appreciate.

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

Shortstop?

Yes, back when Eli Manning was going through a rough stretch as a rookie quarterback with the Giants, he received a phone call from Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.

As recounted inn a post on sports writer Dan Graziano’s ESPN blog, Manning said, “He just told me, ‘Keep your head up, keep doing what you’re doing and it’ll get better.’”

At the time, Jeter was an established New York superstar, and a role model for Manning.

“Derek’s a guy, from the time I first came (to New York), that I definitely have paid a lot of attention to,” Manning said after a recent practice.

With the Giants’ 21-17 victory over Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in Sunday’s Super Bowl, Manning could well be headed to the Hall of Fame. Jeter one day will be enshrined in Cooperstown, with Canton a distinct possibility for Manning.

And it may never have happened without a kind word from a role model. Now, years later, Jeter returns the respect that Manning originally accorded him.

“I’ve always appreciated the way Eli has carried himself, not only on the football field but more importantly away from it,” Jeter said in an email through the Yankees’ media relations department. “He certainly seems to me to have the perfect demeanor to handle the spotlight that comes with playing in New York.”

Whether it’s the Yankees, Giants or high school sports, role models can make a big difference. I recently showed a young woman a practice session for some high-level high school athletes.

“Someday you can play at that level,” I said.

“I would love to play at that level,” she responded, her eyes wide.

Tyron Edwards, a 19th century American theologian, said, “People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher and better than themselves.”

Looking up to someone certainly worked for Eli Manning.
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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

Over the years, the press corps has used the preview week to pose some questions that have gone down in history.

Try this one, offered three decades ago to Oakland quarterback Jim Plunkett, who came from two special needs parents, one of whom had died.

“Jimmy, I want to make sure I have this right,” the reporter said. “Was it dead mother, blind father, or blind mother, dead father?”

Then there was the reporter who asked Dallas running back Emmitt Smith, “What are you going to wear in the game Sunday?”

Hmm, my uniform?

Anyway, reporters aren’t the only ones who ask stupid questions. As peak performance guru Dave Cross points out, we ask them of ourselves all the time. And these questions keep us from becoming great.

Here are some stupid questions, as laid out in the mental training masterpiece “Volleyball Cybernetics.”

Why does it always happen to me?

Why can’t I get better?

What’s the use?

Why is life so unfair?

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Here’s the problem with asking yourself stupid questions. Your mind is a powerful computer, and once you ask the question, it will work hard to provide an answer. But, as they say, “garbage in, garbage out.” If you ask a powerful computer a stupid question, it will give you a stupid answer.

For instance, if the question is, “Why does this always happen to me?” then the answer might come back, “Because you’re a loser.”

And that’s a really stupid answer. So instead, ask yourself smart, productive questions like:

What have I learned?

How must I change to get the results I want?

What must I do today to take action?

Whom have I helped today?

By asking the right questions, you can start getting the right answers, whether it’s Super Bowl Sunday or any other day.

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

Too many coaches think of motivation as a magic wand to be waved over their team before the big game.

Great coaches know that isn’t the case. A perfect example is Mike Pope, who coaches the tight ends on the New York Giants. Pope uses motivation all the time, as is profiled in this article by Mike Garafalo of the Star-Ledger.

Pope’s techniques can give you ideas on how you can motivate your team. He is a reminder that motivation is not a magic wand.

It’s not a sometimes thing. It’s an all the time thing. It’s not just something to rile up the troops before the big battle. It’s something keep them sharp and focused before the battle.

It’s not something you add onto what you do. It’s something that is at the heart of what coaches do.

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

No one I know uses the prediction of Punxsutawney Phil to decide how much salt to buy for the driveway or when to buy spring clothes.

But lots of people live their lives according to something much less reliable than if a groundhog sees its shadow. I’m talking about the opinions of others.

“Be more like the weather,” the saying goes. “It pays no attention to the opinions of others.”

The world is full of successful people who defied the limits that others tried to place on them. Elvis Presley was rejected. So were the Beatles. Almost 1,400 players were drafted before baseball slugger Mike Piazza was. Michael Jordan was cut from his freshman basketball team.

“Patterning your live around others’ opinions is nothing more than slavery,” said Lawana Blackwell.

Success belongs to those who can persist in their vision despite those who offer negativity.

Cicero said, “No one can give you better advice than yourself.”

And if you follow that advice, you won’t need Punxsutawney Phil or anyone else to tell you how you’re doing.

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

It lasted five hours, 53 minutes, nearly as long as the marriage between Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian.

Both Djokovic and Nadal gave everything they had. At one point, after losing a 31-stroke rally, Djokovic lay prone on the court, seemingly spent. Within that moment he gave us a clue to help us through difficult times.

“Thousand thoughts going through the mind,” Djokovic said. “Trying to separate the right from wrong.”

Djokovic was describing something that he and all of us have in common. We all have thoughts racing through our mind. Some of them are good, some are bad. It’s our job to separate the two.

For instance, you can be tempted to think about the final score. It’s much more productive to think about the next point. You can worry about what happened, or you can keep your mind in the present. It’s all choice.

Djokovic, in other words, conquered his own thoughts as much as he defeated Nadal. It was mental toughness.

My favorite quote is: “Some people think the battle is against others. Winners understand the struggle is within the self.”

If you can win the struggle to stay focused on productive thoughts, the battle with others will go much more smoothly.

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.

“Tell me,” Williams said. “When you swung and missed that ball, did your bat go over the ball or under it?”

“What difference does it make,” the teammate wanted to know. “Either way, I struck out.”

It makes all the difference in the world, Williams explained. Knowing how you missed was the first step in preparing for the next time.

Williams was an expert on the art of receiving feedback. He examined what happened and used the information in his next attempt.

Feedback is available everywhere. Often the result of our actions will tell us what we’re doing right or wrong. For instance, if a golfer consistently hits a slice, the ball is telling him something about his swing.

You can bet that both the New York Giants and New England Patriots will be using feedback to prepare for Sunday’s Super Bowl. They played each other during the regular season, and they’re in a race to see who learned the most from that game.

Herb Brooks, mastermind of the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s gold medal in 1980, used feedback to make history. After the Soviet Union trounced his team 10-3 in a pre-Olympic exhibition, Brooks simply said, “We learned some things.” Two weeks later, the teams met again, and this time the U.S. won!

So if you’d like to be a champion, you must first do what Brooks, Williams and other did — become experts at receiving feedback.

We all love to dream. But we also need to make a living.

It takes strength to keep your eye on a distant goal when there are needs in the present. But ask yourself, “Can you give up what you want now for what you want most?”

Champions do this all the time. They ignore the distractions and temptations of the present. They have their feet on the earth and their gaze toward the sky.

My friend Gary Pritchard alludes to this way of living when he says, “Make your decisions based on the person you want to become, not the person you are.”

That means looking past outward circumstances and listening to something within the self.

Said Steve Jobs, “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

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TotalGamePlan offers Winner’s Workshops for schools, sports teams and businesses. The emphasis is on motivation, skill-building and teamwork. To bring a Winner’s Workshop to your group, just email coachtully@totalgameplan.com or call (973) 800-5836. To order a copy of “Ten Things Great Coaches Know,” click here.