At speaking engagements, Mike "Stinger" Glenn would see people taking notes as he offered up the 10 characteristics he found basketball players use that could benefit others in their daily lives -- and inevitably, he would be approached afterward about them too.
"They would come up to me and say 'What was No. 4? What was No. 5? Do you have it written down? Can I have your notes?' People were trying to take my notes that I was speaking from, because they thought these messages were so relevant," he said.
Glenn, a SportSouth Hawks analyst, who spent eight seasons in the NBA with the Braves, Knicks, Hawks and Bucks, finally decided that he would take those lessons and put them into a book, releasing 'My Next Shot Goes In!: Ten Sacred Characteristics of NBA Players That Lead to Success.'
With a forward by Walt Frazier, it is the fifth book Glenn has published.
"It developed more as a developmental book based on basketball principles -- it's not necessarily a basketball book per se," Glenn said. "But it's principals that basketball players use to be successful and they do consciously and unconsciously."
For example, Glenn cites an interview he saw with Hawks point guard Jeff Teague, who was asked about his confidence in the team, responding "I think we're going to win every game."
Glenn's book opens with the mindset of "accepting the challenge," in athletics and work.
"I had already written the book at that time, but it was just validating what I already knew," Glenn said. "It's all part of your approach. You have that confidence and expectations that are part of you success. You can have a losing streak, you could have lost 10 of 11 and then you go out and play the world champion Heat and you think you're going to win."
That's why Glenn opens his book with a chapter on getting people to "accept the challenge," something he sees largely missing from the working world.
"Regular people in regular jobs in regular society, they don't want to always accept that my challenge," Glenn said. "They run away from that challenge. But athletes, we want that challenge."
The book's title is a call to the mindset that Glenn saw in the Teague interview and what he cites through the words of legends like Michael Jordan and Oscar Robertson.k
"'I don't care if I miss eight shots in a row, my next shot's going in. Call my play, coach. This shot's going in,'" Glenn said. "It's the same if you're in sales, whatever you're going to do. If I'm going to write a book, it's going to be successful. I'm doing an album, a CD, whatever it is that you're doing in life, you have to think 'my next shot's going in.'"
Glenn had previously released the film 'Spirit of Love,' inspired by the real life basketball camps he runs for the deaf and hard of hearing.
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