No written word nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Nor all the books on all the shelves, it’s what the teachers are themselves.” -Rudyard Kipling From My Personal Best by John Wooden This is a quote that I have written almost everywhere I refer to coaching materials. I keep a notebook where I write down things that I learn and resources that I know I will find helpful, and on the inside corner of that notebook I write this quote. That's a technique that I learned from Coa...
Aug 16, 2021•3 min
We have all seen coaches who behave in a manner where they embarrass themselves and their team and their organization. We've also seen coaches handle certain situation but they can look back on and be proud of themselves for how they did behave. I'm sure many of us can remember times when we've been on that spectrum. The reason we're diving into behavior this week, is because we need reminders that way we act, like we talked about last week, has a bigger impact on our athletes than anything we s...
Aug 15, 2021•2 min
In the book transformational leadership by Josh Medcalf and Jamie Gilbert, on page 50 there is a story about the worlds strongest man pulling a semi truck or another vehicle about 25 meters as fast as possible. The point of the story is if you watch these guys, starting is the hardest part. Once they start, then the wheels start moving. And as long as they maintain their momentum, they are able to move forward in a way that appears a lot easier than when they first started. The point is, our fir...
Aug 14, 2021•4 min
The parable of the talents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_talents_or_minasThe "Parable of the Talents", in Matthew 25:14–30 tells of a master who was leaving his house to travel, and, before leaving, entrusted his property to his servants. According to the abilities of each man, one servant received five talents, the second had received two, and the third received only one. The property entrusted to the three servants was worth 8 talents, where a talent was a significant amount of ...
Aug 13, 2021•5 min
Who are you waiting for permission from before you take action? Once upon a time there was a prince. He wanted nothing more than to fall in love and get married. When he came of age, he waited for his parents to set him up with someone they felt would be worthy of his love and affection. At first they were busy running things in the kingdom, so he waited longer. Then a war broke out and his parents had to deal with that. Then some opportunities to expand the kingdom came up and they were busy wi...
Aug 12, 2021•3 min
One of the most powerful stories I've ever heard this from a guy named David Goggins, who is a former Navy seal, and all-around beast of a man. He was on Lewis Howes podcast, the school of Greatness. He tells the story of what his version of hell would be. When he dies he meets God, and God is sitting across a desk from him and slides him a piece of paper. His name is at the top, along with a huge list of achievements, the number of people that he affected, and the lives influence positively. Bu...
Aug 11, 2021•3 min
When I started my PT clinic, I was bulidng it from nothing. I had a clinic space, but no one to fill it with. I was brand new, out of network, and was really uncomfortable telling anyone I existed as a new business. I was intimidated and shy, which usually I am not. I felt like I had to accomplish my mission and transform my whole community in a day. That’s what made it so slow from the get go. I wanted to start with 100. I needed to start with one. When I changed my perspective to starting with...
Aug 10, 2021•4 min
This is our week on action and I wanna give you one of my favorite quotes from a business colleague of mine who likes to say imperfect action is better than perfect inaction. What we mean by this is it better to go out and try something and see if it works then to spend days and sometimes weeks and sometimes months and sometimes years coming up with a perfect plan but never acting on it we try to plan things out to the T and to the letter, it happens all the time as coaches. When really, we just...
Aug 09, 2021•2 min
Three frogs are sitting on a log, and one decides to jump off. How many frogs are left sitting on the log? Most people will tell me two, because one decided to jump. The correct answer is three. Just because a frog decided to do something doesn't mean it actually did it. Our theme this week is action.
Aug 08, 2021•2 min
If you have ever baked potato in the microwave, and then baked potato in the oven, you know the difference in the quality and deliciousness of the final product. The point of today's podcast is to understand the quality results require time, energy, and effort. You can be a microwave coach, and it will get you by. Or you could be a 60 minutes in the oven at 400° Coach, and your final product will be outstanding.
Aug 07, 2021•3 min
When the guru sat down to worship each evening, the ashram cat we get in the way and would distract the worshipers. So he ordered the cat be tied during evening worship. After the guru died, the cat continued to be tied during evening worship. And when the cat expired, another cat was brought to the ashram so that it could be duly tied during the evening worship. Centuries later learned treatises were written by the guru's disciples on the liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship ...
Aug 06, 2021•3 min
We can only handle 1 piece of information at a time. We can only truly focus on 1 task at a time. Doug Lemov's biggest takeaway from literally writing books on 'getting better at getting better' was that we must work within the confines our our working memory to perform optimally.
Aug 05, 2021•3 min
"When we set children against one another in contests from spelling bees to awards assemblies to science fairs, that are really contests, from dodgeball to honor rolls to prizes for the best painting or the most books read - we teach them to confuse excellence with winning, as if the only way to do something well is to outdo others. We encourage them to measure their own value in terms of how many people they've been which is not exactly a path to mental health. We invite them to see their peers...
Aug 04, 2021•5 min
"I saw a monkey reach into the river, take out a fish and put it in a tree. 'What are you doing? I asked the monkey. 'I'm saving him from drowning' he replied. Remember that our athletes are like the fish and the monkey. Each is going to thrive and excel in certain environments, and those environments might change on a daily basis. Learn about your athletes and how they feel appreciated, loved, encouraged and discouraged. It will help you help them.
Aug 03, 2021•3 min
Coach Todd Wolfson is the varsity boy's basketball coach at St. Francis High School in La Cañada, California. Today we took some time to talk about why he coaches, the importance of trusting everyone in your program, doing things differently from others around you, and the importance of patience and understanding that we don't need to win the championship in the first 2-3 days of the season. Coach Wolfson can be reached via twitter at @SFHSHoops (https://twitter.com/SFHShoops?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoo...
Aug 02, 2021•28 min
My dad likes to day 'you can't be anyone other than who you are'. Often we hear people asking us or our athletes "oh are you going to be the next Michael Jordan?" and while that's fine to have role models and people to look up to, I think it's important to encourage our athletes (and ourselves) to be the best version of YOU. Not the second best version of Michael Jordan. LeBron James embodies this beautifully in this 15 second clip here https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/25317911...
Aug 02, 2021•2 min
In the Apple TV series Ted Lasso, there’s a great line about how every disadvantage has its own advantage. My challenge to you is to pretend like you’re a novice at coaching your support and attack it with the enthusiasm that you would if you were just starting out
Aug 02, 2021•3 min
Will you pull a kid out of the game for making a mistake or two or three? I’ve started to change my philosophy on taking kids out of games for mistakes. I pay more attention to what happens immediately after the mistake and the mistake itself, because I believe that that has a greater impact on our team than the mistake itself does. I try to practice mistake recovery in practice like I would any other skill, and try to model it for our kids. I challenge you to look at your own philosophy and pra...
Jul 31, 2021•3 min
Once upon a time a prince was cursed by a witch. He was given a frog to eat, and he wouldn’t live to see the next day unless he ate the frog. Every morning after, a frog appeared on his doorstep, and he would have to eat it before the end of the day if he wanted to live to see tomorrow. At first he waited until the last possible minute to eat the frog, and he dreaded his entire day knowing that he was going to have to eat it at 11:59 that night. When he ran into the witch again, she suggested th...
Jul 30, 2021•4 min
In the book “transformational leadership” by Joshua Medcalf and Jamie Gilbert, chapter 29 is titled “start equipping. Stop enabling”. Josh tells a story of training a soccer player and using a tool to increase his effort very specifically and very effectively.
Jul 29, 2021•3 min
In his book tha coach’s guide to teaching, Doug Lemov references giving feedback towards actions, not towards people. This plays in important role in how our athletes perceive us giving them feedback, and also building up our culture and how we want our organization to behave.
Jul 28, 2021•4 min
On an episode of the hardwood hustle podcast, Tony Bennett released some advice that his dad gave to him when recruiting his athletes and coaching staff. His advice is to find the people that you can lose with, and in our jobs as developing athletes and people, it’s important that our kids know how important losing is and what it can do for us in the long run.
Jul 27, 2021•3 min
“The willingness to experiment with change may be the single most essential ingredient to success at anything” - Pat Summit. John Gordon’s book “the coffee bean” gives the notion that challenging situations can change us, or we can use the challenging situation to change our situation and ourselves. I challenge everyone to get in front of the changes happening in your life, embrace it, and use it to improve your situation.
Jul 27, 2021•3 min
“Well done is better than well said “ -Benjamin Franklin
Jul 26, 2021•2 min
I want to provide environment for my teams, where they know that I’ll take the good parts, and the bad parts, the wins and the losses, the parts they’re proud of and the parts they’re not so proud of. I want our cultures and environments to be accepting, loving, and understanding, so that I can challenge them when I need to.
Jul 24, 2021•2 min
An old donkey fell down a well on the farm. The farmer could choose to spend a lot of money and get the donkey out of the well, or bury him, and close off the well at the same time. He decided on the latter. When the donkey got hit with piles of dirt, he shook them off and stepped up onto them. He used his adversity to propel him forward and get himself out of a tough situation.
Jul 24, 2021•2 min
When you pause a drill in practice, how long do you talk for? Time yourself next time and see if you can keep it under 30 seconds. Doug lemon talks about 'aligned feedback' in his book the Coaches' Guide to Teaching, and it means that 'our words matter'. and you're going to hold your players accountable to the thing you paused the drill for. And ONLY that thing! This is hard to do, because we have to let a lot of other things go, but it's impactful and helps our players learn better.
Jul 22, 2021•3 min
A coaching colleague of mine from Key 5 told us that his most effective halftime speeches are the ones where he says nothing. His team could be playing better, so he walks in the locker room, stands by the board, and says nothing for three, four, five minutes. When he does decide to say something he has everyone's full attention, and his words hit.
Jul 21, 2021•4 min
Once upon a time there was a guy who wanted to a paratrooper. So he got up in the military plane on his first day of training, and when it was his turn to jump, he froze. He told his instructor 'I'm too scared to jump' , and the instructor said to him, 'do you really want to be a paratrooper?' he replied 'more than anything in the world', and the instructor said back to him, "Do it scared". Confused, the prospective soldier looked at him. The officer said, I've seen hundreds of guys jump out of ...
Jul 20, 2021•3 min
Today I want to share the story of my college hoops days in some successes we had and some failures that propelled us into history
Jul 19, 2021•3 min
