Steve Cohen is a magician who performs in NYC, and i saw him when i was 16 as a birthday present from my aunt and Uncle. He wrote A book called win the crowd, that I read at 16 years old, and the principles in the book and the practical application of them have significantly influence my life for the better. Steve introduces what he calls the Maksims of magic, they are principles he uses to gain over the trust of the room he is entertaining. The first maxim of magic is be bold. He tells a story ...
Apr 23, 2022•5 min
...⠀just stop
Apr 14, 2022•2 min
what do we REALLY say when we talk for so long? 180 – Respect your audience, respect your own time. Don’t ramble, keep it simple make a memorable statement and call it a day.
Apr 14, 2022•3 min
John Maxwell in 'Leaders Made Here' describes the concept of 'pay now, play later' vs. 'Play now, pay later' Life has a price, the good news is we get to decide how much we pay for it. We control our experiences and our response to those experiences. This concept is relevant to us as coaches and for our players because of how we spend our time in the off season. Do we spend it ONLY relaxing? Do we spend it ONLY preparing? Do we BALANCE those two as best we can? We can pay now (put in the work , ...
Apr 03, 2022•3 min
A college professor goes up to his whiteboard and starts doing simple math problems..1+1=2 , 1+2=3, 1+3=4, etc. and he gets to 10+1 = 12 Right away, hands shoot up , and the students in his class jump down his throat. "Professor, Professor, you got that last one wrong!" He turns around and asks what they mean and for them to clarify. He calls them out and says to them, 'none of you said a word while I was banging out the easy ones and getting them right, but the moment I got an easy one wrong, y...
Mar 31, 2022•4 min
“Players think - “Play me and I’ll show you”. Coaches think - “Show me and I’ll play you” - Shaka Smart This boils down to expectations. Many conflicts (in relationships (think spouses/players/coaches/bosses/employees/...fill in the blank) arise from unclear or unmet expectations. So players expect , well, if you play me, I can show you what I can do. and Coaches expect, well, show me what you can do, and THEN I'll play you (or play you more). Everyone in the organization wants the team to be su...
Mar 28, 2022•2 min
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6acpB3x1c0Z85ollXSnzQy?si=667e8f099beb44ad Jon Gordon with Alec Ingold, and my reflection on part of their conversation It has always bothered me when you listen to any person who is accomplished something be interviewed immediately after. Inevitably the reporter asks did you ever think you'd get here? And maybe it's their response in the moment, or maybe it's really true, but they always answer, not in 1 million years. I find that incredibly hard to believe. If ...
Mar 22, 2022•5 min
Lauren Ammon was an energetic 5 year old who fell in love with swimming after her mom tossed her into the pool with her 2 big sisters. She swam for 17 years, including at the college level at Eastern Michigan University. After realizing that law school was not in her cards, she started a career in HR. Just before the 2020 Olympics, she considered a career change, realizing that high level athletes often are not trained in the mental aspect of their game and performance. She then saw Michael Phel...
Mar 21, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Mark Twain said “Good judgement is the result of experience, and experience the result of bad judgement” How stinking true is this? We make decisions based on perceived information and the meaning that we give to our past experiences. I have had countless times where I’ve said to myself or my best friend, ‘wow, I misjudged that one’. I misjudged someone’s reaction, (sometimes my own), or mis judged a player’s potential or performance or capability to respond to a situation they were in on the fi...
Jan 17, 2022•3 min
Definition : the ability to make good decisions about what should be done the act or process of forming an opinion or making a decision after careful thought : the act of judging something or someone an opinion or decision that is based on careful thought Judegment here is defined as an ABILITY! An ability! If something is an ability, that means we can be good at it or bad at it, AND we can IMPROVE it with deliberate practice (Just like if we ask a player to improve their dribbling or shooting A...
Jan 08, 2022•3 min
Someone hired a helper; but just before she reported to work, he heard some bad reviews about her from a former employer. When the girl came to work, instead of writing her off, the man said, “Nellie, I spoke the other day to a woman you used to work for. She said you were honest and reliable, a good cook and good at caring for the children. But she also said you were sloppy and never kept the house clean. Now, I think she was lying. You dress neatly, anybody can see that. And I’ll bet you keep ...
Jan 07, 2022•4 min
This is a story from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People - Ralph Waldo Emerson and his son were trying to get a calf into the barn (which was what they wanted). Emerson pushed and his son pulled, but the calf merely stiffened his legs and stubbornly refused to leave the pasture. Along came the Irish housemaid, who intuitively considered what the calf would want. She placed her maternal finger in the calf’s mouth, and let the calf suck her finger as she gently led him into the...
Jan 06, 2022•4 min
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/10/05/five-principles-to-follow-if-you-want-to-influence-others/?sh=2d908f066e29 1. Influence is a persuasive process. It doesn’t happen all at once. 2. Influence is a product of trust. 3. When people feel heard, they’re more open to being influenced. 4. Influence requires persuasively communicating. Describe the current state. What is going on now? • Establish a need/problem. What is the problem with the current state? What is there a need ...
Jan 05, 2022•5 min
I am looking far and wide for how influence happens, and it’s an elusive topic. I returned to one of my favorite books ‘how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. I could not quickly find a definition for ‘Influence’ or how it happens. He does provide a LOT of stories of how to win people towards your way of thinking (which maybe is influence?). I’ve found those strategies a little difficult to apply to coaching high schoolers, because they’ll work in 1 drill or in 1 practice mayb...
Jan 04, 2022•6 min
We can name our captains. We can pick our starting line up. We can choose to title anything we want on our teams. But our players know who has the most influence on the team. They know who the true leaders are because of the INFLUENCE they have on the behavior of others. We will get into HOW influence happens. I’m enjoying looking through articles on that topic. We know HOW authority happens. We earn a job, we label a kid as ‘captain’, we elect an official, we get promoted at work. That authorit...
Jan 03, 2022•3 min
Power is a tool, influence is a skill; one is a fist, the other a fingertip. Nancy Gibbs I'm not sure about you, but I never took a course in coaching. Most things I've learned about coaching I've come from my own experience, and speaking with other people who have coached for years. It's easy to get better coaching. Go to other coaches practices, have them come To yours and critique you. I think it's a lot harder to get better at influencing. One of my favorite John wooden quotes is a poem that...
Jan 02, 2022•4 min
Definition - the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. As a verb, influence typically means "to affect or change someone or something in an indirect but usually important way." Something or someone that influences a person or thing, then, has an influence on that person or thing. We as coaches can play a significant role in our players lives through the sport coach. Often times parents will tell me "you have no idea t...
Jan 01, 2022•3 min
https://www.inspirationalstories.eu/inspirational-stories-about-happiness/ There was a boy, whose family was very wealthy. One day his father took him on a trip to the country, where he aimed to show his son, how poor people live. So they arrived to a farm of a very poor family, as he considered. They spent there several days. On their return, the father asked his son, did he like the trip. „Oh, it was great, dad” – the boy replied. „Did you notice how poor people live?” „Yeah, I did“- said the ...
Dec 29, 2021•4 min
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449495/ “Happiness & Health: The Biological Factors- Systematic Review Article” (2014) “All of the activities managed by brain. Thoughts, feelings, activities, learning and love, all conducted by the brain. Mood and emotions are not except for this role.” “Another factor that affected happiness in general is hormones and glands. Studies suggested that some released hormones (Cortisol, Adrenaline, Oxitocin) have a fundamental role in happiness and...
Oct 14, 2021•5 min
Example/study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3126102/ “Happiness Unpacked: Positive Emotions Increase Life Satisfaction by Building Resilience” “Positive emotions lead to higher levels of ego-resilience in the future ( Fredrickson et al., in press ; Cohn & Fredrickson, in preparation ; Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002). Ego-resilience also achieves its effects partly by generating positive emotions. When faced with a stressor, people high on ego-resilience experience more positi...
Oct 13, 2021•4 min
This is one of those quotes that the ‘state farm insurance’ commercials that “stop you from becoming your parents” that hangs on a wall in your house and has no need to be there. I saw this in TJ Maxx years ago (maybe college), and it has hung on a canvas print with me everywhere I go. Now it’s hanging in my office. It falls nicely in line with the quote from Dr. Bonner I gave you yesterday. If you find joy and happiness, success will follow. As I interpret it, the journey should make you enjoy ...
Sep 29, 2021•3 min
One of my favorite college professors and good friend finished an e mail to me with this line when I told her I’d be transferring colleges. As a 21 year old college kid chasing ‘success’ in my academic, athletic, personal and career goals, I had never stopped to contemplate what ‘success’ really looked like. Conventionally, success is money, respect, good relationships, a husband, a career, higher educational degrees, a house, etc. Her line at the end of this e mail stood out to me and I printed...
Sep 27, 2021•2 min
Sep 27, 2021•4 min
“A simple act of gratitude” John Kralik was an LA based attorney with a crappy life. He couldn’t afford to pay his employees, he was overweight, overworked, on his 2nd divorce, living in a small apartment with no air conditioning. On New Years Day, he decided he was going to write a thank you note, handwritten and sent through the mail, every day of the year. John said that writing the thank you notes over the course of the year taught him to value the good things and created a discipline of pos...
Sep 27, 2021•3 min
One of my favorite games to play is ‘This is good because…’ I don’t remember where I picked it up, but I’m grateful to the person who showed it to me since it’s gotten me through a lot of difficult situations and times I found it really, really hard to find the good in something. Next time you’re in a situation where you are frustrated and feel discouraged, challenge yourself to finish the sentence , “ This is good because…” It’s difficult at first. You may want to answer sarcastically. It may t...
Sep 24, 2021•3 min
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5085955/ This is a narrative written by Dr. John Kelly from the Journal Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research. He discusses how gratitude can rewire the brain when it has good feelings flowing through it. He says, “The brain can literally be rewired to more easily transmit circuits associated with generation of good feelings. A willful and deliberate focus on all that is good in one’s life will shift one’s baseline temperament and increase feeling...
Sep 24, 2021•2 min
“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” - Meister Eckhart I heard a priest preach this during a homily the Sunday before Thanksgiving when I was in middle school or high school. I took it to heart then and am reminded of it daily. I start every prayer with “Dear God, Thank you”, and sometimes that’s it. Usually I name something specific, or I follow it with “...for the opportunity to…” I got into that habit in high school, and now , I do what James Clear calls ‘habit s...
Sep 22, 2021•3 min
the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. “Gratitude is pausing to notice and appreciate the things that we often take for granted , like having a place to live, food, clean water, friends, family, even computer access. It's taking a moment to reflect on how fortunate we are when something good happens — whether it's a small thing or a big thing.” - https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/gratitude.html The power of gratitude is immense. Gratitude is like ...
Sep 19, 2021•4 min
During Covid last year, every day was unpredictable. We were supposed to play the team on Saturday, and Friday afternoon got news that they were not able to play us. We had gone about 10 days without playing a game, and our kids were really looking forward to having one. It happened to be the week of Halloween, and my team had done Halloween theme week. That practice, they all came in costume. I had planned a practice, but once I broke the news to them that there was no game, they asked me if we...
Sep 18, 2021•3 min
Roy Kent was one of soccer’s most outstanding players. When he retired, he returned to coaching his old team. While watching his successor have a rut during the season, he decided he needed to remind Issiac why he played. So he took Issiac MacAdoo to his home town inside a cage to play soccer, the same place he’d go if he himself got into a rut. At first Issiac was skeptical of the caliber of players at this arena, but once they showed that they’re as physical and talented as his professional co...
Sep 17, 2021•3 min
