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Steve Kerr: What Kind of Coach Are You Going to Be?

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Steve Kerr has won a total of 9 championships as a player and a coach, so few people in basketball know more about winning and culture than Coach Kerr. In an interview with Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley, he was asked how to build an effective culture. Before he started coaching, Coach Kerr said he visited several coaches, and NFL coach Pete Carroll asked him, “How are you going to coach your team?” More important than Xs and Os are the kind of culture you want to build, the values you want to have, and how you want to make them come alive. Carroll asked him, “What is the most important thing in your life? What are the most important values in your life?” Coach Kerr said, “[Your athletes] have to feel the authenticity of you.” When you have genuine, real values and make them come alive, that is when the culture starts to form. Coach Kerr came up with four words that defined him and his approach to life the most: joy, competitiveness, mindfulness, and c...
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3.29 Nancy Lieberman: Beating the Mind Monsters

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“There’s no substitute for hard work. If you work hard and prepare yourself, you might get beat, but you’ll never lose.” Nancy Lieberman Nancy Lieberman is a basketball Hall of Famer and is one of the greatest figures in women’s basketball. But Lieberman had a rough upbringing and many tough obstacles she had to overcome. In a TEDx Talk, she said, “My life has been riddled with Nancy-can’t Moments. Nancy can’t do this, Nancy can’t do this, Nancy can’t do that.” She said you have to beat the Mind Monsters - the voices that tell you what you can’t do and shouldn’t do, but her mantra has been: You have to see it, say it, and be it. This is how she reinforced her confidence, self-esteem, and decision-making. This mantra helps overcome the Mind Monsters and live with confidence. She won championships in college in as a professional, and she became a head coach in the WNBA. Then, when the NBA created the D-League, the Dallas Mavericks named her the first female head coach in a men’s professi...
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3.28 Vince Lombardi: Wanting to Win

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“Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is.” - Vince Lombardi You can’t always control whether you win or not. Sometimes, your opponent is too big, strong, experienced, and good to overcome. But that should never impact how you show up, do your job, add value, and compete. Legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” Coach Lombardi was known for his demanding coaching style and relentless pursuit of excellence. This quote says that the pursuit of greatness and excellence is just as important as the result. Your will is a strong intention or desire to do something. When your will is strong enough, you will wake up or show up early, you will do your job with integrity and excellence, and you will find ways to add value. My favorite athlete of all time is Michael Jordan. He was blessed with a lot of talent and world-class athleticism, but he was also blessed with an intense will to compete and get better. When Jor...
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3.27 Marie Forleo: Be Consistent

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“Success doesn't come from what you do occasionally. It comes from what you do consistently.” - Marie Forleo How do you stay consistent? Entrepreneur and author Marie Forleo says most of us struggle with consistency in some parts of our lives, and working on being more consistent is worth the effort.  In a YouTube video , she outlines 5 steps we can use to be more consistent: 1 - Keep Your Eye on Your Why: Know what you want to achieve, and more importantly, know why. Your why keeps you going when the going gets tough. 2 - Pick Your [1] Battle: Start with one thing and stick to that. We have limited capacity when it comes to willpower and discipline. If you try to do too many things at one time, you will fail at them all. 3 - Schedule It: Steven Covey said, “Don’t prioritize your schedule, schedule your priorities.” Build your life around what you are trying to be more consistent with instead of trying to fit it in. 4 - Ignore Your Feelings: When it comes to developing habits, igno...
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3.25 Nick Saban: What it Takes to Win

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  “Undisciplined people do dumb things. Disciplined people do smart things. Which are you?.” - Nick Saban Do you have the discipline it takes to accomplish what you want to accomplish? Championship football coach Nick Saban says to be successful, you have to have a good plan, preparation, a good system, and an ability to adjust based on the situation you are in, but he says the real key to winning is all about mindset. If you don’t think about and focus on what it takes to win, you will struggle. He says there are three steps to creating a championship mindset: 1 - Vision: What are we trying to accomplish? 2 - Plan: What are the systems and processes that are required to accomplish it? 3 - Discipline: You have to have the discipline to execute it every day. This is where most people fail. Coach Saban says most people define discipline as doing what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it, the way you’re supposed to do it - right thing, right way, right time, all the ...
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3.26 Vanessa Blair-Lewis: Bigger Deposits

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“If you want a bigger house, you have to make a bigger deposit.” - Vanessa Blair-Lewis Before the start of the 2021 basketball season, the new head women’s basketball coach at George Mason, Vanessa Blair-Lewis, hung a banner that read: Future Atlantic 10 Champions. It symbolized the championships she promised they would win and the future banners she promised to hang. This was a bold prediction for a team coming off a 3-win season, but it sent a message: Anything is possible if you are willing to put in the work. She told the team then, “We’re not putting this on social media, we’re not telling everyone about this. What you do here every day without the bright lights, without the cameras, will show if one day we’re worthy of this. And we will be.” They made this promise a reality in the 2024-25 season, where they won their first-ever conference tournament championship, recorded a school-record 27 wins, and reached back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time in program history. Their...
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3.24 Howard Behar: Get Past the Rocks

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“The key in life is getting over, under, around, and through those rocks.” - Howard Behar What are the rocks in your way? Howard Behar helped Starbucks grow from a regional, northwest coffee chain to an international giant. He says he lives his life according to his 6 Ps: Purpose, passion, persistence, patience, performance, and people. When he talks about persistence, Howard says, “The river of life has a lot of rocks in it. Some of the rocks we see and we hit anyway, some of the rocks we don’t see and we slam into, and some rocks we put there ourselves. The key in life is getting over, under, around, and through those rocks.” What do you do when you run into a rock? Do you stop, quit, or find your way around it? Know that there are rocks in your way and there always will be, so prepare yourself for how you will overcome them. Build Good Habits: The habits you build today will be what carry you past the rocks in the future. Do today what your future self will thank you for. Build a Te...
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