Thursday, April 13, 2017

Jim Loehr: The Power Of Story [Notes]

Key Takeaways
1 - We all have inner voices that represent our reality and shape our futures.
2 - It's important to influence our athlete's so that their inner voice matches their actions.
3 - Athletics should be about personal development first and foremost.


Below are my notes from a speech by Dr. Jim Loehr on the the power of our inner voice, our stories, and our just how great, and why, our influence is on the athletes that we lead.  You can see the video in its entirety below.

The stories from our inner voice shape the stories in our players inner voice which eventually shapes their destiny.

As a coach, you are in the influence business, and you have to influence the minds, hearts and bodies to be successful.

Great coaches are great story tellers, and through their stories, they mold, shape and modify the stories that the players tell themselves.   And the stories that the players tell themselves are the stories that they tell their parents, their friends, and the rest of the world.

Our stories represent our version of reality, and they ultimately become our destiny.

Your inner voice is the master story teller, and their inner voice is what you are trying to get a hold of with your athletes.  

You change them into desired directions buy getting them to buy-in and change the way their inner voice speaks to them.

Great changes and things happen when you can get their public and private voices begin to align.  Therein lies the power of a teacher/coach.

What Makes a Great Story
Stories that move mountains have:
1 – Truth (they long for people to tell them the truth)
2 – Direction (the story takes you somewhere)
3 – Purpose (getting the purpose RIGHT behind the ‘why’)

What’s Your
- What’s your primary focus?  Winning or personal development
- What’s your scorecard?  Extrinsic or Intrinsic Markers for measuring your sense of value
- Are you really in the character-building business?

How Do You Change Your Stories
Write your story by hand and rewrite it every few weeks or months by memory.  One day you will wake up and realize your brain has been intentionally rewired.

Dr. Jim’s ‘Story’
The truth  is that the obsession to achieve extrinsic success in sport by coaches, parents, and kids (the obsession to win at all costs) is undermining the basic fabric of sport, and threatens the well-being of legions of developing athletes.  Burnout.  Overuse injuries that may impact them for a lifetime.  The truth is that the real value of competitive sport is in helping athletes become stronger human beings for life.  More important than the chase to the top is who is the person becoming as a consequence of that chase.  And most of the youth in sport will never make professional athletes, but we are professionalizing the chase.  Sport provides an incredible platform to accelerate their personal development, respect for others, focus, engagement, determination, teamwork, persistence, fairness, gratitude, emotional control, resiliency, positivity, all of which will be strengths that will carry them for the entirety of their life.  And they’ll always look back on sport, and you, as a special gift.  A gift that will help them prepare for what they are going to face.



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