Care. Care. Care.

Care. Care. Care.

The number 1 character trait necessary for an athlete to add value to his or her team is to care. To care about doing your best. To care about helping your teammates be their best. To care about helping your team be its best.

The worst thing a player can do in a team sport is to not care. To not care enough to be their best. To not care enough to help their teammates be their best. To not care enough to help the team be its best.

When you care, you grow, improve and you get better. When you don’t care, you don’t grow and you bring down the team as well.

If you don’t care, don’t play. Don’t waste your time, don’t waste your teammate’s time, and don’t waste your coach’s time. Find another team, another coach, or something that you do care about and invest your time and energy into that.

If you do care, work hard everyday to be a better player and a better teammate.

Failure and Riding Out the Storm

The article below comes from Mike Greenberg's podcast, I'm Interested, in which he interviews Shake Shack founder and restaurateur Danny Meyer.

Failure is a part of success.  There is no better way to learn and grow than by trial and error.  Don’t be afraid to try.  Don’t be afraid to fail.  Don’t be afraid to strikeout, or miss the shot, or get knocked off the ball.  Each time you fail is another opportunity for you learn how to do better.

When you fail, be humbled – not stubborn – and be willing to listen and learn.  Failing, listening and learning is how you grow and get better.  Sticking with it and being persistent and having grit is how you become the best.

Learn how to ride out the storms and you will get there, as an athlete, as a coach, as a parent, and as a person.  

This goes for the coaches you play for or the employees that you hire, or the players that you coach.  Patience and loyalty is important.  They will mess up.  They will fail.  But, if you feel like you have the right people in place - people who have the ability, the mindset, the work ethic, the grit, and the potential to listen, learn and grow - then ride the storms out with them because at the end of it will be learned lessons and sustainable success.

51% vs 49%

The article below comes from Mike Greenberg's podcast, I'm Interested, in which he interviews Shake Shack founder and restaurateur Danny Meyer.

When you talk about what you look for in a great teammate, coach, teacher or employee, 51% is based on who you are as a person, and 49% is based how good you are at what you do.

If you do everything right as a coach - great Xs and Os, timely timeouts, good scouting reports and sub rotations, etc, then you can only get a 49 on the test.

If you are a great player, can shoot, pass dribble and defend, then you can only get a 49 on the test.

Who you are when you aren’t on the field is just as important as your ability and make up the other 51%.  We can easily see and measure stats, but who are you in the dugout?  What are you doing to raise the performance of everyone else on the team?  What are you doing to make this team the type of team that the best players would want to work at?  That is just as important, more important, than your stats.

Numbers can't measure what's the most important - the value that people bring by being good people.

Know and Master Your Role

Know, accept and master your role.  That is the mark of a good teammate in any sport and in any field.  We all have been given certain gifts, and when we use those gifts, no matter how big or small, popular or unseen, we make the team better.

-  If you are a shooter - shoot with confidence.
-  If you are a defender - defend with heart and toughness.
-  If you bring energy off the bench, cheer loud and proud for your teammates.

The best teams have the best teammates - teammates who know, believe in, accept, and master their roles.

"Being a teammate means you only have one agenda: the team.  There can be no personal agendas on a championship team.  A teammate is someone who is over themself and into the team.  Being a teammate is immersing ourselves into doing everything we can to help the team and our teammates succeed.

"Know and understand your role.  In order for the team to win, it has to use the strengths that it has in each of its members."

- Kevin Eastman, Why the Best are the Best