Your Legacy | Planting Seeds | Your Purpose - Billy Donovan

The video below is the third part of a great conversation between Billy Donovan and Brett Ledbetter at What Drives Winning.

They talk about our legacies as coaches, how we are planting seeds in our athletes, and how to find freedom in our purpose as coaches.

Planting Seeds

The hardest thing in coaching is that we are always planting seeds in players, but sometimes those seeds don't sprout and take bloom until long after they are gone. And the frustrating part as coaches is that we want that plant to flower and to harvest right now while we have them, but sometimes that harvest happens at different times in people's lives.

We have to keep planting knowing that our legacy is ultimately the lessons that we teach our players, what they remember about us, and what they say about us long after we are gone.  

Our legacy is more than wins and losses.  Our legacies are the people that our athletes become as they grow up and start their own lives and families.

What Will Your Legacy Be?

At the end of our careers, our legacies as coaches will not just be our record or how many games we win.  Our legacy will be how our athletes and their families talk about us after we are gone.

Our influences will carry on long after we are gone.  There are things that we do as coaches that can, and will, have an effect for generations.  The lessons we teach our athletes and how we treat our athletes will be embedded in them and it will influence how they interact with their own kids.

At the end of the day, we are going to be measured on how our players talk about us.  When our players have their own children and they ask, "Who did you play for and what was he/she like," when that player starts to talk about you, then that is your legacy and how you are remembered.

The winning is great, but how your players talk about you, how they remember you, and the lessons that they learned from you is your true legacy.

The Chase

When you are going through this 'chase,' who will you become? Will bitterness come out?  Does resentment, anger, and/or frustration come out?

There are so many things that get exposed and that we have to address.  We aren't perfect, but through this chase and through this journey, we get the chance to become a better version of ourselves.

The pressure part of coaching is just another way for you to grow and learn more about yourself in and through adverse situations.  

What is your purpose in coaching?

And, it can't be materialistic.  What are you trying to do every day?  What is your calling?  What is your mission?  What are you supposed to do?  There is an enormous amount of freedom on being who you want to be as a coach without having to deal with or worry about results. 

If we had control over our results, we would always get what we want.  We don't, but we have control over the process and who we are becoming.  We have control over what kind of changes we need to make in our life.