A Coach's Diary

“In life, the direction that you are headed in is way more important than the speed you are moving.” - Mel Robbins Are you a thinker or a doer? Thinkers love thinking, planning, and dreaming, while doers love taking those thoughts, plans, and dreams and converting them into actions. You can’t just think your way to success; you have to get out of your head and get to work. You have to have goals and plans, but goals and plans without deadlines and consistent actions are just dreams and fantasies. Doers without plans are often busy doing a lot of things but aren’t going anywhere and aren’t being productive. Doers without plans are often the ones who say they are always busy, overwhelmed, overworked, and eventually burn out or flame out when they don’t have to. Because they are too busy doing things without plans, they often end up doing too much just so they can say they are busy. We aren’t meant to be busy; we are meant to be productive. Be a thinker AND a doer. Decide what you wa...

“Success is the product of your daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.” - James Clear I once heard a successful Division 1 basketball coach say, “If I could follow you around for 48 hours, I could tell if you will be successful or not.” Success does not come from what you want but from what you do. If you want to be successful, you have to do what successful people do - you have to have habits that lead to success. James Clear wrote the best-selling book Atomic Habits because he wanted to share his knowledge and experience on how to build good habits and break bad ones. Too often, we burn ourselves out trying to make once-in-a-lifetime transformations that don’t stick. Instead, we should focus on creating or eliminating small habits that will stick and lead to big changes over time. Here are three key takeaways that can impact how you create championship habits: 1 - Focus on Systems, Not Just Goals:   A system is the process that leads to the result. The syste...

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” - Joel Baker Actor Matthew McConaughey said, “In 1992, I wrote down a list of 10 things I wanted out of myself and life that I did not have at the time. I never looked at the list again; I thought I lost it until I found it just a few years ago. When I read the list, I said, ‘Son of a gun, Matthew, you’ve actually achieved all of those things that you wrote down.’ ” Too many people have never taken the time to sit down and think about what they want to do, who they want to be, and what they want to achieve. Have a vision, write down your goals, then take action. Author Joel Baker once said, “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” After you write down the list of things that you want to accomplish, think about two things: Which goal do you want to start with, and what a...

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.” - John Wooden Did you do your best? That is the most important measurement of success. John Wooden is one of the most successful coaches in the history of college basketball. “The Wizard of Westwood” led the UCLA Bruins men’s basketball team to 10 national championships in 12 years, including 7 straight from 1967-9173. Coach Wooden began his career as a high school teacher and coach a t Dayton High School in Kentucky in 1932, and even back then, Coach Wooden dealt with parent issues.  In the book They Call me Coach, he wrote that he was concerned for his students because many parents judged teachers by the grades their children received in class. In his words, “ If the grades were good, the teacher was good, and if the grades were poor, it was the teacher’s fault." Because of this, Coach Wooden, way back in the 1930s, created h...

“1 - Every morning, write a list of the things that need to be done that day. 2 - Do it.” - JP Morgan JP Morgan was one of the most powerful businesspeople in our country's history.  There’s a story about a man who approached him with an envelope and said, “Sir, in my hand I hold a guaranteed formula for success, which I will gladly sell to you for $25,000.”  JP Morgan replied, “I don’t know what’s in the envelope. However, if you show me and I like it, I will give you my word as a gentleman that I will pay you what you ask.”  The man agreed, gave the envelope to JP Morgan, and when he opened it, JP Morgan pulled out a single page that said:  1 - Every morning, write a list of the things that need to be done that day.  2 - Do them.  JP Morgan paid the man $25,000.  Life is simple: Have a plan, write it down, and stick to it. Have long-term goals and short-term goals, and every day, make a list of the things you need to do to get closer to achievin...

"Boldness is a stronger indicator of success than intelligence. Smart people think of all the negative things that will happen when things go wrong, but bold people think of all the good things that will happen when things go right." - Jennifer Cohen In her TEDx Talk titled, The Secret to Getting Anything You Want in Life , fitness personality and author Jennifer Cohen says being bold is the secret to getting whatever you want. She said, “Boldness is a stronger indicator of success than intelligence. Smart people think of all the negative things that will happen when things go wrong, but bold people think of all the good things that will happen when things go right.” Some people never take action and don’t get what they want because they let fear and self-doubt stop them; this is why being bold is the secret sauce that will put you on the path to success. Being bold is overcoming fear and self-doubt by doing things today that will make you successful tomorrow. Jennifer ha...

"Self-confidence is a skill. You can learn it, practice it, get better at it. And reap the rewards of believing in yourself.” - Dr. Ivan Joseph In a TEDx Talk titled The Skill of Self-Confidence, national champion soccer coach and college athletic director Dr. Ivan Joseph said the most important skill an athlete can have is self-confidence–the belief that you can accomplish any task no matter the odds, difficulty, or adversity.  To be great at anything, you have to be willing to put yourself out there and make mistakes, and if you don’t have self-confidence, you either won’t put yourself out there to the level you need to, or you won’t be able to bounce back from adversity as quickly or as strong as you need to.  Dr. Joseph calls self-confidence a skill because we can learn how to have it and grow it like any other skill. Confidence comes from practice and success. When we do good, we feel good and our confidence grows. During his talk, Dr. Joseph shared a story about a C...

"Your success stops where your character stops. You can never rise above the limitations of your character." - John Maxwell In his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership , leadership expert John Maxwell says the first and most important law of leadership is The Law of the Lid. We all have the potential to do great things in life, but we also have lids that put a cap on our potential and hold us back. The Law of the Lid states leadership ability is the lid that determines a person's level of effectiveness. The lower your ability to lead, the lower the lid on your potential, but the higher the lid, the greater your potential. If your leadership lid is a 5, your effectiveness can never be greater than a 4. If your leadership lid is a 10, then your effectiveness can be as high as a 9. The most important person we lead is ourselves, so one of our jobs in life is to figure out what lids are holding us back, face them, and then lift them so we can become the best we can ...

"If you are satisfied with who you are, you don't need to prove your worth to anyone else.” - Jay Shetty Jay Shetty is the host of one of the top podcasts in the world. Going into the new year, he said instead of focusing on creating New Year’s Resolutions that you will quit before the end of January, focus more on who you want to be and building the habits needed to become that person. He also said to understand that not every year or season will be the best year or season of your life. Jay said there are four types of seasons we go through: Learning Season: Here, you have to slow down and focus on learning what you need to learn now so that you can perform and thrive later. Experimenting Season: Now, you have learned some new things and its time to experiment so you can see what works and what doesn’t. Performing Season: It’s time to execute and begin the process towards getting to mastery. Thriving Season: You have mastered what you learned and experimented with, an...

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” - Max DePree A leader once told me, “Change is inevitable. You are either inspired to change or forced to change, but you will change.” Why is change so hard? Former Harvard professor Marty Linsky says change is hard because it is about the distribution of loss; when we adapt, change, and evolve, part of our DNA is lost or left behind in order to make room for something new. When we ask someone to change, we’re asking them to give up something important to them, something that has worked for them, and a part of who they are. Even if we know we have to change or that change is good for us, it won’t be easy because we will have to give up part of who we are and have always been to become who we want to be. How do we change? Find a reason or purpose that is bigger than the discomfort, and make it easy, meaningful, and compelling. Easy In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear says you should build new habits by designing...

“You can’t fight your way through The Pit, you have to find your way through The Pit.” - Landry Fields Life is full of ups and downs, and the best of the best learn how to manage the roller coaster. Landry Fields went from playing in the NBA to retiring and becoming an NBA GM. The 4 Stages of Competence is a message he shares with his young athletes: Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence (Ignorance) You don’t know what you don’t know, and you have blind confidence because you haven’t faced real adversity yet. Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence (Awareness) You get hit with real adversity and fall into the pit. You now know that you don’t know and can’t do everything, and your confidence takes a hit. Stage 3: Conscious Competence (Learning) You have gotten out of the pit because you have done the work needed to learn, grow, and do your job, but you have to stay locked in and focused. Stage 4: Unconscious Incompetence  You have reached the flow state or the zone where you can do wh...

“Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient.” - Steve Maraboli How do you respond to turbulence and tough times? Turbulence is conflict or confusion that disrupts our plan or peace, resilience is our ability to withstand or recover quickly from turbulence or difficulties, and toughness is our ability to deal with and keep pushing through it. Resilience and toughness are often used interchangeably, but resilience is our ability to deal with, bounce back from, and adapt after facing adversity, while, toughness is our ability to withstand the pressure and keep going. Resilience is about adapting, recovering, and finding peace in the middle of storms, while toughness is about enduring, resisting, and fighting the storms. When we face adversity, we often want to show how tough we are by trying to plow through it. Resilience teaches us to absorb the storm, make peace with the storm, learn the lessons we need to learn from it, and then move on. Sometim...

“Most people think it takes a long time to change. It doesn’t. Change is immediate! Instantaneous! It may take a long time to decide to change…but change happens in a heartbeat!” - Andy Andrews Andy Andrews went from being homeless to a best-selling author. When he was at one of his lowest points, he got a free library card and read between two and three hundred biographies about happy, successful, and influential people. He said his biggest takeaway was learning that the most successful people throughout history have two things in common: they have all faced adversity, and they all kept going. The question isn’t: Will it be hard? The questions are: How hard will it get, and how well will I handle the hard? Andy Andrews has written several books on personal growth and overcoming challenges. In The Noticer, he says our perception affects our reality, and we can change our lives by changing what we notice about life. Seeing the good in everything, even the obstacles, can give us the ene...

“Every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.” - Napoleon Hill What can this teach me? Whenever I’m going through something difficult, I ask myself, “What can this teach me?” Napoleon Hill once said, “Every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.” Everything we go through has a purpose and can make us better if we can see the good in it and are willing to learn from it. The challenge for us is to not get too busy focusing on the adversity that we don’t water the seed. When you are going through something tough, you have to make a decision: Am I going to feel sorry for myself and just survive this, or am I going to use this as an opportunity to learn and get better? Author Peter Sage once said, “Many of the gifts in life that come to us are wrapped in a thin layer of problems; probably to stop somebody else from stealing our gift.” Many people don’t get the gifts or blessings they deserve because they can’t see past...

  “Your environment never defines you; it simply gives you the opportunity to find yourself.” - Peter Sage In his TEDx Talk titled, How to Become Your Best When Life Gives You Its Worst, Peter Sage says the most incredible adventure he has ever had the privilege of living was spending 6 months in one of the world’s toughest prisons. How? He said, “One of the greatest days in a human being's journey of emotional maturity is the day that we realize that life is not a comfort-centric experience but a growth-centric experience.”  Peter was an entrepreneur and personal growth expert, and he said being in jail was an opportunity for him to walk the talk that he had been teaching for so many years in a real environment, and an opportunity to learn new lessons about himself and life. Peter wrote a story called Mud or Stars about two prisoners sitting behind bars. One prisoner looked down and saw the mud, and the other looked up and saw the stars.  Peter said, “Your environment ne...

“It's supposed to be uncomfortable, it’s supposed to stretch you, and it's supposed to be a burden. Wrap your mind around it, accept it, and embrace it.” - Nipsey Hussle Rapper Nipsey Hussle was not only a great lyricist but also a successful businessman who talked a lot about wanting to grow, expand, and become the best version of himself. He said that growth and the added responsibility that comes with it are hard. As his career and businesses grew, he had to learn how to juggle and manage several different roles at the same time, and his mentality when everything started to become too much and overwhelming for him was to remember that this is what it is supposed to look like and feel like when you are pursuing greatness; it isn’t supposed to feel comfortable. He said when it becomes a lot, remember that it is supposed to feel like a lot, it’s supposed to feel uncomfortable, it's supposed to stretch you, and it's supposed to be a burden to a degree. He then said you h...

"We all wait in life for things to get easier. It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better ... So make yourself a person that handles hard well." - Kara Lawson Kara Lawson was one of the best basketball players in the world. She won an Olympic gold medal and a WNBA championship, and she led the University of Tennessee to 3 Final Fours. As the head basketball coach at Duke University, she gave a speech to her team about how to Handle Hard Better that has inspired people around the world. One of her athletes was struggling with the transition from high school to college. The first couple of weeks as a college athlete can be some of the toughest weeks of your life. Coach Lawson said her athlete was waiting to get through the first couple of weeks of college workouts as if it was going to get easier for her, so she told the athlete and her teammates so many of us wait in life for things to get easier, but it sometimes never does, and we have to learn how ...

"Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested." - Paulo Coelho When I graduated college, I was one of those people who vowed never to read another book until I found The Alchemist, the story about how Santiago, a young Andalusian shepherd boy embarks on a journey to the Egyptian pyramids to fulfill a recurring dream of finding treasure, where he learns to listen to his heart and discover the true meaning of life. This quote reminds us that while our journey might start on the right foot with Beginner’s Luck , true success often requires overcoming The Victor’s Test : a significant challenge that demands resilience, perseverance, and the ability to adapt to unforeseen obstacles. The rise of Naomi Osaka in tennis perfectly illustrates Coelho's words. She burst onto the scene with an almost perfect blend of power and grace, seemingly effortlessly winning Grand Slam titles. This 'beginner's luck' q...

“Always work hard and have fun in what you do because I think that's when you're more successful. You have to choose to do it.” - Simone Biles Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history, but at the peak of her career at the 2020 Olympics, she had to withdraw from several of her events and took a two-year break to recover from the twisties. The twisties happen when a gymnast is in midair and loses their sense of where they are and how they’ll land, making the move risky. Biles described it as being "lost in the air." When she took her break, many people sympathized with her and applauded her for addressing mental health, but many others took this time to take shots at her and criticize her for a lack of mental toughness. This showed not only how a mental block can keep you from performing your best, but how many people will take any chance they get to knock you down. People will build you up when you are climbing the mountain, but when you get to the top,...