A Coach's Diary

💪🏿 Find the best player in the gym and play them. 🏃 Find the fastest person at the workout and work  next to them. 🏀 Find the best shooter in the gym and shoot with them. ⚾️ Find the best hitter and pitch to them. ⚾️ Find the best pitcher, and hit off them. ⚽️ Find the best scorer and try to stop them. 🏀 Find the best goalkeeper and try to score on them. 🥅 Find the hardest worker and try to outwork them. 🎽 Find the person who can run the furthest, the longest and try to keep up! When you play against people who are better than you, you get better.  They push you harder and they expose your weaknesses.  They force you to maximize your strengths and grow your weaknesses.  They teach you how to have a growth mindset and learn from your failures.   We all win and lose in life - and sports can prepare you for that.  Your first loss shouldn't be as a college freshmen when you are away ...

When you are really competing and adversity hits, you will see the true character of your teammates and the true culture of your team.  When things aren't going right, some of your teammates will start to complain and will start to whine. They will start making excuses.  Some teammates start blaming the referee or start blaming their teammates and coaches.  They start to cry, fight and shut down.   YOU can't do that.  You have to keep going, keep pushing and keep fighting.  YOU have to figure it out. The teammates with the right character and the teams with the right culture keep their heads up and don't make excuses.  They don't complain about the referees or about their coaches or about their teammates.  The teammates with the right character and the teams with the right culture encourage their teammates.  They bring positive energy through their actions and their words.  They keep everybody moving forw...

The best players don't just score goals, or touchdowns, or baskets - they make the right plays and they make others better.  Being the best scorer on your youth league team looks and sounds cool, but scoring alone doesn't always translate to the next level.   What does translate is making the right play every time.  Playing defense.  Making the right pass.  Encouraging your teammates and bringing positive energy.  Listening to your coach and learning and getting better every practice and every day.  Learning from each situation.  Playing with grit.  Those are the things that translate as you move up in levels so much more and so much easier than scoring.  You aren't going to make THE play everytime.  Just make the right play enough.

Don't spend your time just being busy - spend it being FRUITFUL.  Make sure that you spend your time on stuff that actually benefits you and your life and not just staying busy. Be a person of purpose so that you can leave a legacy and so that you do not have to look back with regret for not doing different things with your time. We all have the same amount of time, and it is all the time that we need.  We spend our time just like we spend money - on what we want, on what we value, and on what we think is important -  and when we spend our money and our time - we can't get it back.  So make sure that you are spending your time on something that will bear good fruit in your lives. Take responsibility for how you are spending your time.  What you do is your choice, and when you control the fundamental aspects of your life, you can have the time, headspace and creativity to chase greatness.