My 10, 11, and 11 year olds play sports on club teams, and that means we often shlep to sport. There are tournaments everywhere and as a result, I spent last weekend at Lake Placid. (I’ll get into the kid-sports industrial complex another time, but for now I’m going with it.)
As a coach, my job is a metaphor, and I like to learn from sports coaches. From volunteer kids’ coaches to professional coaches, I’m fascinated with the field.
Coaching has exploded as a profession, and I wonder: what exactly is it about a coach that makes people want them? And why are so many people turning to coaching now instead of therapy for non-DSM related talk therapy?
While at Lake Placid, I nerded out on all things 1980 Olympics, and found myself in the realm of that miraculous USA men’s hockey team, and their coach, Herb Brooks.
Brooks led a group of underestimated US college hockey players to defeat a professional team of Russian professional men. When I say professional, I mean it – the year prior, the Russian team had taken down an all star NHL team 6-0 at Madison Square Garden.
My words here won’t do it justice, so please take the opportunity to read the story, or better yet, watch the movie. Get ready for all the goose bumpy tingles. When speaking with a rather reserved friend about this game over brunch, he nearly jumped out of his chair, remembering that night, when he was 12, jumping up and down in his kitchen with a black and white TV. Find anyone born in the late sixties or prior, and they will remember.
It was an emotional time. Gas lines, cold war, Jimmy Carter dealing with the hostage crisis. The USA team, under the focused leadership of Brooks, achieved the impossible at a time when the country desperately needed a miracle. Not unlike now, in some ways.
Here are some Herb Brooks coachisms that I found on the wall of the Olympic Museum in Lake Placid. I encourage you to sit with one or two that feels meaningful to you and keep it in a place you can see it. Like, write it on your arm.
- Risk something or forever sit with your dreams.
- You win with people, not with talent…the quality of people is very important.
- Set a goal that seems unattainable, and when you reach that goal, set another one even higher.
- Write your own book instead of reading someone else’s book about success.
- Many want to win, but how many prepare? That is the big difference.
- You don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.
- This is your time.
- You’re only as good as your values.
- Success is won by those who believe in winning and then prepare for that moment.
- Willy Wonka said it best – we are the makers of dreams, the dreamers of dreams. As adults, as a nation…we stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams.
- Hard work beats talent – when talent doesn’t work hard.
- This moment is yours.
- Which one speaks to you? Carry it with you.
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Separately, I was blown away by this NYT Interview about the nature of screen addiction. For those of you who have spoken with me about time management, executive function concerns, inability to curtail your social media, online shopping, or gaming addiction, which is almost all of you, have a listen.
