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Criticism is inevitable. As a leader, know that you will get criticized… A LOT (even in successful seasons). How you handle criticism will be an important piece to your effectiveness and longevity as a leader. There is a saying “don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.” My heart wants to follow that advice…but my…

Trust and buy-in. A program can not be successful without the leader winning these two things. And they must be won. You can’t demand or force. How do you get buy-in? How do you win trust?   There are three primary tools that leaders use to win trust/buy-in. + Connection: this is building relationships with…

I came across a great article written by Frank Slootman, Chairman and CEO at Snowflake (Technology/cloud company). He has taken three companies public and is uber-successful. One of his keys to success is his “Amp it up” leadership philosophy. There are three main pillars to his philosophy. I will summarize them below. These can apply to…

“The trick to viewing feedback as a gift is to be more worried about having blind spots than hearing about them.” James Clear As a leader, if you are not getting feedback from those you are leading it might be because you fear hearing something about your blind spots/weaknesses. Instead of avoiding it, see it…

With leadership comes big responsibilities. It also comes with more and more people wanting and needing your time. If leaders are not careful they will let the urgent drown out the important. Josh Spector tweeted some questions to ask yourself in regard to your calendar. He called it a calendar audit. 1. What is filling up your…

Over the several months, I have been doing work on and thinking about the following topics: process and results, curiosity, how coaches can involve parents and at the same time keep up some guard rails, accountability, and how silence & solitude help leaders be better prepared and make better decisions. But the one topic that I can’t put down over…

“How you spend your days is therefore how you will spend your life.” Annie Dillard Happy New Year… Goals are good. However, if you don’t have daily habits and disciplines, you will never reach your goals! I love how Shane Parish says it: “When we watch people make small choices, like order a salad at lunch…

During the 2021-2022 school year I led a cohort with several baseball coaches. One of the coaches in this cohort, Todd Interdonato, head coach at Wofford, talked about his philosophy of accountability in his program. Accountability Todd said that he did not expect or encourage his athletes to hold each other accountable. I was super curious to hear his reasoning after…

How a leader frames things is a huge leadership advantage. Example 1: You have to address your team about some off-the-field stuff. Frame that conversation right and you can stop (or at least greatly minimize) off-the-field problems. Frame it wrong and you will have more issues. Example 2: Some stuff with your staff is falling…

Have you ever been sitting in a meeting and thought “this person just likes to hear themselves talk!” I think we all have. Painful is probably putting it too mildly. The best coaches/leaders seem to err on the side of being concise, short, and to the point when they address their team. Average leaders often have long-winded, repeat…

The best leaders help others be their best. They are excellent and intentional about developing those they lead. There are many factors involved in developing others. I want to share what I think to be one of the most important. It is ‘calling out the gold in others’. This is simply paying attention to what someone does well, and…

What is the best way to solve problems in your life? We often think to ‘add’ when problem-solving. Try subtracting. Have a weight issue…don’t add some fancy diet. Simply subtract the two things that are causing weight gain (soda and donuts:). Feeling discontent? Instead of adding a hobby, stuff, or people to fix the discontentedness,…

Before I get into feedback, I want to share a great weekly email that is a must-read for me. If you are looking for some of the best currated material, this email is for you. Coaching Coaches features articles, podcasts, documentaries, and tidbits to provide the best collection of content for coaches. Everyone learns in different…

+ It is really hard for a leader to gain trust when they don’t/can’t connect with people. People trust a leader when they feel valued.  + It is really hard for a leader to gain trust when they don’t/can’t bring clarity to their people People trust a leader who has a clear plan for where they are going…

The health or unhealth of a coaching staff flows down. The staff ALWAYS effects the rest of the program. Healthy staff, healthy program. There are four things that make up an elite coaching staff (or executive staff). 1. Unified- Relationships matter. I think it is vital to have good relationships with the other coaches on the…

I’m starting to see that the biggest competition and challenge a leader faces is themselves. You vs. You It is an internal battle every day to : + stay confident + avoid comparison + avoid and fight negative narratives that play on loop in our minds + fight anxiety or extreme worry + trust your decision making + stay consistent How do you…

When your purpose or why is self-centered you will use people for your gain. Leaders are smart enough to not go “Bobby Knight” on people (at least out in the open). So leaders are disguising things much better. But when you get to the heart, many leaders lead with a self-centered ‘why’. We say all the right…

Trust raises the floor. Inspiration raises the ceiling. The more and deeper trust is built and sustained, the stronger the foundation, the more your program can withstand tough times, and the healthier it is. Trust helps people feel safe. Inspiration propels people, super-charges buy-in, and increases people’s belief that they can achieve great things! Inspiration elevates people! I write about trust HERE and…

The primary killer of careers are… lacking self-awareness Inability to lead yourself The primary enhancer of careers are… Self-awareness Leading yourself well It is almost impossible to succeed if you know how to run a program or organization, recruit, team build, run a sales team, etc. but don’t know and can’t lead yourself. On the flip side, it is almost impossible…

Something I read this past weekend made me think about those in my life that have played a pivotal role in who I am today. So I typed out this tweet: https://twitter.com/KingdomCoa… I wanted to expand on this idea that we are shaped by the people we are ‘around’ the most. I really don’t think I can overstate the importance of this idea.…

Before I get into networking…How to improve your clarity. One of the most important things a leader can do is to communicate with clarity! One exercise to increase clarity is to tweet 3-4 times a week. Twitter is what I use to sharpen my thoughts and gain clarity. The constraint of 140+ (I sometimes use a thread) characters helps me…

How to be your best…maybe even elite: Dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame. If you look at the elite leaders/coaches today you are looking at the culmination of many years of this dogged progress. I’ve mentioned “compound growth” many times in my emails…and I want to mention it again. There is no other…

Focus on less to be great. Or to put it another way, do less better. As a leader, it can be tempting to want your program/team to excel in many areas. So you come up with a list of things that you want to stress, work on, talk about, drill, and grow in. I don’t know…

We have this weird internal dynamic going on in our minds. When we say it out loud, it makes no sense, but everyone I know (including me!) does it. On one hand, we are self-critical, often beating ourselves up internally. We can be insecure and doubt ourselves. On the other hand, we are constantly looking for…

Your perspective is everything. That might seem like a brash claim, and it may be. But perspective is radically important. When you look at the picture below, what do you see?   *In the above picture…some will see a young lady facing away with a bonnet on. Others will see an old lady with a big…

Very few people, if any, achieve great things apart from someone speaking life into them. One of the leader’s greatest privileges is to observe someone, identify where they are gifted, where they thrive, and call it out to them. Most people have high levels of self-doubt and question themselves. Don’t underestimate the power of calling out the gold…

Leaders get in trouble when treating things you can only influence as something you can control. There is a difference between what we can influence and what we can control. Make sure you have clarity on what you really control…so you don’t try to control that which you can only influence. When a leader tries to control…

Big issues start off as small issues that go unaddressed. The best leaders create elite environments…and one huge key to this is knowing when or if to have a hard conversation (address an issue) and do it in an empathetically, direct, and candid way. Fear of man prevents us from being honest when we need to…

Building your identity on what you do for a living is a house of cards. + Don’t win enough..house of cards collapses. + Get criticized by parents, fans, media, etc…house of cards collapses. + Don’t climb the professional ‘ladder’ fast enough…house of cards collapses. + Get fired…house of cards collapses. Building your identity on ‘what’ you do instead of ‘who’ you are…is…

The Happiness & Fulfillment Paradox:  Focusing too much on self will result in unhappiness and a lack of fulfillment. There are two key ways to be happy and fulfilled. 1. focusing on others will result in happiness and fulfillment. 2. Growing, striving, and chasing a goal will result in happiness and fulfillment. (The goal is not the key…

Your program, like families, has a distinct environment. The environment is always driven by the leader. Whether they know it or not. For example…dad’s who are edgy and harsh, create an environment in their home that are edgy and harsh. This then leads to the rest of the family walking on eggshells. As a leader……

In life, criticism is inevitable. In leadership, a lot of criticism is inevitable. How to respond to criticism  First off, if it stings too deeply, ask yourself these questions: – Is my identity tied too closely to my job? – And is my identity tied too closely to how I’m doing in my job? We often find our identity in our…

Why are some head coaches in an unhealthy spot? Below is a pattern I sometimes see with head coaches/leaders. Level 1 They start off as low-level assistants. They want to coach because they love the sport and/or they want to impact people. Level 2  They get promoted. Why? Because they can connect with people and develop them.…

Short email today… I want to challenge you to live joyfully this week. Joy is not a surface happiness based on your current situation. Joy is a deeper emotion that is often built on gratitude. I have heard that it is impossible to live in a state of anxiety and gratitude at the same time. So…

A key role of leadership is to uphold the standards of the program or organization. There are several ways to do this. One way increases performance and achievement. The other way decreases performance and achievement. Average vs. Elite Average leaders rely solely on authority or force to uphold the standards. They play ‘bad cop’. Elite leaders…

In most situations, the thing that is good and beneficial for you is the hardest to do. It can be hard to resist brownies and instead snack on some carrots. It can be hard to stop scrolling twitter and read a book. It can be hard to turn off Netflix and do some writing. The…

“It is easier if I just do it myself.” “It is quicker to just do it myself” “If I want it done right, I have to do it myself?” Have you ever said these statements? I’m guessing you have. I had two conversations last week that were started by comments like those above. Today I want to talk about delegation.…

I first read this particular story about Henry Kissinger in Hassan Osman’s book Mental Models. Henry Kissinger is a German-born American politician and diplomat, who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor in the late 60’s and 70’s. He was known to be a perfectionist, especially when it came to writing speeches. In his mind,…

“Early on, it was probably more about wanting so badly to be successful,” says Donovan, 48. “You actually think you’re going to be more complete as a person (if you win a title). When it happens, you expect to feel more complete, and you don’t, necessarily. … What ultimately ends up completing you as a…

Feedback is a key principle of growth and improvement. It is nearly impossible to grow without feedback. I want to split this email into Part 1 and Part 2. In part 1 I will talk about encouragement and correctional feedback. In part 2 I will talk about giving and receiving feedback. Part 1: Importance of encouragement and correction…

  When you inspire the people you lead, you spend less time prodding and pushing. French writer Saint Exupery gave a great picture of what inspiration is when he wrote “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to…

First off, if you are reading this right now, thank you! Thank you for those who have sent me encouraging notes after reading an email and thank you for those who have sent emails pointing out a discrepancy or error or disagreement. I started writing this weekly email for myself. The quote “if you want…

The most important element in a program, team, or organization is trust. If there is no trust, there is no shot at maximizing potential. How do people win trust? I want to throw out three primary ways I think leaders win trust. Connection Clarity Competence. Before I break these down, I have a few items…

During the most recent episode of the documentary on Tom Brady called Man in the Arena, he shared the parable of the Chinese farmer. I had heard the parable about 5 years ago and think of it often. The Parable There was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. All his friends came to him and…

Coaching is hard. It has always been hard. However, I don’t think it has ever been as hard as it is right now. There is more stress and strain than ever before. I have been reflecting lately on leading and coaching in 2022. Here is what I am seeing and hearing. There is more pressure on kids…

We all feel other people’s energy. And other people feel our energy. The type of energy you give off can be the difference between great leadership and poor leadership. There are two types of energy: catabolic and anabolic. The book ‘Energy Leadership’ by Bruce Schneider, helped me to put behaviors and language to what I had previously…

Todays topic: Gratitude! (I know, pretty creative right… Thanksgiving week:) In April of 2020, during dinner one night, my 15 year old daughter shared with us something she watched on youtube that day. The person on the video said the following statement “What if we lost tomorrow what we failed to give thanks for today?”…

Things evolve and change. Football offenses have evolved from three running backs and a tight end to no running backs and 4 wide outs. Basketball has evolved from a two guards, two forwards and a center to five guards of all different shapes and sizes. Baseball has evolved from pitchers running distance to pitchers training…

I believe that Jesus gives us an amazing template of what great leadership looks like. This email is not to push my spiritual beliefs on you. I simply want to point out the principles that Jesus used to lead. There are several principles that we can learn from when studying the leadership of Jesus. Jesus recognized…