10 Ways to Build Mental Strength for Indoor Track & Field - Part I

With Indoor Track Season up and running across America, we thought that it would be fitting to discuss ways to build your team’s mental toughness. Now, many coaches may will tell you that the best way to become tougher mentally is to beat the hell out of your athletes in practice, make sure they know how important it is to dominate your opponents, and let them know that they are not worth a damn because they have to earn their coaches respect through ‘acts of toughness.’ And if you are an athlete, you may have more examples. If you are a coach, you may have even more.

But, this two-part series, we hope to bring an end to the negative [and unfortunately, sometimes abusive] type of metal and physical training that takes place way too often that does nothing but make athletes more frustrated, and coaches bigger pricks.

Before you start reading - know that none of what we are going to share with you is hard to implement, it just matters if you care about training the mind or not. I think it’s pretty important, especially in indoor track and field where events can last anywhere from a matter of seconds to over twenty consecutive minutes. If you as a coach have done nothing to train the mind, then you are selling your athletes short and not doing your job. Sorry to be so blunt, but part of your job is to be skill developers, truth tellers, and truth seekers. The more honest we can be with our athletes, the better that they are going to be. So don’t just think that a few seconds of chatting before an athlete gets into starting block practice is gonna solve the problem. You need to train them on how they can communicate positively with themselves, quiet their minds, and get them to execute in the presence of pressure for themselves, not just for you [as their coach] or their team.

So here is How you a build the Mental Strength of your Track Team

Help Them First Find Out Who They Are

Just because you work with recruit an athlete and then spend hours of time with them on the track, does not mean that you know what they really are. You probably have an idea what their goals are and what they want to do after leaving your tutelage. However, do you know what their values are? What drives them as a person? Are they willing to take risks? Do they have high levels of Grit? Now again, you may think you know all of this, but odds are you don’t. The more you know about your athletes emotions and mind, the better you can communicate with them and the more invested they will become in you because of your interest in them.

So how do you find out all of these things? Here is an article we wrote in 2016 that will help identify their values and also assist them in creating a mission statement for their life.

Learn What Thoughts Go Through Their Head During Competition When Things Get Tough

Every coach is looking for ways to increase their athlete confidence. But very few understand where confidence comes from: it come from how an athlete speaks to themselves. When things get tough in a race, when a bad throw or jump takes place, how do they speak to themselves? To them, is the competition over? Are the next 2 jumps just throw aways? With most novice track athletes, the answer would be yes. However with elite athletes, they have a way of recognizing their self-talk and moving on to the next step in the race, jump in the series, or throw in the flight without it affecting their entire effort. Talk to your athletes about this and see what they say after failure - then adjust accordingly.

Give them skills that will last their entire life, not just the blink of an eye you have them as an athlete

We have only have an athlete for 4 years to work with and train. However many coaches only give them skills to become ‘good’ for the time you are working with them. That’s irresponsible. The mentally tough athlete is constantly getting skills that will help them improve their life not just for the upcoming meet, but years down the road. Just as much as you are thinking ‘I need to get this kid ready for the conference meet,’ think also, ‘I need to get this kid ready for life.’ When those skills have started to bare fruit, that is when you start to have athletes that are mentally tough.

Start Treating Practice With The Same Routine You Do as Meets

Most track practices are pretty relaxed. They show up, they shoot the breeze, stretch, talk a bit more, workout, joke a bit more, cool down, and go home. If you are looking for your athletes to perform on meet day, you should be creating an environment that prepares them for meet day. This does not mean that you need to me so intense that they feel undue pressure each day at practice. However, the importance of the workout should be stressed, just as a meet would. The importance of the warm-up should be stressed, just like it would in a meet. Just think - if your team warmed up and worked out with the same intensity and purpose that they did on meet day, wouldn’t that make your team better? I think it would.

Start Teaching Mindfulness

In the later part of 2016, we discussed how important it is to start teaching your athletes meditation or mindfulness techniques. This is a concept that is starting to be utilized in baseball, football, and basketball, but yet has not made its way into track and field circles. It’s time that comes to an end. All mindfulness training does is makes athletes more aware of how they are communicating with themselves [as skill we spoke about earlier] and how they can react in a positive way to where their emotions are taking them. If you have an athlete who is getting ready to take a jump or a throw, it is only rational that you want them in the best mental space possible. That is what meditation and mindfulness training does. And you can do these trainings a few times a week for 10-15 minutes. Take the time and starting doing some breathing and meditation before, during, or after your practices. Not only will you see them become more self-aware, but their ability to control their emotions and just compete will increase significantly.

Teach Your Athletes How to Breathe

When pressure starts to mount in an indoor track race, breathing starts to play a vital role in whether or not that athlete is going to succeed or not. If they start to panic, their breathing becomes shorter, the heart rate increases, and oxygen flow throughout the body dissipates. No athlete ever won a race, thrown a PB, or jumped far while holding their breath. The best weapon an athlete can have on the track is their breath. It makes them more aware, calms them down, and lowers their heart rate - even if it is already racing. Discuss this with them before they practice and make it a skill that they should have. It will start to pay off big time in a manner of minutes. Here is an simple way to teach your athletes how to breathe more effectively.

Introduce a Routine with Purpose

Everyone has some type of routine. They may jump around, say a prayer, whatever it is. The problem is that nearly all routines in track are without purpose. Everything you should be doing should have a purpose. So before an athlete takes a throw, jump, or gets in the starting blocks, they should have a routine that does three things:

ANALYZES Their Body & Emotions

They should be checking in with their body and mind. Are they tight? Where are their thoughts? It’s just a simple thought that most athletes don’t give themselves. Just a few seconds can make a world of difference.

PREPARES Them to Compete

A deep breath, like we spoke about earlier, is the best way to prepare your athlete to compete right before their race, throw, or jump. A breath through the nose and out the mouth will calm the mind, slow their heart rate, and is their check in system saying ‘I’m ready to compete.’

ATTACK The Event

This does not mean attack with tightness. This means it’s time to compete. The are committed to the plan you and them have spoke about, they are willing to respond to competition, and they are ready to give their best effort in that moment.

Tomorrow, we will discuss some event-specific techniques that can be used with indoor track athletes that will help them continue to build their mental toughness, along with how coaches can implement these over and over again with success. This is not a 'quick fix' program, these are skills that if implemented right, can have a lasting effect on your team and teams in the future to make sure that when you step on the track this season, you and your team are the most prepared that they can be.

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Why You Should Know What Your Athletes Value

We believe that in order for athletes to be successful, they should be striving to be the best version of themselves. And this does not just mean the best goalkeeper, defender, or hitter having their best athletic performance. Being the best version of oneself means that your effort is inline with the values that you stand for and represents who you are as a person, not just an athlete.

When an athlete gets scared and tenses up in the face of a challenge, the person who may consider themselves brave or courageous, is not being the true version of who they are. They are letting the environment and their emotions get the best of them. That is when people start to fail - when they are not staying true to the person they believe they are.

The first time we meet with athletes, whether individually or as a team, we ask them to identify the core values that make them who they are. Is friendship a value that matters? Is openness? Is adoration? Bravery? Excellence? What are the building blocks that make you the person you are. Not who you want to be tomorrow, or the person you thought to have been in the past. But is someone came up to you in the middle of the street and ask, “hey, what values matter to you?” - these are the ones you would give them.

So here is how you can identify those values:

Meet with you teams at the start of the year, create a list of 20-25 values that you feel are important [you can find a great list here]. Have each of them circle a maximum of 10 that they feel define who they are. Once you have done that, you have taken the first step in building a legitimate personality profile for your athletes, which can be invaluable to your team’s success.

Remember, the more you know your athlete and what matters to them, the more effective strategies you can use to improve their confidence, heighten their skills, and teach them lessons that they will carry with them years after they leave your team. After all, if you are not teaching you athletes skills that they can carry with them for their entire life, what the hell are you coaching for anyway?

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Why Teaching Your Athletes How To Breathe Properly is so Important

Teaching mechanics in any sport is important. Teaching how one needs to understand the playbook is important. But teaching an athlete how to breathe SO THEY CAN ACHIEVE better mechanics and understand the playbook will make them better in the moment, better over the entire season, and teach them a skill that they can use not just in sport, but in their everyday life.

The issues is, much like we discussed recently, coaches are not teaching proper breathing and meditation in their practice sessions. Because of this, you are seeing teams that play in the face of tension, tightness, and a less-than-desired version of themselves. Not only does meditation and proper breathing instruction teach you how to be more aware, but that awareness allows you to know when you are breathing correctly and when you are not getting enough oxygen into your system.

I am not advocating that coaches get away from teaching fundamentals or mechanics. You need to be a master of teaching these skills in order for your team to be successful. However, what I am saying is that taking 10 minutes out of your team's schedule and teaching them how to breathe and get centered will not just help them retain the information you taught them, but get them to compete in a place that is calmer and more focused.

If you are thinking: ‘I only have 2 hours of practice time a day, I don’t have time to squeeze anything in,’ here are some tips that can help you get some breathing training into your sessions:

• As your team is stretching, have them focus not so much on the stretch, but on the breath they are taking during that exercise. It may only be 30 seconds, but doing that several times in a training session will be beneficial

• Before you go through an exercise, take 30 seconds and have the group focus on taking long, deep, calming breaths to slow down their heart rate and increase their ability to focus on the task at hand

• Have your team download an app. Headspace and 10% Happier are both great applications that provide easy breathing trainings and explanations for any level of athlete or person in business. And it can be done anywhere.

• Talk to your team about their breathing after an exercise. How was your breathing? How was your mind? Where you tense or relaxed? I see that you look tight, how is your breathing right now? Just asking simple questions such as this will make your team more aware of how important their breathing is to their performance.

You are not trying to reinvent the wheel here. All you are trying to do as the leader of the team or organization is to teach another skill to your group. That’s what effective leaders try to do. They understand that although a specific skill is important to success, that it can’t be accomplished unless your athlete is calm, focused, and has all the tools necessary to succeed. And it all starts with just a simple breath.

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3 Reasons Why Coaches Should Be Teaching Meditation

Even with all the data available to coaches across the country about the benefits of training the mind through mindfulness and meditation practices, very few leaders are willing to understand the importance of training the emotions and the mind. And just as we discussed last week, in the realm of professional athletics, more and more coaches are implementing meditation into their programs. Some go as much as hiring a meditation coach, such as Phil Jackson did with Lakers and Knicks. But in the college and high school ranks, meditation, mindfulness, and much of anything that has to do with training the mind is thought of as a waste of time.

Not only is this wrong, it’s irresponsible. It’s irresponsible to not train your team’s mind. It’s irresponsible not to discuss how to react when your athletes feel particular emotions. It’s irresponsible for coaches not to give the athlete the absolute best training program possible - and that what training the mind provides. It adds the mental side of training to your athletes palette, making them not just a more well rounded athlete, but a more prepared athlete. Hell, if we are not preparing our athletes to be their best when we put them out there to compete, what the hell are we even doing coaching in the first place?

So here are three specific reasons on why you should be teaching meditation to your teams:

Meditation will Improve Your Team's Ability to be More Confident

As we have spoken about before: confidence comes from how you speak to yourself. If you are not aware that you are saying negative things to yourself, how are you expected to be confident? Well to start, mediation allows you to heighten your overall awareness. Aware of how you are speaking to yourself, how you are communicating with your teammates, even how your body language may be affecting your play. In having a regular meditation practice, you learn where your thoughts tend to go when you are in challenging situations and how to create a pathway in which you can change your internal dialogue. ‘Sucking it up’ or ‘just playing through it’ doesn’t cut it most of the time. Train yourself to create confidence whenever and whatever the stakes is something that all athletes should be trained to do.

Mediation will Improve Your Team’s Ability to Be More Competitive

We tend to tell the athletes on our team to ‘just go out there and compete,’ but we don’t tend to have a pathway to do so, nor do when things get tough, do we know how to do anything other than try to ‘fire them up’ by yelling and screaming and trying to increase their intensity in a given moment. Meditation teaches you to how to quiet the thoughts in your mind and focus on the moment at hand. In that moment, where you are totally focused on the things that you need to accomplish, whether it be one pitch, play, or important piece of a routine - then you can really compete.

Meditation Teaches Your Athletes to Breathe Correctly

The number one reason that athletes become tense when stressed is that their breathing becomes shallow, ineffective, and weak. As your tension level goes up, those who have not trained how to breathe lose their ability to compete, focus, and be at their best. And even though tension is the enemy of success, the very skill of recognizing tension and creating a good breath to cease it can be the difference between an elite and average athlete. So why on earth would you not train your athletes how to breathe? Meditation is a perfect and stress free way to train an athlete to not only breathe better, but to you use that breath as a way to make them more focused, centered, and confident.

You never see elite athletes perform on the big stage who don’t take big, relaxing breathes to help them get focused. This is because they understand the benefits of breathing and how that can increase the output and greatness of their game. So if you are looking for your team to become elite, or just be better than what they are now, then train the whole athlete - train them to cam the mind and take a deep breath. However, make sure you start with meditation training.

As we said in the beginning of this article, there is nothing wrong with getting your team in the right place both physically and mentally. You are not wasting a training session or a conversation with an athlete if you discuss with them how to get in the best mental place to succeed. So, having said this, we cannot say it more clearly when we say that if you are not teaching meditation to your athletes, whether in junior high or in college - YOU ARE SHORT CHANGING THEM. If you have a team that is trained in the mental AND physical game, then you are going to not just have a better team, but a team that will compete harder, be mentally tougher, and be more self aware than nearly any team you face.

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3 Steps to Beginning a Mindfulness Practice

3 Steps to Starting a Mindfulness Practice

10 minutes a day. That’s all you need to start a meditation or mindfulness practice. Unfortunately, very few of us take the understand how those 10 minutes can make an invaluable difference in your life. As we discussed recently, beginning a mindfulness practice will make you more aware of how you communicate with yourself, helps train your mind and your body, and increase your ability to focus. Starting a practice is not just simple, but it doesn’t require a specific location or time to do it. All it starts with is a person who is compelled to improving their life. If that is you [and it should be], and you have 10 minutes [which you do], let’s go through the 3 steps of starting your practice:

Make the Decision that Training Your Emotions and Your Mind is as Important as Training Your Body

Most people who work out believe that they don’t need to train their mind because they think that the gym or the road is their place to focus on themselves and just workout. Although working out can be a cathartic experience, very few gym-goers and athletes [even the elite ones] don’t spend time training their mind. What if when you worked out, you could be aware of your thoughts and how they were affecting your actions? That’s what mindfulness training does. It helps train your emotions and mind to be more aware of how you communicate with yourself, whether it is positively or negatively. But it all starts with a decision. A decision that internal training is just as important as training your body itself. Once you have made your decision, then it’s time to move to step two.

Look at your Current Schedule and Find 10 Minutes of Your Day That You Can Have To Yourself

Once you have made your decision to train the mind, all you need to do is find 10 minutes to yourself. This could be in the morning before you head to work, while you are taking a break, or before you go to sleep. There is no wrong time to do this. You just need to identify a time, set a reminder on your phone, and do your thing. Once this becomes more a part of your routine, and you feel to make changes, go right ahead. But in order to guarantee that you are going to it each day, find your time for a few weeks and adjust accordingly as your grow in your practice.

Breath, Observe [Don’t judge] to Your Thoughts, and Start Again

Now that you have made your decision and found the time. We can take a brief second to actually talk about the practice itself. Most people think of mindfulness or meditation and think you have to do it in a cross-legged position with your hand in prayer. This of course is not true. All it takes is being in a comfortable sitting position, hand relaxed on your lap, and your eyes softly being shut. Once you have done this - just breath in through the nose and out the mouth, and you have begun. Keep your focus on the breath - how it feels, how it sounds. As your mind wanders [and it will], just observe it, and begin again with the focus on the breath. Remember to observe the thought, don’t judge it. All that mindfulness training basically is is learning to hear your own thoughts, be aware of them, and acting in a way that is your best self. By going back and forth between breathing and a wandering mind, you will become more aware of when you are not focusing in competition situations, the workplace, or at home. And if you can just acknowledge these thoughts rather than get upset at them, you will automatically see its benefits.

Starting a mindfulness practice is much easier than what you think. All it takes is a willingness to train your mind, finding 10 minutes in your day, and an ability to re-focus. Once you have committed to these three simple tasks, you can begin a mindfulness practice that will be effective and beneficial not only to how you compete, but how you live.

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3 Reasons Why You Should Start a Mindfulness Pratice

The benefits of a mindfulness practice [or meditation practice as it is more commonly known] is now becoming more popular across the world in athletics. From the Chicago Bulls of the Michael Jordan era, to the current practices of the Seattle Seahawks and the New York Knicks, more coaches and athletes are understanding the benefits of being more aware, training yourself mentally and emotionally is just as much as you train your body, and gaining an ability to focus and re-focus more effectively.

If having a mindfulness practice can benefit some of the best athletes and teams in the world, it can also help you not just when you perform in your field, but in your daily life. So let’s get into why it’s so important for you to create a practice of your own:

A Mindfulness Practice will make you more Aware of How you are Communicating with Yourself

Confidence comes from a simple place: how you speak to yourself. When you are telling yourself ‘Fu*k. I can’t believe how much I suck right now,’ that does nothing to help you performance, let alone in your day-to-day life. One of the benefits of creating a mindfulness practice is that it trains your mind to be more aware of how you are speaking to yourself and how to create pathways in your internal dialogue that allows you to start move away from negative self-talk to ways that will actually help improve your performance.

Training the Mind is just as Important as Training the Body

When most people are looking to ‘reinvent’ themselves, most of them hit the gym, start a fad diet, and other things that unfortunately, don’t last in the long run. However, very few [especially men and male athletes] understand the long term benefits of training their mind and their emotions. Training the mind via a mindfulness practice has just as many benefits as going for a run or changing eating habits - and better yet, you can see the benefits from it by spending at little as ten minutes a day on it. So when you are looking at your training and eating regimens for the week, don’t forget to find the time to train your mind, both it and your body will be grateful for the needed attention.

Mindfulness Training will Increase your Ability to Focus

We all need to learn to focus better. It may be because you need to pay more attention to your spouse, concentrate more at work, or just need to control your daily thoughts which tend to be all over the place. And again, because we focus so much on training the body, we don’t think about or understand that we can train the mind to focus more, and be more engaged in the moment. Mindfulness training makes you not only able to focus better, but become more aware of when you need to re-focus. Start a practice, and you will see the difference within a few days.

All of us our busy and trying to find time to become the best version of ourselves. Whether it is in the office or on the field, training your mind to be more aware, spending time training it, and increasing your ability to focus, all by starting a mindfulness training are all things that we have time to do. Remember, if it’s something is good enough for the best athletes in the world, its good enough for you.

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Achievement Podcast Series - 1975 World Junior Cross Country Champion - Bobby Thomas

https://soundcloud.com/user-33832512/1975-world-junior-cross-country-champion-bobby-thomas

Our Achievement Podcast Series Continues this week with 1975 World Cross Country Champion, Bobby Thomas. A non-recruited high school athlete, Bobby went from just learning about the sport, to the worlds best under-20 cross country runner in only 4 years. 

His story of discipline, self-determination, and commitment is one that will not just teach lessons for young high school athletes, but for coaches and college athletes alike. WE hope you enjoy Part 1 of our interview with Bobby. It is truly an incredible journey he was on and we are thrilled that he shared it with us. 

3 Reasons Why Risk Taking Is Worth It

In our latest Podcast, we spoke with Dr. Jason Karp, author of The Inner Runner. During our conversation, one of the topics that we spoke about in detail was the importance of taking risks. When trying to achieve a goal, we all face that pivotal point in which we need to make a decision to do something that is outside of our comfort zone and 'go for it' or continue to stay comfortable. The most successful people in business, sports, and life all have decided that taking the risk was worth the gamble, as they cannot achieve their goals by continuing to act in ways that detracted them from their goal. 

So, if something is stopping you from taking a risk, here are three reasons why 'going for it' is worth it:

Nothing Great Can be Achieved by Being Comfortable

One of the things that high achievers understand is that doing the same thing that everyone else is doing is not good enough for them. They are willing to take a chance and put their mind and body in an uncomfortable space in order to achieve their goals. It may be something simple as saying no to someone, or something complicated like trying a type of training that they have not done before. Whatever the case may be, pushing themselves outside of that comfort zone is a risk that they are willing to take. 

If you have a goal, more than likely you are going to have to do something that you have not done previously. That introduction to a new stimulus is taking a risk. When Roy Williams was the Assistant Coach at UNC, one of the players on the team was a Freshman named Michael Jordan. Williams spoke to Jordan and told him that if he was going to be successful, that he was going to have to 'work harder and do more than anyone else on the team was doing.' Jordan's response was that he was 'doing the same thing that everyone else was doing' Williams then asked him, 'do you want to be like everyone else?' In essence, this is someone telling Jordan that being comfortable is not good enough.

Take a risk and be uncomfortable, it will be worth it. Just look at how it worked out for Jordan.

 Taking a Risk Involves Becoming More Self-Aware

Being self-aware is vital to anyone's success in anything. The more you know not just about yourself, but how you react to certain environments and situations - the more you increase your chances of becoming successful. Knowing who you are [having self-awareness] is vital to taking risks. The more you understand your reactions, the more you will understand what is stopping you from taking a chance that will lead to furthering your success. 

Lets use baseball as an example. When a player with low self-awareness is up to bat and they swing and miss, more than likely they will become frustrated. That frustration leads to tension, poor self-talk, and bad mechanics. However, someone with a heightened level of self-awareness will understand the physical and emotional sensations that correspond with their levels of tension. They then go to their routine which involves observation, proper breathing, and moving on to the next pitch with focus and relaxation. Hence, doing something uncomfortable, which is going against their emotions, and doing the right thing so their body can be in an ample space to succeed.  

The next time that you are in a situation in which you need to make a risk decision, pay attention to how your body is reacting. Step back, take a breath, and take a chance. Even if the result is not what you want, at least you went through the process of doing something different. Then do it again.

Don't Live your Life Full of Regrets Because You Didn't Take a Chance

Let's admit it, we all regret something in our lives because we did not take a chance. If we would have said something or done something out of our comfort zone, we each may be living totally different lives. So why live a life like that? This does not mean you need to go and take risks that involve you putting your body like doing drugs or putting your life at risk. More so it means that [again] going out of your comfort zone and taking a risk will relive your anxiety later on by not having to ask yourself, 'how may my life have been different if I would have taken a risk and done that?' 

Live your life the way that you want, not dictated by others, but by having an awareness of yourself, being uncomfortable, and taking a risk that you would not normally take. Something as simple as pushing the pace in a local 5k, or speaking up in a meeting maybe something that changes your entire life, increasing your self confidence, and making you a stronger person. 

Taking a risk is worth it. Don't settle for being uncomfortable. Take a chance and see what happens. 

Comments or Questions? chris@achievementllc.com / Facebook / Twitter 

Achievement Consulting Podcast Series - Dr. Jason Karp

Dr. Jason Karp, founder of Run-Fit, Revolution Running, and the Author of 7 different books on the various aspects of running, is our guest on today's podcast. Dr. Karp's latest book, The Inner Runner is an outstanding read about why people run, how they can stay motivated, and how running can serve multiple purposes in a persons life. 

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO OUR INTERVIEW WITH DR. KARP ABOUT THE INNER RUNNER

We discuss where Jason's passion for running [and competition] comes from, his thoughts on the importance of being willing to take risks, and how a persons journey to to self-discovery is one of the many things that makes finding your inner runner so important. 

3 Characteristics of Great Leaders

From athletes to coaches to support staff, without a leader at the helm of a team, none of these individuals can succeed. We all have seen and read about those who are known as great leaders, and much has been written about how they lead and how we should follow their example in order to lead our own teams. Traits such as being a good listener, motivator, and pragmatism are just a few traits that you hear of in current and past literature.

However, there are several things that you don’t hear about much in discussions and writings about leadership that I wish to address, ones that focus on staying committed to who they are, coming from a place of deep connection, and a desire to not just be about themselves that are just as, if not more important that the traits you read about leadership in you day-to-day readings. 

Great Leaders have a Philosophy

When we talk about a leader having a philosophy, it is not about the scheme that a coach believes in [which is a typical misinterpretation] or a business person who is driven just by success. It is more a philosophy of who they are, how they want people around them [whether it is other athletes, coaches, or staff] to act, and how it reflects their values.

When you hear about Pete Carroll, for example, his philosophy is steeped in competition. He is a competitor. And it is not competition with others, more so that he wants everyone involved with the Seahawks to compete with themselves to be the best that they can be at all times. Alabama Head Football Coach Nick Saban, who’s personal philosophy is rooted in belief in The Process being more important that the outcome wants everyone to not focus on winning, but rather the steps to get there.

Another good example of this comes from The Masters University Head Cross Country Coach Zach Schroeder, who on our latest podcast, discussed how even before he became a head coach, he believed it was important that he created a philosophy that the basis for his program. This philosophy allowed him to instill a culture in his program that is understood by everyone who surrounds his program and has led to multiple NAIA National Champions.

If you don’t have a personal philosophy, its ok. Creating one takes time. Just start with your values and think about creating a culture that is steeped in what you believe in and how you want others to be. Don't just make it about you, make it about how you can make others around you exceptional.

Great Leaders Are Deeply Connected to what they are doing in that moment

Great leaders don’t just listen, they are engaged. They don’t just speak, they communicate with passion. They don’t just coach, they teach. They don’t look at an athlete or an employee as a person trying to execute the goals that they have laid out, the look at those individuals as people who they are trying to help become their best.

Being deeply connected and engaged truly has to do with a person’s ability to be in the moment. Nothing else matters to them that what is going on in that instant. This connection comes from a place of caring not just for the person in that moment, but for the moment itself. They enjoy the feeling of being connected to someone or something. It is not about them trying to achieve something just for themselves, but for the person they are working with.

Great Leaders are not about Themselves

It would be ridiculous and wrong of me to think that great leaders to do not have egos. They do. They have a belief in themselves that [most times] comes from a place of knowing that they can ‘get things done’ and have experiences that they can recall upon as a way to continually gain that belief. However, they do not make their success about them.

John Smith, former UCLA Head Track & Field Coach and coach of several Olympic Gold Medalists, believes that great leaders always are about making other people great and acknowledging their efforts. 

‘When the win, they thank the people that got them there, and understand that no success can be achieved without a team – even if it is an individual achieving something great.’

Leadership is about empowering others. Anyone can be egotistical and narcissistic enough to just do good for themselves. It is the great ones however who make their philosophy and culture about making others continually great. And not just great for one performance or presentation, but continually great. They want to build a culture that is sustainable over time and is always making all working parts around them successful.

I ask this question a lot in these articles, but I think that it is always important: when you read this, did ask yourself if you are doing these things? Don't be afraid to ask yourself that. Self-reflection should never be seen as a negative thing. As a person who wants to be great at leading others, you always should be want to strive to be your best, and part of that sometimes involves making adjustments to how you are currently doing things. Have a philosophy, do things with care, and make your culture about others. If you can center your business or program around these things, not only will you see more success, but you will make your experience more meaningful to your and the people around you.  

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3 Reasons Why & How Coaches Need to be Great Listeners

If you have ever been or are currently an athlete, odds are is that you have ran into a coach that loves to hear themselves talk. Coaches, by trade, have to be able to communicate effectively in order to have success. However, far too many coaches are under the belief that having their athletes listen and strictly adhere to their instructions is the only way for an athlete to be successful. The old slogan ‘my way or the highway’ is not just ridiculous because of the negative aura surrounding it, but more so because it shows that a coach with that mindset is unwilling to listen to what the athlete is going through.

I have found that the best coaches can not only speak effectively, but are outstanding listeners. They listen effectively by the way they look at the person they are speaking with, they don’t let their ego get in the way of the conversation, and perhaps most importantly, they are open to the idea that how an athlete feels [both emotionally & physically] matters. Let’s get into some more details on why a coach being a good listener is so important:

Great Listeners also have Great Eye Contact

When was the last time that you have a great conversation with someone and they did not look at you or you were not looking at them? Odds are is when you think of those moments where there was no eye contact from both parties, the conversation was not as good as what it could have been. Great coaches know that when an athlete needs to speak with them, they need to look at them dead in the eye and take in everything that they say seriously. No conversation is as important as the one that they are having right then. And it is not just that the coach is looking at them that matters, but how their body is positioned during the conversation. 

Effective coaches don’t stand two-inches from a players face and listen. This creates an environment that is not just ineffective, but intimidating to those who are trying to speak. When an athlete talks to you, you want to create an environment that is open to free communication in which the athlete feels that they can say what is on their mind and the coach is showing that they are fully invested and taking in their concerns. Think about when you talk to a loved one. If they are in your face or not looking at you, you feel anxious, more than likely hesitant to speak openly, and may even become angry. Your goal as a coach should be to create the same type of open, free, and communicative space with your players as you would with someone you care about at home. By looking them dead in the eye and showing them you have their attention, is where great conversations can begin.

Great Listeners don’t let their Ego get in the way

When a ‘my way or the highway’ coach listens to an athlete, more than likely when they hear a complaint they think, ‘this kid is not doing it my way, the hell with him, I’m gonna blow up on this kid.’ And we have all seen coaches do this. Nothing is wrong with re-enforcing your coaching philosophy and explaining to a young person why you are doing things the way that you are doing it. However, when a coach is so wrapped up in his or her own ego, when they have no intention of listening to the athletes issues, the reaction of the coach will more than likely be overly upset, aggressive, and will have the potential of losing a potential teaching moment.

Remember that in times where people are frustrated and want to have questions to their answers, great communicators understand that cooler heads always prevail. Ego is thrown out the window when you have an athlete that does not understand something. In these instances, it is more important that the coach becomes a teacher and explains things in a way that they themselves would want to have it be taught. That is the point where you will not just be able to communicate effectively, but have a deeper connection with the person than you will have had if you just 'blew up.'

Great Listeners understand that how an Athlete Feels Matters

From high school to college to the professional ranks, athletes are not just athletes, they are people. They have issues that go on in their daily life that potentially could affect their performance for the better or worse. ‘My way or the highway’ coaches don’t seem to understand that. Coaches all wish in many ways that athletes could be robots, can just automatically dial-in, and are ready to compete or practice no matter what is going on in their lives. That is far from what an athlete is. Great communicators understand the importance of asking the question ‘how do you (or) how did that feel?’ In this answer is where you can first understand the best way of coaching an athlete on that day, and also, create an environment in which an athlete can talk to you about the outside factors, misunderstandings, or other issues that may be negatively or positively affecting how they perform.

“That felt weird because of this’ or ‘I’m pissed off today because of something you [coach] said yesterday in practice’ are all things that you want to hear from athletes. One of the keys to a great coach/athlete relationship is honesty. Honesty with how the athlete is performing and honesty from how the athlete feels about their performance. This does not mean that the coach needs to be the mother, father, or counselor – it does mean however that in order to have an effective performance, both coach and athlete need to understand where one is coming from and how they can best get the job done in that moment.

So the next time you chat with a player, don’t be afraid to stand upright and look them in the eye. Don’t be afraid to let down your ego for a bit and listen to your athlete’s point of view. And pay attention to how they are feeling. If you can do these three things, odds are is not only will you see positive performance increase, but the investment from that athlete because you took the time to listen to them will be worth its weight in gold.

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Achievement Consulting Podcast Series - Zach Schroeder, Part II

In Part II of our Interview with The Masters University Cross Country & Track Coach Zach Schroeder, Zach talks to us about how important it is to have a personal and coaching philosophy, how having principals and character are vital to having a successful program, and how the more you learn and understand how to train and compete like the best athletes in the world, the more elite you can become.  

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO PART II 

If you missed Part 1 of our interview with Coach Schroeder, you can check it out HERE. And also, take a look at our piece on the importance of Giving 100% Today, a slogan told to Zach that has helped motivate who he and his program are and who he wishes them to become.

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