Brain in the Game | Sport Mind Coaching Podcast
Dave Diggle
Episode Twenty-Nine – Attention Coaches: I do NOT want your job
Hello, and welcome back to another year of Brain In The Game. Brain In The Game is a podcast specifically designed for athletes, coaches, and parents who are out there looking to do their sport just a little bit smarter. Brain In The Game is an opportunity for you to learn new skills and put them straight into your training and coaching practices, and I'm your host, Dave Diggle.
In this, the first podcast of 2014, I want to start off by saying a big thank you to everybody who sent their well-wishes to me. As many of you would know, at the end of last year in December, I broke my foot while out doing surf rescue. That laid me up and slowed me down a little bit – which made my wife very happy – and enabled me to gather my thoughts a bit. But it did stop me from doing some of the podcasts I was planning; one being and end of year roundup where we look back over the year and understand what has worked, what hasn't and what we can do differently. Thanks again for all the well-wishes, it's made a huge difference. The amount of text messages and emails I got has made me feel very loved.
Now, what I like to do with my business at the end of every year is practice what I preach. I look back at what has worked in my business, what hasn't, and what I'm going to do differently in the upcoming year. What I did this year was exactly that. Because I had a bit more time up my sleeve with my leg up in the air, I had more time to unpack some of the processes I built over the year, some of the coaching programs I delivered, and some of the one on one programs that had worked really well.
One of the things I got out of 2013 was that it was our most successful year ever. We had more athletes on our books, more coaching programs delivered, and a greater degree of results that we achieved – us as an organization and our community of athletes that go out there and do all that hard work. A big congratulations to all those who applied what they learn last year and got results. It was a big thumbs up for all of us.
That being said, this Episode 29 is about what didn't work, or what we'll do different in 2014. I've titled this podcast “Attention all coaches – I do NOT want your job”; the reason being because one of the big things that came out in 2013 was the shift in dynamics for coaching – traditional athlete coaching.
I wanted to look at how effective the smart mind coaching program had been, so I started looking at every program I did and every single interaction I had with clients and potential clients. One thing that was evident to me this year that I had seen a trend growing towards last year was too was coaches looking for more stability in what they have in their industry.
What I do when I'm coaching is, if I'm trying to understand the sport – for me, not knowing about the sport is a huge advantage; if I go to coach someone and it's a sport I've not worked in before or don't have a great deal of in-depth technical knowledge about, I can do my best work. The reason being I can focus 100% on the athlete. I don't get pulled into the politics of the sport, the history of the sport, or the traditions or patterns an athlete tends to follow.
When I do grab hold of a new sport or athlete, the first thing I do is assess where they're at in their sporting career – the start, the middle, coming to an end, etc; - and I look at the pinnacle of that sport, and what's going around in that industry, and who's doing what at the top. What coaches and what athletes are following what practices, and I scale that back to what the athlete I'm working with is doing, and try to find correlation in the systems there.
Because I do this in every sport and every year, I've noticed a pattern over the last 3-4 years that became exceptionally prevalent in 2013: the coaching fraternity was having a shift in dynamic. When I was a coach 20 years ago, a coach had to know a bit about everything. Not only did they need to be specialized in their sporting field, but they had to know history about their athlete, their medical background, the history of the sport, the background, etc. A coach's role was really 'jack of all trades', and it put a huge expectation on this coach.
Because of this, the coach's word was paramount in the athlete's world. If the coach said “You're going to go this direction for 3 weeks and then take a sharp turn here”, that's what you did. The coach knew all. You had to do what he told you to. Over the last few years, as sport in general has changed, it's become far more professional and expecting of an athlete. The demands on a coach and athlete are huge today. It's no longer your weekend warriors or sport hour.
Even down to your little league on a Saturday morning is incredibly professional. Not only do they have access to some of the greatest technologies and techniques, they also have support specialists like me. Mind coaches, physiotherapists, chiropractors, biomechanics, sport psychologists; all these different spheres are now being brought into the starting end of sports. Managing an athlete emotionally, mentally, and cognitively is just as important in the little league as in the big league.
If a coach tries today to be a jack of all trade like they were 10, 15, 20 years ago, they're going to come up short in supplying the service that athletes today demand. Parents pay a lot of money for an athlete to start their sport, and they expect more. In a digital age, we've seen a shift in peoples' perspective on value. Where you used to pay $100-200 for something, you're now paying $5-10 for an electronic version. Peoples' perspective has shifted on value, and that's leached into every aspect in life.
If we talk about a service industry – like coaching – nowhere is it more relevant to offer quality at a reasonable rate. I know when I was coaching and had a number of programs under my direction, and a number of coaches answerable to me, I would say “You do this”, “You do that”, and off they'd go to deliver their programs.
The coaches I interact with today in my professional field as a consultant tell me that no longer do people want 16 year old spotty coaches looking after their kids within the general program; they want the top coach or the second top coach. There's a huge expectation on coaches to deliver. That's great for the sport, because it's going to nudge everyone forward and increase the standard, which is what we all want: the best for these athletes. If the quality is greater and the demand is pushing up the expectations and demand of coaching, that can only be a good thing.
The trend I saw happening was that some of these coaches are struggling with that, to let go of that complete control, and not allowing sport-specific specialists to come in, do the bit they do, and walk away. As a mind coach, my greatest role is to come in when things are not working, fix them, teach a coach/athlete/parent how to manage it themselves, and then step back and watch it grow and thrive.
If a coach is not 100% secure in knowing what their role is, that can be a daunting place, where you don't have the answer and someone has to come in and fix something for you. When I talk to coaches who are struggling with this, I ask coaches “Do you fix your own toilet?” Nine times out of ten, “No, I'll call a plumber”. I'm a plumber of the mind. I fix where there's a bit of a leak or where the system isn't working as efficiently as it could be. When a plumber comes in to fix your toilet in your house, it shouldn't make you feel any less at what you do in your trade. Because you're an accountant or an architect and you don't fix your own toilet, that doesn't make you any less of one.
We need to understand where our limitations are and where our specific strengths are. The reason I titled this podcast “I'm not after your job”, I'd witnessed something happen a couple times that I'd never witnessed before. I walked in and helped an athlete with a coach, and then the coach had such an issue with the great results we got that I was asked to leave that coaching dynamic. I've never had that before and that was a really difficult place for me, as a professional, to be. I had to sit back and as “Wow, did I cause that? Did I antagonize or isolate the coach? Or did I have the whole group dynamic working together?” I'm fairly OK with pointing the finger at myself when I haven't done something right. We all make mistakes, we all do things where we look back and go “I could've done that better”. That's just part of human nature, growing, and getting better at what we do.
In this instance when I was asked to step back, I hadn't done anything I considered wrong, and we had achieve the result we were looking for. So I stepped back, and I saw them struggling a bit more. I asked the coach what they found difficult for me to be involved in that dynamic, and the coach's response spoke volumes to me: the coach turned around and said that me being there was highlighting what he could not deliver. It was no longer about doing the right thing by the athlete, but I had uncovered this deep-seated issue for the coach. The coach was questioning their own ability simply on the fact that I had come in and fixed something for them.
This dynamic I found incredibly interesting. I went back and spoke to some of my other peers – the chiropractors and physios – and so many of them put their hand up going “Woah, the same thing happened to me! I was in there helping an athlete and the coach turned around and said 'You're spending too much time with my athlete'” or another one said “I asked if I could help with a stretching program they were doing because they weren't getting the results they wanted, and I was asked to leave!”
If you're a coach and listening to this, I want you to really think for a second: what is your role? What do you do for your athletes? I hope if you've listened to enough of my podcasts, read enough of my articles, or even attended some of my live trainings, you'll understand that your role as a coach is to communicate the technical requirements for that athlete. That's your job. The athlete's job is to perform. Your job as a coach is to give them the right information and format so they can do their job.
If you believe your job is to make that athlete, you're setting yourself up for a huge fall. It's no one thing that creates a champion. We need so many acting forces on that athlete to help enable them to be the best at what they do. If you as a coach are finding it's being “pulled away from you”, then maybe you're focusing on the wrong areas of what your talent and roles are. When I watch this poor athlete struggle because the coach was struggling, obviously I offered to help, but they didn't want the help. They were still in that place of struggling in their mind of where do I fit. “If somebody had to come in and fix that for me, what does that say about me as a coach?” Whilst they're in that place in their mind, it's only going to be more and more difficult for them to get traction, understand their role, and become efficient in their role again.
As the role of sport changes, we need to evolve and adapt and grow with it. We need to adapt. If we take coaching philosophies and approaches that are 20-30 years old and apply them now, the likelihood of them being a good fit is very limited. In reality, we'll probably find we highlight more of our differences than our similarities to that athlete. We need to grow. This end of year reassessment is an incredibly important part of that continual growth. How often do you as a coach stop and recalibrate, saying “That worked” or “That didn't work, what am I going to do differently?”
Coaching is one of those service-based industries where most aren't there for the money. Most coaches are coaches because of the passion they have for the sport, the athletes, and the interaction with other humans. I know when I was coaching people would say to me “You do all that, for that much?” It wasn't about the money. I had a tribe of kids who were happy and achieving. I had a great network of parents who love to watch their kids achieve. That, for a coach, is far more important than the extra $5, 10, 20, 50.
We have to understand a coach's role, and what drives coaches – passion. There's not a whole lot of logic to that. They do it because it's what they love. However, coaches, please listen – if you are coaching today and not calibrating or trying to grow and evolve with your sport, then this thing you love the most is going to be pulled from your fingers, or you're going to have to go lower and lower in the food chain so that it doesn't get pulled from you. If you want to be the best at what you do and bring out the best in your athletes, then you do need to grow and evolve. The only way to do that is to allow people to come in who are specialists and let them do what they do, so that you can do what you do.
Think of it like a supply chain. Sure, you're the ringmaster in the circus, but you don't have to do every single act to make people love the circus. This lesson I learned last year is a huge red flag for some of thees coaches I interact with every day. Because of that, I have to be incredibly aware of where many coaches are. I have to pay more attention to a coach's dynamic as I do for the athlete. We're in this transitional period. We've had a huge spike in the demand for professionalism as a coach, and the coaching fraternity is catching up. What are you doing as a coach to ensure you've caught up?
Until the next training session, train smart and enjoy the ride. My name's Dave Diggle and I'm the mind coach.
Copyright 2012-2022 Dave Diggle
https://www.smartmind.com/
