If you’ve read ‘The Alchemist’, ‘The Fire From Within’, and watched Avatar in a 6 month period of time, you’re bound to have something hit you over the head.
I already hear you saying, “Really Drew? A fiction book. A book about actual sorcery and a cartoon anime series… What could those possibly have to do with sport coaching?”
Everything.
Will they all fundamentally change you as a coach?
Yes. I mean if you’re me, yes. You’ll have to decide for yourself.
Here is a significant insight I had:
Think of ‘Eastern’ teaching like in Avatar and ancient sorcery practices in Mexico as the opposite of the public school your kid is currently enrolled in.
The teacher says less on the front end so the ‘student’ asks further questions.
The student leads the journey down the rabbit hole.
The master knows all but doesn’t tell all at once.
The learning is drip-fed like an IV. But it only drips a small amount of information and the next drip doesn’t drop until the student asks another question or gives the teacher the ‘aha’ moment of, “ I think I have this right, let me try to explain it back to you…”
The trick is, you have to get the kids early and compound this.
I’ve been out driving around doing my food delivery because I haven’t blown up on the Internet yet…
And I noticed something.
The elementary kids run to the bus with a smile on their face and scream at their friends with boundless energy.
The middle school and high school kids are defeated in posture. Lifeless. Energy on zero.
Why?
For the reason I’m speaking about in this post.
There’s still some room for short, snappy, and a more unlimited ways of teaching in kindergarten and first grade.
And I don’t want to hear, “Drew, kids are more curious at that age.”
The question you aren’t asking is why aren’t they still that curious in high school?
A few reasons:
Studying to the test where there is 1 correct answer
Have spent multiple years getting their English papers back with red marker all over them, shitting on their ideas because they aren’t the ‘right’ idea
Fear of questioning the 1 right answer because they might look stupid in front of the class
The school subjects are not relevant to what they are currently seeing ‘win’ in the market on social media and real life outside of school
Over explanation by teachers and professors that the teacher/professors answer is right and unquestionably right
The high school kids have had the curiosity beat out of them.
Hence their defeated looks catching the bus each morning.
They’d rather miss the bus than make it.
This is where you as a coach come in.
A non-boring subject teacher to your players.
A non-curriculum and test score driving plant of the industry. Sorry school teachers…
In one visual, eastern and ancient teaching are like this:
Each punchy quote or question you ask the player is a piece of candy that draws them further out into their own curiosity which drives self-development of the skillset or behavior.
You saying less creates the space for them to say AND develop more.
Say less, earn the right to say more.
Post Writing Thoughts/Summation
I know it was posted awhile ago, but chuck a retweet on it or drop a comment, the new algo sucks for smaller creators. Help a dude out.