Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.  It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, authenticity.                                                                                                         Brené Brown A major factor that influences how well coaches and athletes empower each other is trust.  Patrick Lencioni, founder of the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team program, says that there

What steps can coaches take to build and sustain a healthy team culture? In the Competing Values Framework developed by the University of Michigan’s Robert Quinn and Kim Cameron, there are four drivers that contribute to organizational cultures. The four drivers can be combined in many different ways to produce a success conducive environment. Create:

As defined in the field of Polarity Thinking™, polarities are interdependent pairs of perspectives that need each other over time. Polarity thinking is both/and thinking, finding the right dynamic balance to fit the context. Not all situations are appropriate for polarity thinking: some problems have to be solved with either/or thinking that chooses one side

Will, an eleven-year-old little league baseball player, was not known for being a good hitter.  In fact, he often didn’t swing the bat at all, and he was called out on strikes nearly every time he came to home plate. It was agonizing for his mother and father to listen to other angry parents saying

Effective coaches strive to build accountability in their athletes, and one way to support that growth is by showing them that they matter.   By listening to, taking seriously, showing athletes that they are genuinely needed, and helping them develop a meaningful purpose, coaches develop mutual trust and see greater buy-in and accountability for individual and

When parents of young athletes understand and act on the team’s core values, there is less distraction and the athlete’s experience is better.  Unfortunately, coaches, more often than not have to contend with parents whose adult-size competitiveness gets in the way of their children’s joy, satisfaction and performance on a team. Years ago, I was

In 1954, the sports world was shocked when Great Britain’s Roger Bannister broke the four minute-mile barrier by six tenths of a second.  For years, track and field experts and enthusiasts claimed that breaking 4 minutes was impossible.  However, less than six weeks later, the Australian John Landy bested the new record time by more

Sports are a vehicle for happiness among most athletes.  When done right, sports brings people together for a common goal, provides opportunities to showcase individual skills, teaches athletes how to perform together and become better teammates.  With the limitation of social distancing, coaches have found ways to develop stronger relationships among their athletes and teams

Emotions affect us in different ways. There’s no point trying to get rid of emotions. They help us make decisions. They help us act according to our values. Negative emotions help us shy away from danger. Positive emotions help us broaden our thinking to take in more points of view. Effective coaches tend to be

Coaches become more effective by enhancing self-awareness through collecting their own stories, exploring their strengths, and identifying shortcomings to work on. In all three ways, they model self-awareness skills for their athletes. In the process, they learn how to manage their personal psychological well-being so that they have the energy to respond skillfully to athletes