Every week or so I want to highlight another gem from Joe Ehrmann’s Inside Out Coaching. I truly hope everyone who works with kids reads this book and encourages every parent who has a child in youth sports to read it. I hope it becomes a New York Times Best Seller. It is that important.
Very simple. The most competitive sport in America is…. drum roll please… parenting.
The point in the title of this blog post ( What Do You Make?) might have hit me more than any other point in Joe Ehrmann’s book Inside Out Coaching . On page 239 Ehrmann relates a story based on a poem by Taylor Mali about “what do you make?”. The story made me proud of the long hours I worked for so many years. The story also made me feel better about the strange looks I received from my friends when they saw me bar tending at thirty years old. I can remember feeling a little embarrassed, maybe a lot embarrassed, by the looks that said “boy I didn’t think Mike Boyle would end up a thirty year old bartender”. I wanted to scream. “This is my second job!. My other job is really important and I really make a difference and I’m really good at it”. Of course, I never did.
In the book a man responds to a rude question about “what he makes” with the following.
” I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I make them push through self imposed limits… I make them competitive and teach them how to win with humility and lose with honor… I make a difference”.
What do we make? We make a difference.
If you have been reading here the past few months than you know I’m a huge fan of Joe Ehrman’s Inside Out Coaching. I purchased 20 copies for my staff and they have all loved it. Every few weeks I’m going to try to focus on a lesson I learned form the book. In chapter 5 Coach Ehrman talked about the 20 Year Window. Basically Ehrman stated that you can’t truly evaluate yourself as a coach until you have reached the twenty year mark. Reading this created a really pleasant thought process for me as I reflected on all the wonderful people I have been able to coach over the last thirty years.
I tell our coaches every day that they are in the life-changing business and that it will take a long time before they see the full impact of their work. I am lucky enough to be able to look into so many areas ( sports, finance, health) and see so many people that I have been lucky enough to impact. Athletes I talked out of quitting, athletes I counseled through serious injury, non-scholarship athletes I encouraged to stick it out. So many of these athletes went on to great things, things that may not have been possible had they made different decisions. I have realized that I taught many of them about life, about perseverance and about how to treat others while I was functioning as a strength and conditioning coach. I used to laugh at the term “Life Coach” but, as I age, I am not so sure. I think those of us in strength and conditioning and personal training are life coaches, we just don’t realize it in the early years.
One thing I can tell all of you young readers is that some day you will look back fondly and realize that being a good person and a good role model counted for much more than you ever thought. Every day you go to work remind yourself that you have the ability to change lives.
Read Inside Out Coaching.
If you coach athletes, you absolutely have to read Inside Out Coaching. We just spent over $300 on twenty copies for our entire staff and I’ll tell you it will be worth it. The insight we gain as a staff will pay that money back many times over. Author Joe Ehrmann is an ex-NFL player who teaches and preaches what he calls Transformational Coaching. The book is filled with great lines like “sports don’t build character unless a coach possesses character and intentionally teaches it“. That was on page 13. Over the next week we’ll explore more gems from Inside Out Coaching.
Check Out The Strength Coach Podcast
CONTINUE
Michael Boyle's Strengthcoach.com Blog 