I was challenged to sum up all the conversations that I had preparing this project. Here’s where I landed:
You have to fight just as hard to seek perspective as you do to win a championship. Society either shapes or distorts what you value. It starts when you’re young.
When you score, what happens? People applaud. When you win, people praise. When you lose, people express disappointment.
What’s happening? A value system is taking form. You’re learning what society values.
If you come from a house where your parent(s) are emotionally attached to your performance, they’re mirroring what society values—you’re taking cues from them on what’s important. In that case, it aligns with society, and you chase that…because that’s all you know.
If you come from a house where your parents are trying to shape you against what society values, you feel in constant conflict—because every time you walk out of the front door, you see something different. In that case, you want to believe them, but you’re confused, because everywhere you look, you’re confronted with what society values.
If man’s approval is important to you, you become a product of what he values. You sacrifice what’s really important to be successful. When you do that, you’re labeled as committed, driven,
or someone who possesses the right mindset.
You start to derive your confidence from that reinforcement. You learn what it takes to be great. Then, you take that information into your profession. You work and you work because that’s what the system rewards. That’s how you get recognized and set yourself apart.
The profession turns you into a 24-hour coach. Eventually, you get your shot. And you remember what got you there—WORK.
You direct your drive at what the system rewards: Winning. You become consumed. The important people in your life become number two—a long way back from number one.
And what happens? You win. Applause. People praise. And you feel the love. You have to keep up the good work.
You work harder and harder to outdo your last performance. Each time you do, that praise turns into expectation. Eventually you set the bar so high, you don’t know if you can reach it. And then you don’t.
People express disappointment. You become confused. It’s like they’ve forgotten how much you’ve done. You start to work harder and harder to appease them. It starts to seem like whatever you do, it’s never enough. Eventually you realize, this is how you’re spending your life on Earth.
A major internal conflict starts to develop. You start to ask yourself, “Is it worth it?” You realize that you’re asking that question more and more.
Eventually, you get to a place where you look yourself in the mirror, and you answer, “No.” And that’s when it shifts. You start to search. How did I get so far off track? What did I value? Why didn’t I make time for what was really important? What did the people I surrounded myself with reinforce?
That breakdown leads to a breakthrough. You realize that your choices put you in that situation.
And you feel blessed to have that awareness. Because you realize…you can do it differently, if you so choose.
– Brett Ledbetter
Want to Learn More?
This book reveals insights from coaches at the top of their sport and tools to help you determine your priorities. You can also watch the video series that this book inspired.
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Glenn Detulleo –
Provided some unique ideas to help our team grow closer together.
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Brett Shanklin –
I took what Gonzaga did with PGM’s and made our own with Personal Growth Weekly (PGW’s). I absolutely believe being intentional and dedicated to doing PGW’s resonated in our student athletes lives and created deeper relationships between athletes and coaches. Making the time with PGW’s might have took time away from training/practice but the impact was far greater than what we gave up.
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Matthew Neidigk –
Thinking about what we need to work on, what really gets in our way and developing a plan on how to work on those issues
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Danielle Cyr –
The specific case studies were really great to understand what the concepts can look like within a program. I haven’t had the chance to share with my team yet but looking forward to it!
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Scott Doan –
Having access to a written copy of the many sessions we discussed as a group is a great resource to draw from. That allows us easy access to great teaching material
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Trey Bale (verified owner) –
Amazing and easy to implement advice. I have used many of the ideas to help mold my young athletes.
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Eliot D Smith (verified owner) –
This was my favorite book of all 3. The reason for this was because I felt that Brett gave me the opportunity and resources to use his examples with my team. I was able to take the exercises that Brett used with other teams and I was able to share it with other coaches.
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Scott Zachmann (verified owner) –
The Growth Zone/Comfort Zone connecting with me in how I will approach training sessions. We often tried to push our athletes into the growth zone but didn’t stay long enough if things were not going well. We will be staying longer in the Growth Zone – I needed to re-look and refocus one what that really means to us as a team. We really had a great time discussing and doing the activity associated with the question, “what are 3 things that get in the way of your team maximizing its ability?” It was good for the players to see that everyone listed things that fell on the human side – except on kiddo wrote WEATHER. She hates playing in the rain so that made us all laugh.
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Jason Kilgore (verified owner) –
Bought this last week, finished it the second day I had it. Planning on using many of the questions and activities in the book with my leaders/captains this summer.
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Roy Snyder –
Added new layer of depth and options for ongoing character development.
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Jon Hsu –
I’ve been using a lot of these concepts–in particular, the society scorecard–in talking with my team during the lockdown. I think that’s been very helpful for a lot of our players (and coaches) who suddenly find themselves not being able to do something that had been a huge part of their lives.
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Jenny Levy (verified owner) –
I used the team activities to set up our season – starting from the very beginning. I thought helping our players be aware of what potentially could hold back our team realizing our full potential, was a great place to start our journey
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Suzy Willemssen –
Circling back to the beginning/roots and giving real life examples, uses, templates that are for teams, as the title says. The stories have an arc and build upon each other.
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Scott Harris –
Used this as a book study with my coaching staff (I’m a High School A.D.). Also, my coaches used many of the lessons with their teams.
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Karen Johns –
What Drives Winning Teams provided me with an in-depth game plan to incorporate
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Eric Sutz –
Further crystalized why some teams excel while other really talented teams struggle. Validated why my focus has shifted. Have used it directly with my team to help them understand why the focus of our program isn’t the same as it was years ago.
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