Cody Royle
@codyroyle
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🧢 Coaching Head Coaches • 📚 Second Set Of Eyes, The Tough Stuff, Where Others Won’t • 🦘Australian • 👦🏼 Olivier’s Dad
Toronto, Ontario
Joined May 2009
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Second Set Of Eyes is now available for purchase globally on Amazon.
I've spent the last two years interviewing the people who coach the world's top head coaches.
It turns out that the best don't do it alone, they have a second set of eyes.
I hope you find it interesting.
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There's a trend playing out in coaching that we need to be paying attention to.
Good coaches are quitting, preferring to walk away than put themselves and their families through the lifestyle.
Sports should be the bastion of leadership, not the industry leaders are fleeing.
👇
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“One of the biggest pieces of advice Pep gave me, he told me this is the loneliest profession. When you close your door, it’s you and your worries and your issues and your decisions that are always there…”
— Mikel Arteta
#TheToughStuff
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Julian Nagelsmann is 33.
He’s never “been there, done that”.
He never even played a senior game.
There’s a narrative in pro sports that players won’t respect a coach unless they’ve played at the level, or spent decades in the coaching system.
It’s all BS.
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For head coaches, by head coaches.
The Tough Stuff is the only book that focuses entirely on the human experience of head coaching -- the emotional toll, the identity issues, the loneliness.
No tactics. No results. No judgment.
Available Feb 1st.
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The top 3 teams in World Rugby are Wales (3.1m population), New Zealand (4.7m) and Ireland (6.5m).
Combined, that’s the same population as Ontario.
You can choose to complain about being under-resourced, or you can turn your unique circumstances into a competitive advantage.
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We over-coach.
We over-analyze.
We over-schedule.
We over-think.
We over-explain.
Our thirst for certainty and control drives us to over-index on so many elements of performance that we end up squeezing the humanity out of what we do.
How do we change this dynamic?
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Was at a friend’s place recently and he had this reminder written on his wall:
Overthinking = Write
Anxious = Move
Tired = Read
Confused = Walk
Sad = Exercise
I love the awareness of emotional state and action-focus that works for him.
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I've spent the last 2 years researching, writing, and speaking about head coach burnout at the elite levels of sport.
Coaches are running on fumes right now. We are remarkably far from 'high-performance', but I'm unwilling to accept that can't change.
A thread 🧵
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Professional teams should hire a Director of Coaching Performance.
Someone dedicated to shaping the philosophy, craft, effectiveness, wellbeing, and selection/retention of all the coaches in your organization.
Indirect rocket fuel for your players 🚀
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Every day, our coaches deal with anxiety, fear, loneliness, extreme fatigue, imposter syndrome, depression, job uncertainty, online abuse, drug & alcohol challenges, family stressors, and the weight of caring.
Mental health is for coaches, too.
#WorldMentalHealthDay
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40% of 4,258 head coaches across the NCAA identified that they were mentally exhausted constantly, or most every day.
That's 1,703 head coaches who are burning out (and we know they under-report because of the stigma).
Call me crazy, but I reckon we should get them some help.
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Olivier Royle joined us on 27 Dec.
He’s a calm and classy central midfielder who kicks well with both feet & scans frequently.
Eligible for 🇨🇦 🇦🇺 🇮🇪 🏴 🇧🇪 at international level.
Jokes aside, what a way to finish 2021. Our hearts are so full.
His mum is my hero.
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You're not coaching student-athletes.
You're not coaching professional athletes.
You're coaching human beings.
They just happen to play sport at this stage in their lives.
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The reason coaches would rather obsess over tactics than people is because people are hard work.
The Xs and Os on the whiteboard never talk back, or feel depressed, or hate their job.
Thing is, the coaches who obsess both are the ones who win consistently.
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Let’s pause for a second and take stock that these guys are coaching in the
@premierleague
at the same time:
Guardiola
Klopp
Tuchel
Rangnick
Benítez
Bielsa
Rodgers
Conte
Ranieri
Arteta
Hasenhüttl
Potter
Gerrard
Howe
Vieira
Unprecedented times indeed.
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Coaching is a deeply humanist endeavour, done by humans, with humans, for humans.
However, we seem to have stripped the humanity out of coaching in favour of high-performance (whatever that is).
Let's re-introduce the soul, depth, and vibrancy of humanity back into coaching.
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Nick Nurse won an NBA title as a "rookie" head coach.
He played one pro season...in England.
He was a head coach at 24, and spent 22 years coaching in England, Belgium, the NAIA, and D-League.
Players respect smart people and great coaching, regardless of your career path.
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“Coaching is difficult. You’re supposed to know everything and offer constant belief and hope to a huge number of individuals. At the same time, everyone thinks they can do the job better than you. You’re never short of someone telling you what you’re doing wrong.”
- Eddie Jones
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“I don’t regret any of the decisions that I make. Every difficult moment is making me a better person or a better professional. It’s preparing me for something that is going to come in the future. That’s how I think about it.”
— Mikel Arteta
#TheToughStuff
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This clip basically sums up where we're at.
Thomas gives an insightful response about using a mentor to develop his leadership, communication, and man-management skills, which he identifies as "key".
It's primed for a deeper dive.
Carragher: "Yeah, but what about tactics..."
This mentality from Thomas Frank on self improvement and constantly adapting 🧠
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The reason coaches would rather obsess over tactics is because people are hard work.
Xs and Os on a whiteboard never talk back, or feel depressed, or hate their job.
Thing is, on the other side of the hard work is human connection, and that is where the gold is!
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A lot of organizations aren't interested in having a good culture...they're interested in the positive marketing that comes with saying they have a good culture.
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You can’t learn how to ride a bicycle at a seminar.
You can’t learn how to coach by reading a book.
You’ve got to fall and cut your knee.
You’ve got to bomb a team talk.
You’ve got to experience it...
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"So you tell the head coach what to do?"
It's the most common misconception I hear when I tell people I coach coaches.
The answer is no.
Just like with players, there is an art and a science to helping coaches perform.
Here's a thread with some of my methodology 🧵
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Sleeplessness is not a badge of honor. Watching film until 3am does not make you a hero.
When the head coach won’t go home, your staff feel like they can't go home.
This drives a culture of fatigue that not only diminishes the impact of your coaching, but all coaching.
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This year I interviewed 61 highly-respected leaders across sports, business, and academia.
My main takeaway is this:
We’ve been neglecting the things that make us successful.
😴 Sleep
🏃🏽♀️ Exercise
🧠 Brain training
♥️ Human connection
🗣 Communication skills
👨👩👧👦 Family
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What Zidane is describing here is the weight of caring.
Coaches are mentally and emotionally exhausted at the end of the season.
And yet, emotion and wellbeing aren’t recognized as part of the coaching rubric.
In my mind, it’s the most substantial miss in coach development.
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Primary coaching skills:
👀: Noticing
🗣: Effective Communication
🤔: Decision Making
Skills that deplete substantially when you’re physically and/or emotionally exhausted:
👀: Noticing
🗣: Effective Communication
🤔: Decision Making
So, coach burnout is kind of a big deal.
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Yesterday, Richmond Tigers head coach Damien Hardwick stepped down after 307 games and 3 premierships.
I believe “Dimma” is one of the finer craftspeople in coaching anywhere in the world, and his secret is the belonging cues that he embeds in his language.
A thread 🧵
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One reason head coach health and performance needs to be a priority:
It gives permission to everyone in the organization to prioritize their own health and performance.
We can drive a culture of fatigue, or we can drive a culture of human excellence.
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Explain coaching to those being coached.
We assume our players understand coaching with the same depth & sophistication as we do, which is a mistake.
You can educate and invite conversation by explaining it to them in advance — like what you find to be reasonable expectations.
This speech by Mike Tomlin can apply to everything in life. What a great message.
Easy to see why Tomlin is so great.
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“You don’t have to be that club where interns are sleeping under the desk because they think more hours means they’re showing their worth.”
…or the club where coaches are sleeping under the desk for the same reason.
Refreshing approach from Brentford.
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I coach head coaches in elite sport.
If you're wondering that looks like on a day-to-day basis, here's how England Rugby head coach Eddie Jones describes his relationship with his coach, former AFL head coach Neil Craig.
Thread 🧵
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“When a young coach comes to me to ask for advice, I tell them not to forget that the game itself is also a good coach, and that observation is often as effective as talking.”
— Arséne Wenger
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If all you do is Xs and Os, you better prepare to be replaced by Coach YouTube.
Every training drill ever created and every gameplan ever run is now one search string away.
What you offer — humanity, leadership, togetherness — cannot be found on the internet.
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Three reminders for coaches:
1/ No sport ever wrote its rules with the coaches in mind. The game is for the players.
2/ We're educated guessers, and we're fortunate to be invited in to run our experiments.
3/ The team could still function, and perhaps even thrive without you.
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Commentators love to perpetuate the myth that coaches all give big rousing speeches to their teams when they’re down at half-time.
This is a more realistic portrayal of what it’s actually like when done by a masterful coach; measured, informative, connective.
The speech that turned a 15-point half-time deficit into
@Richmond_FC
's third premiership in four years.
One of the many eye-opening moments from
#MakingTheirMark
, launching on
@pvsportau
on March 12.
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What can happen when you teach young men the value of emotional support, rather than shouting at each other.
Connectedness, togetherness, and safety are rocket fuel for teams, and can still go hand-in-hand with high standards of performance.
Hey Siri,
Can you show me what being in a team looks like?
👇
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Mikel Arteta, a notoriously detailed and thorough coach, doesn’t get into the office until 8am (after spending time with his kids).
You can be a ruthless and prepared competitor as well as a present partner/parent.
(Also love that he spends an hour thinking before diving in.)
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I couldn't find any books about the emotional toll of being a head coach in elite sports. So, I wrote the book myself.
#TheToughStuff
focuses on the stuff you don't see -- the weight of caring, the identity issues, the loneliness, the borderline decisions, the sleeplessness.
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Firstly — this is coaching mastery, right down to the inflection in his voice.
Secondly — isn’t it funny how a few weeks ago Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton was derided for letting his players draw up a play at a timeout. It was said he was vacating control to his players 🤔
“That was the right move.”
Coach Harbaugh was Wired yesterday vs. the Packers as he talked with players about the decision to go for the two-point conversion at the end of the game.
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How outsiders assess whether a head coach is any good: wins.
How head coaches assess whether their peers are any good: scenario they walked into, coaching craft on display, over-performance vs expectations, difficulty of problems navigated, continuity of performance, etc.
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Team maturity is quite literally the 🗝️ to coaching, but is rarely spoken about when we share ideas.
I define team maturity as a group's ability to comprehend and execute the vision *repeatedly* in all of the different facets of the game.
A thread 🧵...
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Deep relationships > fleeting emotions
This is elite leadership.
I thought Mane let himself & the manager down last night but when Klopp puts it like this, it’s very hard to argue against.
Liverpool are lucky to have Klopp.
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You can’t ask for a team that has bravery, then have an issue when young players step up and show bravery.
Gareth knows better than you do who should take penalties and why.
I’m in complete admiration of Rashford, Sancho, and Saka — 23, 21, and 19. Gutsy.
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After 9 years of pure joy coaching Canada 🇨🇦, it's time for someone else.
I hope I'm leaving our program better than I found it.
For the first time in my sporting career, I'm a free agent.
Excited to see what happens to me next.
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As head coaches, we get this wrong.
We think we'll absorb stress for the 9-month season, then have a month on the beach, and load up again.
Actually, micro-cycles of recovery built into our weekly programming is a more effective way to sustain performance.
#UnfairAdvantage
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There is a huge difference between an expert in coaching the game, and an expert in coaching the people who play the game.
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“My job is to help Pep, because on a day-to-day basis he is alone. It’s the burden he has to carry, and I try to help him in any way I can.”
IMO, this is the part of Guardiola’s coaching methodology that people should be copying, not the 4-3-3 or inverted fullbacks.
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Isn’t it fascinating how people want players to be calm and methodical when things go wrong in a game, but people want the coach to rant and rave and ‘show emotion’ when things go wrong in a game.
There’s a perception that unless you’re yelling you don’t care.
Bizarre.
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8/ “Leadership is lonely. When you’re a head coach, man, every decision has your name on it, and that weighs on you. The waves don’t stop coming. Some you can surf, and some just freaking crash on you.”
Wojo is enjoying his time away from coaching.
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I'm writing a third book 📚
It's about coaching craft and the nuance of leading teams.
I think in our bloodlust for 'best practices' and linear explanations, we've lost touch with our craft and forgotten the subtleties that guide our success.
A thread on coaching craft 🧵
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3/ This is from yesterday:
"I've come to the decision that the demands of this position are not viable for me long term as it relates to time with my wife and two young children as well as my mental health."
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The Great Paradox of Coaching is that it is both not about you, and entirely about you.
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OMG it's happening! 🥹
"I drop my kids off at daycare every day...I want to buck the trend where we think we have to sacrifice our family to be great coaches. We don't have to do that! We can be a good father, a good husband; we can be good at those as well."
Today
@CoachSundance
talked about being named the Horizon League Coach of the Year. Emphasized that it's a team/family/staff/community award. Then went on to talk about balancing life as a coach and being a father. Something he's proud about. Really cool stuff here.
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23/ However, I believe we can make changes so that coaching can be a viable career for men and women, and a leadership post that people desire again.
I envision a world with well coaches, whole families, thriving teams, and smiling athletes.
But maybe I'm too much of a dreamer.
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Head Coaching:
Sometimes it works because of you.
Sometimes it works in spite of you.
Sometimes it doesn’t work because of you.
Sometimes it doesn’t work in spite of you.
Learning to acknowledge and appreciate the nuance of the craft is part of loving the journey.
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The future of professional coaching is coaches who prepare themselves for performance as diligently as we ask our players to.
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4/ "This job is 24/7, 365. I didn't have someone to talk to, I didn't have recovery skills. So it was a long eight years as a head coach of taking calls every day on vacation of something going on in the program. There is no time down."
—
@CoachPeteUW
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You can’t learn how to coach a team sport in a classroom.
Here’s why:
Context is the single most important part of coaching.
Just like no plan survives contact with the enemy, no theory survives contact with real life.
Be an expert in context, not distance between cones 👍🏽
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7/ Many rush to the stereotypical "well, they're just not up to it, then" trope, which is utter bullshit.
These are highly-capable and highly-skilled people that are languishing in a job that has lost its way.
Part of it is our own creation, MUCH of it is not.
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Player skill development can (should) be this simple:
Skill repetition at speed.
Skill repetition at speed, under duress.
Skill repetition at speed, under duress, while fatigued.
Skill repetition at speed, under duress, while fatigued, with tactical context.
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“What is changing is attitudes within the game towards ‘career coaches’. Not only are clubs willing to look beyond the absence of playing experience, many are beginning to see clear advantages in employing someone with a different skill set.”
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Head Coaches are professional decision-makers, yet live in a state of busyness that is highly incompatible with good decision-making.
Unoptimized coaches cannot create optimized teams. It’s time for us to change our behaviour.
Another great read from
@farnamstreet
.
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The reason coaches would rather obsess over tactics is because people are hard work. Dealing with the messiness of people takes time, energy, and belief.
The Xs and Os are easier because lines on a whiteboard never talk back, or feel depressed, or hate their job.
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6/ Here is what 'done' actually sounds like:
Departing Macarthur coach Ante Milicic says he won’t be looking for another coaching job. “I’m done. I’m on empty.”
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Absolutely fantastic!
There should be a ‘Staff Going Home Checklist’ in every workplace around the world.
Well done,
@AiredaleUnit
.
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9/ Women at the top face similar challenges, but have nowhere near the financial safety net to be able to escape to the mountains for a sabbatical.
I appreciate you,
@CoachLisaA
, for speaking about this.
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The best podcast you haven’t listened to yet, a thread:
Ep 1 - Humility
🧠
@AdamMGrant
🏀 Joe Dumars
Ep 2 - People
📚
@johnsonwhitney
💜
@claudesilver
Ep 3 - Habits
📚
@AlanSteinJr
🧠
@DanAbrahams77
Ep 4 - Culture
🏆 Paul Roos
📚 James Kerr
#WhereOthersWont
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This isn’t a book about coaching, it’s a book about the human condition. The people featured just happen to be head coaches.
Here are the topics covered:
• Pressure
• Emotional trauma
• Ego
• Identity
• Decision-making
• Communication
• Connection
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I'll let you in on a little secret:
Soccer is a game of manipulating space.
Basketball is a game of manipulating space.
Aussie Rules is a game of manipulating space.
Rugby is a game of manipulating space.
Hockey is a game of manipulating space.
American Football is a game of...
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Let's address a misnomer:
What’s debilitating for head coaches isn’t the weight of expectation, it’s the weight of caring.
It’s the cumulative stress and anxiety brought upon by caring deeply about people, and the impact and influence your role has on them.
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The best part about coaching is that there isn't one way to do it.
Its brilliance is in its variation, not in its 'best practices'.
Sport becomes vapid and tedious when everyone is doing the same thing.
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In my opinion, there are four craft areas that head coaches are required to master.
🏭: Organizational Craft
🧢: Personal Craft
🎒: Locker Room Craft
���️: Game Craft
All four are equally intricate to learn, constantly evolving, and littered with landmines.
These areas take a
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Sean is 36.
This year he’s talked about burnout, and leaving coaching so that he can be a good (future) father and husband.
Sean is THIRTY-SIX!
We’ve done this to ourselves.
It doesn’t have to be like this.
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“No head coach can be popular for long because before every game he is upsetting half the players in the dressing room who feel he was wrong not to pick them in the starting team.”
— Eddie Jones
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A lot of organizations aren't genuinely interested in being people-first...they're interested in the positive marketing and goodwill that comes with saying they're people-first.
The actions rarely match the words, especially when things get tough.
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Head coaches create themselves in their teams.
💩: if you’re shit scared, they’ll be shit scared.
😔: if you’re pessimistic, they’ll be pessimistic.
😈: if you’re dishonest, they’ll be dishonest.
You want behaviour change? It starts with you, my friend.
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Invasion Games is my new series.
I'll be writing about core concepts like space, momentum, rhythm, competition, team composition, movement, game intelligence, and mindsets.
When you talk about invasion games, though, there's only one place to start:
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10/ “Often it’s the staff and coaches who are struggling. They’ve taken on so much responsibility, often the pay isn’t great, you’re worried about losing your job, or your family situation. It’s the staff that get overlooked.”
Truth,
@stevenreid12
.
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"The interesting thing about coaching is that you have to trouble the comfortable and comfort the troubled."
- Ric Charlesworth 🇦🇺🏑
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You wouldn't believe the strides I see head coaches make simply by having someone around them that genuinely believes in them.
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I’ve become very clear on this:
“Coachability” is more about the ability of the coach than the attitude of the player.
"Rather than asking whether every player is coachable, perhaps we should ask whether we have the strength of identity to be able to coach different types of players."
-
@codyroyle
, The Tough Stuff
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The wrong question:
❌ How do I get my players to stop playing video games all the time?
The right question:
✅ What is so compelling about video games that makes my players play all the time, and how do I make my practices, meetings, and interactions more like that?
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Head Coaches:
You should have a coach.
Not because you’re struggling.
But because you’re already good…and you know you can get even better!
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My coach (yes, I have one too) challenged me to share my principles so it's easier to understand what it's like to work with me.
I've added them to my website, so thought I'd publish here as well.
🧵
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The catalyst for writing Second Set Of Eyes was the level of misunderstanding I encountered when I started coaching head coaches. From what I'd get called (life coach, mentor, coach developer) to the questions I'd encounter ("What's the return on investment of our club using
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2/ Recently, a
@nytimes
article included a form to gather stories under the heading "Have You Had It With Coaching?"
The New York Times can spend its time on any topic in the world, but they're investigating the worrying trend of coaches quitting.
This, to me, is telling.
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