Publisher’s note: This story is part of the peak, AthleticsThe new office covering leadership, personal development and success through the objective of sports. Peak aims to connect readers to the ideas they can implement in their own personal and professional life. Point here.
More than anyone, professional athletes were exposed to a wide range of leadership and coach styles. When they leave professional sports and start to train young athletes, they have a lot of experience to be learned.
We have checked with three former professional athletes who now lead to sports for young people to collect their advice for other coaches and parents.
Remember why you are there
Drew Stanton was a quarter of the NFL for 14 seasons and now causes his son’s football and baseball teams, as well as helping direct a football organization for young people.
He said he had noticed that the children were harder with themselves now than they were when he was a young athlete.
While youth sports are becoming more and more intense, they often remind children why they play first.
“We become so wrapped in the results as opposed to:” What is intentionality behind what you are trying to do? ” Stanton said. “Check controllables. You are wrapped in the success of someone else, or you are starting to compare yourself, and you are starting to steal these children from their childhood because we have become hyper concentrated to make professionals at such young age.
“I think that the ability to teach life lessons through sport has always been my approach.”
He encourages his athletes to focus on setting their own objectives and recognizing that errors are learning opportunities.
“We have to stick to the process,” he said. “Sit there and shout or try to decompose them to strengthen them, it does not need to happen. These children are already breaking down enough, or they turn to social media to gain their understanding or their value of how many likes they get.”
Travis SNIDER, an old mlb outfit, now leads a sports company for young people This provides resources and education to parents and coaches. It is essential, he said, that adults remind athletes that failure is not a bad thing.
“We are trying to teach more skills to children, but with this understanding of their emotional and physical position,” he said. “These are only experiences that give us the opportunity to learn and grow, and often failure is a much better vehicle to learn these lessons and grow up and become a better version of yourself.”
Know what you appreciate as a coach
Matt Hasselbeck spent 18 seasons as a Quarterrière in the NFL. He spent a season to play for Pete Carroll, someone he considered completely authentic. This is what he admired about Carroll. But now, after having trained football in high school, he realizes how important it is to find your own identity.
“Slowd up for yourself,” said Hasselbeck. “Maybe even write things. Like, here are non-negotiable-who I am as a coach.”
Hasselbeck, who has non-negotiable like no cursed and putting health and safety above all, has picked up some examples. When his son, Henry, played for the ancient quarter of the NFL Trent Dilfer, Dilfer had a rule that no one was allowed to sit at a new table during a meal unless all the other tables are full.
“So, if you imagine, there are 10 seats at a table, it is not a table of four, then someone else begins a table of 10,” he said. “No. Each table must be full before they can start another table. It is just a community. No one is excluded. No one is precious. No one has friends.”
Understand who your players are as people
One year, when Hasselbeck led to football in high school, many “mental errors” occurred along the offensive line, he said. When Hasselbeck approached his offensive line coach and suggested simplifying a few things, the coach, who was also a math teacher at school, replied: “No. No, that’s not the problem. It is one of the most intelligent children I teach. He is capable. It is only a teenager with a development problem. ”
It was at this point that Hasselbeck began to understand the strong link between learning the little things about his athletes and improving their game.
“Like” hey, we know that this guy has trouble learning. Let’s make his menu a little smaller so that he can do less better. This will help him succeed. He has enough on his plate “” said Hasselbeck. “I think doing less is better.”
For him, even small things, as knowing what the journey of the house or the family looks like, can make a significant difference.
Being uncomfortable can be a good thing
Stanton is strongly felt the lessons we can learn from sport, including confidence, respect and effective communication. But for him, kissing adversity is one of the most important lessons he wishes to transmit to his athletes.
“I say to the children,” I want you to be comfortable when it is uncomfortable, “he said. “Because we are all in different situations. If you can learn to face adversity, if you can learn to manage all these other things and find a way to persevere, that’s how you grow. In the end, you will find something or someone who is better than you. And what do you do? How do you answer?”
For Stanton, it can be as simple as changing the way you talk to an athlete when he makes a mistake. Encourage them, rather than reprimanding them, can help a young athlete develop a better perspective over time.
Be attentive as a parent
Sports for young people require training, trips and equipment more specialized than ever before. SNIDER said that parents and coaches cannot give the time and money they invest in young athletes turn into additional pressure.
“It is difficult to differentiate your child and their experience in sport in relation to time, money and energy in which you invest and what this return on investment looks like,” he said. “We have built a culture that is aimed at performance and success. But your failure and your success will not define who you are. ”
SNIDER believes that if parents and coaches can work on themselves and better understand how their experiences influence their answers, this can differentiate between a positive experience for a young athlete and a negative athlete, which is particularly important at such an impressionable age.
“We do not recognize how our past experiences arise in the moments when our son or our daughter takes out or missing the kick and how it perpetuates something in us that we have not treated or that we were not aware,” said Snider. “We are a product of our childhood and what this generation of parents and coaches has done and did not do during this experience. What can we do? This makes the child’s development a priority. “
Elise Devlin is a writer for Peak, The new athletics office covering leadership, personal development and success. She wrote for the last time on How to manage failure. Point here.
(Illustration: Dan GOLDFARB / Athletics; Photos: Nick Cammett / Diamond Images, Rex Brown / Getty Images)