Infuse the Lifeblood of Learning: 3 Non-Traditional Resources

        Learning is the lifeblood of growth.  Without new knowledge, we become stagnate.  It's how we end up with the dreaded, "Well, that's how we've always done it."  Those are not the words of a successful program or business.  "We've done it that way, but can we do it even better?" would be more likely.  I'm no doubt preaching to the choir though.  You know it's important to learn, and you make efforts to do so.  If you're a coach, you probably go to clinics, talk with peers, read books, etc.  If you're a teacher, you go to professional development, reflect on lesson plans (haha), and communicate with colleagues.  In any field, the same pattern applies.  It's what "everyone" is doing.  That isn't good enough if you want to be great though.  If you're only looking to traditional sources of information, you're missing out.  "Your world" is only a tiny sliver of the performance world.  It's "Other" section of the pie chart.  "Your world" is not even showing up on the leaderboard on Family Feud.  With that, I'd like to challenge you to move outside of your world and expand it by looking to some nontraditional resources for an infusion of learning lifeblood in whatever you do.

Resource #1:  People You Disagree With
Yes Men.  Weak leaders surround themselves with Yes Men in hope of making themselves feel better.  They need the constant shots of dopamine because their self-image and confidence in what they're doing is so fragile.  Weak learners do the same.  They read and talk with only those who agree with what they do.  As an example, there is an ongoing debate via Twitter between coaches who like Bunts and coaches who like Bombs.  The condescending banter is a great reminder of why I am not a fan of politics.  Constant bickering and writing off the other side, without any real consideration, is the nature of these "discussions."  An approach that would be more fruitful is one we learned in elementary school of, "Put yourself in the shoes of the other person."  I'm not saying to change your convictions.  Believing in what you do is a big part of success.  What I'd say to do is see if there is anything you can take from the others you disagree with.  Simply writing them off as idiots is a shortsighted move.  Try to see what they see.  Maybe you disagree with trying to hit bombs all the time, but you see value to making hitting a little more measurable than "Good swing" every time they hit a line drive.  Maybe you hate bunting but understand it could be something that could help add to the tool box of the players and/or team you coach.  We're all in it to help players so let's do that to the best of our ability instead of worrying about ego.  This is a great struggle for me as a "newer" Mental Coach, and I think that new coaches, teachers, business leaders, etc. can probably relate.  We want to know we're good at what we do.  We want to know our hard work is paying off.  As a result, we look for validation.  In reality, you're not good at what you do when you're just getting started.  You have strengths, but it's just not realistic to be "good" at anything requiring any level of skill.  We can all look back to when we just started whatever it is we do and recognize how bad we were compared to where we are now.  That's what is beautiful about being human.  Failing, being wrong, and challenging yourself to see things in different ways is all part of ultimately make you stronger in what you do and who you are.

Resource #2:  Greatness Outside of YOUR Field
I'm a baseball guy.  That is no secret.  The sport was my first love and has been a tremendous part of my life.  As I got into sport psychology, I read every baseball mental book I could get my hands on.  A funny thing happened along the way though.  I ran out.  There are only so many of these books to read.  "Now what?" I asked myself.  Fortunately, a friend who, ironically, works in pro baseball made me realize there were so many more great resources out there to learn from.  He told me about a book called Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard.  Then, I heard a podcast with someone who works with another organization discussing a book study on Give and Take.  Before I knew it, I was finding more and more new resources that didn't directly apply to baseball but could help nevertheless.  I went from the little kid who had just opened his last Christmas present to understanding every day brings unlimited present opportunities for my brain!  A similar thing happened for me in the experience of working at IMG.  Again, I was a baseball guy... or so I thought.  Working with a variety of people and a tremendous variety of athlete made me realize I was an educator/coach/sport psych guy more than a baseball guy.  I loved it all and honestly enjoyed the newness of working with other sports more than the baseball sessions.  Some of my favorites were with tennis players and golfers.  I found myself amazed by the self-awareness they had, and it made me realize again there is so much greatness out there to learn from (Thanksgiving every day?).  With that, I'd challenge you to look for these similar opportunities.  Get outside of your niche, and learn from others.  It's what great leaders like Theo Epstein, Dabo Swinney, and Dan Quinn are doing.  So should you.

Resource #3:  Your Athletes/Students
It's tough to self-reflect.  To make yourself really look at what you're doing is such a challenge again because we want to be good at what we do.  We want to think we're making all of the right decisions and that we're doing the best we can do with what we have.  In reality, we never are.  We're not perfect, and we can always do better.  We can always do more or do different.  Even more challenging, in my opinion, is getting the feedback of others.  Opening ourselves up to criticism can be a punch in the gut at times.  It's definitely a threat to our feeling of making all the right decisions.  Or, maybe it helps us do a better job.  Maybe it allows us to best serve the athletes, students, coworkers we have.  I'm a big fan of giving athletes an opportunity to give feedback.  For starters, it allows them to see that what they think is valuable to you.  If you're in the position of coach, you're given countless opportunities to show your opinion matters.  Flipping the script is great for the athletes having a voice.  They're pretty important to the experience after all.  Giving evaluations to students and athletes is great for this.  Discussions are nice, but you're only going to hear from those same 4-5 athletes who answer every question and confirm you're always right.  They're the Yes Men of athletes.  They're fun to coach and great for the ego but limit our scope of what is going on.  Evaluations provide a voice for all.  Yes.  They provide lots of warm fuzzies.  I'd be lying if I said it isn't nice to know athletes thought highly of what you've done together.  I like that feeling.  I like the "negative" feedback too though.  Critical feedback provides the choice to write it off or accept it.  A mixture of both can be necessary.  I like looking for patterns in answers applicable to group delivery and trying to understand the perspective of individual responses as well.  Then, I can make improvements to what we do to help better serve future athletes and coaches.

        My hope is by reading this you'll challenge yourself to look for more diverse opportunities to learn.  There are so many out there in the world.  Yes, there's lots of bad information.  You can still learn from it.  There are plenty of examples of "leaders" in various fields who are really poor models to follow.  You can still learn from them.  Despite what the naysayers and media present I'd still say these poor sources and models are in the minority.  There are so many great people you can learn from.  They're out there.  I promise you.  The trick is finding them.  When you do, it'll change the way you do things for the better.  It'll be the infusion of lifeblood you need to take whatever you do to the next level.

You Learn and You Learn

        I love a good quote as much as anyone.  Much of my posting on Twitter revolves around quotes from athletes and coaches.  The hope is to do more than share the words in the quote but also to share the actions or deeper meaning reflected by those words.  In saying that, I also enjoy reading good quotes from others posting and really find it interesting to see what people gravitate towards.  There is a quote I've been seeing a lot saying, "I either win, or I learn."  People love the quote.  I hate it, and here's why.  Although I really like the idea of learning from failure, I think this particular quote is sending the wrong message.  The quote gives two options:  1. Win, 2. Learn.  It's saying the two options are separate.  You win and move on, or you lose and learn.  When we send or receive the message that I should learn only when we lose we're opening the door to panic after a performance.  Think about it from the standpoint of a hitter in baseball.  You go 2-4, 2-4, and 1-3 but don't take the time to understand why you got those results.  Then, you go 0-4.  "Oh man!  I better learn from that performance!"  Time to search for what's wrong.  Time to panic and overreact!  It's amazing how much this line of thinking has hitters quickly forget about those three solid performances.  As I search for what went wrong, the 0-4's start to pile up.  I continue to search and search and try to learn because I'm "or learning" and a slump happens.  I'll get to the alternative shortly, but first I'll tell you the other reason I don't like the saying.

        "I either win, or I learn."  Which would you rather do as a competitor?  I'll take winning, and my guess is you would too.  I'd also guess many of you reading this play or coach teams that win more often than you lose.  My challenge to you then is to think about how if you are only learning from losses, you're missing out on a lot of opportunities to learn.  Among other things, Draymond Green said a couple of nights ago he was glad the Warriors lost.  He said, "I'm kind of thrilled that we lost because you usually make corrections when you lose.  You know, most people don't look at wins and say 'Oh, we need to correct this,' so I think this is good for us."  Draymond is dead on with this statement.  Most people don't take time to think about corrections after wins.  Just because most people don't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't though.  This blog isn't for most people.  It's for you.  Process is a word getting thrown around a lot in the sports world, and I love it when it's truly about process.  If we're truly about the process, however, we are looking at quality of play well beyond the final score.  Process would lead to corrections being made, as necessary, regardless of final score.  Process means learning from every singular athletic experience we have.  When we do that, we become more self-aware both individually and as a team.

         So far I've spent a couple of paragraphs stating my problems with the quote in question, but I haven't given you enough of a specific solution.  That's what we'll do here.  First, I want us to change the options from Win or Learn to Win and Learn or Lose and Learn.  How can you do that?  There's an approach I really like called the 3-2-1.  It's something I first heard Bernie Holliday talk about in one of Cindra Kamphoff's High Performance Mindset Podcasts (the podcasts are great and something I'd highly recommend checking out).  Holliday is the Director of Mental Conditioning for the Pittsburgh Pirates and has a great reputation within the field.  We used a variation of the approach in our reflection about sessions led over the summer at IMG Academy, and it was more productive than any feedback process I've ever experienced as a teacher...by far.  Anyway, back to what the 3-2-1 is.  The concept is that after every performance, or the Pirates I think use it after every series, the player takes time to reflect.  The player first comes up with 3 things that went well and the process that led them going well.  Going back to a hitter going 2-4.  They may want to say, "I got two hits" for what went well.  Okay, but why did you get two hits?  What did you DO that led to you getting the results you want?  This forces the hitter to go beyond that to, "I attacked fastballs early in the count," or "I stuck with my plan throughout each at-bat."  The idea is to produce something in the reflection that helps you moving forward.  It helps create the blueprint for your performance process and helps you get to know yourself a little better as an athlete.  The reflection also provides something you can come back to down the line if things start to go poorly.  After coming up with what went well, the player then thinks of 2 things that could have gone better and the process that led to it not going well.  Maybe that same hitter gave an at-bat away.  "Gave an at-bat away," isn't enough.  Why?  What led to that happening?  Maybe the hitter, "Tried to do too much because of wanting to drive runners in."  Then, the hitter can take that moving forward and "Stay within myself" in similar future situations.  Finally, what is 1 thing you can take moving forward?  In reality, the 3-2 part should give you plenty of options, but the 1 forces you to pick something to focus on.  Maybe that same hitter will work on situational rounds the next day in BP on staying within himself.  Then, he feels a little more prepared going into the game.  I love the 3-2-1 because it's simple and really forces the player to think about what he did.  This is something you can do to "Learn or Learn" after every performance.

        My challenge to you is to try learning from every time you compete.  Really, you could reflect after every single day of training or practice too.  Doing so will allow you to make what you do all the more purposeful.  You'll get to know yourself as an athlete and really take control of a defined process for performance and improvement.  The 3-2-1 Reflection could easily be used by teams as well.  My recommendation for a team would be to wait until the next day to allow for the emotion of a win or loss to fade a bit, and you can reflect a little more rationally.  As a coach, you may be reluctant to have your teams reflect individually because players might not be committed to writing so much.  Something one of my friends and colleagues, Zach Brandon, likes is to take advantage of the technology all of the athletes have.  You can easily reflect by talking into your phone and recording it.  There are a lot of options.  Either it's important enough to be as good as possible, or it isn't.  The point is the opportunity is there.  If we're going to preach process independent of results, let's make sure we are doing it on a consistent basis.  That's true process.  That's win now.