Author: cbarney.45

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” – W. Edwards Deming

Processes can feel like barriers, but they’re actually like bumper lanes in bowling. When you “wing it” and don’t have a process in place, you’re going to get inconsistent results. When the right processes are set in place, it gives you the freedom to tweak your pitch/presentation within the parameters of the process. It still lets you experiment, but will get you better, more consistent results.

Coaches don’t have to be inspirational or give rah-rah speeches. Think of Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, or Greg Poppovich. None of them are like that. They focus on the task at hand. They focus on the drills that need to be performed. There are no “you can do it!” pep rally speeches from them. They tell it like it is and their goal is to get their team better at their jobs.

A cheerleader makes you feel good, but a coach makes you better. That doesn’t mean that you can’t be nice or that you can’t care for your co-workers/teammates/mentees. It just means that you are not doing them any justice by only telling them what they want to hear. Tough love is just love. You need to love them enough to let them make mistakes, but not such catastrophic mistakes that they’re not going to bounce back from them. You need to know when to step in and to not let them hurt themselves. That’s what being a great coach is all about.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau

Colin O’Brady, an adventurer, was recently on Joe Rogan’s podcast and eloquently expanded on Thoreau’s quote. He said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that he thinks of life events as a scale from one through ten, with one being the worst thing that can happen to you and ten being the best. What he fears is not experiencing the ones (which he experienced many times during his 54-day solo trek in Antarctica), but it is living a life only experiencing a four through six on that scale. He understands that ones are needed to appreciate the fours, fives, and sixes, and that he gets to experience the tens (like summiting Mount Everest, finishing his Antarctic expedition, and rowing across the Drake Passage) BECAUSE of the ones, not in spite of them.

It got me thinking…what were the highest and lowest points for you within the past year? What about within the past five years? If you look back and your lowest low or your highest high is basically between a four and six, ask yourself if you’re happy with that. If you are, no problem. Keep doing what you’re doing. But if you’re not, if you want more, what are some of the things you have always dreamt of doing but never made the time for or didn’t want to take the risk? Understand that to get to those tens, you’re going to have to feel some of those ones as well. If you believe it’s worth the trade off, then go for it!

Lastly, don’t think that it’s too late. It’s never too late to get started. When you say to yourself, “I can’t do that,” you’re taking the easy way out. You’re giving yourself an excuse. Instead, ask yourself, “how can I do that?” By asking how you can do something, you shift your mindset and begin to think outside of the box to get where you want to be.

As adults (it feels weird calling myself an adult), it is so easy to get wrapped up in our day-to-day activities and forget that we should live a fun, purposeful life. We slog through our days and weeks, looking forward to the weekend where we do…what? Then, next thing you know the weekend is gone, you didn’t do anything that you really wanted to do, and the work week cycle starts over again. But what if I told you that it doesn’t have to be this way? What if you decided to live intentionally? How could your outlook on life change?

One way that you can live intentionally is to reflect on what makes you happiest, plan to do more of whatever that is, then execute your plan. Having trouble getting started? Try thinking of activities that energize you and activities drain you. Can you incorporate more activities into your life that recharge your battery, while at the same time eliminate activities that drain it? Can you find a way to do this daily, instead of only looking forward to trying to “be happy” on the weekend?

For me, I recharge by moving while I’m listening to a podcast/audiobook (whether that’s working out or walking my dog), playing with my wife and son (literally running around and acting like a child), and checking things off of my self-imposed To Do list (being productive for work, doing household chores – NOT laundry, or working on my website). I try to do this everyday because these things make me happy. It may sound boring to others, but guess what? I don’t care. Find what makes you happy and don’t worry about anyone else’s opinion.

What drains me? Drama or gossip. Keep it away from me. I don’t want it. It takes my focus away from what is important in life – my faith, my family, my friends, my health, and my work. If you start telling me a story that involves drama or gossip, I usually won’t say much (in my head I’m waiting for you to stop talking). By me not contributing to the conversation, or finding ways out of the conversation, I avoid fanning the flame of the drama fire. Eventually, it dies out or they get bored with my non-interaction and take the drama elsewhere.

Those were a few examples of what I try to incorporate or deduct from my life. After you spend some time figuring out which activities you love and which activities you loathe, develop a plan to add or subtract those activities into your life more often. Figure out how to add more of what energizes you (do this everyday) and eliminate that which drains you. If you do this, it won’t be hard to be happy every day. And who doesn’t want to be happy?

Don’t try to sound smart.

The best teachers aren’t the ones who use big words. The best teachers know their subject so well that they can use terms that whomever they are talking with can understand. They “dumb it down” or “ratchet it up” to the degree of who their audience is. So, if they are talking with a high school student, they may use certain words, but will teach that same subject differently to a 25-year old or a 50-year old.

Isn’t it ironic that people who use complicated words to sound smart are actually showing that they don’t get it?

If you are teaching someone and you truly want to help that person understand, you need to stop making it about yourself. Don’t prop up your ego by using fancy words or technical jargon that the person you’re speaking to doesn’t understand. If you’re doing that, you either don’t know the subject well enough to speak in layman’s terms or you’re trying to boost your own self-esteem (hoping that they’ll be impressed with your “knowledge”).

Practice speaking in terms that your audience can understand. When you are able to help others understand the subject at hand, you are on your way to becoming a gifted teacher.