A good coach is always looking for ways to motivate his players. A long time ago, I came up with my definition of what an effective coach looks like. My definition is: “A great coach is able to lead/teach/motivate his players to accomplish more than the player is able to realize he’s capable of achieving.” To accomplish this, a coach must be a “life-long learner” — finding bits of info that he can add to his “tool belt.” Recently, I found one such nugget while reading a daily devotion from Bob Gass Ministries.
Pastor Gass says, “It’s not enough to have the right answers; you need the right approach.” How true! He goes on to say that, “Good ideas and sound advice are wasted when you use a ram-it-down-your-throat approach.” Your efforts to help that player accomplish greater things is dependent on the approach you take to reach him. As coaches, we need to be wise when working with people. Wisdom means possessing the ability to say the right thing, at the right time, with the right tone of voice. I learned a long time ago that “it’s not what you say… but, how you say it” that captures a person’s attention!
I am a firm believer that our efforts at helping a player to change will fail (or worse, cause them to quit on you and leave your program) unless you approach them in love and humility. Another axiom that applies here is, “Players don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!”
Most players want to be great. They simply lack the skills to help them achieve greatness on their own. That’s where we step in as coaches. That’s why the right approach is so important.
Former U.S. Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson once wrote: “You can offer your ideas to people as bullets or as seeds. You can shoot them or sow them. Ideas used as bullets kill inspiration and motivation. Ideas used as seeds take root, grow and bear fruit in the life in which they are planted. But, there’s a risk: Once it becomes part of those in whom it’s planted, you’ll probably get no credit for originating the idea. But if you’re willing to do without the credit… you’ll reap a rich harvest.”
So if you want your players to receive the truth in a way that will drive them to improve, then you have to find the right approach for each individual!
