Wednesday, January 13, 2016

COACH BILL SNYDER'S 16 GOALS FOR SUCCESS

The following is an excerpt written by Mark Jannsen for KStateSports.com.  It speaks to Kansas State's coach Bill Snyder and his philosophy of 16 goals for success -- which he got from his mother. You can read the entire article here.

Simplistic words like: commitment, unity, unselfishness, enthusiasm, responsibility, improve. Generic phrases like: great effort, never give up, expect to win, no self-limitations, and so on.

Lumped together, and bought into, Snyder summarizes, “If each player achieves each of these goals, we, as a team, will always be successful.”

Snyder declines to accept invention of his pet words/phrases, but instead says, “They come from my mother (Marionetta). The foundation comes from how she raised me, and what she meant to me. How you buy into those values is who you are.”

Growing up in a single-parent home in St. Joseph, Mo., Snyder said, “My mother was a stickler for having everything in its proper place and doing things right. Our apartment wasn’t much, but it was always clean. It was small enough that when my area was a mess, then her area was a mess. There wasn’t my space and her space. It was our space.”

He would add, “She worked hard. If my work ethic came from anyone, it came from my mother.”


THE WILDCAT 16 GOALS FOR SUCCESS

Commitment … to common goals and to being successful
Unselfishness … there is no ‘I’ in TEAM
Unity … come together as never before
Improve … every day as a player, person and student
Be Tough … mentally and physically
Self-Discipline ... do it right, don’t accept less
Great Effort
Enthusiasm
Eliminate Mistakes … don’t beat yourself
Never Give Up … never … never … never
Don’t Accept Losing … If you do so one time, it will be easy to do so for the rest of your life
No Self-Limitations … expect more of yourself
Expect To Win … and truly believe we will
Consistency … your very, very best every time
Leadership … everyone can set the example
Responsibility … You are responsible for your own performance

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

OUR BEST BLOG POSTS ON COACH SABAN

In honor of Alabama's National Championship, here are a few of our favorite Nick Saban blog posts:

Coach Saban on the Illusion of Choice

Intelligence + Work Ethic = "A Good Combination"

Coach Saban on Building a Team's Identity in the Off-Season

Learning Your Role, Earning Your Time

Good Process Produces Good Results

Coach Saban on Team Chemistry and Practice Motivation

Thoughts on Player Discipline

The Secret of Nick Saban

Are You Impressing or Impacting

How Alabama Utilized Guest Speakers to Grow Their Team on and off the Field

Coach Saban on Trust and Communication

Coach Saban on Creating a Culture of Accountability

Coach Saban on Why the Mighty Fall

Coach Saban on Leadership, Complacency and Preparation

The Process of What it Takes to be Successful

FAILURE IS ESSENTIAL

You will fail.  Especially in the beginning.  You will fail.   And that's not just OK, it's essential.  Without resilience, the first failure is also the last -- because it's final.

Those who are excellent at their work have learned to comfortably coexist with failure.  The excellent fail more often than the mediocre.

They begin more.  They attempt more.  They attack more.  Mastery lives quietly atop a mountain of mistakes.

The exceptional artist throws away hundreds of photographs.  The exceptional writer wears out the eraser. The exceptional investor puts money into losing ventures.  If every risk you take pays off, then you probably aren't actually taking risks.  We don't want to excuse recklessness and foolishness as "just taking risks," but we should understand that those who have build true excellence in their lives are always fighting at the edges of their ability.

What distinguishes the exceptional from the unexceptional?  A willingness to fail, and an exceptional ability to learn from every failure.

From "Resilience" by Eric Greitens