THOUGHTS ON TEACHING AND PLAYER DEVELOPMENT FROM BILL WALSH

The following comes from one of the absolute best coaching books I've every read, "Finding the Winning Edge," by Bill Walsh:

Drive the players to concentrate. Be assertive in your insistence that they focus on the task at hand.

Individualize your teaching approach to fit certain individuals, when necessary. Give extra time to those players who need it.

Be as precise as possible when teaching. Always use the system’s terminology as a common language.

Be patient, but demanding. Require your players to adhere to proper techniques at all times.

Teach the skills progressively. Adhere to a systematic methodology of teaching that allows the players to improve and enhances their level of confidence in your competence and professionalism.

Keep your finger on the pulse of the situation. Be alert to the intensity level of the players. Be sensitive to signs of those factors which can affect the learning curve. Never overlook the fundamental reality of the teaching axiom, “quality repetitions are the mother of all learning.”

Keep the meetings quality, not quantity, oriented. Use a variety of learning tools to enhance the learning environment and to help stimulate the players’ level of concentration and focus.

Demonstrate the highest level of knowledge about the subject matter being taught.

Teach the players in a professional manner. Unless you’re trying to elicit a specific emotional response from your players, refrain from screaming and demonstrative behavior. Keep in mind that such behavior seldom, if ever, enhances the learning curve particularly if the subject matter involves technical information.

Evaluate the players’ performance on a daily basis to ensure that they are progressively mastering the techniques required to perform the tasks they are assigned in an effective and efficient manner.

Rapidity is the essence of war; take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attach unguarded spots.

Another teaching technique that has proven to be very effective is to have players emulate the techniques and actions of other athletes. For example, if players watch videos showing Jerry Rice run a particular pattern in a certain way, you (as the head coach) can single out and stress particular coaching points, by using Rice as the case in point.

All factors considered, players tend to respond more favorably to an actual visual representation of a particular teaching point than to tan abstract illustration of that point drawn up on a chalkboard or written up in a playbook. This learning technique is typically referred to as “modeling.”

"Win the war, then win the fight."

DECIDE. COMMIT. ACT. SUCCEED. REPEAT

The following comes from the book "Relentless" by Tim Grover:

To be the best, whether in sports of business or any other aspect of life, it’s never enough to just get to the top; you have to stay there, and then you have to climb higher, because there’s always someone right behind you trying to catch up. Most people are willing to settle for “good enough.” But if you want to be unstoppable, those words mean nothing to you. Being the best means engineering your life so you never stop until you get what you want, and then you keep going until you get what’s next. And then you go for even more.

Decide. Commit. Act. Succeed. Repeat

CAL RIPKEN JR. ON CONSISTENCY

We constantly preach to our players about being an "NBA Player" -- meaning "Next Best Action."  The best players don't dwell in the past.  They are on to the next play.  If they are thinking about the last play -- a missed shot, a turnover, a poor play be a teammate, a bad call by an official -- then they are not give 100% of their mental capacity to the most important play of the game -- the next one.  After all, as Sue Gunter would constantly tell her teams, "The next possession is the only one we have control of."

By now I am hopefully that you've all heard of The Players Tribune.  If not it needs to be a must read for you and your players.  It is articles that are written completely by athletes.  Not coaches. Not writers.  It gives us an amazing perspective and insight into what some of the best are thinking in so many different situations.

One of the more recent entries came from Cal Ripken, Jr. in an article titled "The Best Play I Ever Made."  One of the take aways from the article was when Cal had failure on the field, an error or poor at bat, he always seemed to follow it up with success -- a good defensive play or a hit.  This is the Next Best Action attitude.  This is a look into Cal's mentality: 

"More often than not, whenever I made an error, I’d get a hit in my next at bat. If I struck out a few times, I’d be more likely to make a nice play in the field. Whatever I was struggling with, I tried to excel in another area to balance it out. I always viewed baseball as a constant internal battle within myself. You have to keep your emotions low when pressure is high, but play with passion when pressure was low. It’s not about focusing on perfection so much as on consistency."

EVENT + RESPONSE = OUTCOME (PART I)

In his book "Above the Line,"   Urban Meyer talks about a relationship he developed with Tim Kight, the founder of Focus 3 which is a leadership development firm.  What he learned, and applied with his football team became known as "the R Factor."  In fact, Chapter 2 of Meyer's book is completely dedicated to "The R Factor."

Here are a few take aways from that chapter:

This equation teaches something very important about the way life works.  We don't control the events in life, and we don't directly control the outcomes.  But we always have control over how we choose to respond.  How we respond means everything.

We call it the R Factor.

Every day you make R Factor decisions.

It is the factor that determines the quality of your life.

Coach Meyer says that they teach their team 6 R Factor disciplines:

R:1 Press Pause
We teach our players, in response to any situation they face, to press pause and ask: What does this situation require of me?

There are two important benefits of pressing pause:

A) It helps you avoid doing something foolish or harmful.
B) It focuses you on acting with purpose to accomplish your goals..

R:2 Get Your Mind Right
Elite performers win in their minds first.  The mind is a battleground where the greatest struggles take place. The thoughts that win the battle for your mind will direct your life.  Mental state affects physical performance. 

Getting your mind right means managing two things:

A) What you focus on
B) How you talk to yourself

Urban Meyer to his players: "The voice in your mind is a powerful force.  Take ownership of that force."

R:3 Step Up
It is your responsibility to understand the situation, be clear about what is required of you, then respond Above the Line.  This is what it means to step up.

Simply stated, Big E's and Big O's require Big R's.

Under pressure, we do not rise to the occasion. We rise or fall to the level of our training.  When contact is made, it is too late to train and build skill.

Every team faces some kind of adversity.  Mediocre teams are destroyed by it.  Good teams survive it.  Great teams get better because of it.

R:4 Adjust and Adapt
The ability to be flexible and responsive in today's competitive environment is a mandatory skill.  The best athletes and teams are exceptional at adjusting and adapting to challenging circumstances.

Here is another reality -- life will get increasingly difficult for you if you don't.

Every day you are creating or reinforcing habits in your life.  The question is, are they habits that help or habits that hold you back?

R:5 Make a Difference
Your R is an E for others.  Your attitude and behavior have a profound impact on your teammates and your coaches.  The quality of your relationships is determined by how you choose to manage the R.  You don't get the team you want -- you get the team you build.

Making a difference means taking complete ownership of the experience you give your teammates and the contributions you make to the culture of the team.

R:6 Build Skill
Talent is a gift.  Greatness is a choice.

Talent can take you to a level of ability that produces good results.  But talent by itself will not take you to the elite level.  Exceptional performance is the result of an uncommon level of focus and discipline in the pursuit of greatness.  Build skill every day and consistently get better.  Be coachable.  Train and practice Above the Line.  Be intentional and on purpose.  Complacency is the enemy of exceptional.  Grow beyond your talent.

Embrace discomfort.  Discomfort marks the place where the old ways meets the new way.  Discomfort indicates that change is about to happen.  Push through the pain.  If it doesn't challenge you, it will not change you.

Champions are made by how they manage their R.

SEEKING OUT CUES TO BE EXCEPTIONAL

The following comes from the book "How Champions Think" by Dr. Bob Rotella.  It's a great read the importance of the mind and our thoughts in helping or hindering us succeed: 

Exceptional people seem to seek out cues that in most people would trigger a bad habit and use them as a tool to reinforce good habits. Some people would look out the window and see rain and think, “Well, I guess I don’t have to practice golf today. I can play a video game.” An exceptional person would see the same rain and go out to practice, relishing the opportunity to improve his ability to cope with wet grips and squishy ground underfoot. He’d see it as a chance to get a practice advantage over rivals who would take the day off. Someone who wants to be exceptional at basketball sees a snowfall as an opportunity to shovel off the court, practice, and get better on a day when her peers and potential rivals will be inside, not getting better. An exceptional person who’s into fitness and a healthy diet will relish the chance to go to a banquet, which is the sort of occasion that cues a lot of people to drink and eat too much. The exceptional person sees it as a chance to demonstrate, if only to himself, the power of his will. He takes pride in doing things average people will not do. And pride is one of the rewards that reinforces a good habit.

HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE MENTAL TIME?

The following comes from the book "What Drives Winning" by Brett Ledbetter.  It is a great example of the amount of "mental time" that is out there between the tasks that we must execute:

College golf can teach us a great lesson. I was working with a high-level college team and I asked the team a few questions:

Me: How long does it take for you to complete a swing?

Team: One second.

Me: How many shots will you take in a normal round?

Team: 72.

Me: How long does a normal round take to play?

Team: 5 hours.

Me: Let me get this straight, you’re only swinging a golf club for one minute and twelve seconds out of 300 minutes?

Think about that for a second. The great golfers are the ones who can manage the other two hundred, ninety-eight minutes, and forty-eight seconds the best.

A GOLF PRO HELPS LEBRON WITH HIS 3 POINT SHOOTING

The following comes from "How Champions Think" by Dr. Bob Rotella.  Rotella is a renowned sports psychologist that has garnered much of his reputation for working with golfers.  But the mind is the mind and the ability to help someone with the mental aspects of athletic skill has carry over as shown in Rotella's story of his time with LeBron James:

It may surprise some readers to learn that the suggestions I gave to LeBron involved a lot more of what most people would perceive as plain hard work than they involved what most people would consider sports psychology. I did tell him that I thought he could benefit from one of the standard methods of sports psychology, visualization. I wanted him to see himself making three-point shots. I suggested that he ask the Cavaliers’ staff to make a highlight video for him, about eight to twelve minutes long. This video would be a LeBron James long-range shooting montage. It would have LeBron making threes off the dribble. It would show LeBron catching the ball and making threes spotting up. It could have some of LeBron’s favorite music in the background, helping him to attach the good feelings associated with that music to the act of shooting threes. He would watch it every night. As he fell asleep, he could conjure up images of himself making three-point shots against tall, quick, tenacious defenders. He could let them fill his dreams. All of this would help him improve his three-point shooting, because it would feed the right sorts of images to his subconscious, helping him become a more trusting, confident shooter. But if improvement were as easy as watching videos, the NBA would have a lot more great three-point shooters. It isn’t. The mental game is a big part of sport, but it must be combined with physical competence. So I suggested that LeBron hire a shooting coach and work with that coach every day. I told him he needed to make maybe two hundred three-point shots off the dribble every day, imagining the best defender in the league guarding him. I told him he needed to make another two hundred catch-and-shoot three-pointers. I told him I didn’t care how many shots it took to make those four hundred three-pointers, or how long it took. If he wanted to be great, he would find the time and find the energy. The actual number of shots I suggested was not as important, in my mind, as the idea that LeBron would set a practice goal for himself, commit to achieving it every day, and wait patiently for results. I told him patience was essential because I had no way of predicting how long it would take to see improvement in his shooting statistics if he took my suggestions. But the patience and tenacity required were factors that could help him separate himself from his peers. A lot of athletes might undertake an improvement regimen like that one I suggested to LeBron. But not many would stick with it. After a few weeks, if they weren’t seeing immediate results, they’d find a reason to quit. Maybe they’d decide the extra practice was wearing them down. Maybe they’d decide that they just didn’t have the talent to be a great outside shooter. They’d find a way to talk themselves out of it. To encourage LeBron to persevere, I told him about my belief that great basketball shooters, like great golfers and great baseball hitters, are for the most part made rather than born.

With LeBron, I also talked a lot about Bill Russell and Michael Jordan. Unlike golf, basketball is a team game. An essential part of being a great player is, in my mind, playing and conducting yourself in ways that make your teammates better. That, far more than scoring average, is the hallmark of a truly great player. Jordan and Russell were the players LeBron was Chasing, because in addition to being great individually, they were players whose teams won many championships. They were great leaders. I suggested that LeBron read about Russell and Jordan and talk to them about leadership whenever he had the chance. I was very impressed with LeBron James. He was attentive. He asked insightful questions. It was clear that he was disciplined and that he set very high standards for himself. He was more than just a superstar. He was a very coachable athlete on a mission to see how great he could become.

I have noticed a few things since I spoke with LeBron. One is that his three-point shooting has improved dramatically. It’s now roughly 40 percent. A one-third improvement over his rookie year.

THE VALUE OF HAVING A ROUTINE

The following comes from "The Compound Effect" written by Darren Hardy and reminds me of the importance routines in sports.  Whether it's a free throw shooter, a batter stepping into the batter's box or kicker lining up for a field goal attempt, the best take what they do seriously enough to leave nothing chance:

Golfer Jack Nicklaus was famous for his pre-shot routine. He was religious about the “dance” he would do before every shot, a series of routine mental and physical steps that got him fully focused and ready for the shot. Jack would start out between the ball and the target. As he walked around and approached the ball, the first thing he would do is line up his clubface to his intermediate target. He wouldn’t put his feet into position until he felt he had his clubface properly squared up. Then he would take his stance. From there, he would waggle the club and look out to his target, then back to his intermediate target and back to the golf club, with a repeat of the view. Then, and only then, would he strike the ball.

During one of the important Majors, a psychologist times Nicklaus from the moment he pulled the club out of the bag until the moment he hit the ball, and guess what? In each shot, from the first tee to the eighteenth green, the timing of Jack’s routine supposedly never varied more than one second. That is amazing! The same psychologist measured Greg Norman during his unfortunate collapse at the 1996 Masters. Lo and behold, his pre-shot routine got faster and faster as the round progressed. Varying his routine stunted his rhythm and consistency; he was never able to catch momentum. The moment Norman changed his routine, his performance became unpredictable and his results erratic.

 

WHY WE WIN (#9)

In 1998 Billy Packer (along with Roland Lazenby) wrote a book titles "Why We Win." It was a brilliant concept in which Packer came up with a series of questions to ask some of the top coaches in all sports to get their thoughts and views.

If you had two players that we very similar but one had a little more talent while the other had a better attitude, which one would you take? Say maybe one had better physical ability and the other had the lead in mental ability?

Joe Gibbs: For me, it was always the character.

Pat Summitt: You’ve got one player to pick for a championship. I would say the mental...I guess it was Lou Holtz who said, “I’d rather have a slow person in the right spot than a quick person in the wrong spot.”  I think that certainly it’s true in the sport of basketball that execution is as much mental as anything.  And I’d take that smart player.

Tommy Lasorda: I’ll take the guy with lesser talent and the more desire and the execution ability.  I’ll take that guy over the guy with talent.

Joe Paterno: It would depend on the level of how much better is one physically and how much smarter is the other one.  But if they were close, let’s say one guy is six in physical ability and three in intelligence and other guy is seven in intelligence and three in physical ability, I’d go with the intelligence...I asked John Wooden what quality he thought was most important on his basketball team.  He said, well, my basketball teams were always intelligent.

Dan Gable: Whether you have talent or not, that’s a big factor to me.  The higher level you get to in sports performances, you need a little big of everything to be good.  However, I would still take the young person or that athlete that had the attitude over talent.

Mike Krzyzewski:  With intelligence you have a greater chance of making other people better.  Without giving names to those two people, I would lean more toward the intelligence because basketball is all about making your teammates better, and I think you can do that if you’re smart.  Some people are quick or strong, but they use their strength and quickness in going the wrong direction.

Sparky Anderson: Well, when it gets to that, to me, it’s the intelligence and the toughness of a young man.

Lenny Wilkens: The mental (laughing).  Definitely.  I can overcome a lot of physical disadvantages.  I could use your strength against you.  I can do a lot of that, if I know how.  And so, it’s now always how strong you are.  The guy who has mental superiority will find a way.

Bill Walsh: The bulk of your squad must consist of people with functional intelligence for the sport itself, and who have the athletic ability to play their particular position very competitively with the opposition.

ELIMINATE THESE TWO PHRASES

I got this from my friend Sefu Bernard at the LLABB.  It's interesting insight on self-talk and how it can effect your effort, energy and more importantly your habits:

Mental mistakes. If you want to minimize them, then take these two phrases out of your vocab:

1. IT’s – “I’m tired”
2. DFLI’s – “I don’t feel like it.”

If you do, I’d argue that you will have essentially removed over 50% of the negative mental habits you’ll face as a high performance athlete. Those two phrases are typically the tipping point for a downward spiraling conversation, in thought, that’s not in the best interest of any athlete – or coach for the matter – interested in optimal performance.
These phrases are (self-) sabotaging.

Why 50%…?

Good question! It’s probably more. I just like to under-promise and over-deliver.
At the end of the day, from having worked with thousands of athletes at all levels of the performance spectrum, both male and female, I’ve noticed that there’s an ever so subtle difference between the ones that excel amidst adversity and the ones that get ‘stuck in the muck’ of the common challenges faced in elite sport.

Little Things Make A Big Difference

Tired, bored, down, headache, sore, bad day, hard test, mad, frustrated, break up… Awesome! That’s the life of a high performance athlete.

Every athlete that’s playing competitive sports is going through a similar set of challenges. (In fact, to take it a step further, someone, somewhere, would love to have YOUR problems!).

Flip the mental script. Learn to think about adversity differently. It’s a choice. Think of it as an opportunity to respond famously to a less-than-ideal situation.

The athletes that are able to perform at consistently high levels, when it’s most required, think about themselves and their circumstances differently than their teammates and competitors.

This is only a portion of Sefu's blog post -- you can read it in its entirety here.

MENTAL DOMINANCE

The following is an excerpt from Tim Grover's book "Relentless" --

Because no matter what you want for yourself, whether your ambitions take you to the gym or the office or anywhere else you want to be, your ultimate power source will come from the neck up, not the neck down. In sports, we spend so much time on the physical component—training, working, and pushing the human body to be fast and stronger and more resilient than most people ever thought possible. And then eventually, we get around to paying some peripheral attention to mental conditioning. That’s completely backward. Excellence isn’t only about hitting the gym and working up a sweat; that’s the smallest part of what you have to do. Physical ability can only take you so far. The fact is, you can’t train your body—or excel at anything—before you train your mind. You can’t commit to excellence until your mind is ready to take you there. Teach the mind to train the body. Physical dominance can make you great. Mental dominance is what ultimately makes you unstoppable. You will never have a more powerful training tool than this: get your mind strong, so your body can follow.

THE POWER OF THE MIND

Here is an absolute great story about the power of our mind and how the power of our thoughts can control our body. 

Nick Sitzman was a strong, healthy, and ambitious young railroad yardman. He had a reputation as a diligent hard worker and had a loving wife and two children and many friends.

One midsummer day, the train crews were informed that they could quit an hour early in honor of the foreman’s birthday. While performing one last check on some of the railroad cars, Nick was accidentally locked in a refrigerator boxcar. When he realized that the rest of the workmen had left the site, Nick began to panic.

He banged and shouted until his fists were bloody and his voice was hoarse, but no one heard him. With his knowledge of “the numbers and the facts,” he predicted the temperature to be zero degrees. Nick’s thought was If I can’t get out, I’ll freeze to death in here. Wanting to let his wife and family know exactly what had happened to him, Nick found a knife and began to etch words on the wooden floor. He wrote, “It’s so cold, my body is getting numb. If I could just go to sleep. These may be my last words.”

The next morning, the crew slid open the heavy doors of the boxcar and found Nick dead. An autopsy revealed that every physical sign of his body indicated he had frozen to death. And yet the refrigeration unit of the car was inoperative, and the temperature inside indicated 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Nick had killed himself by the power of his own thoughts.

You, too, if you’re not careful, can kill yourself with your limiting thoughts—not all at once like Nick Sitzman, but little by little, day after day, until you have slowly deadened your natural ability to achieve your dreams.

 

From "The Success Principles" by Jack Canfield

YOU CAN'T LET DOWN

"You cannot let down in preparation, conditioning, or psychological readiness. You must prepare as though your job is on the line, which it is every day. Nothing lasts forever. Things can be going fine and then, before you know it, it all can be take away. That’s one of the things that motivates me to keep working hard with little letup. If you lose that edge — particularly in coaching — very often you lose your job."

-Mike Shanahan

THE MENTAL CREATION OF A GOOD PHYSICAL PRACTICE

The following comes from the book "Practice Perfect" by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway and Katie Yezzi .  It speaks of a reporter, Barry Svrluga who followed Mike Shanahan of the Washington Redskins around to obverse preparation and practices.  It shows that Coach Shanahan believes in the importance of mental practice as well as physical and utilizes the mental to set up the physical.

As Stephen Covey wrote: "Habit 2 is based on imagination--the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It's about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself. Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen."

What strides do you take to help your players and staff visualize what you want accomplished? 

Here is what Coach Shanahan does with the mental preparation of a physical practice:

"Wednesday and Thursday practice are preceded by walk-throughs -- rehearsals for what will happen in practice."  The coaches have mapped out a script -- sometimes 40 pages long -- of the players they intend to use.  Then before the practice, they bring the whole team to rehearse the practice they have scripted, walking through to check that everyone knows where he needs to be and when, and to ensure that the plans on paper translate into the practice they are looking for on the field.  Questions that might arise from translating the written script to the playing field are answered; explanations of the next steps or the next moves are made during this time.  The team comes to practice ready to use each moment doing -- improving and inscribing success rather than talking about what they are doing.

THE GREAT ARE CURIOUS

The following comes from "177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class" by Steve Siebold:

The great ones are always curious, because they are always looking for an edge.  At the root of their curiosity is the belief that one new idea, or one new twist on an old idea could launch to the next level.  While average people tend to take things at face value, world class performers are curious to know how and why something works in an effort to make new distinctions that may benefit them.  Champions have a childlike curiosity, and tend to approach the world with a mindset that says, "teach me."  They approach their work with the mindset of a beginner -- eager to learn and open to new ideas.  Champions are masters at learning from other people's experiences because they always asking questions.  Their curiosity accelerates their growth through lessons learned vicariously.

 

"Curiosity is one of the most permanent and

certain characteristics of the vigorous intellect."

-Samuel Johnson

THE IMPORTANCE OF MENTAL PRACTICE

How important is it to practice mentally? If you are physically talented or you have the knowledge to execute on the job or if you think your parenting skills or your mechanical skills as an athlete are good, then why should you engage in mental practice?

The answer is compelling: match two people with equal physical talents in a competitive encounter and the person who performs stronger mentally will win most of the time.

Mental practice is an extremely valuable tool.  It is used for two primary purposes.  First, it enables you to view your competencies, to motivate you in executing, and that's the way it is commonly used.  Mental practice is also useful as a learning tool.  With this tool, you actually can learn a skill or you can learn sales techniques or many other things  Basically, if you can see what you want to do in your mind, then you can execute it mentally practicing until you "package" the skill.

From "Coming In First" by Dr. Jack H. Llewellyn

ALABAMA AND SABAN LEAN ON ELKO TO STRENGTHEN THEIR MINDS

First, I want to thank my high school coach Allen Osborne for passing this article on to me.  It speaks to Nick Saban and his philosophy of the "process" as well as the role of Dr. Kevin Elko in working with the Alabama football program.  I have wrote about Kevin before.  Several years ago when I had to take over the LSU women's team for the NCAA tournament as the interim head coach, Kevin spoke to our team and set an incredible tone -- so necessary at the time -- talking about the process and "removing clutter" to remain focused.  The rest of the time he called me two to three times a week with words of wisdom as well as some great exercises for our team.

He played such a critically important role that I without hesitation awarded him a Final Four ring after our team beat the odds and made a great run to the Final Four.

Here is just a few excerpts from the article that ran on AL.com and was written byDon Kausler Jr.

One recent day, for instance, superlatives flowed as Nico Johnson talked about a fellow star linebacker. C.J. Mosley has improved. He feels more confident. He’s playing faster.

“He’s accepting failure,” Johnson said. “He’s not worried about making mistakes or anything. He’s going from there and just making plays every chance he gets.”

Accepting failure?

Where did that come from?

At Alabama, players repeat what they hear from head coach Nick Saban. And he repeats what he hears from the “head” coach.

That would be Elko. You could call him a sports psychologist. You could call him a motivational speaker and an author. He prefers to be called a performance consultant.

Saban calls him often. They speak every couple of weeks, according to Saban. Elko visits the Crimson Tide four or five times a year, and he’s coming Wednesday, after a speaking engagement Tuesday in Mobile.

When he speaks, the players listen.   “He always preaches to us about accepting failure, and if you can accept failure and understand why it happened and what’s the reason it happened that way, everything else will be OK,” Johnson said.
It’s true.

“We’re hitting it real hard now,” Elko said.

Except Saban won’t accept failure. With Elko’s help, he wants his players to learn from their mistakes.

“We’re not telling them to accept losing,” Elko said. “We’re telling them, ‘Don’t even let it become an issue in your life. Winning and losing is not your issue.”

The process matters more than the result. Saban has said this hundreds of times. He’s had help refining the mantra.

Through Elko, the top-ranked Crimson Tide (5-0) is influenced by a founding father, a famous psychologist, a grandmother from Russia and dead soldiers fighting.

THE FOUNDING FATHER
The process is all about the Benjamin.
“One of the things that we push so hard and Nick pushes so hard is Benjamin Franklin’s phrase, ‘Pain instructs,’” Elko said.

He’s talking about mental anguish, the excruciating kind Alabama felt after its 9-6 overtime loss to LSU in the 2011 regular season.

“We got a chance to play them again,” Elko said. “We said, ‘Remember how you felt right after you lost to LSU? Remember how you felt when you looked across the room at the other players with a broken heart? Now prepare and play this game so you don’t have to feel that again.’”

The Tide crushed the Tigers 21-0 in the BCS Championship Game. The next day, when asked about developing players, Saban cited Elko, among others.   Saban has come to understand brains and human behavior as well as he appreciates brawn.   This is lengthy article but well worth reading it all (there is also video in the article) -- click here for the entire article: bit.ly/SEkeMN

YOU MUST THINK OR FAIL

The Success Strategies of Henry Baldwin Hyde -- founder of The Equitable (take from Selling Power July/August 1997)

WORK HARD...When a reporter asked Hyde for the secrets of his success, he replied, “In order to succeed you must rise earlier, sit up later, and work harder and more skillfully than those around you.” Hyde believed that there was pure genius in hard work saying: “You may say that this is a hard life. It may or may not be hard, according to disposition of the individual. The successful man derives more pleasure and real satisfaction from his hard-working life than ever comes to the one who neglects his business and suffers the penalty which such neglect brings.”

IMPROVE EVERYTHING...Hyde made it a practice to thoroughly investigate each department. From time to time he would review the work flow, question the validity of established routines and systems, analyze records, watch workers do their jobs, scrutinize his managers’ performance and make suggestions for improvement.

INNOVATE...In 1987 he purchased land to build the first office building for The Equitable. At that time there was not a single office building in New York with passenger elevators. Against the advice of experts, Hyde ordered the elevators and proved that the new technology increased efficiency and enhanced the company’s image.

LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMER...Hyde was an enthusiastic salesperson and enjoyed spending time in the field. He traveled extensively through the country, visiting agents’ offices. He listened to customers and often encouraged his agents to use listening as a sales tool saying, “Don’t talk too much. The tongue is a dagger which often assassinates success.”

INVEST YOUR TIME WISELY...Hyde firmly believe that time was more important than money. He told his staff, “At the close of each day, think of what you have done, and not how much time you have wasted. You can do a great work if you will never let a day pass without gathering some valuable result, and you will be surprised at the end of the year by the progress you made.”

THINK BIG...Hyde didn’t hide his ambition and encouraged others to aim high, saying, “It is astonishing how much more a man can do if he has in his mind a definite object that he is striving to accomplish than if his efforts lack purpose and concentration.”

“Think! If you don’t think, you deserve to be a failure. Perhaps you say you haven’t time to think — you have too much work to do. But heedless work is profitless. You must think or fail. Take your choice.”

WHAT ARE YOU FEEDING YOUR MIND?

Dr. Walter Doyle Staples, writing in Think Like a Winner! says, “I credit one simple concept with getting me started on my journey into self-discovery. After a great deal of study and contemplation, I came to the conclusion that people have in their lives today exactly what they keep telling their mind they want.”

From "Day by Day with James Allen" by Vic Johnson

ATTITUDE CAN GIVE YOU A MENTAL EDGE

An attitude can give you the mental edge. It can be the edge over an opponent or a situation.

Emphasize positive experiences
Mentally reliving success helps build confidence that success can be repeated. Remember achievements and use them to create a framework of self-confidence. “I know I can do it because I’ve done it before.”

Commit to the attitude
Only by making a serious and sincere determination to believe in an attitude can it be effective. Attitudes are not about lip service; they demand dedication.

Visualize positive expectations
Sometimes a player needs to stop, shut his eyes, and see himself getting a hit off a tough pitch or pitcher; or a pitcher needs to see himself making a well-executed pitch. The more realistic the visualization, the more impact it will have.

Use self-talk to ingrain attitudes
The player speaks to himself with conviction and emotion until these attitudes become natural, ingrained in the subconscious mind. Understanding the situation and knowing yourself ill dictate the right emotional level for the task, and that level can be controlled by the speed and intensity of self-talk.

Commitment and repetitious affirmations of attitude
As with everything in athletics, attitudes demand practice and regular rededication. A player must reestablish his goals and renew his reasons for providing such intense dedication. The more these thoughts are repeated, the more ingrained they become. Discussing this with a friend or teammate will help affirm the attitude and hold the player accountable.

From "Mental Toughness: Baseball’s Winning Edge" by Karl Kuehl, John Kuehl, and Casey Tefertiller