ENERGY

“Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter; we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them."

-William Hazlitt

WHY-POWER

Forget about willpower. It’s time for why-power. Your choices are only meaningful when you connect them to your desires and dreams. The wisest and most motivating choices are the ones aligned with that which you identify as your purpose, your core self, and your highest values. You’ve got to want something, and know why you want it, or you’ll end up giving up too easily.

From "The Compound Effect" by Darren Hardy

JOHN MAXWELL: THERE ARE NO HALF-HEARTED CHAMPIONS

1. Commitment Usually is Discovered in the Midst of Adversity. People don’t really know whether they are committed to something until they face adversity. Struggles strengthen a person’s resolve. Adversity fosters commitment, and commitment fosters hard work. And the more you work at something, the less likely you are to give up on it. As NFL Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi said, “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” Committed people don’t surrender easily.

2. Commitment Does Not Depend on Gifts or Abilities. Sometimes when we know of talented people who are highly successful, we may be tempted to think that commitment is easier for them because of their talent. But that isn’t true. Commitment and talent are unconnected—unless you connect them.

3. Commitment Comes as the Result of Choice, Not Conditions. Far too many people think that conditions determine choices. More often, choices determine conditions. When you choose commitment, you give yourself a chance for success.

4. It’s one thing to make a commitment in a moment. It’s another to stick with it.

From "The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player" by John C. Maxwell

BO SCHEMBECHLER'S THOUGHTS ON TEAM MEETINGS

First, if you don’t have anything important to say, don’t schedule a meeting for the heck of it. When you do have something worthwhile to address, know what your message is—and just as important, know what you want them to get out of it.

The person who knows how to run a meeting will get twice as much out of his people, because when the meeting’s over, they’ll be ready to act on the message. That’s what a meeting’s supposed to accomplish!

The most important meeting you will ever have with your people is your first one—because it is absolutely vital that everyone knows exactly what your values are, from Day One.

When the players walked in, they picked up a thick Michigan football binder with everything they needed to know to be a Wolverine inside. Well, almost everything. Instead of spoon feeding them the opening speech by printing it out, I had them write down everything I said so they would remember it.

And it worked.

Before the meeting even started we established that, from now on, early is on time, and on time is late. That’s why we locked the door right at seven o’clock.

“If you plan to succeed as a Michigan football player, you need to understand our meetings are just as important as our practices. They are practices, mental exercises where we learn to eliminate mistakes! And trust me, when we take the practice field, we know immediately who was paying attention and who wasn’t. So, if you have a question, you better ask it now.”

From "Bo’s Lasting Lessons" by Bo Schembechler and John U. Bacon

RILEY IMPACTED COOPER THROUGH VIDEO

A special thanks to Clarence Gaines Jr., for point out this story written by Rick Wright for the ABQJournal on Michael Cooper:

Back at the height of Showtime in the 1980s, Michael Cooper recalls, Los Angeles Laker coach Pat Riley used to hand out individual scouting videotapes to his players.

As insurance against failure to complete the homework, somewhere on each player's tape would be inserted a key word— sometimes near the beginning, sometimes toward the end, sometimes in the middle.

"You'd come to practice the next day and (Riley) would say, 'What's your key word?' '' says Cooper, 49, the former Lobo great and Laker defensive stopper who's now head coach of the NBA Development League's Albuquerque Thunderbirds. "You got fined $500 during the season and $1,000 in the playoffs if you didn't know it."

The accountability drilled into him by Riley remains a key word in Cooper's vocabulary, and a cornerstone of his coaching philosophy, as he enters another phase of his three decades-long relationship with Albuquerque.

Several other key words, however, come to mind.
 
COMPETITIVENESS: John Whisenant, who coached Cooper at UNM and coached against him in the WNBA, knows his student-turned-colleague's competitive side well.
 
Whisenant, a Lobo assistant coach under Norm Ellenberger from 1972-79, remembers the night in Cooper's senior season (1977-78) when Brigham Young and Danny Ainge, the Cougars hot-shot freshman guard, came to town.

Cooper, always up for a defensive challenge, was ready.

"The first two or three times Ainge shot the ball," Whisenant says, "Coop blocked 'em into the stands. ... I think Ainge only got seven or eight points (actually 13, nine below the BYU star's average, on 5-of-15 shooting) that night."

A quarter-century later, in the summer of 2003, Whisenant witnessed Cooper's competitive streak again— this time, aimed at him.

Whisenant was at the time the brand-new head coach of the WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs. Cooper was head coach of the two-time defending league champion Los Angeles Sparks.

After Sacramento's 83-75 upset of L.A., Cooper refused to shake Whisenant's hand— alleging his old mentor had not returned some phone calls.

"You made this personal," Cooper was heard to say.

INTUITION: Whisenant doesn't recall Cooper ever talking about becoming a coach during his playing days at UNM. Still, Whisenant says, he wasn't surprised to see his former player wind up on the sidelines.

Cooper was, he says, the proverbial coach on the floor.

"There was never any question about his intelligence, his basketball mind," Whisenant said. "He was one of those guys you only had to tell something once.

"He was one of the quickest we had to recognize why we were doing something from a team standpoint and get caught right up in it. You didn't have to pound on him to get him to understand."

Basketball intuition? Perhaps. But it was also basketball absorption.

DETERMINATION: Cooper's athletic career almost ended before it started one day in his native Pasadena some 44 years ago. His uncle had brought home a puppy, and Michael, 5, raced outside to see it. He tripped and cut his left leg to the bone on a coffee-can rim.
 
Doctors told his mother young Michael would never walk normally again, much less run and jump.

"I had that Forrest Gump (brace) with the boot," he says. "I had that for, like, three years.

"I remember I used to sit at the window and watch my cousins and friends outside playing football, running. I used to say to myself, 'If I ever get a chance to run, I won't stop.' ''

Read the entire article: http://bit.ly/AciMgy

ASSISTANT COACHING SYMPOSIUM ANNOUNCED FOR MEN'S COACHES

Each year I know that many of you read my reports from ASTEPUP (A Symposium To Elevate Professionals and  Uplift Performance).  It is strictly designed for women's basketball assistant coaches helping them with a variety of areas that cannot be found at clinics, in books or on video.  Some of the top assistants in the nation (along with some head coaches) provide the teaching.  I have been incredibly honored to have been a present at the first two but can promise you that I came away a better assistant coach from listening and communicating with all that were present.

This year the symposium will be held in Dallas (after stops in Atlanta and Chicago).  The dates for the women's symposium will be April 29 through May 1.

But I think the real exciting news is that for the first time, they will also be holding ASTEPUP for men's assistant coaches.  The location will be the same -- Dallas.  The dates for the men will be May 4-6.  I had a conversation with Felicia Hall Allen and her husband Johnny Allen and they are finalizing an incredible list of presenters -- some of the best in the men's game. 

As soon as they are finalized, I will release them to you through my blog.  But if you are a men's collegiate assistant coach, I'd do everything I could to make plans to be in Dallas -- you have my word that you won't be disappointed!

THE APPROACHES OF TWO SUCCESSFUL COACHES

I am often asked with my LSU background what makes Les Miles so successful as coach and my first answer is that he conducts himself in such a manner that his players play extremely hard for him.  That is an oversimplification of it but it's amazing how few teams play hard for their coaches.  There is an art to it and I think Coach Miles masters it. He communicates with them in such a way that they have great respect for him and want to give him their best.  If you observe him during a game on the sideline with his players you can see it.

One example was this quote following last night's 21-0 loss to Alabama in the National Championship game.  Without hesitation Coach Miles took complete responsibility for the loss and took it off the shoulders of his players:

"Give credit to our opponent, they had a great game plan.  I told our team that I did not see it coming, and that's my fault. I don't know that the adjustments we made since Nov. 5 were the right ones."

On the other side of the field was Coach Nick Saban, who I had the honor of learning from while he was at LSU.  There is no one I've met that so fiercly teaches the concept of "process over result" to his team.  He is consumed with it -- thus so is his team. 

Losing to LSU earlier would have been a death nail to many other teams because their goals would've been about winning the SEC West or the SEC title and when they lost to LSU those early goals would've been over.  But at Alabama their goals will be about dominating your opponent on each possession -- has nothing to do with the score or the opponent.

Here are Coach Saban's thoughts on that after the game.

“The goal today was, ‘You control your destiny, you control what you do,’ ” Saban said. “As good as LSU was, (the game) will be determined by how we play and what we do. And I think the players really responded well to that.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-ESTEEM: YOURS, YOUR STAFF, AND YOUR TEAM

A wonderful post from Brian Tracy.  This relates to you as a coach, your staff and your players. As coaches and leaders, we need to work on and continually develop our self-esteem.  It allows us to do our jobs better and serves as an example to others.  But we must also keep others in mind in regard to their own self-esteem.  It is critical to confidence and energy levels which of course leads to success.  Continue to give them corrective coaching but make sure that you, as Coach Don Meyer says, "catch them doing something right."  Even after a loss, when watching video clips, include clips of them executing a phase of the game properly.  Make sure you have individual meetings and team meetings to go over all areas needed to grow your team but make sure you include what they are already doing right.  You'd be amazed but a person or team could be doing something well and if they aren't told they may not know it -- therefore they may cease to repeat it.

Hear are thoughts from Brian Tracy: 

Did you know that self-esteem is the foundation of a positive self-concept? It's true that high self-esteem and self-acceptance are the critical elements in sales success.

The Reactor Core of Your Personality
Your self-esteem is the most important part of your character. This is the emotional part of your self-concept. It is the "reactor core" of your inner power. It is the emotional component of your life. It is the most important single element determining your attitude and your personality. It is the key to your success in life.

The Definition of Self-Esteem
Your self-esteem is best defined as how much you like yourself. The more you like yourself, accept yourself and respect yourself as a valuable and worthwhile person, the higher your self-esteem is. The more that you feel that you are an excellent human being, the more positive and happy you are.

The Source of Self-Motivation
Your self-esteem determines your level of energy, enthusiasm and self-motivation. Your level of self-esteem is the control valve on your performance and effectiveness. Your self-esteem is like the fuel in the first and second stages of a rocket blasting off from Cape Canaveral. People with high self-esteem do well at everything they attempt.

Who Do You Want to Be?
Your self-ideal can be defined as the person you want most to be, sometime in the future. Your self-ideal determines the direction of your life, of your growth and evolution as a person. Your self-image, on the other hand, determines the way you perform in the present. You self-image is the way you are now, today, this moment. Your self-esteem is largely determined by the relationship between your self-image, how you are performing in your day-to-day activities, and your self-ideal, the way you would perform if you were the very best person you could be.

ON TURNING ADVERSITY (A LOT OF IT) INTO A POSITIVE

"I'm not afraid of it. I'm not backing down from it. I think a lot of things I experienced in my life helped me get to this point."

-- Tyrann Mathieu on his past

Excerpts from an article written for ESPN.com by Mark Schlabach:

As No. 1 LSU prepares to play No. 2 Alabama in Monday night's Allstate BCS National Championship Game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Tigers star cornerback Tyrann Mathieu, who has become affectionately known as the "Honey Badger," has returned to the city where he was raised.

Mathieu, who was named a Heisman Trophy finalist and won the Chuck Bednarik Award as the country's top defensive player as a sophomore, said his troubled childhood helped him become the player he is today.

"It teaches you to fight for everything," Mathieu said. "Nothing is going to be given to you. With that being said, you try to take that to the field. You don't want to take any play off and not take any opponent lightly."

Mathieu, 19, spent the first few years of his life living in his grandparents' home in the Central City section of New Orleans. His mother, Tyra Mathieu, was never around much, and his biological father, Darrin Hayes, has been incarcerated nearly every day of Tyrann's life.

After Tyrann's grandfather Lorenzo Mathieu died following a long illness in 1997, Shelia and Tyrone Mathieu decided they would adopt their nephew. Shelia and Tyrone already had three children -- sons Tyrone Jr. and Devon, and daughter Toya' -- when they chose to adopt Tyrann.

Their home was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. More than 4 feet of water flooded the house, causing the family to relocate to Humble, Texas, for five months while their home was being repaired.

But even with a standout career at St. Augustine High School, Tyrann Mathieu was more of a recruiting afterthought before his senior season in 2009. Smaller Football Bowl Subdivision schools such as Florida International, Miami (Ohio), Tulane and Louisiana-Monroe recruited him, but high-profile programs such as Alabama and LSU weren't especially interested in signing a 5-foot-9, 160-pound cornerback.

Finally, LSU offered Mathieu a scholarship -- but only after missing out on a few bigger cornerbacks.

"Those other schools didn't want me," Mathieu said. "That's why I've always played with a chip on my shoulder."

This season, Mathieu's play has helped him become a household name from coast to coast. Nicknamed the "Honey Badger" for his ferocious play -- the moniker came from a YouTube video about the feisty carnivore -- Mathieu was named SEC defensive player of the year and was nearly a unanimous All-American. Shops in the French Quarter are selling "Honey Badger" T-shirts, and bars throughout the city are pouring the "Honey Badger" drink, a concoction of honey whiskey and a locally brewed beer.

"I think the Honey Badger nickname came from the fans back in Tiger Nation," Mathieu said. "The honey badger is such a relentless animal. He's fierce, and he definitely doesn't fear anything. So I just try to take that same approach to the field, and just try to play smart and violent football for my team."

But don't count LSU coach Les Miles among the moniker's fans.

"I don't use it," Miles said. "I think it's cool and funny, but there's so much more to Tyrann than the Honey Badger."

Read the entire article here: http://es.pn/wBnr8k

JOHN MAXWELL ON PASSION

The following comes from John Maxwell's Leadership Wired email newsletter where he states that "passion is the fuel of persistence." 

Key Points about Passion

1) A person’s inner fire propels him or her to excel. Put simply, desire determines destiny. As a rule, leaders attain influence proportionate to the size of the blaze burning within them.

2) Passion supplies leaders with an extra edge over the competition. After a championship contest, sports commentators occasionally observe how the winning side “wanted it more.” All else being equal, the more passionate team typically prevails.

3) Passion makes the impossible possible. People are wired so that when their souls ignite, they no longer shrink before the barriers in front of them. That’s what makes a passionate leader particularly effective. He or she conceives of possibilities and opportunities for progress whereas dispassionate persons only see roadblocks and reasons why a vision can’t be achieved.

Application: Take Your Temperature
Consult three people (such as a spouse, mentor, or trusted co-worker) to give you an honest assessment about the level of passion they see you exhibit toward your job. Inquire about the ways in which your passion manifests itself most evidently. If they consider your passion to be low, then do some soul-searching to recapture enthusiasm for your work. Why did you enter your present profession? What once excited you about work that no longer may be a source of inspiration? In light of your answers to these questions, ponder ways to ratchet up your passion.