If you, like me, are from the valleys. “What are you looking at?” is less a question, more a challenge. Rutting stag, don’t move; they stand their ground.
What will it take for you to decide it’s time to move to new ground?
The immovable force of the dominant stag, for me, is the system that is Long Term Athletic Development (LTAD), and I’ve been banging my head against it for longer than I should have.
When you, the underdog, are done banging your head against the wall, acceptance is a game-changer. Two questions worth asking:
What are you gathering around?
Who are you gathering with?
What are you gathering around? The equivalent of “what are you looking at?” – since that is arguably the coach’s job: to point at something of interest and say, “hey, this thing over here, I think it’s worth our attention.”
Who are you gathering with? Think about who, if brought together, would bring value to the group. The sprint social brings kids and parents together. Why? Because kids are learning skills like skipping, and their folks are losing the very skills, like skipping, they need to keep.
As Nicholas Taleb reminds us: “When you observe people dynamically, what you detect as ‘aging’ is not appearance, but the loss of power and strength as they move around.”
Sprint Social is a gathering that has changed my mind about what is possible; it’s also changed the minds of parents who thought it was no longer possible, and of the kids who didn’t think they could go much faster.
You don’t always have to bang heads. What are you going to gather around?
Taken from this week’s newsletter: Build A Practice Where You Belong.