Strength Coach Chronicles – Leave the Jersey Better Than you Found it
If you have ever read the book, Legacy, you’ll have read a chapter entitled “Leave the Jersey Better Than You Found It.” In that chapter is a poignant line: “plant seeds for trees that you will never see grow.” This is an important chapter to dive into with all of our staff, in that we […]
What I’m Reading : Measure What Matters
The summary statement from this book is that businesses and teams should be focussed on ‘OKR’s (Objectives and Key Results) over bullet point goals or check marks. Goal setting for any institution should be utilized by every team or business. The question therefore becomes on how to effectively do that. In my opinion, I felt […]
Strength Coach Chronicles – Problem Solver
Sticking with the themes presented in Amazon’s Working Backwards, I want to look at Problem Solving with the Chronicles this month. One of the best attributes a coach can have is being curious. Asking questions, forming hypotheses, and creating experiments is what a good S&C coach does. This, however, does not always lead to actually […]
What I’m Reading – Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon
First off, I want to explain the constant business books as of late. It is just where my focus has been recently. To me, there is a functional need to read – it is supposed to help develop a skill or an attribute that is required for your job or life. It is why I […]
Strength Coach Chronicles – The Art of Saying No
This will come off as polarizing, I am sure. On the one hand, someone will read this and know exactly why saying ‘no’ is important. On the other hand, someone will read this and be insulted. What I want to do with this blog is first evaluate why saying ‘no’ is important, why saying ‘no’ […]
What I’m Reading – Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products
Nir Eyal defined habits as “behaviors done with little or no conscious thought.” This is the central theme to Hooked – can we do something frequently enough without thought to form a habit loop that is automatic? The now famous series of lectures Nir Eyal has done on how to utilize technology to create habit […]
Strength Coach Chronicles – Reliability
What is better: to be on time and incapable or to be late and capable? It is really a chicken or the egg scenario in that neither is ideal. To a degree, someone who is reliable is more valuable than someone who is unreliable, regardless of ability. The reason is fairly simple; you can only […]
What I’m Reading – The Goal
This is intended to be a business book, but in reality, it is applicable to everything we do in S&C in some way. As we break down our purpose as an industry, we need to understand what the actual point of what we’re doing is in the first place. Having a true intent is the […]
Strength Coach Chronicles – Redeemable Value
The first question I give to my staff when they transition from Intern to Associate Coach is how are you going to bring redeemable value? This is not as natural of a transition as one might think. The role as a volunteer is about supporting without thinking. The role of a paid employee is support […]
What I Am Reading – The Art & Science of Teaching Movement
I have seen Nick talk several times about cueing which always has been impressive. I held off on making the commitment to this book for a while now. I guess it’s like seeing the movie first and hearing the book is even better. This leads to not wanting to make the commitment, due to knowing […]