Monthly Archives: September 2011

3 Criteria For Goals That Will Truly Motivate Your Team

Goal setting, Team roles, TEDtalk

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I’m sure all of us are looking for ways to inspire our athletes to achieve their highest potential. And I’m sure all of us agree that goal setting is an integral part to any successful season. Based on his TEDtalk, Why We Do What We Do, Tony Robbins gives us a “map” to properly motivating our teams. First, we have to give each individual a role on the team. Then we have to find out how to meet their emotional needs. Finally, we give them the tools to make their team experience positive. Read on to find out how!

3 things coaches should understand in order to motivate our teams

Three questions. Robbins says that every decision we make (Will I go all out in practice? Will I try something new and risk looking bad until I master the skill?) requires us to answer three questions. He calls them the Three Decisions of Destiny. The first question is “What am I going to focus on?”. Let’s use “will I go all out in practice?” as our sample. We have to get our players to focus on how their effort will benefit their team and help the team get closer to accomplishing their goals. So rather than focusing on the pain they feel in working hard, their attention is on doing their part for the team. The second question is “What does it mean?”. Going all out in practice means verbally supporting one’s teammates, giving complete physical effort, and being willing to do whatever they’re asked by the coach. The third and final question is “What am I going to do?”. To make sure they go all out each practice, they will eat healthily, get plenty of sleep, and remain focused on their sport during practice times.

6 human needs. We all are motivated by these six emotions/needs/beliefs…it’s the coach’s job to find out what button to push for each student-athlete. The 1st need is certainty. There are some things that our players need to know without a doubt: For example, the coach is knowledgeable, fair, and caring. The 2nd need is uncertainty. I know that seems to contradict the first, but I don’t think it does. While some things should be set in stone, others like playing time and the starting lineup shouldn’t be certain…otherwise our starters will become complacent and the non-starters will be apathetic. The 3rd need is critical significance. Our teams should have a compelling reason for coming to the gym every day…and it’s our job to give it to them. The 4th need is connection and love. We all want to feel like we belong to something special and that there are folks out there who care about us. The 5th need is growth. If a player feels that they weren’t given the opportunity to get better (with skill, with leadership, with self-awareness), why come to practice every day? The 6th need is the ability to contribute beyond ourselves. Whether it’s team community service, sacrificing personal goals to help the team win a significant victory, or challenging your seniors to leave their mark on the team…we’ve got to give our players the ability to make a difference.

Becoming influential. So we’re still using our sample question, “will I go all out in practice?”, as the example for this goal setting technique. In this final step of the motivation process, we help our athletes create a positive situation for themselves. We should ask them what their target is…meaning what do they hope to accomplish by going all out in practice (respect from peers, etc.)? Next is to find out what their belief system is…will they stoop to gossiping and backbiting a teammate in order to get to “connection and love”? Finally, we have to find out what fuels each athlete. Robbins says that each of us has a dominant human need (certainty, critical significance, etc.) and the player’s goal has to feed that need.

Check out the video if you get a chance and see if you can put your own sports spin on things…it’s well worth the watch!

Why Weakness Unlocks The Strength Within Teams

Mistakes, Team chemistry, TEDtalk

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If you’ve got fifteen minutes, I’d highly suggest you listen to Caroline Casey’s TEDtalk, Looking Past Limits. Not only is that an intriguing topic for those of us in the coaching field, Casey is also a fabulous storyteller.

A quick rundown of her story: She was legally blind since birth, though her parents never told her, but rather let her toughen up through battling past road blocks. She excelled in life, eventually achieving a high profile job where her coworkers never knew her secret. But that’s not the heart of the story, it’s what happens when she couldn’t hide her blindness anymore.

And that’s where my interest in her story begins…because I believe it can help us with our teams. It’s a story of belief and vision. We’ve got to believe in ourselves and combine that belief with a vision that is bigger than us. Ignoring the obvious irony of a blind person talking about vision, let’s look at how vision is sometimes restricted and how we can free it up…and watch our teams soar!

Teams with lack of vision…

a) Have players and coaches who are afraid to ask for help. (Everyone is afraid to admit they’re not perfect…isn’t it exhausting pretending to be perfect?)

b) Have team members who are afraid to be themselves because they don’t believe in who they truly are. (Isn’t putting on an act tiring?)

c) Have coaches and players who don’t understand that there is freedom in being true to yourself.

Vision is bigger than us…bigger than anything we can accomplish by ourselves. Through the power of team, we can release the vision that is waiting within our programs.

Teams with vision…

a) Have players and coaches who understand their limitations and realize their teammates are there to help them achieve goals. (Everyone knows their role and appreciates what others bring to the table.)

b) Have team members who acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, they are totally comfortable with who they are in relation to the team. (There’s power in “team”!)

c) Have coaches and players who understand that there’s freedom in admitting you need help…that it’s okay to admit you can’t do it all alone.

The first title I came up with for this post was, “Why Vision And Belief Will Make Your Team Great”. I liked that one a lot and think that it would have been good, but this one is closer to the heart of the story. Once each team member is willing to admit their weaknesses, they’re on their way to becoming a strong and successful team.

How To Equip Our Female Athletes To Be Leaders

Female athletes, Leadership, TEDtalk

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Do you believe that your job is to equip your players with life skills as well as sport skills? Well, this post will be right up your alley! In a TEDtalk called, New Data On The Rise Of Women, Hanna Rosin give tons of facts about how women are getting more advanced degrees, making more money, and taking on more leadership roles than ever before.

While those facts and figures were impressive, they weren’t what stood out to me. What her talk said to me is that those of us in position to train tomorrow’s leaders had better get on the ball! This is powerful information that should guide us in how we teach the leaders on our teams.

Rosin talks about how the “old” leadership model favored men with its hierarchical pattern, but how the “new” leadership model generally fits women better. What does this new model look like? Let’s check it out!

3 ways coaches can prepare their female athletes for leadership roles

  1. Build teams. With all of these ideas, the idea that women inherently carry these qualities is a generalization. So don’t get all huffy that the assumption is that women excel at the less rigid leadership models…the numbers don’t lie. Okay, now that I’ve gotten the disclaimer out of the way, let’s talk. The days of the leader/manager/boss sitting up on high and being rarely seen are over. These days leaders roll up their sleeves and create groups of people who want to work together toward a common purpose.
    On our teams: To help our captains with their future endeavors, we should encourage them to put aside their desire to be dictatorial and entitled. Many times, upperclassmen feel that they deserve to hold the position rather than being grateful to serve both their coaches and teammates. As they work through the natural ups and downs of a season, they will learn how to manage different personality types and the power of compromise.
  2. Help encourage communication. This is a natural outcome of building a team. Today’s leaders have a vision that they are able to clearly convey to their work crew. They will properly delegate responsibilities while giving their people the necessary tools to succeed. Today’s leader will clearly detail a path to success.
    On our teams: Whether it’s in the locker room before practice or at the water cooler during a practice break, our captains should be able to clearly tell their teammates what effort level is required of everyone during every moment of practice. Beyond that, they should be outwardly supportive of their teammates.
  3. Foster creativity. Today’s leaders give their team room to reach the goal in their own manner. They don’t want cookie cutter “yes men”, but innovative thinkers. By doing this, the leader also equips their people with the tools they’ll need to become leaders in their own right.
    On our teams: As coaches, we should free up our captains to be their own people…not to just emulate the captains before them. In the same vein, our captains have to let their teammates have a voice.


Let’s go out and make sure we prepare our female athletes to take their place as future leaders.

Want to read more about female athletes and leadership? Check these out!

Teaching Our Athletes To Embrace Power, Part 1
Teaching Our Athletes To Embrace Power, Part 2
Female Leaders: How To Get Ahead And Not Alienate People
What Are You Worth? How To Negotiate Salary

Why Information Can Prevent Misunderstandings On Teams

Coaching strategy, Team chemistry, TEDtalk

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According to Rebecca Saxe in her TEDtalk titled, How We Read Other People’s Minds, we have a place in our brains which is devoted to thinking about other people’s thoughts. I was intrigued by the title because I feel like much of what happens on a team is mind reading: the team trying to read each other and the coach, the coach trying to read the team, even the coach trying to read the opponents. So that was the mindset I went into her talk with…and it turned out to be something totally different.

The folks at TED probably thought Saxe’s original title might be too controversial, initially it was called, How Brains Make Moral Judgments. That part of our brain I was talking about earlier is designed to take other people’s thoughts into consideration. She went through example after example in her talk and it was almost finished and I thought this one was going to be a bust…no real correlation to athletics. But then I thought about a couple of situations where we make moral judgments within a team construct.

Team Scenario 1: Coach benches a senior player.
Possible Reaction 1: If the entire team knows that the coach has given that senior player many opportunities to stay on the court or field, they will understand and support the coach’s decision. That player won’t be able to create havoc in the background and destroy team chemistry.

Possible Reaction 2: If the team didn’t realize that the coach had given that senior player every opportunity to succeed, they may deem the coach’s actions as harsh or unfair. In this situation, the team will be open to that player’s complaining and griping…and may even empathize with her. If handled incorrectly, this situation could go sideways quickly.

Possible Reaction 3: If the coach had chatted with her captains before benching the senior player, those captains would be able to advocate on the coach’s behalf behind the scenes. That way, when the player complains and gripes, the team will have a more balanced view of what really happened. Because they have more information, they can better evaluate the situation.

Do you see what this talk was all about now? It shows that our brains are capable of seeing the greys within black and white situations. For example, if I said I shot someone last night, you’d be horrified. But if I told you I shot the person after they broke into my home in the middle of the night, you’d go through a different thought process. Here’s another scenario.

Team Scenario 2: A player is dating someone, then her teammate starts dating him. (And yes, unfortunately this will be a team problem.)
Possible Reaction 1: If the team finds out that teammate #2 didn’t know teammate #1 was dating the person, then they’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.

Possible Reaction 2: If the team finds out that teammate #2 was aware that teammate #1 was dating the person, then their reaction will be much different! This is the stereotypically classic beginning of complete chaos on women’s teams. It’s what coaches of male teams say they couldn’t deal with…it’s cliché, it’s stereotypical, but sometimes it’s true.

Possible Reaction 3: More complicated is when teammate #2 asks teammate #1 for “permission” to date her ex, gets the green light, but then teammate #1 is mad anyway. There will be folks on both sides of that one, but teammate #2 did the right thing and the team will respect that.

I’m sure you can think of many other team scenarios where the more information your team has, the more their opinions change. The important thing to remember for all of us coaches is to find out what information the team is working with…is it fact or “fact”? Whatever information they have will color their interactions with one another.

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Rediscovering The Value Of Sleep

TEDtalk, Time management, Work/Life balance

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The coaching world is notorious for bad habits. In season, we don’t eat healthy enough, exercise properly enough, or get nearly enough sleep. Unfortunately, some coaches wear all of these things as a badge of honor, being sure to let everyone know that they were in the office until midnight and back in at six in the morning. In a short TEDtalk (a little over four minutes) called How To Succeed? Get More Sleep, Arianna Huffington talked about three reasons why sleep is important for us.

3 reasons why getting enough sleep will make us better professionals

  1. Helps us see the big picture. Whether you’ve got a couple of players battling it out for a position, or an opponent who presents a significant challenge, or just an athlete with poor technique…sometimes sleeping on it really does work. As much as we hate to admit it, sometimes we’re too close to the problem and need to take a step back. I like to chat with my assistant coaches and then all of us come up with an idea that we think will work to solve the problem. We all bring it back to the group and come up with the best option.
  2. Releases the great ideas within us. I’m a dreamer. Not in the I-never-actually-get-anything-done way, but the I-wanna-change-the-world way. All of our teams and seasons start with a dream. We call them goals so that they sound a little more tangible than dreams. I’ve woken up with great ideas about offensive and defensive systems, how to handle team “problems”, and even off the wall motivation techniques.
  3. Shows us that what’s good for us can be good for our greater community. This is my plea: coaches really do need to sleep. We’ve got to be at our best so that we can be the best for our athletes, for our families, for our departments, and of course, for ourselves. We’re not being selfish, we’re not being bad coaches, and we can still be successful if we get good sleep.


Changing the culture of athletics will require a paradigm shift, for sure. But sleep deprivation isn’t the way to show we’re dedicated, creative, living healthily. Neither should it be some sort of badge of honor we wear to show what hard workers we are. Our team’s success and satisfaction with our program should be how we show our level of hard work…not when we clock in and out.

Want to hear more about sleep deprivation? Check out my post, What’s The 1 Thing You Need To Be Exceptional?

Why Being Wrong Feels So Right

Mistakes, Team chemistry, TEDtalk

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The battle between right and wrong is constantly being waged between friends, spouses, coworkers, and teammates. But what happens when both sides believe wholeheartedly that they are right? And what happens when those folks are on the same team? Or a coach and a player have dramatically different views of what’s happening on a team?

In a thought-provoking TEDtalk, Kathryn Schulz gives us the lowdown On Being Wrong. And what is “wrong”, really? It is anticipating one thing, but something else happens instead. I’m sure Wylie Coyote thought he was right to chase the Road Runner off a cliff…until he realized he’s run off the cliff. Until wrongness registers with us, being wrong feels just like being right.

Our players are no different than we are…we always think we’re right, as do they. So imagine a scenario where a player thinks she should be playing more than the coach does, here’s the progression of her thinking:

  1. Player thinks coach is ignorant. The coach just doesn’t know their stuff or hasn’t taken the time to study the available information. Once coach looks more closely at their playing ability, coach will make them a starter.
  2. Player thinks coach is an idiot. Now the player acknowledges that the coach has the information and has done their homework, unfortunately the coach is just too dimwitted to understand what’s right in front of her eyes.
  3. Player thinks coach is evil. The player realizes that the coach knows her stuff and has processed all available information and still thinks the player isn’t a starter. Now the player believes the coach has a personal problem and is just being mean. The player should be a starter, but the coach is so awful and spiteful that she just won’t let the player get more court time.


This sounds funny, but according to Schulz…it’s also science. We trust in our feelings of rightness, unfortunately feelings aren’t that reliable.

Here are some other scenarios where right and wrong play themselves out on a team:

  1. A player is making poor choices in their personal lives. Whether it’s a volatile relationship, an eating disorder, or inappropriate personal behavior, we’ve got to understand the player thinks they’re right. Our job is to shed light on their situation so that there is a realization that takes place. We have to help them realize how their behavior is affecting the team, the coaching staff, and their ability to give maximum effort in practice.
  2. Coaches are human too. Sometimes, there are those rare occasions when the coach is actually wrong about something. We don’t like to admit it, but that’s exactly what we have to do. Maybe you were wrong about a game plan for an opponent, admit it and change things up. Maybe you thought a player would be amazing and she just isn’t. Or maybe you made a change to your offense that you thought would take your team to greatness. Whatever it is, if we can squeak out a “maybe I was wrong”, we can model good behavior for our teams.
  3. It’s not as bad as we thought. We’ve all got a team that seems to have our number. And like it or not, our teams build things up in their heads (they’re so good, we’ve never beaten them, they always beat us, that one girl is amazing) about what will happen in competition. But sometimes they’re wrong about not being able to step up…sometimes we win those games against teams that “should” beat us. This is the only time when being wrong is a good thing!


Essentially, we all think we’re right…until we realize that we’re wrong. Hopefully this information will help us navigate the distance between right and wrong more intentionally.

The Evolution Of Happy Teams

Coaching strategy, Mental game, Team chemistry, TEDtalk

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So, it seems that I’ve embarked on a happiness series without really intending to! I’ve written about the secret lives of happy teams and how limiting choices actually makes us happier…and today’s post is about the evolution from shallow, short-term happiness to long-lasting, meaningful happiness.

Why is this important to me? And more significantly, why do I think it should be important to you? Because I believe a substantial secondary responsibility of any coaching staff is to prepare our athletes for the real world. And I believe that empowering our players with the knowledge that they can control their emotions and not be controlled by them is pretty important. And I believe we have the opportunity to show them that happiness is a choice and it is achievable…even when life’s circumstances aren’t the happiest.

According to Martin Seligman in his TEDtalk, Positive Psychology, there are three levels of happiness:

  1. The Pleasant Life. This is the short-term, outward happiness. Teams in this phase of happiness have lots of visible displays of affection (smiling and laughing)…they look like they’re having fun. These teams are all about experiencing the fun, pleasure, and camaraderie involved in being on a team. Unfortunately, as soon as adversity strikes, their pleasant life is long gone.
  2. The Good Life. These teams know what their strengths are…on and off the court, and they build their program around them. This won’t work for coaches who have a scheme that they use with every athlete and every team, every year. The programs that experience the good life are willing to focus on the team goals to such an extent that they encompass every aspect of their lives.
  3. The Meaningful Life. Teams that live the meaningful life know their strengths like those in the good life, but instead of just using them for their own benefit…they use their strengths to better the world around them. Through his studies, Seligman found that people who combine their strength with philanthropy have longer lasting happiness.


I love this progression because it goes from a selfish place of making sure that I feel good to the selfless position of ensuring the happiness of others…and having my own happiness as a byproduct of that action. Great stuff!

Here are some actions that we can take with our teams, depending on where your program is within the happiness continuum:

  1. Think yourself happy. Seligman called it “design a beautiful day”, we’d call it visualization. This corresponds most closely with The Pleasant Life because of its focus on how we feel and our own personal happiness. The good news is: it works!
  2. Intentional engagement. Forcing our teams to hang out at the beginning of the season may be awkward at first, but this is how we get to find our strength as a team. We’ve all played that team with a player that’s way better than anyone on our team…but we still win. That’s because we know our strength lies in the group, not the individual…which is a good marker of teams living The Good Life.
  3. Philanthropy. I don’t think this necessarily means going out to a soup kitchen or building homes with Habitat for Humanity…though it can. I think we can stay within our sport and still make a difference. It can be hosting free sports clinics for kids, deciding that your team will support another team at all of their games, or even adopting a local elementary or middle school team. If our teams can find ways to combine our love of sport with giving to others, then we’ll be living The Meaningful Life.


If we focus on the process of happiness with our players, hopefully they’ll be more successful in our gyms and classrooms…and also after they’ve moved on to their professional lives.

Also in my Happy Team series: The Secrets of Happy Teams, Why Having Less Options Will Make Your Team Happier.

Why Having Less Options Will Make Your Team Happier

Mental game, Team chemistry, TEDtalk

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Do you ever go to a restaurant and after a few bites of your meal, wonder whether you should have gotten the steak instead of the fish? This, according to Barry Schwartz’ TEDtalk, is called The Paradox of Choice. The definition of paradox is “an opinion that conflicts with common belief”. The common belief is that more choices will make us happier. It turns out that is untrue. The more choices we have, the more likely we are to experience regret, be paralyzed by the act of choosing, and to be unhappy with our choice. Check it Schwartz’ talk for the nitty gritty information (it’s about nineteen minutes long), but here are the high points:

Summary of talk

  • More choices produce paralysis…people have much more difficulty choosing as options grow.
  • People experience more regret with more available choices.
  • Because we have so many options, we have high expectations…and we’re often let down.


How can we apply this information to our teams?

  • We should speak much more specifically to our players. For example, instead of telling our captains we want them to be “great leaders”, we should define what leadership means to us. Without the narrowing definition, our captains may think that you want them to lead by example, or be a vocal leader, or yell and scream at the team. As you talk to your leaders about what being a great captain should look like, what you’re really doing is limiting their options.
  • We should define how we’ll manage off the court issues. It seems the two most common ways to address these things are either to have a million rules…or none at all. As Schwartz says in the talk, “more choice is better than none, but more choice is not necessarily better than some.” The line between none and some may be different for all of us, but we’ve got to be more specific. We think that having more choices gives them more freedom, and that freedom will make them more respectful. Let’s have a few rules that everyone can remember, but not so many that they’re overwhelmed.
  • We should help our players practice limiting their own choices. If you take them to a restaurant, limit their options by using a minimized menu or money limit. Schwartz’ research showed that the lower the expectations, the higher the person’s satisfaction with their choice. There are exceptions to the rule of course. I wrote about a teammate of mine who didn’t like the choices we were given…and put her foot down in the legendary Battle of Baked Ziti.


This all makes sense to me, given the ridiculous amount of time it takes me to order food at a restaurant…I could stand a few less options. This could be revolutionary information if we actually got it out there. Then our players would know how to put themselves in position to be happy with their choices…on teams, with their friends, with their parents, in their relationships. Happiness is within our control.

Want to hear more about choices and happiness? Read my posts, The Secrets of Happy Teams and The Evolution of Happy Teams.

Your Path To Success Begins Here

Coaching philosophy, Pyramid of success, TEDtalk

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It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, I’ve written about it quite a bit. So when I saw this TEDtalk by Richard St. John, 8 Secrets Of Success, I was intrigued and wondered if it would correspond with the Pyramid. Using over five hundred interviews over the course of seven years, St. John asked one simple question to lots of successful people: What is success? When he boiled it all down, this is what he came up with:

  1. Passion. We’ve got to love what we do…and that passion should be contagious to our teams. I’ve caught the volleyball bug and my goal is to infect my team with it. I want the passion I have for my sport to go through my team like a cold in a kindergarten classroom. Wooden word: Enthusiasm.
  2. Work. Oh, this is a good one…and I’ll bet it’s the step most folks would like to skip on their way to success. It won’t be easy, but the good part is there’s no magic bullet. Good, old-fashioned work is what’s going to ensure our success. Wooden word: Industriousness.
  3. Good. At a certain point, we’ve got to be good at what we do. Whether it’s as a coach or as a player. This certainly isn’t saying that failure won’t be on the path to success, but being good (knowledgeable, learned, confident) at what we do is essential to our success. Wooden word: Skill.
  4. Focus. This isn’t for the jack-of-all-trades (but master of none) kinda person…this is for the the person who knows what they want and are willing to put all of their energy toward accomplishing it. The path to success will always have distractions, being focused will keep us from straying from our goals. Wooden word: Alertness.
  5. Push. On the way to success, we’ll feel unworthy, nervous, like we don’t measure up, like we won’t accomplish our goals, like we’re not worthy of success…and more! But we keep going anyway. Wooden word: Initiative.
  6. Serve. Success doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I believe that the more people we help on our way up the path to success, the sweeter that feeling of victory will be…because it’ll be shared. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my success to be built upon the destruction of others…but rather through my building others up. Wooden word: Team Spirit.
  7. Ideas. When we were younger, my brother and I would sit down and come up with ideas that would make us rich someday. Sometimes crazy, silly, weird…and sometimes good. Unfortunately, we never acted on any of our ideas. I’m sure we’ve all got crazy ideas in our heads that we believe would benefit our community (as well as ourselves)…let’s go make it happen! Wooden word: Poise.
  8. Persist. Jimmy Valvano said it best: “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.” Success isn’t easy…or else everyone would be doing it. We know as we set out that the path to success will be tough, but we press on. When we’re feeling down, we can revisit our goals to recapture that feeling we had when we first started out. Be resolved to see things through ‘til the end. Wooden word: Intentness.


John Wooden was the man…as confirmed by St. John’s interviews. Check out his video, it’s just over four minutes long and he packs a lot into it. I promise you’ll be motivated to start whatever dream or goal that is in your heart.

The Secrets Of Happy Teams

Mental game, Team chemistry, TEDtalk

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People are happier when we have choices, right? Actually, we’re not. That’s the premise of Dan Gilbert’s TEDtalk, Why Are We Happy? In a great talk, filled with very cool science (if you’ve got twenty minutes, I’d highly suggest you watch it!), Gilbert extols the virtues of “synthesized happiness.” As I listened to this talk, I felt affirmed. Because I, along with anyone who’s taught or coached before, believe that young people like crave structure. For those of you who think we should present little Johnny with a myriad of options and let him choose, this won’t be for you. But for those of you out there who believe some limitations are good for the soul, check this out.

What is synthesized happiness? Our brains can find ways to turn unhappy events on their heads.

Here’s an example: You’ve got a stud coming in this year. Like, you’re so excited about her and you just know she’s going to rip through your conference…you’re feeling Freshman of the Year! She comes in and blows out her knee in preseason. You feel like you’ve been punched in the gut…everything you planned for the season revolved around this young lady. Fast forward to the end of the season, you look back and think that it was probably for the best that she got hurt. Your other freshman stepped in and was a rock star…and she wouldn’t have seen the court if the other player wasn’t hurt. Plus, your coaching skills went up exponentially in order to face the challenge. And with a year on the bench to watch and understand the game, your rock star will be a terror in your conference next year. Thinking back, you wouldn’t change a thing. That’s synthesized happiness.

In the video, Gilbert goes through study after study of Harvard students that show two things without a doubt: the first is those given options when choosing are infinitely unhappier than those forced to choose one thing; the second is they don’t understand this fact. They think choices will make them happier.

Consider this. You’ve got a young lady on your team who you’re pretty sure will never contribute in any significant manner on the court. This isn’t someone who is on the cusp and may see the court when she’s an upperclassman. To be honest, she’s just not that good at your sport. Gilbert’s research says it would be better for you to tell her that her only option to impact the team would be as a manager rather than telling her that she’s got three choices: manage, practice hard and potentially see court time, or practice hard and never see court time. While we think that giving folks options makes them feel better about how things turn out, it turns out that’s just not true. With multiple options, the player has room to feel regret…with only one, she won’t. She made the only choice available to her.

The pink elephant in the room. I’m sure you’re thinking that this synthetic happiness is hooey and just a way for people to trick themselves into making a bad situation less awful. Again Gilbert has studies for us. Turns out that synthetic happiness is every bit as good as natural happiness. The truth is, we have within us the capacity to manufacture happiness. That’s pretty awesome if you ask me!

One of the things I often tell teams that I coach is that they don’t actually have to be happy to be in the gym, but they’ve got to make me believe that they are…because I sure am! Now I’ve got to tweak that Dawn-ism. Now I can tell them that it’s been scientifically proven that if they find the good in a tough situation, they’ll be happy.

How this can help our teams:

  • After a tough loss.
  • When they don’t feel like being at practice.
  • After they’ve lost their starting spot.
  • Will help eliminate outward displays of displeasure.
  • If they’re on the wrong end of an unfortunate injury.
  • After butt-kicking practices.
  • After missing the game winning serve/hit/shot in a game.
  • When facing disappointments or let-downs of any sort.


As I always say, we control our emotions…they don’t control us (another Dawn-ism). Now I’ve got scientific proof of the validity of that statement. Our players can think themselves happy.

The choice is theirs.

Like this post? Check out Why Having Less Options Will Make Your Team Happier and The Evolution of Happy Teams.