We’re all looking for success. Of course we want to have winning seasons, but beyond that, we want to cultivate a desire for success in our athletes that they take with them after their time with us is finished. Here are five TEDtalks that discuss things our teams will need in order to be successful: communication, sleep, and significance.
Steps to success
I’m sure you know by now that I can’t talk about success without talking about John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. I believe if our teams truly embrace its tenets, success is all but a forgone conclusion. When I read other people’s thoughts on success, I try to see how it lines up with what the Pyramid says and that’s what I did with Your Path To Success Begins Here. Richard St. John gave a great TEDtalk called, “8 Secrets of Success” and I found that they correlated very closely with the Pyramid of Success.
Communication is key
In order to Find Out Why Better Listeners Are Better Players, check out this post based on Julian Treasure’s TEDtalk, “5 Ways To Listen Better”. I’m sure we’d all agree that communication is hugely important in athletics, and I’m sure we’d also agree that our teams could get better at it. You can find out three ways to teach our teams how to listen more effectively…and become better teammates because of it.
Help your team to understand coaching decisions
Speaking of communication, Why Information Can Prevent Misunderstandings On Teams talks about how we have a part of our brain that is solely devoted to thinking about other people’s thoughts. On the surface it sounds a bit strange, but when you really think about it, Rebecca Saxe’s TEDtalk (“How We Read Other People’s Minds”) makes good sense. We react differently based on varying levels of knowledge…the more we have, the more we can make sense of things. Think about the coach who’s got to bench a senior player…how can they make sure that the team doesn’t implode? Read this post to find out!
Go to sleep!
Undervalued and underutilized, sleep can help us, our players, and our teams achieve a high level of success. Rediscovering The Value Of Sleep (based on the TEDtalk, “How To Succeed? Get More Sleep” by Ariana Huffington) gives us three reasons why getting more sleep will make us better at what we do. Lack of sleep makes us grumpy, less tolerant of other people’s mistakes and missteps, and less focused on the task at hand…none of those things will help our team’s function at a higher level. Taking time to get some good sleep can help us all live healthier and be more creative.
Goals of significance
Can we be successful without a set of goals to propel us forward? How will we define success if we don’t have a goals written down at the beginning of the season? 3 Criteria For Goals That Will Truly Motivate Your Team is based on a Tony Robbins TEDtalk called “Why We Do What We Do”. He gives us three things that we can do over the course of our season in order to motivate our players and teams. The post breaks down how we can give our player’s goals more significance than just some tangible thing, it can also help meet the need all of us have to make a difference in other people’s lives.
Success isn’t some pie-in-the-sky thing that we can’t capture on our team…read these posts and listen to these talks and your team will be well on their way to many successful teams.
