When I became more serious about coaching basketball I asked my friend Brian for advice. He told me, “learn from everybody.” One of the most important ideas I borrowed was from a friend who didn’t coach. We were talking about social issues and he said, “If everybody takes care of themselves, then everyone is taken care of.”
That’s a simplistic idea that doesn’t work in the real world, but I could apply it to basketball. It dawned on me that if I gave each player a job and they all did their jobs, then all the jobs would be done. So one of my coaching mantras was do your job. I later found out that NFL coaching legend Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots had been saying this for years and made it famous. The basic idea is to get each player to focus on what they should be doing instead of being concerned about other things. It became the cornerstone philosophy for our teams and worked great.
I’ve since found that it works well in my private life also. I started thinking, what is my job? I’ve had a lot of responsibilities in my life including, son, brother, cowboy, friend, husband, father, insurance agent and basketball coach, but what is my basic job?
It finally came to me. My job is to be myself, who I am. I have worked on this issue a lot. It’s been the overriding theme of my life. I’ve tried picking up characteristics of others to improve, with mostly mixed results. Being a better person is like being a better coach, learning from others. However, in the process I lost myself and what was unique to me. That’s a very high price to pay. What could I do about that?
I thought about my players. Each of them had responsibilities based on the position I assigned them. They brought their own skills, abilities and temperament to those assignments. That’s what I expected them to use. How could they use something they didn’t have? We worked on skills that would help the team, but all within the framework of who they were individually. To want anything else was a recipe for disaster.
Why would it be different for me? I have responsibilities, but my job is to do them as myself. That’s how I am most effective, instead of being a knock off version of someone else.
I’m still trying to “learn from everyone.” That’s part of my nature and one of my best strengths. Then I apply what I have learned to enhance my life, not change myself. I’ve also found the more I accept others for who they are, the better I am at being myself. See The Winning Move
Oscar Wilde said it best, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” Remembering that helps me to do my job.
May you have enough today, one moment at a time.
THIS HELPED ME 