BETTER News:

We announced earlier this week that if you commit to getting the Coach Performance Playbook for your team or department after July 1st, we’d like to offer you a free 5 Voices Session for your team. If that is you, email us here.

Read Time: 4.5 min

The Idea: Self-Learning

One of our fundamental leadership ideas at BETTER is that the core of any leader is their ability to know themselves. It’s self-awareness.

Know yourself to lead yourself. Lead yourself to lead others.

So, as a leader, the question is, “How much time do you get to yourself?”

We get to sit with dozens of coaches every month. These are some of the most successful coaches in their sport. We will often ask this exact question.

These are some of the busiest coaches. Their plates are stacked full. They’re constantly moving from thing to thing. Just to get a bit of their time seems like a big ask. The answer is nearly always, “Not enough.”

What’s sad is that this is the expectation of those coaches. The view of coaching is so backward that it appears like something is wrong with them if they are taking time for themselves.

But, if you’re not leading yourself properly, how can you expect to effectively lead your team?

Anecdote: The Cup Analogy

We’ve talked about this idea our 100X idea as a part of our series on “Optimizing Your Health” as a leader.

We heard so much feedback from that newsletter series that we used it as the foundation for our Coach Health series which is the first system we take coaches through as a part of the Coach Performance Playbook.

The analogy we use with many coaches to explain the 100X idea is that your leadership is like a cup.

If your cup is empty, you have nothing to give. However, if your cup is full, your leadership becomes more effortless because you naturally pour over into the lives of the people around you.

So, if you start prioritizing anything in your leadership, start with the time you dedicate to filling your own cup, both knowing yourself and leading yourself.

Putting It All Together:

This is why, in nearly everything we do, we reference the tool below.

It’s called the Know Yourself to Lead Yourself tool.

In short, it helps answer the question “What’s it like to be on the other side of me - and why?”

It gives you a simple, visual way to understand how your tendencies and actions impact others and affect your reality.

You can either start at the bottom by identifying your tendencies (i.e. natural, ingrained patterns of behavior) and working around the tool to “Reality”. Or, you can start with your current reality and work backward to identify how your role in creating that reality.

What this tool aims to do is to help you identify patterns in your behavior so that you can then intentionally choose healthier, more productive actions that create the relationships, teams, and performance you want.

You can also use this tool to identify healthy patterns and behaviors you already have so that you know what to lean into.

So, how do we do this for ourselves?

Carve out time each day, even just 10 minutes, to sit with a pen and reflect.

Think of one moment that day when you were pleased with your reaction and your response. Take that moment through the tool above. What was the pattern in your behavior that caused you to respond appropriately?

Then think of one moment where you didn’t react the way you wanted. There’s a tendency underneath that response. Once you seem to be writing down a tendency more than once, you need to take note of it.

Then, make an intentional plan of how you will respond the next time you start to feel that tendency creep up.

You can also take the 5 Voices Assessment. It’s the leadership and personality assessment we use in all of our work at BETTER. We use it with leaders in Athletic Departments, coaches, teams, and players.

We use these results to give coaches “Player Cards” for their staff and team. These cards identify 5 tendencies that are important to know in the leadership of each person.

If you take the assessment and want your player card, email us and we will send it!

Conclusion:

Taking the time to get to know yourself reveals your tendencies. Everywhere you find a tendency (we all have hundreds), you are presented with an opportunity to lead yourself. Leading yourself may look like leaning into a healthy tendency. It may look like you adding an intentional plan for the harmful tendencies. At that point, your increasing your awareness to a point where you’re creating better habits, leading to better outcomes, and a greater reality. And then, the magic happens. You earn the opportunity to do that for others. Know yourself to lead yourself. Lead yourself to lead others.

The Coach Performance Playbook

Coaches have access to a lot of coaching content. What they lack are systems.

The Coach Performance Playbook consists of three comprehensive sections that guide coaches through a transformative leadership journey. Through this playbook, coaches will establish systems to effectively manage the chaos they face, enhance their ability to develop their team members, and ultimately elevate their team’s performance to new heights.

This comprehensive suite includes on-demand assessments, valuable tools, engaging courses, and a wealth of resources, all meticulously designed to unlock the full potential of your coaching staff and team.

As a part of the Coach Performance Playbook, coaches get access to the following systems for themselves and their programs:

• Coach Performance Plan

• 10 Culture Playbook Team Exercises

• Elite Athlete Index

• Elite Coach Index

• Player Cards

• Culture Wins Library

And for the first time, we’ve created a way for everyone to experience it completely for FREE!

How to Get Access:

Clicking the link below will take you to a page to get 3 free videos from inside the Coach Performance Playbook.

Feel free to send this page to any coaches or leaders that you think would benefit from this or find this valuable.

Ready to Jump In?

If you’re ready to jump in and join over 500 coaches using the Coach Performance Playbook for their programs, you will get sent a link to purchase when signing up for the free resource above.

If you’re a High School coach or AD, we are offering the CPP for a discounted price for a limited time so make sure to check out the discount code listed in the email when you sign up!

BETTER Installs

Want BETTER to come do a culture installs, workshops, speak to a team, or work within your Athletic Department? Reach out to us at [email protected]. Our installs include:

• The AD Meta Map

• Role Clarity

• Team Values Exercise

• Department, Program, or Individual Alignment

• Getting the Most out of Your Team