SimonHarlingBlog Posts

“Player-centered” youth sports programs and clubs are growing in popularity. But what does that actually mean? And if we are saying words, like “player-centered” what are we doing?

I am not clear.

But what I am clear on is this. If your program is “child-centred” then free play and exposure to a range of athletics skills are fundamental. You don’t need to be the sole provider but you do need to ensure there are clear pathways available for every child.

Feel free to use this audit.

Saying and then doing is different from doing and then saying. One approach may be better than the other but both are better than saying and not doing.

Your customers are not your friends. The exchange is one of economic value.

A social business, therefore, is not one that chats to its customers. But one that changes something in their customers’ lives. And that change brings value. Social value.

As a coach do you offer market prices and value for money?

Or do you solve a problem, the value of which the market can’t put a price on?

A man who didn’t have it his way found a way and in doing so owned his way.

The true test of extraordinary is when you are missed because no one else can do what you did. Eddie Butler

My kids used to sleep on a bunk bed in the same bedroom. I could go into their room unannounced and be in their space.

Recently, we decided to split the bunkbeds and gave them each their own bedroom.

I now have to knock on a closed bedroom door, for either of them to peer around it and decide if I can come in. Within 24 hours the game changed and with it the rules.

How changing an environment can change how people behave, right there.

We like to think we want something new when actually what we want is something that works.

America won the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991, some 30 years ago. If you think that was slowing moving it was.

But not anymore.

Women’s football is the fastest-growing sport in Europe. What was hard to do, over the last 30 years, is no longer hard at all. Football clubs are experiencing unprecedented periods of growth.

To cross the chasm and become mainstream products and services need to earn trust.

Football has clearly gained the trust of parents. Kids need to be active and if kids are happy to play football 3 times a week, then it appears to be a win for both parties. It works.

What doesn’t work is that girls are no longer throwing and catching, hitting or striking a ball, or moving to music. instead, they are playing football 3 times a week.

Perhaps, it is time for Women’s football not to seek parity with the men’s game but to forge a new path, its own path, that builds on the trust it has to do things differently.

Tony’s Chocolonely exists because it wants to change the cocoa industry.

More confectionary companies offering more choice does not change what the industry does or stands for, it simply provides more choice.

More choice for the consumer may be why the cocoa industry exists. But I doubt it.

We think “grassroots” sports are about offering more choice, but in truth, it is about changing the industry. More choice is not the hard part.

We exist becuase…….

A lot of strength coaches talk about what being strong means.

For some strong enough is bodyweight on the big lifts. Others think the game changes when you can lift 1.5 x body weight. While others suggest you focus on something else when you can lift x 2 bodyweight.

In a rush few talk about what it means to take your time.

A utopia is an intentional community, a community of optimal or near-optimal conditions. Many of us dream of designing a utopia. A place where the wind always blows in the right direction.

Would you like to sit with success in Utopia or would you miss the ebb and flow of success and failure?

I wonder if there is a name for a community of people who exist just above selling out (the last rung on the ladder of human hope). Far enough away to keep you motivated to stay away but not so far away that you become complacent.

While we wait for a near-optimal name for the group from those living in Utopia. Let’s agree to call it a collective.

Is the go-to answer for strength and conditioning coaches. A way of suggesting that the answer to a question will vary from person to person.

Assumptions are things we believe to be true and constraints are things we know to be true. If your project, attitude, or next answer depends on your assumptions. We all need to hope the response is “on what?”

An intentional statement has a mind-to-world fit. By making our intentions known, the hope is of course that the world is organised in such a way that our intentions hold true.

To my disappointment. I found out that the world was not organised to help me become bold. No matter how many times I wrote it down.

It was, after all, a desire.

The shift happens when we let go of trying to make things fit.

When the only constant is change, one thing never changes. Right here, right now.

Penelope Trunk.

Some judicial judges have reputations for handing out harsh sentences. For example, a “hanging judge’s” attitude to sentencing is one of deterrence and incapacitation. There is no interest in rehabilitating criminals.

If you are a judge that is interested in rehabilitating criminals. A judgment handed out by a “hanging judge” goes against the grain.

Few of us, actively manage our attitude towards the roles we occupy. Often we fall in, muck in and try to make it work. And if that is true then it is harder still to imagine that we are capable of creating a culture that fits our attitude.

A coach who thinks coaching is leadership will function best in a role that offers authority and legitimacy.

A teacher who thinks teaching is about inspiring and engaging their pupils will thrive in an environment in which “A” grades are not the only outcome to shout about.

Your attitude might well stink. But it is much more likely that you have paid no attention to what you think you actually do.

That’s it, that’s your job, to create meaning.

What impact are you having?

Whom are you influencing?

And what culture are you involved in creating?

This week my eldest was looking forward to her first PE lesson at senior school. Her class failed to change in the required 3-minute allocated slot. So they practiced changing the entire lesson. For now, she hates PE.

“What do you think you are doing?” is a useful challenge but when used on others, it pays to be clear who it is that is feeling challenged.

In the world of sport, numbers provide measures and measures provide direction.

Here is a list based on the order of importance.

The sport

The sports club

The people who play the sport

We create infrastructure around sport to support it, no infrastructure no people; build it and they will come.

When we change the order it looks like this.

The people who play the sport

The sports club

The sport

Changing the order in which we do things changes the message we send. The sport is less important than the people who play it.

Now that is an order worth fighting for.

An admission of failure, a lack of guts, or an ability to see the bigger picture.

Not all quits are the same, some are more powerful than others but all create change.

When we put things in the wrong order we send the wrong message.

Is a tool that opens bottles, breaks the foil seal on wine bottles, and takes the cork out of wine bottles.

In a busy restaurant, having one tool for three jobs is invaluable.

Sport was once for recreational purposes. Now it is a tool to make money, provide opportunities for young people to make something of their lives, and of course, keep people active.

Sport has always given us an opportunity to do something. I’m just not sure that in its current format it is quite the friend we think it is.

Struggling to create the change you seek?

Try changing the order in which you do things.

The latest National Audit Office report on grassroots participation in sport and physical activity is difficult to read.

Since its inception in 1997, Sport England has spent £50 Trillion pounds of lottery funds and £300 million from the Exchequer.

The report suggests that a lack of communication, teamwork, and clear goals as possible causes of failure. Everything that sport is supposed to teach us.

The Yunnus Sports Hub has 7 principles that define a social business.

1. Business objective will be to overcome poverty or one or more problems (such as education, health, technology access, and environment) that threaten people and society; not profit maximization

2. Financial and economic sustainability

3. Investors get back their investment amount only. No dividend is given beyond investment money

4. When the investment amount is paid back, company profit stays with the company for expansion and improvement

5. Gender-sensitive and environmentally conscious

6. Workforce gets market wage with better working conditions

7. …do it with joy

At a national level, Sport England has attempted to create change at a local level. And it clearly has not worked. The definition of a social business provided by Yunnus Sports Hub provides us with a new direction in which to look.

“A social business is measured by its ability to solve a problem.”

Starting with the end in mind is not the same as knowing what the end looks like. If that’s the case you are probably not trying hard enough.

When a creative project has value but the endpoint is not clear, keep going, you will know when you get there.

I’m excited to be able to share my book project with you in the coming months.

Working title: Good Coach Bad Coach.

I didn’t see the end of the book coming until I was ready. You won’t either if you are trying hard enough.

Sports organizations are not always clear as you would think about who their customer actually is. For example:

Is it the sport?

The club?

The people who run the club

Or the people who play the sport?

So here are two questions for people who run sports clubs

Who is it for?

What is it for?

Do something about doing nothing.

Most things are not sudden as you first thought, you just weren’t paying attention. When we want to look and feel like we are all headed in the same general direction. The trap is to pay no attention to the particular.

The particular slows us down, threatens to take us in a different direction, and magnifies our mistakes. It’s little wonder it doesn’t appear on many agendas.

I wrote a paper whose results I analysed using the “95% limits of agreement”. We would do well to remember to spend some time testing our limits of agreement. Far better than creating an illusion of agreement.

Teaching people how to catch fish is preferable to simply handing them your catch. For a little extra time spent, you get to keep your own fish.

If the task is to catch fish, then the skill is to be successful at catching them.

But the ability to catch fish is more than simply the knowledge required. It is also the environment in which we work, subjective and objective in its reality.

Before you assume you can teach anyone to fish, best you walk in their shoes for a while too.

I’m sure you are aware it’s a metaphor. Only fools rush in.

Don’t feel that you have to go with your first answer. You can change your mind. 

In fact, it’s worth remembering that we won’t think any less of you if you do.

What to do? When the kids stop following your drills. Or one of the kids puts their bib on in a way that makes them look like a tube, not a human being.

I can tell you that it’s easy to just reach for games that everyone will enjoy like tag or bulldogs. Or maybe set up a kickabout so they can do what they want.

What is not easy to do is figure out a way to engage kids in a way that will progress their skills.

Behaviour problem or engagement problem?

If you want to know what that struggle looks like you could do worse than watch Andrew Flintoff’s Field of Dreams.

The long game is to encourage constructive dissent. But in the short term, it can simply feels like dissent. One way to win is to make it about something bigger than you.

If you did what you told others to do. What would change?

Authority is a specific position occupied within an organisation. An organisation that has influence over the way you do things. Legitimacy is the right and acceptance of authority.

Authority without legitimacy is like a punch without power. You can keep throwing it. But at some point, people are going to notice that nothing much is happening.

The term “grassroots” means to gather everyone up at a local level and create change at a national level. Yet, sport is run at a national level, top-down, in an attempt to create change at a local level. The opposite of grassroots. 

Maybe you think the term  “grassroots” can also mean “foundational” or “developmental” and that a misunderstanding about terms doesn’t matter. So let me give you an example. 

If I am going to develop a plot of land I want to know what I can build and at what cost. If am going to put down a foundation on a plot of land, I want to know what I can build on that foundation, the dimensions, specifications, and cost. 

Whenever we put down a foundation or we develop something we want to know what we are getting and at what cost. Grassroots movements care about creating change. The cost matters less than the change.

The terms we use. The questions we use. The conversations we have about what we do. It all matters. 

At a grassroots level, If we care about increasing participation then let’s talk about how we increase the number of people participating

If we care about development let’s talk about the development plans we have, what we get, and at what cost. 

And if winning is all we are really worried about then let’s only talk to each other when we want to organise fixtures. 

It once attracted your attention and because you craved it, you changed your behaviour to get it. Now it goes unnoticed but the behaviour remains the same.

To improve control manipulate your surroundings.

You can find my Atomic Habit book notes here

It is clear that more coaches are asking for mentors. What is not clear is where the coach expects to go.

Any road will do if you don’t know where you are going.

So here is a suggestion.

Write to 3 very different people whom you admire within the industry. For each cover the following.

What you are looking for

What type of help you would like from them

The outcome that you seek

When asking for a lift being on the right road is helpful, knowing where you want to go, is better.

I took my desk-bound, screen-watching, teenage nephew out on his mountain bike.

2.5 hours later I returned him to his worried mother.

Kids are not broken. They don’t need fixing.

Kids are capable, durable, and above all fun to be around.

We just need to make the time.

Props to Mountain View Bike Park. We need more places like this where kids can go and be themselves.

Hard on the outside and soft in the middle.

Being clear on what is nonnegotiable creates a strong force field. While on the inside letting go of what requires control provides the space to play.

Of course, you could try appearing soft on the outside, while quietly seething on the inside.

The boiling frog story goes like this. Put a frog in boiling water and it will jump out. Use tepid water brought to a boil and the frog stays put.

When the situation changes, but slowly, if we are not paying attention, we don’t notice until it’s too late.

The good news is that changing locations is a natural thermoregulation response for frogs.

You know what to do if you want to be as smart as a frog. Pay attention to your surroundings.

What comes easily to you?

What could you drop that would not change what you do?  

Under what conditions do you get the best out of yourself?

What is essential in what you do?

Would people miss what you do?

Related to education and scholarship

Not of practical relevance; of only theoretical interest. 

Courtesy of Oxford Languages. 

Here are a few questions a coach should ask before attending a conference, event or talk. 

Who is benefiting? 

How does it help me?

Who is it for?

The Athletic Kids Conference has no panel of experts. Just coaches like you, meeting, connecting, and working to figure out how to take your next best step forward.

Let’s get to work.

Small-sided games are very forgiving. No time to sulk or overthink it. If your first touch was bad, maybe your second touch will be better. Opportunities to correct your mistakes come thick and fast.

The opposite of standing out on the wing, waiting to fluff the only chance you will get all game.

36 days to find a new rental property.

2 more stories to finish your book.

£1000 to hit your income target for the month. 

Nothing wrong with a deadline, it can tell you where you are just don’t confuse it with what you stand for and how you want to show up.

Shoulders back.

If you put a bunch of strength and conditioning coaches in a room it’s not long before the conversation turns to bargains and trade off’s.  

“Pre-season is 6 weeks long and aerobic conditioning requires longer than that to make a significant difference. “

“Racket sports players show up for 2 weeks blocks of fitness training, at a time, which is never long enough.”

And so it goes on. 

The job of the strength and conditioning coach is to understand the principles of strength and conditioning. A way of understanding the forces that might be at work when applying training doses without consideration for social conventions.

The alternative is to dose the training to fit social conventions. A rather “Hobbesian Bargain“. In exchange for protection, peace, and stability (income) we confer our rights and freedoms (obedience) to the client.

We imagine our bargain to be time versus the desired effect. “If I had more time then I could produce a bigger effect”. But the bargain is much more than that. It is the freedom to think.

After all, caution will get you nowhere. 

When we capitalise it, in marker pen, using large writing, it feels good. Like we are shouting it out for others to hear. 

And yet writing BOLD every day in a journal means that at some point soon, the desired effect will wear off. In fact, it was unlikely to have ever paid off. 

To move intentional statements to action. Try this small step. 

Before your marker pen runs out and the novelty wears off, share it with someone. That way, you have done another bold thing. From your head to paper and now the world. 

Be. Do. Say.

Define it.

Do it.

Talk about it.

To become bold we first need to begin by doing bold things.

“White middle-aged white men are dinosaurs.”

Dinosaurs once ruled the school with a brain about the size of a walnut. 

Being inflexible, slow, and entitled might be on brand but it’s not helping the cause.

The four stages of competence model, used by psychologists to help explain stages of skill acquisition is helpful.

Unconscious Incompetence. The equivalent of cold calling. The value of your idea, skill, or task is unknown. With kids and novice learners this is a problem. 

But problems have solutions. 

Broadly speaking coaches show up using one of 3 strategies:

Prestige; “Take my word for it”. The hope is that your clients are star-struck and will follow you’re every word.

Dominance; “You have to do it or else.” Compliance. Bullying is a proven strategy but that doesn’t make it right.  

Principled; This approach can be slow, chaotic, and requires an understanding of the creative process.

Here is a simple way to think about it. 

A Fundamental Movement skill for kids is jumping and landing. To improve the skill of jumping and landing it would be reasonable to offer kids the task of skipping. 

Watch what happens when you leave a pile of skipping ropes on the floor during practise. Some kids will pick them up and excel, a few might try and get bored. The rest will show no interest. 

Now you could tell them all to skip for 5 minutes before practise starts. But what happens when you are not watching? The chances are the status quo returns. The kids who love to explore and are curious will play. The rest do something else. 

Nothing really changes. 

To move from Unconscious Incompetence to Conscious Competence is dependent on the stimuli to learn. Fear, status, and a curious environment are all options. A well-drilled team can look like success but a kid who can think for themselves might just be a better moonshot. 

Perhaps a better question might be. How do I get them to care?

Try the skipping rope test

Resources that might help

What do you focus on?

Qualifications
Experience
The sport or activity
The values of the program

Here are some links that might help

Centric

An example not a challenge

Skills come out of necessity

Click here for the podcast mentioned in the skit

What do you think when you see kids on social media videos using battling ropes in gym classes?

If you think it’s better than nothing. Here are 3 resources to come off the fence.

And if you are a youth coach. What is behind the answer you give to the question?

What do I want people to see?

The bar is set very low. We want kids to be active. Perhaps with better questions and honest answers we can do better.

The culture of MORE in coaching.

More clients
More qualifications
More income

Perhaps there is a better way. A culture where you feel you can belong.

What better way to do that than to create it yourself?

Links that might help

Getting out of your own way is to recognise the doubts you have and do it anyway. But that doesn’t happen as often as we would like. 

The mechanism of choice when choosing a new student council, a coach for the village team, or just about any other elected position is based on popularity. And that means that we don’t get who we need for the job at hand we get the most popular. The prize is not the chance to do the work but the chance to elevate status. 

What would change if the coach of the local football team was chosen via a lottery? 

Choosing to wing it or the secret sauce approach would no longer be an option. Coaching mentorship and peer group support would support the coach, driven by the change they create not the qualification they hold. And of course, the players move from passive to active, since they carry the culture through the age groups. 

When we hold status we fear losing it. The more qualification you have the more entitled you feel. Perhaps it’s time to create a system where the only currency is the change we create. 

Are you willing to change? If not perhaps you are in the way. 

Thank you to Malcolm Gladwell for bringing my attention to the idea

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/the-powerball-revolution

Asking anyone to trust the process, is like asking someone to trust in magic. Of course, you don’t trust magic, why would you? After all, it’s an illusion, a mind trick. 

Can you remember the last time you made an elephant disappear?

Forget the processes that are well-trodden paths of compliance. I’m talking about following a process that has no fixed outcome. A process that provides value, often in an intangible, unmeasurable way. In a way that makes you feel good about what you do and who you are. 

Just like magic, you can’t fully trust it, but you must fully buy into it for it to work.

When Derek Sivers sent an email out to CD Baby’s 2 million customers a misunderstanding cost a week’s worth of labour to explain the mistake. 

Berating kids that can’t jump over hurdles is one way to ensure they pay attention. 

If you want to stop doing something increase the pain that you feel. 

Increasing participation and physical activity levels might not be a simple problem. But making activities a satisfying experience is a good start.

If you are a football coach who plays a 3,2,1 formation then let the kids play a 1,2,3 formation. That way you can explore your fears and they can explore a new way of playing.

Go!

Fasting is easier than dieting because it removes all your choices.

Diets work because they restrict choice and calories not because cavemen ate that way, purple is a magic colour or olive oil is the elixir of life.

I’m sure you are ahead of me. If you don’t trust yourself to make a good choice. Don’t give yourself a choice. Make it disappear.

When we need you to come to football practice we are much more likely to try to control the outcome. Compliance.

When we want you to come to football practice there is room for choice. Flexibility. 

The choices we make reflect our motives.

Here is my note that I’ll be sending to all the parents of my u10 and 11’s teams for the coming season. I want to give coaches, parents, and players the choice not to choose my approach. Flexibility. 

It’s an expansion on my second coaching principle of last season.

#1 I don’t care who wins. I do care that my kids compete for and with each other.

#2 I don’t care about the better players getting more game time. I do care that each kid gets the same amount of playing time.

#3. I don’t care that my best players play out of position. I do care that all my players play in every position on the pitch.

I want you to come to training. I don’t need you to come to training. 

All my players are treated equally. No preference is given to any player because of attendance or lack of attendance to training or previous matches. The end result is always the same. Each player will get the same amount of playing time. 

How it works:

If there are too many players to make 7 v 7 work, I’ll ask the other coach to make up teams of 5 v 5 or similar. I’ll always look to reduce the number of players, never increase, to help each player get time on the ball. 

The alternative is to have lots of players standing on the sidelines, lost in large-sided games, or picking only the players who came to training last week. 

I want you to make a choice to come to football. The flip side is not wanting to come to every match or practise. Provided you turn up when you say you are going to turn up, there will never be a problem.  

The main goal is to give you all an equal opportunity to play football. I hope we can all stay flexible to that goal.

You might miss an appointment because you regret making it and now you haven’t got the guts to cancel.

Maybe you think that your time is more important than the person who is waiting for you. 

Or you simply forgot.

To navigate the issue of no-shows. Contracts can have late charges and penalties built in to protect both sides from buyer’s remorse, reneged promises, and misinformation.

In the service industry deposits are more common, and they work. The fear with deposits is the creation of an entry barrier for walk-in and new customers and a difficult moment for the usually loyal who have slipped up. 

At the heart of the problem is entitlement and it isn’t very helpful. In the end, it comes down to a choice. Take a little loss, punish everyone or seek to understand each other with an honest conversation about expectations. 

If you cared would you be there?

To get more people up on their feet and dancing it’s tempting to think that it’s on you to become a better dancer. That the best version of you will amplify the signal that you are worth following.

But that is not the case,

The best signal you can send is that anyone can do it, that you are welcome to try, and that it might just be fun.

Are you asking? Then I’m dancing!

People sing in the shower but never on stage.

We encourage kids to play multiple sports not because kicking a football is the same as playing a drop shot. But because the kid who can do both has movement options.

What a kid does with that potential is on them.

If you find yourself looking to see what you can add, not take away, you are at the beginning of the journey.

For context and confusion, I’ve added a new coaching principle (#2) that might just have taken many others away.

1, The body is sensory

2. The numbers matter less than the emotions attached to them

The magic numbers are 2,500Kcal, 8,000kg lifted and 10,000 steps now go, and remember consistency is the key. Make those numbers happen and let the magic do its thing.

On the flip side of obsession with numbers is acceptance, a willingness to learn, and emotional control.

It’s worth remembering that there are two sides to every story, neither is magical, and both require honesty, but only one of them contains all the barriers to change.

Anxious that my eldest daughter couldn’t swim more than a length before entering secondary school, we joined a fancy gym with a pool. 

In the space between predicting the future and letting go of the progress we expect to see, we swim. 

Summer holidays are a time to play, who knew as a parent it would be mostly with your emotions. 

A breakthrough moment. New information that changes everything. In an instant, the direction of travel changes. 

I had one of those moments, a few weeks back. Over the course of the day, researching content, it became too clear to me, at least, that “I could and should” change direction. 

At the time I was reading The Manifesto Handbook 95 theses on an incendiary form by Julian Hanna. The book did what had promised to do. It lit my fire, it made me feel the change that I wanted to create was the change that I could and should bring to the table. 

New information might start the fire but how it makes you feel is the fuel that keeps it burning.

At Christmas when I was a kid, we played the tray game. Someone would go out of the room, place 10-15 household objects on a tray and bring it back into the room. The winner was the person with the largest recall of the items on the tray.

Active recall is a helpful skill when recalling information without a specific cue. But rarely is the challenge the amount of information. Unless of course, we forget who it is for, where they are at and the change we seek.

One foot in front of the other provides us with forward motion. A chance to get our head down to focus on the task at hand. 

Writing a blog every day is an example of a complete, deliberate outcome that on its own is unlikely to change your world but cumulatively might just change your thinking. 

A reminder that one small step at a time is how it all starts but when we focus on what we can build, create and generate, we shift from a small price to pay to a small win every day.

Steel is real.

No, I’m joking, that’s second. 

Where you look is where you go. That’s first. 

Look at the tree. Hit the tree. Don’t look at the tree.

Instead look for the fast sweeping trail that goes past the tree, way more fun, 

Yes, it’s a metaphor, but it’s also solid advice if you are on a bike heading down a fast descent with a tree waiting for you at the bottom. 

Where you look is where you go, on bikes and in life.

The passion economy is a collective of people swapping what they love to do for money. 

Like any gold rush, the seller of the shovel makes more than the person digging. 

My advice. “How to follow your passion and scale” is not talking to your passion but to your instinct to make something of yourself. 

Instincts are helpful when you fall but less helpful when they are telling you to make something of yourself. 

Buyer beware. Use both your heart and your head.

Such an odd statement don’t you think?

It’s the least that I can do, but it is the thing I am most willing to do it. 

The principle of least effort is broadly speaking about the path of least resistance. We are willing to do it provided it makes us feel good and it is easy to do. 

This brings me to a question. 

To keep doing the thing you really want to do. What is the smallest step you can take?

Seth Godin describes the minimum viable audience as “ the smallest group of clients that can sustain you in your work.”

The smallest viable audience doesn’t protect us from failure but it might mean we don’t have to sell out. Selling out is the last rung on the ladder of human hope, not failure. So why worry about failure when you could be selling out.

It’s the least we can do.

It helps ideas move quickly.

When Chris Anderson popularised the long tail you can hear his talk here the opportunity was for the aggregator, not the creative. 

The aggregator provides the platform for the creative, curating content often with no setup costs to the creator. Udemmy is an example of an aggregator.

The trap was to think that was the end of the story. Digital marketplaces are huge and creators get crowded out. Attention can be expensive. 

Nothing has really changed. Those who want to create, create and the best way to reduce costs is still to improve the quality of what we do.

I learned a version of shorthand at University to survive in Organic Chemistry lectures.

The abbreviation cf is short for compare. 

Steven King writes around 6 pages, 1000 words a day

The rookie mistake is to get your head up and take a look at where you are in the world (just in case it turns out you are world-class). What comes back is usually a disappointment. But we do it anyway. 

That’s interesting because it tells us how little we know about the environment we have just stepped into. 

Comparing yourself to others in a novice writing class might be more helpful.

Compare yourself to 6 months previous might inform you.

Comparison helps us build context and context is only helpful if it helps us make good decisions. 

Comparison is said to be the thief of joy, it might also be a waste of your time.

The idea of giving someone a 2-minute elevator pitch is to help them describe what they do in a  memorable and impactful way. 

A strength coach might want her prospective clients to achieve their physical goals by becoming stronger. 

But stronger than what?

Now

The opposition

Her peer group

Than ever before 

And what if your prospective client feels strong enough already?

So how do you get the right information across?

Write your elevator pitch on a blog, your website, or a CV and it’s passive. People can choose whether or not to engage with your content. And what it means to them. 

Deliver your elevator pitch as intended and it is on you to inspire and engage the audience. An audience that has just found itself in a confined space with little prospect of getting out. Much like a teacher.

But there is another way.  

In my mind, a youth sports coach is someone who holds a space open for kids to explore movement, skills, and relationships with their peer group. 

Ask a kid what they want to achieve and it might change the next time you ask them 

Ask a kid how they will measure their success and most will have no answer.  

Open allows for experiences to inform and for kids to change their minds without judgment.

The task of an elevator pitch is to get clear on what you do and how it works.

But perhaps the real skill is in helping your audience figure out what it means to them.

Dose-response curves allow pharmacologists to see the effect of a drug at a particular dose independent of time. 

What would change, if all that concerned you was how much you did and the effect it had?

Values and principles can help us to communicate our choices and reflect on our outcomes as we collide with the world. 

Maybe it’s why most of us choose not to pour our hearts out. Living with and through your values and principles, in a competitive world, is a true test of the courage of your convictions.

Howard Schultz the creator and current CEO of Starbucks in his book Pour Your Heart Into It describes their approach as one that values dogmatism and flexibility. How much flexibility and how much dogma is not clear. But was is clear, is that the original concept of Starbucks has shifted to meet the needs of today’s consumers.  

Derek Sivers, who grew CD Baby into a $20 million company closes out the book, Anything You Want, with a simple message. “Pay close attention to when you are being real and when you are trying to impress an invisible jury.”

A curious innovator who had excelled at making a perfect world for independent musicians. Derek was happier with 5 employees and happiest when working alone. At the time CD Baby was sold it employed 85 people.

Howard was brave enough to listen. 

Derek cared enough to sell CD Baby having learned that the only obligation you have is to your own happiness. 

There can be no doubt that what we value and believe shapes our view of the world. But not necessarily what we do in the world. To align what we do with what we say, flexibility helps, courage is mandatory.

Until I’m fit enough to go to the gym

In your head, the story might go a bit like this. 

When I’m more successful than I am right now I’ll do the thing that successful people do.

Of course, it’s a trap. Resistance. Friction to your momentum. 

The antidote?

Try consistently doing something that moves you in the general direction you want to go in. 

Be ok with ever-decreasing circles. Continue circling around and around until you are ready to listen to what you actually want to do. 

And when you are ready.

Give yourself permission to live in the gap between success and failure for as long as is necessary. 

I’ve yet to find a magic trick to resistance but I find persistence and a kind spirit to the way you work helps. 

Last night I attended a first aid course. 

Unless the person I am assisting is unconscious the right thing to do is ask them what they want. If they are in pain, their preferred position. And what they want me to do to help. 

Here are the principles I took from the session:

Preserve life. 

Prevent deterioration 

Promote recovery

Take immediate action

Don’t put yourself in danger.

Meet people where they are. Ask. “What can I do to help?”

Avoid getting emotionally involved in their problems.

Be open to getting help

First aid, is a life skill. We would do well to remember the principles. And then apply them to life.

Oh! You can’t do it?

Listen to me. 

Watch what I do.

Now do what I do.

Not getting the hang of it? 

An experience that can leave everyone confused about why it’s not working. And that might just be your experience in sports and physical education. The problem comes when coaches and teachers conflate providing an example worth copying with skills, drills, and content.

But perhaps there is another way.  

Take away your car and you have no option but to walk or ride. 

Remove the TV from the room and you will no longer find yourself lounging on the sofa. 

Hide the chocolate hob nobs at the very back of the cupboard. 

I know I’m cruel. But you get the idea.

Design the environment to the change you seek and the rest will follow. 

Some coaches are failed sports stars, they just didn’t quite make it. So they become a coach. It looks a lot like being a sports star only it carries none of the risks.

I know, I used to get asked for autographs outside football stadiums when I worked in football. And for a while, it was a thrill. Until the boredom of waiting around for others to perform took its toll.

When I came out of football and served individual clients. One of my major failings as a coach was to want it more than the person I was coaching. I took it as a sign of superior commitment. When it was actually, a failure to communicate what was important to me.

As for client failure rates.

Highlight reels ensure reputation damage is minimal since no one is looking that closely. Coach enough people and it’s easy to point at the odd success.

What was really happening? 

In truth, I was hiding, bearing none of the risks. Nonconsequential failure. 

For the father who is dreaming of coaching their daughter to success. The rep counter on the gym floor working their way through the day. And the coach who is plumping the pillow of those he serves.  

The antidote. 

Figure out what you are afraid of doing.

Put yourself on the line. When I created my gym, it was a platform for others. It should have first been a platform for me.

Crawl. Walk. Run. 

Seventeen hamstring pulls in one season might just be a situation. But it is much more likely a problem.

Problems have solutions.

It turns out the Strength Coach in question was using maximal squats prior to sprint training. Either a rather difficult dance between fatigue and potentiation. Or just flat-out confused about the order in which you do things. 

I have a suggestion. 

Writing and coaching/teaching might just be the perfect dance between being and doing. A balance between showing your workings out and living with the order in which you do things. 

Of course, what you share might be wrong. 

But better to be wrong once, than another 16 times before you realise, it might just be too late.

At what point do you stop following and begin to lead? 

Because…..

What you have been following is not working.

What you wanted is not what you have got.

The situation you are in gives you no other option. 

The answer is always the same. When you have to. 

Rather than wonder if you are a natural leader. Maybe a better question might be. 

Under what conditions are you ready to lead?

Mapping out success is not like mapping out the London Underground. Straight lines and regular stops. Success just doesn’t travel that way.

And that makes giving feedback hard.

How do you know when it’s working?

The temptation is to control the direction of travel. And that works on the underground, but not so much on people.

What really separates people from trains, tracks, and maps, is the ability to accept that we can move in a general direction of travel.

Plans and goals may provide direction of travel. Timelines and other constraints might well keep us on track. But “what if” keeps us flexible.

A library is not the right place.

Shouting down the social media rabbit hole will get it off your chest but is unlikely to be helpful.

Giving feedback is a skill and unless your group, collective, or organisation are good at it, (it’s unlikely that they are), they won’t be much help either. 

I can think of three types of thinking out loud. 

Screaming to be heard.

Pushing an idea around.

Pulling an idea down. 

Knowing which type of thinking you are engaged with might just change what you do.

On reflection, one helps you review the order in which you put things the other not so much.

“As he faced the sun he cast no shadow.” Oasis 

Far better to turn around, face your shadow, and dance with it.

If it were easy everyone would do it. 

And that’s true if it’s obvious what we should do. 

Prof Matthias Lochmann changed how German Football approaches youth development by counting the number of touches a player has with a ball using a handheld clicker. 

Easy is not the same as obvious.

A coaching friend of mine has been feeling overwhelmed and under-committed. 

There are not enough hours in the day.

In chaotic, complex situations, constraints enable creativity. They buy time. 

If you only had two hours in which to work a day. What would you do?

The way in which something is placed or arranged, especially in relation to other things. A tendency to act in a certain way. 

One way to adapt very quickly is to monitor the disposition of successful groups that work in your field. Once matched for constraints. The only thing left to do is shine a light on what works.

It’s that simple.

Creating change is hard. Harder still when we can’t see it.  

Radiologists are trained to look.

When asked to review a set of slides for cancerous nodules, 83% of the radiologists sampled missed a picture of a gorilla, 48X times larger than the average cancerous nodule, superimposed on their last slide.

You are not looking for hairy gorillas when you are trained to look for cancerous nodules,

Send your kid to a football camp and the coaches are trained to develop technical football skills. Coaches who are trained to see technical skills, look for technical issues to fix. Making it hard to see the physical and psychological mix that helps kids develop in full.  

It is tempting to simplify the challenge and fix it. Teach coaches another skill, add another responsibility, and produce another process. You only have to look at job recruitment posts to see how that plays outs.

But, that would be missing the point. Change is not easy exactly because it is owned by the majority but driven by the minority. In this example, only 17% of the radiologists saw something different.

Before coaches learn to take on specialist skills. Perhaps, it is time to first teach coaches to be open, curious, and experimental in their approach. After all, isn’t that what we ask of the recipients of coaching.

Are you willing to change?

Perhaps you are a team leader, a coach, or a teacher, and dealing with people’s problems is what you do. 

They can’t see it.

Maybe they don’t care.

And that’s your problem. 

It can change how you show up, it changes the focus of your work, and it can weigh you down. 

People change when they are ready. Which might be never. And that is not your problem.

Far better to change the environment and play, don’t you think?

More and more coaches are turning to social media to help them design training sessions. 

This might be a good time to remind ourselves about one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. 

Social media is designed to create connection, not context.

Content gets your attention. 

Context focuses your attention.

Perhaps it’s time to connect with coaches who like you want to focus on what actually matters. You can register your interest in the Athletic Kids Conference here.

In 2001, the year my daughter Ellie was born, I completed the Tour Divide in 27 days. Canada to Mexico, 2700 miles, unsupported, on a mountain bike. Cycling through British Columbia, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico traversing the Rocky mountains.

From the snow pushes of Montana to the hot desert of New Mexico, the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest over 10 times. Ask a local where the nearest town was, and they would often say, “it’s downhill all the way.”

Maybe they thought I needed some good news.

It is said that if you can get out of Montana you will make it through the Tour Divide. Each year, less than 60% of those who enter will finish. Most bail in Montana, but not all. I was with one cyclist when he decided to quit. We had spent the day cycling through the mud in Wyoming, continually washing our bikes off in the nearby stream just to make a few miles.

It was not hard to see, why he quit. My friend for the day was the stronger cyclist, but things had not gone his way, he expected to be much further up the track. But, he wasn’t. Progress had been too slow, and the prospect of the trail ahead no longer held him together. So he quit.

My progress had not been smooth either. But every so often, I had a small win, something that told me, I could and should keep going. 

Riding 80 miles on a ripped tyre that I had Macgyvered was proof I could adapt

Getting out of Montana felt like a landmark.

Riding solo for 4 days was tough but it showed me I was mentally strong enough.

Soaking up the big climbs in Colorado, I knew I had it in my legs.

The difference between me and the cyclists that quit was that I was growing in confidence, they were not. 

Any journey of discovery is much the same. Regular wins that somehow signpost you to success are not reality. But take a win at random, collect it as evidence and use it against any doubt you may have. And you are in with a chance.

Tour Divide Profile Image

We could but we choose not to.  

Strawberries are no longer seasonal. It used to be that the cost was too high or the availability was just not there. The market fixed that. 

Sport so is no longer seasonal. 

We can’t blame the market. After all, it is our choice. The market simply puts the item in front of us and asks the question. Do you want to buy it?

If we want kids to be active, healthy, and curious we need to help them make better choices. Not the same one, over and over again. 

Who do we think they are going to learn from?

Define it. Do it. Live with it. Repeat until successful.

To help people relate, we often compare the thing we are selling, to something we already know. 

It’s like that only it will help you with this.

Making Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) relatable to sport is one such example. 

“A squat is like the set up in a golf swing and it will help you generate more power.”

When sport is at the centre all else revolves around it. Sports scientists are guilty of selling Fundamental Movement Skills into sports like a bad timeshare salesman. But that is a distraction to the real issue of the day.

Article 3 of the UNICEF’S Convention on the rights of children. “The best interest of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect the child.”

Fundamental Movement Skills are fundamental to humanising. Sports skills are not.

To help you realign your priorities. Know how much time a child in your care spends developing their movement vocabulary through play.

Every child gets only one childhood. We need to respect their time. Not exploit it.

We all come across situations that require more. More time, more money, more people. When we put more resources behind it, we get more of what we want. Whether you start, from a place of plenty or a place of poverty, the thinking is the same. We all wish for more.

Like the kid running down a steep hill whose face has changed. Wanting change is not the same as creating change. Be clear on what you wish for.

Questions for when you are in a rush to get where you are going. 

What is this about in 3 sentences or less?

Why you?

Why do we need it?

What do you plan to do with it?  

What will happen if you don’t get it?

What will happen if we don’t get it?

1 in 4 kids in Wales is obese.

If obesity didn’t come with significant risk factors I doubt many would care. But it does. And it costs society a lot of money not to fix the problem, but to manage it. 

One of the ways we manage the problem is to encourage activity which in turn improves health. But when we are stuck in our ways as we clearly are, maybe there is something that is needed before activity and health. A skill that transcends activity and health, I’d argue that skill is curiosity. 

The curious ask, “what else can I do?”  Curiosity gets you off the sofa and out exploring. Curiosity gets you eating things that are different, and just maybe not in a packet.

I’m launching the Athletic Kids Conference. A live online conference for teachers, parents, and coaches who want to raise active, healthy, and curious kids. You can register your interest here. 

It is not a conference with experts, opinions, and best practise. 

It is a place to meet others who like you want to create change. 

I look forward to joining you there. 

I once thought everyday athlete was a cool title for a project. But it wasn’t. The people it was aimed at helping thought it made them sound bland.

Everyday value, suggests it won’t cost you much but that’s ok because you are not expecting much.

Everyday is bland, monotonous, and not much fun.

I write every day and someday I don’t think I can do it.

The kids ride to school every day, it rains, often it’s dark, and too many motorists are inconsiderate and mean.

Yet, every day, we can, if we choose to see it, consider the payoff and its value.

Active, resilient kids.

A body of work.

And sometimes, every day, not every other Tuesday or when you feel like it, is extraordinary. 

Thank you to Lily, Sara, and Dyfydd from the BBC. We had a lot of fun filming our family bike story in the sun yesterday.

Has anything been more important?

Stuck in the middle between bored students and a university that needs bums on seats. 

The edge that made your project worthwhile rounded off in a meeting room.

Working for a group that prefers the powers of telepathy to the skill of communication.

Sure there is the hustle of the side gig. But, the side project is a chance to change the culture. How things are done. Without, waiting for the green light from inside a room.

If you whinge twice about the lack of progress in work, at university, or at the club you work at. Well, the third time, just maybe it’s time to actually get out of the box.

Think small, act big.

It can happen to you. 

Or it can happen for you. 

When I was younger I was involved in a near-fatal RTA while out running. I went traveling to figure out what to do next since every day thereafter was a bonus. 

Some twenty years later, I experienced another instant life-changing experience. Only this time, it happened to me and for me.

The difference?

The one, well that was on someone else, it happened to me. At least that is what I thought.

The other, in time, became an invitation to grow, and take on skills that were missing, so as not to go back.

I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anyone. Except maybe those who want to grow.

The closer one gets the clearer the sound becomes. Move further away and you move out of earshot. 

Of course, you could amplify the sound to attract more people but that risks distorting it.   

Leave it and your most important task, your only task. is to turn up each day and delight those who love the sound as much as you.  

We have the time. The trap is to think we don’t.

The kid with all the skills is easy to see. 

Young technically proficient kids, win a lot when the others are not as well drilled. And that casts another vote towards the expertise of the sport-specific technical coach. Day after day she is reminded that she knows what she is doing.

And because there are enough kids to point towards and say “that was me.” Some success is enough to continue to breed. Survival bias.

Here is how we have fallen into the trap. A positive feedback loop of sport-specific technical coaching. The foundation of sport in this country.

It’s obvious to see the technically proficient kid.

It’s desirable.

It’s easy, just follow the others.

And if you win, you tell the others. 

And yet, technical and tactical sport-specific success is not breeding success anywhere else in the community. Far from it.

The answer lies in the definition of success. 

Not a skewed definition of success. But a more well-rounded definition. A definition that serves the community, for the many, not the few.

A mentor who doesn’t have the experience you require is not as helpful as a network of people who have done what you want to do.

An informational coach is not as helpful as a storyteller when you want to initiate change. 

A friend who allows you to offload is not as helpful as a motivational coach when you want to keep your engine running and stay in the game. 

A storyteller is not as helpful as a transformational coach when you have an honesty problem.

I hope you weren’t expecting the answer. But here is the point. 

If you find yourself misunderstood, don’t redesign the label, work harder on the message.

Standing with the fridge door open “I’m bored.”

Stressed and anxious “I’m fidgetting.”

Working too hard to impress (self or others) at the gym “I’m breathing through my mouth.”

Calling it out because we want to get better. Improve how we do things. That’s not hypocritical because we are working towards something that may never be perfect. 

But calling it out when it suits. That’s for attention, not to resolve the issue.

Take my kids to a restaurant and the chances are they will order pizza or spaghetti bolognese.   

When I ask the kids I coach to show me different ways to get from A to B by jumping, rolling, or running. I might get a few different options, but not many. 

I could choose to get furious or passive that my kids don’t choose something other than pizza. The alternative is to encourage them to try something else, and if they don’t like it, I’ll eat it. 

When I coach my kids I like to show them a few different options and then create a game, where they can try applying their new jumps, rolls, and running styles. 

If we want our kids to develop a comprehensive movement vocabulary, we need to keep going back to the table to try again. Over time, with persistence, an open mind, and a sense of adventure, it is possible, that the vocabulary of our kids will expand to include new tastes, movements, and experiences. 

We could wait until they are a little bit older, and wiser, and try again. Only, the time has passed. Our kids know what they like and what they don’t like, in their world at least, and now it’s even harder. 

Since everyone missed practise.