VISIONEERING

Recently review my notes from Andy Stanley's book, "Visioneering".  It always amazes me when you go back and review notes at different times, they speak to you in a different way.  The following are a few things that I made special note of:

1. VISIONEERING= Inspiration + Convcition + Action + Determination + Completion
2. Vision weaves four things into the fabric of our daily lives:  Passion, Motivation, Direction, Purpose.
3. Look beyond a picture of what is and paint a picture of what could/ should be.
4. Visioneering is the course one follows to make dreams a reality.  Ideas and convictions take on substance.
5. Vision gives meaning to the otherwise meaningless details of our lives.
6. Vision for each of the key roles we are assigned in life.

Coaching vs The Anxiety Monster

Most of us have heard the line, "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us."  Our staff is making a conscious effort to work with out players to conquer the anxiety monster.  Below are a few thoughts that we are working off of :

1. How do they react under pressure? Their core personality wants to take over under pressure.
2. Everyone deals with the anxiety monster.
3. The anxiety monster whispers different things to different people.
4. To be effective as coaches--we must deal with the anxiety monster and know what motivational buttons to push.
5. Part of the anxiety monster is to figure out how each player learns.
6. Can't always motivate the way we are motivated.
7. Understand that there is no "right or wrong" personality.  Everyone is wired differently.
8. Anxiety resides in one of two places--The Future or The Past

Chuck Noll's Thoughts On Teaching

One of favorite books is "The Game-Makers" by Jack Clary.  The book profiles NFL coaches: Paul Brown, Chuck Knox, Tom Landry, John Madden, Chuck Noll, Bum Phillips, John Ralston and Don Shula. The book was written in 1976 and is a great resource.

"Coaching is teaching and an efficient teacher can get the job done.  Efficiency is the prime objective from a teaching standpoint.  A teacher, or coach, cannot wander because he works with attention spans that are short for what he must acomplish.....The first thing I learned as an assistant coach was that you must be organized in your presentation and that only comes when you know what you're teaching."

10 Zone Attack Thoughts

10 Concepts To Think About When Looking At Your Zone Attack: 

1. Make the zone shift.
2. Wanting to make two defenders guard the ball
3. Shotfakes and Passfakes immediately improve the zone attack
4. Screening vs the zone gives the perimeters lots of opportunities
5. Trying to get the ball to the perimeters being defended by posts
6. Look for opportunities to attack the zone's weakest defenders
7. Must attack the wide seams of a 2-3 zone
8. Don't stand next to someone.  Get to a gap with your hands ready.
9. We get to determine who guards us
10. Ballscreen and engage a guard on reversal

Shooter's Mental Checklist

Shooter's Mental Checklist

1. Know my shooting range.
2. Know my own shooting capabilities.
3. Eliminate every distraction from the shooting process.
4. Be aware of tempo of the game.
5. Determine the best shot in certain situations.
6. Study defensive man for weaknesses.
7. Work hard on playing the defensive man; "score without the ball".
8. Aggressively, patiently, probe the defense.
9. Do not let previous defensive mistake distract me.
10. Do not let a previous ballhandling error distract me.
11. Do not let a previous shooting error distract me.
12. Take GREAT SHOTS to become a GREAT SHOOTER.

Taken from "Becoming A Great Shooter" by Coach Don Meyer

EFFORT

Effort is the one strictly underived and original contribution we make to this world. Everything else is given to us. Health, strength, talent, abilities of all sorts, whether spiritual or mental or physical. Effort is the only element we can add.—William James

The Pod Strategy

Paul Azinger in his book, "Cracking The Code" discusses all aspects of his Ryder Cup leadership.  The core of his plan was the "pod strategy"

The Pod Strategy

• Break the men into small groups
• That's the core. Those guys eat, sleep and train together until they know what the others are thinking.
• Interesting concept--"Small groups, tight bonds"
• Military experts knew that in the heat of battle you couldn't get a batalion or a company to gel as a single fighting unit. The numbers were too big. But you could get three, four, or five or maybe as many as six guys to lay everything on the line for the men beside them.
• Small groups--men who ate, slept, trained, hung out and sometimes fought together were a key to military success.
• In any unstructured setting, people gather in small groups: three, four, or maybe five total.
• Smaller groups will invaribly form within the larger body.
• "A successful corporate model for well-rounded team building involves developing subteams that can aggressively execute a plan, influence others to action, and build quality relationships."Dr. Ron Braund
• "In sports competition, controlled tension often creates positive momentum and offers greater focus for the team." Dr. Ron Braund

Mimimum Daily Requirements

I have tried to figure out how many times a day/ week/ month I look at a label like the one above?  We live in a realm of "minimum daily requirements"..Calories, sugar, fat, protein, Vitamins, etc.  But "Minimum Daily Requirements" have crept into so many other things that I do and that I see our players do.

Too often we look what we do and ask, "if that's enough?"

This type of thinking leads to comparatives...It's good enough...It's better than that...

We often try to justify our "inactions" as much as our actions...

We can't win the comparative game...Simply be the best we can be...Take the Next Best Action and do the Next Right Thing as well as we can do it.