THREAD: What is Great Coaching?

Here are 11 insights I've learned over the past 10 years in working with world-class athletes and coaches across sports.

On Learning, Motivation, Culture, and Sustainable Performance.

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1. Do the Work to Understand.

When you don't know what you're doing, you tend to focus on the small things that don't actually matter. You emphasize what you can control, not what has an actual impact

Do the work to differentiate what looks good versus what impacts performance
2. Drop the Ego. Find People Who Know More.

The best coaches seek out wisdom from others.

Fiercely guarding your "secrets" backfires. Coaching comes from conversation. The more smart thinkers you're talking to, the clearer your thinking will be.
3. You can love a program, but don't marry it.

There is no perfect training program or system.

If you marry yourself to one, then you stop innovating. Coaching is a game of continual adjustment and innovation. Don't become a systems guy.
4. You can't BS people for long.

You either care or you don't. And the athletes will find out sooner or later.

Be authentic to who you are. Don't try to copy others just because they had success. Mimicry or imitation fails. Do it your way.
5. Coaching is not about prescribing and dictating.

It's about creating situations where the athlete is challenged to figure it out. You nudge them along, but if you always give them the answer, you aren't actually teaching. And they aren't learning.
6. Culture= Filling people's basic needs.

People need to feel valued. Make them feel that they:
-belong
-can get better
-have a voice.

If you aren't giving them that, none of the fancy motivational tactics matter. That is your foundation.
7. Power does not equal leadership.

People mistake leadership with power and control. When it's really about the opposite, autonomy. If you are leading, your goal is to actually give away control.

You want to guide and empower your team to not be dependent on you.
8. Complex to Simple. Not the other way around.

A great coach once told me that good coaches take complex ideas and make them simple, while a bad coach who wants to appear like they know what they are doing takes ideas and concepts and makes them more complex.
9. Never stop learning.

The moment you think you know it all is the moment it's time to retire.
10. How you define success should match how your athletes do

We don't all define success in the same way.

You need to be clear in understanding your athletes’ expectations, then acknowledging & shaping them in ways that ensure a healthy view of competition, success, & failure
11. Coaching is about observation.

Go sit at the top of the stands and watch practice of any good coach in any sport.

Leave your phone. Just watch. Observe the interactions and responses to the coach by the athletes. Read the emotion, fatigue, reactions.
If you want more evidence-based content on peak performance, motivation, and coaching give me a follow.

I post similar ideas and insights daily and threads like this 2x/week.

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**Thread on Bravery of Sikhs**
(I am forced to do this due to continuous hounding of Sikh Extremists since yesterday)

Rani Jindan Kaur, wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh had illegitimate relations with Lal Singh (PM of Ranjit Singh). Along with Lal Singh, she attacked Jammu, burnt - https://t.co/EfjAq59AyI


Hindu villages of Jasrota, caused rebellion in Jammu, attacked Kishtwar.

Ancestors of Raja Ranjit Singh, The Sansi Tribe used to give daughters as concubines to Jahangir.


The Ludhiana Political Agency (Later NW Fronties Prov) was formed by less than 4000 British soldiers who advanced from Delhi and reached Ludhiana, receiving submissions of all sikh chiefs along the way. The submission of the troops of Raja of Lahore (Ranjit Singh) at Ambala.

Dabistan a contemporary book on Sikh History tells us that Guru Hargobind broke Naina devi Idol Same source describes Guru Hargobind serving a eunuch
YarKhan. (ref was proudly shared by a sikh on twitter)
Gobind Singh followed Bahadur Shah to Deccan to fight for him.


In Zafarnama, Guru Gobind Singh states that the reason he was in conflict with the Hill Rajas was that while they were worshiping idols, while he was an idol-breaker.

And idiot Hindus place him along Maharana, Prithviraj and Shivaji as saviours of Dharma.
1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.