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113 - What a Season of Real Leadership Development Looks Like
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Every season, coaches name captains. Hand out the 'C.' Fire everyone up.
And then the season hits, and half the time, those captains don't know what to do with it.
Not because they don't care. Not because they're bad leaders.
Because nobody ever taught them how.
This episode is the story of what happened when I decided to change that.
I'm in the middle of my doctoral program in educational leadership — and this past season, I took my five high school lacrosse captains and put them through the same process I was going through myself. Pre-assessments. Eight structured leadership lessons. Post-assessments.
What came back surprised me.
We talk about what the research says about why captain development fails, what we actually did differently this season, what changed — and what didn't. Including the moment late in the season when one of my captains walked up to me unprompted and said four words that told me everything I needed to know.
If you're a coach who's ever wondered why your leaders lead great in practice and disappear when it matters, this one's for you.
Education - Captains & Coaches course, "Why They're Not Listening - Coaching Today's Athlete": http://listen.captainsandcoaches.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Vince Lombardi Quote
00:00:00
Speaker
Action! Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.
00:00:11
Speaker
Vince Lombardi.
Introduction to Captains and Coaches Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the Captains and Coaches podcast. We explore the art and science of leadership through the lens of athletics and beyond. I'm your host Tex McQuilkin and today we're talking about Capitancy.
Tex McQuilkin's Coaching Experience
00:00:23
Speaker
I've been coaching for a long time. Sport lacrosse at many levels. Middle school, high school, Division 3, Division 1. And I've got a lot of experience with leadership through sport.
00:00:35
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And there's one pattern I see it over and over it again when it comes to leadership and team competency.
Significance of Team Captains
00:00:42
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Every season, a captain is named, two captains, three captains, four, five.
00:00:49
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Whoever gets the honor, they put the C on their chest, get the vote from their team, their squad, the seal of approval from the people that they want leading them.
00:01:00
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Everyone's fired up. It's a big moment. Then season starts, adversity hits, and captains are hit with the first responsibility where they need to take charge and aim to turn things around. The coach's words, their voice is not enough anymore.
00:01:21
Speaker
The captain's got to step up. And almost every time at some point, one of those captains on that team, they crack. They go silent, they disappear, they may not ghost the whole team, but then they start to go through the motions and leave it to the rest of the captains to then pick up that weight and aim to save the season.
Struggles of Team Captains
00:01:46
Speaker
Those individuals, they avoid the hard conversations, they snap at teammates, they disappear when the team needs them the most. That could be within leadership or it could be within their play on the field.
00:02:01
Speaker
And sometimes they just completely reject the responsibility altogether and continue to go through the motions. I have many experience with this. Probably one of the most unique that I've had was with a high school. This is one of my first years working with this particular program. And we named a captain. He was an incredible athlete and a stud football player. So he missed the fall, but then steps up into the spring.
00:02:31
Speaker
And this particular team, we traveled away for spring. We did like a training camp at an awesome camp. So we're hanging out late night fires, waking up, working out, doing practices, lots of team building for a few days for weekend getaway.
00:02:48
Speaker
but he was recovering from his football season, senior football season. So then coach gave him the grace to step away. So I've been with this team for six months
Case Study: High School Captain's Resistance
00:03:00
Speaker
at this point. I never even met this individual.
00:03:02
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And I had and so installed warmup, installed different ah things that were against the grain from the previous years that he participated within the sport, but centered on discipline, consistency, and showing up.
00:03:18
Speaker
doing the small things properly. So then when he got to practice, it was a culture shock, quite literally, to his experience, including the dynamic warm-up.
00:03:30
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He was used to the just show up, stretch, count, or not even warm them up at all, just roll right into practice. So a specific long-term athletic development plan installed into a dynamic warm-up, he was an avidant.
00:03:47
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at all like just hilarious how much he hated and resisted this and then he tried to outsmart me He would show up 10 minutes late to practice with an excuse.
00:04:01
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And I honored the excuse because it was something connected to school, staying late, ah talking to teachers, assignments. And okay, that's what they got to do. It's a very difficult school in respect to schoolwork.
00:04:15
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So I accepted that. i was like, all right, let's let's get back into it. And...
00:04:22
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That didn't sit well with the rest of the team because they knew exactly what he was doing and they would go through this hard work.
Adjusting Practice Schedules as a Leadership Lesson
00:04:28
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And it a lot of resentment boiled up within the team.
00:04:32
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And finally, another captain, he just couldn't take it anymore, and informed me that the player was sitting in his truck and just waiting for our 10 minute warm up and conditioning block to be over and then trot down full gear to practice and then step right up into our stick work and our skill drills so yeah the whole team knew it they were upset about it and but the kid was just too good he was still playing in the games and despite so a lot of the the the behavior he was just that good so then
00:05:08
Speaker
finally um i was informed by another captain of this and that that doesn't fly with me so what i did was we changed our 10 minute warm up okay we moved our stick work ahead in practice now we're doing our skill work we're getting our chili hot getting our stick hot getting our feet warm doing all that moving and shaking Then as soon as the young man comes trotting all down jolly with some excuse, then we started our conditioning session. And I freaking hammered the team for 10 minutes of intensity because, hey, we're already warmed up.
00:05:46
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So threw hard work right at him because he was avoiding less hard work. We were ramping up. And that was that was too difficult for his... Or he was too good for it. I don't know.
00:05:59
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ah I even heard that he was embarrassed of our warm-up come game time because all the other teams that we're doing were static stretching. And he just felt weird and different. And he let that bother him versus... Okay.
00:06:13
Speaker
Focusing on yourself. Focusing on your game. And our team being light years ahead of the static stretchers. So... Yeah, a lot there. An interesting experience in that. And guess what?
00:06:28
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Just disappeared on the season. And that was unfortunate because we had a lot of dudes on the team. And the the person who was voted to take charge of the team just left them out to dry. So a lot of resentment there for him. The people that were trying.
00:06:46
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I mean, friendships were lost over where where and why he decided to to take on that. So, you know, for and I've ah thought about it, like what what happened?
00:06:59
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And I'm doing a lot of research now specific to high school and collegiate sports and in their frame of leadership. I'm in my doctorate program, so just diving in into the research and reflecting on all these interesting stories and honestly reflecting how I acted because freaking put the hammer down on the the team from an individual's behavior but still let it be known that my decisions were based off of his actions and his devaluing of his level, his competency, which i value you so much. and um you know that he was a good kid these were good kids a lot of people care and i remember the last game that we lost the dude is crying because his career is over and i just did not feel the same way because he had thrown so many practices even games just away because so i
00:08:01
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Man, I just don't understand. And it did bother me. And so reflecting on a lot of other stories similar to that where where and why the teams fall apart, where do these individuals and the weight of their, ah you know, maybe their social level on the team.
00:08:22
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just starts to pull the whole team down and the other captains down. Not necessarily with them, but just the energy to get them involved and to care took away from that play the other captains' play on the field.
00:08:38
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you know and it's It's obvious, but it's not. These individuals... and I'm reflecting on a lot of stories now, they weren't trained to be leaders.
Need for Formal Leadership Training
00:08:51
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we They were the coolest kids, most popular, or the best athletes, and then we put C's on their chest. But that that the training stopped, and the expectation was high. It was there.
00:09:03
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And, you know, come to think of it, neither were the coaches. Neither were we trained to then train them. We just assumed this. And... We were asking them to lead without ever teaching them, really just establishing expectations and then holding them to those expectations without the skills training, this the toolkit to do so.
00:09:29
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And we began every sports season with fundamentals and sports skills, but not fundamentals of leadership, of communication, of conflict resolution.
00:09:40
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So I've read a lot of great research over the past semester, three, four months here, and it's specifically within the college captains, and they consistently report feeling that they fall short of these expectations that coaches have for them, not because they don't care, but because they are they've never been trained. They haven't had formal leadership.
00:10:04
Speaker
So it's interesting that a lot of the research out there now is just identifying that there's a gap. Well, that's what we're doing here is trying to fill that gap in that leadership. And reflecting on another story, I did an internship at University of Texas football. I had two head strength coaches at the time. This is Mack Brown's ah era with University of Texas. So Jeff Maddog Madden and Coach Benny Wiley were the head strength and conditioning coaches for the team. And I was the, I guess, lead intern or most trusted. Couldn't tell you. There was no formal titles. titles
00:10:40
Speaker
But what Coach Madden did was very beneficial to me to learning about how coaches observe. So Coach Madden had his strength conditioning plan set for the entire summer.
00:10:51
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This is a summer internship. And what he didn't have set was the conditioning, the change of direction, the agility for the day. And what he would do was, okay, we run the strength session for an hour or so.
00:11:06
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give the athletes an opportunity to transition get the cleats on and get out to the field weight room in the football stadium right there connected and then i just had to stand right by coach madden and write down every single rep that the bigs the smalls everyone was doing and then go in type it into the computer and then he built his whole summer training book for for that year based off of a feel and direction so we had nothing planned just an idea and then would ask us to you get it set up get it rolling and then i had to dictate everything that we did so there was a long walk and anybody that knows coach madden takes a sweet time from going place to place and i mean that respectfully so
00:11:54
Speaker
I wanted to take full advantage of this time that I had with this this legend in the game. So I would take that sweet walk with him from the field back into the weight room, back towards his office, and just ask him questions.
00:12:08
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And one of the questions, this is University of Texas, this is me growing up watching Vince Young, Colt McCoy, legends, go to win a national championship, go to a national championship.
00:12:20
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So I asked him, because he was their strength coach, how he developed leadership. How do you develop develop leaders in your in your locker room, in the weight room?
00:12:31
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And his response, candidly, was, you don't train them. Can't train them. You recruit them. So referencing, and and i wanted, okay, well, what do you do if you don't recruit leaders? He's like, no, no.
00:12:47
Speaker
Vince Young, born leader. Colt, born leader. So he was under the the experience to then give these born leaders reps on reps on reps of leadership opportunity.
00:13:01
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And they would get that at schools like the University of Texas. Well, not every school is the University of Texas that can recruit people. those leaders those guys that have the the instinct the opportunities before that to then step into college and then take over teams as freshmen as those those two quarterbacks did So that was one of the memories and the questions that I had for Madden that just, I could i ah thought he instilled some training and was just shut down, funny. And i mean, he's right with, you go recruit it, so you don't have to worry about training it. And you can focus on, you know, training football players and and turn them into freaks in the weight room and stuff. So,
00:13:43
Speaker
that Just a funny story aside. So most of us, we're not selecting finished leaders. We're in the position to develop them. So...
00:13:56
Speaker
this This past season, I started my doctorate program and lacrosse season at the same time. That's a lot. And what I decided to do, because one of my courses was an introduction to organizational leadership or leading an organization, something like that, I had to take a lot of questionnaires and quizzes about my self-assessment of my leadership traits or how I felt my leadership traits ranked on scales of one to five.
00:14:25
Speaker
Likert scale. So I was filling out all these questionnaires and I got the idea that, okay, well, we just nominated captains. I'm curious where they assess themselves.
00:14:37
Speaker
Again, this is my first year with this program. So another rack of football dudes that I've limited experience with, I'm going to throw some questionnaires at them, see where their gaps are,
00:14:49
Speaker
and then guess what we're going to do we're going to meet weekly if you've following this podcast i did eight week series on what the lessons that i was teaching them were so we started the season with these questionnaires and surveys then went through eight weeks of training and guess what i did i'm a researcher now so i re-administered those questionnaires and found some cool stuff so Yeah, it's it's been an interesting thing. And the
00:15:25
Speaker
the thought was like, okay, finally we're installing some training for these captains. And i I believe based
New Leadership Training Program
00:15:33
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off my experience coaching at many different programs throughout the city and different levels, I mean, we're one of the only ones that is truly investing in these young men as leaders.
00:15:43
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And then the ultimate stress test of gains, you get to see where they go. Are they progressing? Did they hold on to the lesson when the going got tough? So.
00:15:55
Speaker
take took these five captains, gave them pre-assessments, eight leadership lessons, and then post-assessments. And this is essentially the, I wouldn't call them my findings, my experience throughout this season where we don't stop, where we stop assuming leadership and actually start training it.
00:16:18
Speaker
And I mean, here's the problem many teams face, that they they don't lose because of talent. They lose because of poor communication, lack of accountability, unresolved conflict that boils up and eventually reaches an explosion point with the team.
00:16:38
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And the...
00:16:43
Speaker
I mean, teammates, they, I mean, boys are going to be boys. They're going to show up late. They're going to forget stuff. And so now it's opportunities for us to practice conflict, practice how we're speaking to them and you know Watching them be friends and now it's peer-to-peer leadership that gets tested.
00:17:06
Speaker
And sometimes friendship won and I had to remind them, hey, or step in and then take over to discipline the team for an individual's behaviors.
00:17:18
Speaker
but then always, always aim to close the loop on what the decision was that I made. Or posed opportunities for them to make decisions, see the, ah I won't call them ah consequences, the end results of their decisions, and then bring it up in a conversation. Hey, well, we set a standard at the beginning the season, and then based off of this particular game,
00:17:45
Speaker
You wanted that individual in the game because it gave us a good chance to win. What happened because of that decision? So that all of these conversations, it wasn't just lessons. It was react not reactions. It was reflections and allowing them to to hold the mirror up at times, quite literally, because one of our lessons was hold the mirror up.
00:18:10
Speaker
Sometimes the friends want. Within there, the friendship won and the that was put before the team, which was interesting. And that I mean, that's that's real life where you are working with your friends. You are on teams with your friends. Can you have conflict and push each other to grow and get better?
00:18:32
Speaker
without dropping your standards because once the the standards are dropped for one individual but not another this is where resentment builds and locker rooms fracture from the inside out some some bullet points from research there's a lot of cool stuff going to be pulling into the podcast for sure and that leadership is not a a single trait i mentioned sure we did questionnaires on different leadership traits But leadership in itself, it is a process.
Shared Leadership Benefits
00:19:03
Speaker
Leadership is their growth. It is becoming self-aware. Some of the surveys, they rank themselves very high in a particular trait to start the season.
00:19:14
Speaker
And then even though i had so more they had more experience and more training on it, then we saw the score go down. I took that as a win because they became more self-aware And they had more tools to then consciously think about their their direction or how they approach different things. So I i took that decrease in score as a win of self-awareness versus, oh, no, the the the lessons did the opposite. The lessons made them worse.
00:19:44
Speaker
And the interesting thing, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before, that teams function best with shared leadership. So how I approach that with the team captains, we had team standards, but also assigned them different roles for different times at practice or different momentum shifts and changes.
00:20:05
Speaker
There's particular guys that are better at taking over and redirecting a team. And then there's also consistency within this. OK, well, where do we want the consistent leader? Where do we want the the passionate leader to then step up?
00:20:20
Speaker
Because if they're using their strengths at the wrong time, well, it's not going to have the the force multiplying effect that we can if we assign five different roles for the five different strengths of the the captains in place.
00:20:35
Speaker
So that that was an interesting concept the through research, the value of shared leadership. And the big one, conflict is not a problem. Conflict is opportunity in a confined environment of practice.
00:20:52
Speaker
Most people would think conflict where there are frustrations, where there are fist to cuffs, fights at practice as a negative thing. But that's good. We are using with referees, with coaches this time to then shape, get the conflict out and come closer together.
00:21:09
Speaker
Conflict is not the enemy. Unmanaged conflict is that silent quitting, not bringing up problems to leaders. That is a problem.
00:21:21
Speaker
So most trade programs, they aim to eliminate and sweep it under the rug, make it disappear instead of training for it. So every conflict that I observed aimed to at least close the loop or provide, give me more context to help me understand why this is happening. And I can hopefully provide some mentorship there. And I often go back to a children's book about a dragon.
The Dragon Metaphor for Conflict Management
00:21:48
Speaker
So there's a little boy, he sees a dragon underneath his bed, he tries to tell his parents and his parents, they just ignore it. They tell him it's not real, don't worry about it. And guess what happens to the dragon?
00:22:00
Speaker
It goes from under the bed, now it grows and grows and it just takes over the whole house. And then at the end of the book, the parents are still not willing to acknowledge this dragon. It's a metaphor that has actually happened on teams. If they chose to ignore it, that dragon just burns the team alive.
00:22:18
Speaker
If you see something, you got to say something. So this is what we did. We didn't just name captains. We trained them for eight weeks. Check out the podcast series I did on on the lessons, sharing them with you. i went a little bit more in depth with you.
00:22:37
Speaker
i had 15 minutes once a week with these guys and then gave them tools to practice ah during practice and games. And then one-on-one training. Sides, i won't call them conversation sides. When I see something, I said something to try to close the loop and and help reflect on a lesson that the kids were learning.
00:22:59
Speaker
So... One of my favorite ones and probably the most effective that we had was the three T's. Tone, target, and timing. If your teammate is teammate is loafing, when do you say something?
00:23:14
Speaker
Now, timing. Time's gotta be here. You can't not say anything and then just go tell coach that they're not doing this. Or just talk trash about them on the side that they never do this.
00:23:25
Speaker
But when you saw them do it at practice and you didn't say anything, you are still responsible. So they may not be aware of the mistake that they're making. And then do you call out the behavior or do you call out the person?
00:23:40
Speaker
This was another thing. We are teaching young men conflict, giving them tools for conflict. If they're calling out the person, that's very pointed. and directed at them.
00:23:52
Speaker
And more often than not, the self-awareness is low that the kid that's calling out and being very pointed, he doesn't he's calling out somebody for the stick and doesn't see the log in their eyes.
00:24:03
Speaker
Low self-awareness. So they are calling out the target, the person, it's so pointed, versus the behavior and the identity of, hey, winning teams finish through the line, winning teams touch the line, we're a winning team.
00:24:21
Speaker
Good players do this. You didn't do that. You're a good player. I need to see that from you. So we're raising expectations and calling out the behaviors. And this is where we started to to build culture.
00:24:32
Speaker
Because we're not finger pointing and blaming people. We're holding people accountable for their actions, their behaviors, their decisions, and how it reflects the culture and meets the culture.
00:24:45
Speaker
So that is target. And then are you coaching them up are you leading them or you just frustrated letting your frustrations out and tonality talk about self-awareness tonality for young men got plenty of reps they may have said the right thing at the right time but then they sounded like a freaking jerk so how's how's somebody going to take that fight flight freeze depending on that captain's tone so tone target and timing very valuable lessons and
00:25:20
Speaker
you um You almost maybe not see people come closer together, but not start to drift apart and have the the young bucks just be resentful of the leaders that do want it more because they can count the rest of their games on their hands.
00:25:36
Speaker
So, the and I repeat this often at practice, and I've said it on the podcast here, leadership takes reps. Yes, we talked about tone, but...
00:25:47
Speaker
becoming self-aware of your tone, and then having the social awareness to read how my tone or what I said affected another person. That takes a lot of reps.
00:26:00
Speaker
So just like our skills, of of lacrosse shooting defense whatever it may be sport agnostic takes reps to develop so does leadership so what changed for our team i i felt confidence even though the scores may have gone down in certain leadership traits the confidence of what to do when to step up that was a big thing they were starting to step into conversations instead of dance around them there was also accountability
00:26:32
Speaker
If they made a mistake, it was awesome to see them take responsibility for that. Instead of coaches telling them that they made mistake, then they they presented that they make mistakes. So it went from coach-driven to player-driven.
00:26:49
Speaker
and accountability on on certain things, that that was amazing to see without being you know poked or asked the old, I mean, all of us have been in tough conversations with with leadership or parents where they know the end of the story and they're leading you through certain questions and you just refuse to answer them and take responsibility at times.
00:27:17
Speaker
These guys weren't putting up the blame, complain, palms up, or getting defensive. It was accepting responsibility for certain decisions. And guess what? Next time they're faced with that choice, they know how it feels to freaking make the wrong choice, accept the responsibility, feel guilty about it, and then hopefully make a better decision next time.
00:27:41
Speaker
How I would describe this season in four words, it's a year of work. Super proud of the the captains and the team, the leadership people in place for being willing to learn and then take these opportunities every single day that they had to lead and get better at it.
00:28:00
Speaker
And a kid who can see themselves clearly, that self-awareness, and they hold themselves accountable before anyone else does, that kid doesn't need a coach anymore. They don't need the mentor. They can take charge of the team. That frees up leadership, coaches, other captains, to then go shape, capture, mold other behaviors that are going on.
00:28:26
Speaker
so that's That's what you like to see is handing off that accountability to others. That is the goal of what we're coaching for. Yes, to win as many games as possible and instill responsible decision-making, confidence, tools to to manage conflict and confrontation in a progressive way that's not going to destroy ah a friendship, a relationship, or a team.
00:28:51
Speaker
That's what we're doing. So some things... Throughout the season, they didn't change. So this is where I go back to the drawing board and think about the different lessons, tools, opportunities, target, and timing for what I'm talking about.
00:29:08
Speaker
Sometimes under pressure of some big games, they regressed back to old habits or regressed in age. I did a podcast on this based off of one of my reflections, and i dove into trap back into child development research, Piaget's,
00:29:26
Speaker
four stages of development, well, they showed and proved to me that they can be this person in stage four that's very logic-based and can make the right decision. But then when the tough got going or we were down or losing or conditioning was low and it was in a third, fourth quarter, they regressed to some bad behaviors.
00:29:48
Speaker
Well, that's natural to go from level four, Piaget has got it, to level three, concrete thinking. Well, now me as a coach, okay, well, I know we're tired. We were just playing defense for three freaking minutes in a row. That kid's been on the field the whole time. Well, now I can help be his decision-making because he's in read and react mode. He's in concrete thinking where I would used to think, okay, I'm just going to go let him fail and we could talk about it on the film.
00:30:16
Speaker
I don't want to be a joystick coach. Well, in this situation, I don't want them to blow up and lose the team. I don't want them to make a poor mistake. I can go and talk through and truly conduct or coordinate or joystick, whatever it is, to make them as so aware as they can because they're in concrete thinking mode.
00:30:35
Speaker
Then when they get off the field, they can get a breather. And when they're ready to talk about what happened, we can talk about it. So i dove into more research, understanding, giving lessons to you as well that I aim to apply for the next game.
00:30:52
Speaker
So regression, guys, is going to happen. And I don't view regression under pressure as as pressure. I don't view regression under pressure as failure. I view it as data.
00:31:05
Speaker
One for the lessons I'm teaching and their stage of development and learning. I don't label them where to they where they fell again. Now I've seen what they can do, so I hold them to a high expectations in a mentor manner.
00:31:21
Speaker
So it tells us where we need to go in our next training when we do fail. And it's game film, literally, because this happened in a game. So we can go back and watch it when we're calm and show them exactly where they made the mistakes, the behavioral mistakes.
00:31:38
Speaker
Cool thing about how we're filming games right now, it's behind our bench. So there are certain angles you get to see and hear the bench. So as a big behavior guy,
00:31:51
Speaker
certain times, turning the volume up and highlighting that versus just sticking to the plays. Huddle, this is a technology that cuts up game film for us. need you to listen for curse words and mark those instead of just goals and turnovers, please. Okay.
00:32:07
Speaker
All right. So we can watch it and get back to work. So huge takeaways. Teams don't fail because of lack of talent. They fail because leadership is assumed at the beginning, not developed throughout.
Integrating Leadership Training in Coaching
00:32:21
Speaker
And then more often than not, something is going to break the team apart. And winning covers a lot of that up. But you can't win forever.
00:32:33
Speaker
You're going to reach a boiling, that boiling point is going to turn into a breaking point potentially come playoff time when you are facing a very clean cut proper team.
00:32:45
Speaker
So ah effectively, i want to emphasize the value to the coaches and leaders that are listening to teach leadership explicitly. Make it a part of your practice plan. What are we focused on today and where?
00:33:02
Speaker
Train conflict. If there is conflict on the team, let it happen. Listen to what's going on and then provide direction. Don't just break it up and tell them to stop.
00:33:15
Speaker
Can we hug it out? I'm big entourage guy, right? Can we get to a point where we can hug it out? This is going to build conflict reps. It's going to actually bring your team closer together because you're aware of the conflict and we're working through it versus trying to pretend that it's not there or sweep it under the rug because we as coaches don't want to face conflict.
00:33:37
Speaker
This is transferring ownership to our team. If only the coach owns the standard set at the beginning of the season, the team is not invested, then it dies when you're not in the room.
00:33:51
Speaker
If the players own it, it travels. And I'll tell you this, your team is not one conditioning test, one disciplinary run away from winning or changing their behavior.
00:34:05
Speaker
A true step, a proper step in the right direction, is they may be one conversation away. So PSA to the coaches, if you get so frustrated with your team at times that you have to go make them run just to get away from you, or you think that's going to fix their behavior, that's more of a you problem.
00:34:28
Speaker
It's difficult for you to have the tough conversation. You don't have the tools to then call them out and then teach them why what they're doing is wrong. They are teenagers. They are 20-somethings with unformed brains. You are an adult.
00:34:44
Speaker
So if you're getting so frustrated, you've got to go make them run. That's a you problem. How can you increase your self-awareness? How can you increase your social awareness? How are you able to to build the tools to have a tough conversation?
00:34:59
Speaker
So we stop wasting time and practice and effort on fixing this behavior, and we can get on track and improve our skills.
Empowering Players to Own Team Standards
00:35:09
Speaker
So you're one conversation away from fixing this.
00:35:13
Speaker
And if you keep on disciplining them for your lack of tools, you're going lose the team real quick. And that's unfortunate for for everybody in that scenario. So if there's one captain who knows how to hold the standard When you're not in the room, that's what I want you to go build.
00:35:34
Speaker
And they are able to potentially just have the confidence to say something when someone on their team is going to go make a bad decision off the field.
00:35:46
Speaker
That's what we're trying to build in Sensei Everything. So...
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:35:51
Speaker
that That does it for this show. A lot of reflection here. I encourage everybody, if you have not, to go listen to those eight lessons that built up to hand it off to my captains. It was a fun experience. I'm happy to hand off the the the surveys, the questionnaires that I had them.
00:36:11
Speaker
Go ahead. Just shoot me an email text at captainsandcoaches.com. uh yeah not holding anything back from giving to you guys i encourage you also rate review ah Do all that good stuff that helps grow the podcast. And then all my show notes I deliver in my newsletter weekly.
00:36:30
Speaker
You can sign up to that at newsletter.captainsandcoaches.com. So grateful to all of you for tuning in and listening to this. Grateful to our sponsors at Train Heroic.
00:36:42
Speaker
Definitely check them out. Awesome training platform for strength and conditioning coaches to deliver. strength and conditioning to people. Yeah, that's all I got. So thank you for tuning in. It's a late night right now after practice.
00:36:57
Speaker
We've got playoffs this weekend I'm excited for. So I want to see all these lessons pay off as much as y'all do. Thank you for tuning in and you.