Viking Coach

Hello to Shawn Grim! Shawn is Taylor Larson's uncle who works down in Minnetonka, MN and occasionally reads this blog. I bring his name up because he is the person who turned me on to the book above: "Raising An All-American" by Devin & George Durrant.

I just read the "forward" by Stephen A. Covey, who is a motivational writer/speaker that I admire greatly, and I am already excited about the book.

I love this kind of stuff and I feel the more books I read about success and how to attain the better I will be at helping the kids I coach understand that there are ways to help themselves be more successful in life. . . and if I can be successful with that message, the closer I come to realizing my ultimate goal of making a difference with my life.

I already used a thought of Covey’s in last night’s locker room. . . it deals with something I believe with my whole heart, mind and soul. . .it deals with the power we have to choose how we will approach every situation and how our response is ultimately our choice.

Stephen Covey wrote that what lies between an event and the response to that event is our “choice”.

Event - - - - - - - - - - CHOICE - - - - - - - - > Response.

One of my players was having a tough night shooting last night. At half time she came into the locker room with the “decision” that she would no longer be confident in her abilities. I believe her words were; “I just can’t. . .I don’t have confidence in my shot.” Her choice was to chose to be defeated. . . yeah she missed shots but everyone falls short of expectations at different times in their lives. The difference between achievers and non-achievers is in their choice of response.

This player could have chose to ignore the frustration of missing and focus instead on her next opportunity to do her best to put the ball in the basket. She could have “chose” to believe that the next shot would fall. Think about it. . . which choice has a better probability of producing the desired results?

It is pretty simple thought but oooooh so hard to train our minds to understand that we have control. But what a great lesson to learn and so I preached the principal of the power of choice and how we have the POWER to chose how we respond! If we can make it a habit to chose the positive response we create an attitude that is unstoppable!