He spoke in Austin at an industry conference I was at.
What a cool guy. Not just because he brought his gold medals with him, but he literally talked about how he started his volleyball coaching career, which led him to coach the women’s team in the Olympics, by volunteering to coach his sons high school team after they went 0-31.
He spoke a lot about a fixed mindset as opposed to a growth mindset which I thought was very interesting [sounds like he is a voracious reader]. Do you think you succeed because you are smart or do you think you succeed because you work hard?
I asked him what questions he would ask a potential player to decide whether they would be a good fit to join his team.. especially if he couldn’t see them play or see their skill set.
He spoke to the idea of asking what someone is good at, not just what somebody wants to improve at. “Can you tell me 2 things you do really well,” which I thought was a very simple and elegant question. And also asking what are three things I can do to be a coach for you – which I thought was another great question.
He also had some great thoughts on gratitude and spoke about “making the mistake of waiting for the big things in life – weddings – births – etc. instead of all the simple great small things.”
Cool dude.
Simpletition - Shawn D. Madden 