In leadership as well as Coaching, we face competing truths all the time. You can have firm standards and still discover that you were wrong. There are multiple ways to teach and coach just about any skill. The coaches who keep growing are the ones who stay curious. They can hold that tension. However, this is often in conflict with their nature. Coaches tend to be pretty confident and sure about things.
One of the first assignments in my graduate program at Creighton University had us to reflect on a line from the author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald wrote that the test of a “first rate intelligence” is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still be able to function. That idea shows up every day in leadership and coaching. You need conviction, but you also need the humility to question your own assumptions and adjust
I was reminded of this recently as I went back through our podcast library and re-listened to my conversation wiht Joe Belden, the strength coach at Friends University. Joe talked about wanting to be inquisitive and hungry to learn more. If you have ever watched him coach, that curiosity is obvious. So is command of strength training, teaching, and communication.
He teaches with Clarity. He controls the room. He communicates in a way that makes complex movements easy to understand. He generates real enthusiasm because the way he coaches reflects mastery.
In the Impactful Coaching Project, we have seen a pattern in how coaches respond to early struggle. Some begin to doubt themselves and eventually walk away. Some blame their players and become rigid. Others stay humble, stay curious, and look for mentors who can make them better. Growth almost always comes from the third path. Long term success certainly does.
A useful way to think about this is the idea of expensive and inexpensive experience. Expensive experience is when you learn the hard way. You touch the hot stove even if someone warned you. Inexpensive experience is when you listen, adjust, and avoid the scar because someone else already learned it for you.
Great coaches provide inexpensive experience first. However, when the athlete is not ready to listen, experience eventually becomes the teacher. The key is knowing when to step back. That requires awareness, humility, and trust.
Joe understands that balance. He gives clear guidance and lets athletes choose their path. If they take a wrong turn, he allows the moment to teach them. One of my favorite things is when an athlete fights him on something or is disrespectful. He often just asks the kid to leave and tells them they’ll try again the next day. He is not afraid to confront mistakes or to make his own mistakes. He is patient enough to let experience do its work. That patience comes from confidence and curiosity, not from softness. Joe is as knowledgeable as anyone in the building and he still treats every day as an opportunity to learn. And, now, he’s as good as anyone.
If you want to hear the full conversation, here is the episode.
https://impactfulcoachingproject.substack.com/p/coach-joe-belden
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“Excellence is caring deeply and paying attention and repeated practice and learning from failure and staying curious and steadfast dedication and getting close and feeling deeply and showing up again and again—which is to say it’s a lot like Love.”
-Brad Stulberg
