The Power of Who...

I recently read The Power of Who by Bob Beaudine and found interesting his take on networking. Much of his book can be summed up by this statement..."you already know someone right now who knows the person who will help you achieve your goal or hire you or introduce you to the person you need to meet."

His whole idea is that we waste so much time networking and meeting new people and that what we really need to do is cultivate a few great friends. It is those 3-10 great friends (inner circle)who will ultimately help you. It may not be them directly, but someone they know or one of their inner circle's friends....if that makes sense.

Think of this. If you have 3-10 great friends, those people who will help you in most instances, each of them has 3-10 great friends. Out of that inner circle, you will have 3 close friends and 1 best friend. Of those 3-10, you will share some same friends, but ultimately the circle of influence gets bigger and bigger.

One of the biggest mistakes that we make in trying to get that position we would like to have is that we ask the wrong people. We often ask people that we have just met or someone in that field that we may barely know. He explains that we need not be afraid to ask the inner circle for help...it is imperative to start there.

I think it is a book that many people would like to read. It doesn't necessarily have to do with basketball or even the business world. It can be a book for you to better understand your own circle of influence. Your "Who" friends. Once you understand better how relationships can work, you can get many of the things that you thought were hard to gain. It may be something as complicated as a job, or as simple as someone being able to find you a new bed frame for your son.

Especially in today's Internet society (social networks), we are intertwined in so many ways, however, the best people to help you are those closest to you.

The Seven Secrets of Successful Coaches: By Jeff Janssen and Greg Dale

This is a great book on how to "unlock and unleassh your team's full potential". The entire book is dedicated to being a better coach, but the 7 Secrets are as follows:

1. All coaches must be character-based. Coaches should seek to do the right thing. They should be honorable people with high ethical standards and great integrity.

2. Successful coaches must be competent. They have a thorough understanding of strategies and fundamentals. They know how to make adjustments, and while they are often revered, they stay humble and keep success in perspective.

3. Successful coaches are caring. They care about their athletes as people. They want what is best and are willing to help in any way possible. This caring does not end when the career is over, but carries over into their lives after sports.

4. Successful coaches are committed. They create successful visions for their teams and are willing to put the time in required to make that happen.

5. Successful coaches are confidence-builders. They plant seeds of success in their athletes' minds and convince them that they can be successful.

6. Successful coaches are communicators. They are open, honest, and direct when communicating with individuals and the team.

7. Successful coaches are consistent. Credible coaches develop a sound philosophy of coaching. This philosophy remains stable over time, but they are flexible enough to adapt to changing situations or times.

This book is a great read for coaches, players and civilians.

Networking.....

Please feel free to email me your thoughts on the blog, basketball, or life. I would prefer emails with names. I am not a fan of anonymous emails, let's just call it experience.

Email me at phunter@wclark.k12.in.us , I would love to connect with people around the country and world who happen to be visiting what I call my "organized ignorance" blog.

Giving Back...

How often do we take the time to help others? How often do we take the time to even think about helping others? I am going to bet through personal experience and educated observation, not often for many of us. I know how hard trying to overcome selfishness can be because I do it daily. I have found that having children helps in this somewhat because every single day you practice giving to your children. If not, you aren't a very good parent.

But how often do we give with someone other than our own children?

It's funny how I personally developed. In my decade before the teen years, I was full of confidence. I was invincibile. I could jump ramps with my bicycle, play baseball or basketball all day, eat when I was hungry, fall out of a tree, and get up and keep going. I never thought about tomorrow because tomorrow was so far away. Life was fun and much of that is due to how great my parents were, but it is also because you are so young and don't know about the fears and worries of the world. I know we sometimes had money issues growing up, but I never knew about them and even if I did, I wouldn't have known what it meant. Life was great.

As I entered my teen years, I dealt with what most teens do. Self-esteem issues. For reasons I won't discuss here, I didn't have much self worth which was really dumb on my part. The things that did bring me that self worth were sports. I can still remember scoring well in a basketball game and defeating a big rival in junior high, and having the varsity basketball players come up to me and give me recognition. It didn't matter that I may not have all of the friends or girlfriends, that mattered to me and made me feel good. Which fueled my personal effort to get better to get that kind of attention again and again. What is interesting is that attention often fueled even more people of my age group to do or say things which injured my self esteem even more which fueled my work ethic, and so on....

Then when I entered my 20's, which I wouldn't do over again, it was all about finding myself. I was so focused on trying to figure out who I was and what I was going to do for the rest of my life, I was pretty worthless in the "helping others" aspect of life. In my 20's I went from knowing everything, to realizing that I knew nothing, to going to college, to dropping out, to going back again, and trying to do all of that and find someone to be with.

In my early 30's, I started to figure it out sometimes. I got the job that I wanted for years, married a beautiful, very good woman, had 2 children, and found my faith in Jesus Christ. It was during the end of that decade and now (40) that I know longer think about myself as often. My legacy will not be what I win or lose, my legacy will not be the money I gave or earned, my legacy will have everything to do with what I gave back.

I have grown to know many people, some very well and some distant acquaintances. The legacy I want to give is to forget about my self as often as possible and to help others. Sure, there will still be hints of selfishness because I am human, but what can I do to help others achieve their dreams (that just sounds inherently selfish as if I can help, but I will try)? I have found that more often than not it isn't about the money that you give and more about the time you give. I know growing up that we often didn't have all of the money in the world, but my parents were there...all...the...time. I am so thankful for that.

When it comes to the high school basketball team, I have tried often to get them to understand the idea of giving. More often than not, it is discussion we have about how the younger kids look up to them. I will point out instances where they look at them as if they were some famous movie star and one of the best things the basketball players can do is to just say hello. I have had the guys sign basketballs for sick students, sign thank you cards, attend showings at funerals, read to the elementary students, and thank fans individually and collectively for supporting us. I hope that it helps them to "get it" earlier than I did.

So, what will be your legacy of giving? Because I really believe that is what it is about. If you are a young person, be better than I was. Work on yourself, but find times and instances to give back to others. And if you are older and you haven't figured out yet that it isn't about you, then keep searching because it isn't about you....it really isn't.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Art of War is one of the oldest military treatise books in existence. I read this a few years ago because many basketball coaches were doing so. It was written by the Sun Tzu, and there is some debate if Sun Tzu was one man or many men. Many believe that the Sun Tzu were a lineage of military leaders who put their collective wisdom into written form for the first time. The Sun Tzu were located in northern China.

Quotes from The Art of War are italicized. Below are some of the excerpts from the book I found helpful.

The Sun Tzu says, "it is essential to know ourselves, to know our minds." I could not agree more. It is a lifelong journey that I started in my early 20's to try and know myself better. To reflect and understand the problems that I have in dealing with conflict which Sun Tzu believes is part of all life.

"Thus with one skilled at attack, the enemy does not know where to defend. With one skilled at defense, the enemy does not know where to attack." This is why it is important to be as skilled as possible on both ends of the basketball. A good defense and no offense will not win you games and have a good offense and no defense will also not win you games.

"Do not rely on their not coming. Rely on what we await them with. Do not rely on their not attacking. Rely on how we are unable to be attacked." Preparation, preparation, preparation!!!

"If one acts consistently to train the people, they people will submit. If one acts inconsistently to train the people, the people will not submit." This isn't saying, to me, that everyone should be treated equal, but consistently. If you are tough, you need to be tough with everyone about something. If you are light handed, you must also be that way with everyone in some manner.

All conflict requires that you know how to handle people. Whether it is people that you are competing against, or people that you are leading, you must handle them. It first begins with knowing yourself, being comfortable with yourself and being honest with yourself.

Henryville Basketball Mission Statement

Basketball at Henryville High School is a unique experience.

1. Mental Toughness: It will be demanding physically and mentally to prepare our young men for life.

2. Team: We will work together, struggle together, grow together and ultimately succeed together. We want their direction to be a positive direction if they can stay with us for four years.

3. Achievement: It is our purpose to help young men develop the ability to truly maximize their gifts in an environment where educational and athletic achievements are a priority.

4. The journey: It is the process that will make us successful. We will become aware of the importance of the vital personal relationships that really test and develop us.

5. What we do and how we do it: In the basketball program results are important in that they are a large part of defining excellence and determining the quality of what we do, and yet how we do things is as important as what we do.

6. The future: Development of the qualities of personal and team leadership, accountability to each other, perseverance in the face of adversity, singleness of purpose and an understanding of the importance of doing our best each day will help these young men lead lives of significance beyond their high school years.

I borrowed some of this from Coach Don Meyer, but adapted it to what I wanted for us. We often fall short in the above traits, but it is something that we strive for each day.