From Playground to Professional: The Influence of Youth Sports on Emotional Resilience and Collaboration

As a child, I remember the sting of a coach's critique and the swell of pride with each hard-fought win on the field. Little did I know, those early lessons in teamwork and resilience were shaping the professional I would become. In our latest episode, we explore the intricate web of how youth sports experiences cast a long shadow over our workplace behaviors and attitudes. With a mix of personal stories and expert insights, we reveal the lasting influence of those formative years and consider the implications of our actions, especially in today's social-media-fueled world.

Have you ever paused to consider the power your emotional reactions hold over your personal and professional relationships? We dive into the heart of emotional interpretation, a concept crucial to understanding both our parenting styles and workplace dynamics. Drawing from Tasha Eurich's enlightening research on self-awareness, we dissect the critical skill of handling feedback and adversity—a skill first honed in the schoolyards and sports fields of our youth. Our discussion peels back the layers on how these early interactions with authority figures, from coaches to teachers, prime us for the triumphs and trials of adult life.

Wrapping up, we turn our attention to the art of communication and the construction of strong relationships underpinned by resilience and a growth mindset. You'll hear actionable strategies that can redefine criticism as opportunities, transforming the way we lead and collaborate. Bearing witness to my daughter Bridget's journey to becoming relentlessly helpful, we highlight the profound impact of nurturing resilience and grit from a young age. This episode isn't just a conversation; it's a call to action for parents, educators, and leaders to foster a society that thrives on mutual growth and constructive dialogue. Join us as we unite to deliver a master class in personal development that begins with the lessons learned on the playground.

Welcome to Coaching Conversations

We have created a NEW service called Coach 2 YOU where leaders can assist short targeted 7 to 21 day programs to coach their employees without ANY of their own time to truly partner and assist in the coaching process. Get more info here: https://form.jotform.com/233504052497051

Check out my profile and under "Featured" we are now providing a Free Coaching course "6 Steps to Build a High Performing Coaching Culture" and asking for people who register to help share through our new system!

Check it out: https://lnkd.in/d6-3u382

Free Course Access: https://lnkd.in/dHAStBEM

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hi everybody, tim Hagen from Progress Coaching and as many of you know who are my loyal listeners, one of my passions is coaching youth sports and I've coached volleyball on and off for about 30 years and I think youth sports and we talk about it. Obviously there's an industry that talks about it. It's a great teaching tool for kids. Yet it also reveals what's wrong in the workplace. You know, I was just on a call with one of our clients and I was meeting with an HR director and she was telling me of a story, of something that happened at her kids basketball game and I smiled and she said why are you smiling? I said, oh, I've been through it, I've seen it all, from yelling at refs, from parents yelling at coaches for playing time. And I said it just is what we inherit in the workplace. And she stopped and gave me this funny look and she said that's really interesting. And I said think about it. We inherit almost eight to 10 years of non-professional feedback behaviors. She said that is an interesting way to put it. I said yes, we have not been taught. We have been really taught non-professional feedback behaviors. We spend so much time on calculus and trigonometry and history and those are important topics. I don't profess that they shouldn't be taught. I'm not saying that. So this master episode I'll even call it a master class teaches us how youth need to be coached to enter the workplace, literally eight to 10 years later, because those eight to 10 years we are cultivating poor work habits. Now let me share with you what triggered this episode.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Recently I was reading a magazine article and a young lady posted on Twitter for a software company her termination and I'm watching this and it was uncomfortable. They weren't giving her answers. She was at the company only four months and she was in a sales job. She hadn't made a sale. When the HR department said we're going to part ways with you, she goes I'm going to stop you right there. And it taught something. It teaches us all something. Now, whether her termination is fair or unfair, we don't really have context, but the fact of the matter is she immediately took over the call. I'm going to stop you there. By the way, I'm videotaping this Now. Nobody's going to say it. I'll say it. Why would you ever hire her? There would be fear of something, go out into the viral world and, by the way, she hadn't made a sale. So the point being, running a business is hard. There are no perfect answers, but we have become a very litigious social society. If I don't like something, I'm going to post it. Now what happens if the employer posts something about the employee saying we're letting so and so go? Today she's not performing. There would be lawsuits. What has happened to our society?

Speaker 1: 3:47

Now, this young lady may have had reasons to feel upset, and I get that. Yet what is she hoping to achieve? It's always like when you think about these reality shows, these dating shows, isn't it amazing? They're all good-looking people and I always asked my wife. I said how come they can't get a date? That makes no sense to me. They're there for other reasons. This young lady videotaped it for reasons other than just doing the right thing. In four months, she had that much animosity against her employer to videotape it. I remember at one of our client sites a young gentleman did the same thing Videotape determination, posted it on Facebook. Later ran into him and wanted to use me as a reference. He said there's no way I would give you a reference. I don't want my name associated with that.

Speaker 1: 4:41

So why does this occur? Let's think about our youth. Let's think about sports. We get on a team and I often have been famous for writing this article what youth sports teaches us about the workplace? One of the pictures I put in is a silhouette. What a parent sees is a silhouette of one person or one kid. I put underneath the caption my kid. Then I have another one. What a coach sees, it's a silhouette of five or six silhouettes of kids who are playing. It says the team. That's what a coach sees. Right there there is a contradictory set of expectations. Many parents will say I really go and watch all the kids play. No, we really watch for our kid. Of course we watch for our kid. And when our kid is not in the game, what do we look for? We look at how they're feeling. So I want to introduce a couple concepts and again, hopefully this is a masterclass to help not only from a parenting, from a coaching perspective, yet to also realize what we get in the workplace.

Speaker 1: 5:48

So there's a tool that we teach called emotional interpretation. Emotional interpretation is when we interpret what's going on emotionally, we react to it. So when that young lady got fired, what was her first reaction? I'm going to stop you right there. She didn't really even know the reasons, then later complained she wasn't given reasons and she wasn't Yet did she really make it, inviting to receive the reasons. Did HR pull back and thought, ugh, we might have a litigious situation here. She's really upset. Let's not give her reasons. That will fuel her anger even more. We absolve ourselves of those behaviors.

Speaker 1: 6:29

So in the last two weeks I have been talking to parents, clients, and we get into the subject of youth sports and it's one of my favorite topics and I think about what we're going through in society. One person told me that she was at a basketball game. This kid was getting angry when he got fouled really good player and ended up picking up a kid and body slamming him because he got fouled and his dad yelled something to the effect of get him Like, get him, Kill him. What is wrong with that situation? Also heard of another situation and this is just in my local community where a referee was hit from the back to the side of his head, punched, because he was making bad calls during the basketball game. So let me fast forward Now. This is not everybody, no wonder.

Speaker 1: 7:22

Is this episode designed to say look at what's wrong with everything in youth sports? That's not the objective. It's designed to be thought provoking so we can all create a better experience yet, more importantly, prepare our kids for the workplace. So, when you think about kids who are in youth sports, we don't talk about it enough. We talk a lot about playing time, but we don't talk enough about grit, resilience, teamwork, grit, guts, resilience, intensity, tenacity, resilience, overcoming change and challenge, teamwork, being a great teammate.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Now I want to introduce you to that concept emotional interpretation. See, there's this notion. Parents live through their kids. That's not it. What parents do is they fail to understand their emotional reaction. They're watching their kids struggle, so they want to go solve it. It's uncomfortable for us to watch our son or daughter sit and maybe look disappointed, which is also a reflection of what we're teaching and our parenting. We may not want to admit it.

Speaker 1: 8:35

I remember when my kid was not playing much in basketball. I said to him. I said, liam, you have a choice. You can sit back and look pissed off, or you can lean forward and tell the coach whenever you need me, I'm ready to go in. That will trigger his view of you whether to put you in the game Now. It's not a fast and tried rule. It doesn't work all the time. Yet you should sit forward. What happens in the workplace when somebody gets promoted and you went for the job? Are we honestly happy for that other person or do we get pissed off until three other people? He really wasn't qualified. I can't believe they gave him the job.

Speaker 1: 9:14

We hear it all the time 71% of people, according to the Gallup organization, 71% are neutral or actively disengaged, meaning they're negative. In the workplace, leaders have it tough. Now that does not absolve leaders from poor leadership or poor management. It's also called life. I often tell people what's the greatest thing your kid could have during their childhood. He's a crappy teacher and coach and I've said that and I'll get these weird looks from parents like what are you talking about? I said seriously. It teaches them what they're going to get in life. I'll ask you a question Would you want to manage your coach? You is your attitude always upbeat.

Speaker 1: 10:07

So when you're at work, do you talk about the positive things your leaders and organization do, or do you complain of what they're not doing? So when the youth Go through a sports experience and we'll use sports, but when the youth go through that we have to also realize that they go through that and there's a number of things at play here teamwork, individual performance, practice getting better. What happens when they go through junior high school, high school, maybe, college? That's eight to ten years. Do you know, during that timeframe, not once have Any of the people during that tenure gone through a semester-long course and how to pursue feedback professionally, thoughtfully and plausibly? Think about that. They enter this thing called the workplace. Guess what happens? They start getting feedback, they start getting insight, they start getting mentoring, they start getting trained, they start hearing things they don't like and they react to it.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Now this young lady in the video. She was prepared. She put a caption in the video. I had to compose myself for 15 minutes before. She was not composing herself, she was getting ready for an argument. Now let me add some further context. I had somebody at one of our client sites not get a job. She was on a shop floor. I love sharing the story. She was on a shop floor of a manufacturing company and she was talking about how it was unfair, the interview process, and she was telling three people In the lunchroom that during the interview the guy attacked her. That's a verbatim quote. Well, the guy just attacked me, the whole interview attacked, by the way now I don't know what you're Thinking right now or what's going through your mind, but the word attacked is not a very calm word. It's not one that typically represents in the interview.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Let's go back to emotional interpretation. Emotional interpretation when you think about it, it really teaches us a lot of different things. So when you think about emotional interpretation, we first have an emotional reaction. Then we have an interpretation of what was said, then we articulate our responses, or maybe don't articulate, and then there's an emotional reflection. We actually have something called the Ryder assessment our eye a, our reaction, interpretation, articulation, reflection. In that moment most people Don't calmly react, most people emotionally react. When we get feedback, we don't calmly think to ourselves.

Speaker 1: 13:07

You know what my attitude does stink. We tend to come up with reasons like well, give me, give me an example. We don't really want an example. We want an example so we can situationally explain it away and rebuttal so that initial emotional reaction Put a chain of events into play. So I always go back to one fundamental thing, and I share this with people in the Work world as well the push pull effect, the way you interact. Are you pulling people towards you or pushing them away. Think about someone with a really crappy attitude. They come into a room. Do you walk towards them or you walk away from them? Typically we walk away. Now here's the worst part Great study done by a lady, tasha Yurk, who talks about self-awareness.

Speaker 1: 13:57

There isn't a person in the world that'll say I gotta let you know, my attitude stinks. It's gonna be pretty crappy the next couple months. Just want to let everybody know in her study, 95% of the people during the survey process said they were highly self-aware. When she tested them, she found out Only 10% were. That means 85% of people significantly lack self-awareness. I promise you, I know I do. I know you do. You have Blind spots.

Speaker 1: 14:27

So what do we do? Sometimes we got to get feedback and we got to just be quiet and Listen and realize, wow, that's a perspective somebody has. Doesn't mean you have to agree with it. Doesn't mean you have to immediately dismiss and disagree with it. So what happens during the youth when we don't have a good teacher? Do you know how often we use phrases such as why don't think the teacher likes my kid? That is the most ridiculous comment you can ever make. Can you imagine somebody saying you know, I really want to go into higher education. I want to teach junior high school kids because I just want to hate them. It doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1: 15:09

Number two coaching. How often do we hear parents say well, I just don't think it's fair. Now, when the kid hears that and the kid hears it, by the way guess what happens? The kid goes into a stratosphere. Yeah, it's not me. This is really unfair. Welcome to the world of victims. So now, from youth sports to high school, to college, we have cultivated eight to 10 years of blind spots, of not looking in the mirror, cultivating the lack of self-awareness, avoidance of feedback acceptance. We have now created non-professional feedback behaviors. So you know what we do, boy. Do we complain about leadership? Leadership's tough. You know, I once did something at one of our parent meetings when I was coaching volleyball and I said to the parents I will change the lineup to anybody's liking.

Speaker 1: 16:24

You just write out the lineups and I'll do exactly what you say. The parents were looking at me like well, this is weird. Normally there's a policy about playing time and we have a 24-hour rule before you can approach the coach. I didn't do that. I had a couple rules I don't take texts, I don't take phone calls. I don't take emails. I do it face to face. If you want to deal with conflict, become skilled at conflict. But there's a number one rule. I always did actually two rules. Number one when I had that parent meeting, that was my rule. I will change the lineups to any parents liking, anytime you want. I just left it there.

Speaker 1: 16:59

I knew somebody was going to always ask the question. Someone would say, well, how can you do that? I mean, how would that work? I said, well, just tell me if your kid wants to play more. Just tell me that you want your kid to play more and I'll change the lineups for you. I don't want to fight about playing time. So I'm actually using the normal objection from parents against them. And one parent will raise their hand and say, well, how would you do that? And I said, oh, I forgot the number one rule. I'm sorry. When you change the lineups, just get the approval of all the rest of the parents on the team. Everybody breaks out laughing. Little did they know they're laughing at themselves. I said I will change the lineup Now.

Speaker 1: 17:38

The other thing I also reserve the right is that when you come and talk to me, it's not private, it's public. You're all going to talk about me and what I'm doing right or wrong and you talk in the stands because my wife and my friends who sit in the stands hear you. You should see the heads go down. I said so whatever you come to me about your kids playing time, I'm just going to reserve the right to share it publicly. And I'll have a mom raise her hand and say well, that makes that really uncomfortable. I said then I wouldn't come, let me do my job. You were not hired to coach. I was hired to coach. I am highly skilled in coaching volleyball. If you are, I would love some help, but I'd like to see your resume. And the group starts laughing. So what happens is in that moment. That's what I would do. That's the first thing I did.

Speaker 1: 18:24

I also say in the form of conflict, when a parent would come to me and say I'm really getting upset. Remember emotional interpretation. I'm upset, I'm emotional. They're upset and emotional about something they don't even have an answer to and actually the answer is already in their household. As coaches, as teachers, continually provide feedback. Now I will give you the rule of three to one. Give three doses of positive feedback for every constructive feedback, not to avoid constructive feedback, but to gain momentum and trust within the relationship.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Let's be candid. In 31 years I asked this question when somebody is called into the office. They are called into the office by the boss. What's the employee's first impression? Do you know? I've never had a positive response to that question. In webinars with thousands of people clients it's always uh-oh, what did I do wrong? Because we have conditioned that. So what leaders have an opportunity to do? What parents have an opportunity to do is to understand the power of progress. When you share with somebody what they did well and, yes, commending them for being a great teammate and cheering for the kids that were actually in the game, reward that effort because you will condition that effort.

Speaker 1: 19:51

If you go to the coach and your kid will know what happens, you start playing more as a child. Do you really feel like you've earned it Now? You don't even feel good about the playing time because the parents have orchestrated it. Or if the coach pushes back and the parent gets upset remember emotional interpretation While your coach just wouldn't listen to me, guess what happens? The kid starts to cultivate the belief system. Yeah, you know what it is in me. I'm pretty good, I should be playing in front of Johnny or Susie. What happens is this starts to cultivate a set of behaviors over time.

Speaker 1: 20:31

I'll never forget my son got cut from baseball freshman year and I had a number of adults reach out to me and say, hey, you know, and my son really enjoyed baseball. We really. You know, maybe you should go to the coach. The coach was a gentleman by the name of Jack Freeze, and Jack is still a good buddy of mine today. His son is a client of mine at the Milwaukee Brewers. And I didn't really have any attempt to do that because I thought to myself okay, I go to the coach. Let's say I'm successful. My kid would be ostracized, he wouldn't feel like he earned it, he wouldn't be deserving and other kids would hold it against him, maybe justifiably so. So certainly I did not talk to Jack about it. Now Jack and I have gone to baseball games since that time when Liam got cut Till this day. We've never talked about it.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Let me be candid with you. Was it easy? No, did I want to make it better for my kid? Absolutely. Yet I had to think, I had to reflect. Let's say you're successful. What have you really achieved? You know, when a teacher changes a grade because a parent goes and sees them, what have you accomplished? You've conditioned complacency. So what we have to do is understand each and every one of our roles Coaches, coach teachers, teach parents, parent and those lines have become very blurred. We all know that If you want a dose of objectivity and humility, officiate a game, officiate a game.

Speaker 1: 22:19

And I remember a really good friend of mine in our local community, steve. He hated refereeing because we would ref these youth recreational basketball games. The parents would ref and it got so obnoxiously volatile and he once said to his wife he goes oh good, we were the Lakers. He said the Lakers coaches, that's the game I got to ref. All he does is joke around. And he was referencing me. We just saw each other years later and he mentioned it to me and I said oh, I hated ref in those games. People would scream at you. We were volunteers, we had jobs, we didn't need to do this.

Speaker 1: 22:55

And so what happens is is we lose emotional interpretation, we lose emotional control. We don't calmly react to things we don't hear. We don't calmly react to them. We emotionally react to them. And what happens when we emotionally react to things, we share it with other people and, oh, do we put a narrative on it? Well, I don't think that coach knows what he's doing. I mean, it's like he has it out for my kid. Really, he has it out for your kid.

Speaker 1: 23:28

And so what we have to think about is parents. Is our youth need a couple skill sets later in life? Great, I don't think anyone would argue that resilience is an important attribute. The ability to accept and embrace and work through change is an invaluable skill set. The ability to listen to others and really absorb what they're saying is a valuable skill set. Yet when we complain, when we yell at refs, when we yell at coaches, when we gossip and tell three to four to five to six to seven people what was so horribly unfair for your child, we have cultivated their belief system to think it's not me, can't be me. So I you know what, mom and dad I'm gonna continue to resist, like you guys, I'm gonna carry this through. Don't you worry about me, I'm gonna keep the family legacy going. Now it's crashing, obnoxious and, as condescending as that sounds, that is exactly what happens Grit guts, resilience, intensity, tenacity, overcoming change.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Let me just say something boldly Listening and just shutting up and not sharing it with the world because you didn't like what you heard. So think about this let's go from the youth to the college, let's go to the workplace. I think one of the best interview questions we should ask people, not about their successes or anything like that, but I think what they should do is we should ask one fundamental question when you are faced with adversity or change or things that you don't like, what will we see? What will we see? I just asked somebody that question and their jaw dropped. And because they don't think about it, remember, ryre, remember, I just gave you that acronym, right? So, ryre is reaction, interpretation, articulation, reflection. Most people don't reflect. So when you think about that, if we're not reflecting, we're not really owning our behaviors over our shoulders, our past. Think about this for a second. We love this example Two people getting in an argument, right, and they're two friends, and they say some things that they shouldn't have said.

Speaker 1: 25:52

They took things out of context. Couple days go by, they bump into each other and what do we do? Well, hey, john, sorry, I owe you an apology, I said some things I shouldn't have. Yeah, yeah, me too, tim. What happens? Time does a wonderful thing. It gives us time to really think about ourselves and our behaviors. So let's think about the stages. We have our youth. They go to junior high school, they go to high school, they go to college. They entered this thing called the workplace Eight to 10 years.

Speaker 1: 26:21

We have been cultivating belief systems. We have cultivated a belief system to accept feedback or fight feedback. Typically, there's no middle ground. We have created an attitude. We have helped our child develop their attitude of I'll overcome change or challenge or I'll fight it because I'm a victim and it's not my fault. This is what's inherited in the workplace. So let's go back to that young lady posting that video. She posted it on Twitter. It is all over the internet. Now the CEO of the company came out and said yes, there's certainly some things we did wrong. Wow, I wish we were all videotaped for 24 hours and we were willing to sit through people critiquing what we did right or wrong. Would you honestly say your video would be flawless? Of course it wouldn't. What we have to realize in the workplace is we are inheriting cultivation of behaviors. I do believe we are cultivating non-professional feedback.

Speaker 1: 27:26

Behaviors I often teach in our work with our clients is something called the listening chat, going up to someone whether it's peer to peer or from your boss, or boss is asking for it such as what are two things they do? Well, what are two things you'd encourage me to improve? Or I have an opportunity to raise my game. It doesn't have to be constructive in nature. Do you know how often people will come back after two or three and say, oh my gosh, that was hard. I was so mad. Why were you mad? You're mad because you heard something you didn't like and what you're really revealing is you're just not used to it. Do you honestly think you have nothing to improve? So in the moment we react, we don't react logically, rationally, we react emotionally, and it cultivates itself in so many other parts of life. Like Republicans and Democrats going out for a calm lunch I bet you're laughing right now.

Speaker 1: 28:22

When we hear feedback from our boss, even when it's inaccurate, what do we do? We dismiss it. We tell five other people. Oh, by the way, they tell four people. Now there's 20 versions and your version has left the building of reality. That's part of your brand. That's what you're sharing with the world.

Speaker 1: 28:39

It may not be your intention and, by the way, what if your leader made a mistake and they misunderstood something? Isn't that an opportunity to say look, I hear you. Would you mind if I shared with you a couple insights and that might give a different version or a different perspective of what you're bringing up? And maybe it will, maybe it won't. Do you know how many leaders will listen to that? Everybody. Yet when we fold our arms and say, yeah, but I wasn't the only one, I feel like this is unfair, just like the young lady in the video. Well, I'm gonna stop you right there. We don't listen to each other.

Speaker 1: 29:18

So think about, if you're a parent, your child developing grit and resilience and listening skills. If you're a teacher or coach, remember three to one praise, praise, praise. Yes, they have areas where they need to improve. Use the word opportunity instead of constructive or feedback. Language matters. Then when we get in the workplace, let's continue that work. If we reverse engineer this and all of these entities, from youth to teachers, to coaches, to bosses work congruently and it's idealistic and I realize it may not even be possible. Yet if we started that now with each person, good things will happen.

Speaker 1: 30:04

Let me lead with this or summarize with this my daughter, bridget, works out in at Corning University and I always told her. I said, bridget, it's a weird thing to share and it's a stupid, one of your dad's stupid analogies Show up early, stay late and be relentlessly helpful. Between those two hours You'll never have to worry about employment. She's gotten that feedback. Little did her employer know that I had given her that insight and they've used those types of words. When we're fighting, my kid is in plane. When we're fighting, my kid deserved an A and not a B minus. When we're fighting establishment, when we're posting things socially, we're telling the world don't look at me, for God's sake, it can't be me, it's got to be somebody else, it's BS, it's wrong.

Speaker 1: 31:04

Teachers, coaches, use coaching. Parents, coach your kids, ask them questions, stay calm. The number one thing you can ask your kid today is what are you going to do to successfully overcome this? It's called a self-actualized question. It develops the mindset to gravitate towards this thing called grit and resilience, guts, resilience, intensity, tenacity. What are you going to do to successfully overcome that challenge and what can I do to help you? What that does is it uses a framing technique, all of these entities from youth teachers, coaches, officials to bosses in the workplace. We have interdependencies between all of those entities, so let me ask you what are your thoughts. I hope this helped.