Since the release of my book The 7 Principles of Faith-Based Parenting I have had many conversations about the power of Principle parenting. Coupled with the fact that I am a youth coach, I have been looking at the role of both the parent and coach in the development of young people.
The parallel between parenting and coaching is so comparable in fact, I believe that outside of parenting coaching athletes might be the best platform to transform boys and girls into healthy and thriving men and women.
Although most of my recent personal coaching work has been in helping individuals not only identify their dreams and goals and help them bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to go. I have spent twenty years coaching athletes while simultaneously coaching coaches and what cannot be separated from coaches and parents is the fact that like parents, Transformational Coaches are “other –centered” people who use their power and platform to nurture and transform their players.
Transactional coaches use players as tools to meet their personal needs for validation, status and identity. They hold power over their players to elicit the response they want while Transformational coaches empower their players. They do this in a myriad of ways, including questioning their self-doubt, point outside evidence to the contrary and use a mix of empathy, firmness and affirmation to convince them of their self-worth.
While transactional coaches hold power over the player, the player never accepts their belief system or truly buy in to the program. On the other hand Transformational coaches help young people to confront and comprehend the toxic culture that is trying to seduce them and shape them. They help young people to transform their sense of their own worth, talents and values.
A transformational coach is dedicated to self-understanding and empathy, viewing sports as virtuous and virtue giving discipline. Like Principle parents Transformational Coaches believe young people can grow and flourish in sports in a way that is more liberating and instructive than can be achieved through most any other activity.
They should give their players permission to dream and dream big.
To become a Transformational Coach you need to know why you coach, why you coach the way that you do, what does it feel like to be coached by you and how do you define and measure success?
What I love most about what I do for individuals, especially parents and coaches I help them get to a place where they demand from themselves introspection, integrity and integration of their own life history.
I agree with Stanford sociologist Carol Dweck that “what people believe about themselves determine how they live”.
