November 10, 2021 • 19 mins
Jon Gordon is a best-selling author and highly-regarded keynote speaker who focuses on leadership, teamwork, and culture. He consults numerous Fortune 500 companies, professional and college sports teams, school districts, hospitals, and non-profits, and his books and principles have been featured by many broadcast networks, magazines, and other publications. Jon joins Nick to discuss the consequences of parents' egos, the importance of kids having fun, and the ultimate purpose of youth sports.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It wasn't about my duarter performing well so that I
could feel great. It was about helping her to be
the best you can be, helping them grow as a person.
If the child wants more, if the child wants to
get better, they will pursue it. If you're pushing them
and always pushing them to have to practice the theft
to work hard, then they don't really love it. This
(00:26):
is the Reformed Sports Project, a podcast about restoring healthy
balance and perspective in all areas of sports and education
and advocacy. Hi, this is Nick Bonacore from the Reformed
Sports Project podcast. Joining me today is John Gordon, best
selling author and keynote speaker who's been featured on numerous
(00:46):
networks and TV shows like The Today Show, CNBC, and
Fox and Friends. He's also been featured in many magazines
and newspapers. His principles on leadership, teamwork, and culture have
been put to the test by numerous Fortune five companies,
per feshional in college sports teams, school districts, hospitals, and nonprofits. Man,
I'm extra charged up today. I got another awesome guest.
(01:07):
I'm just really honor and privileged to have him, John Gordon,
John thanks so much for hopping on man, and they're
great to be with you. I love your content, love
the message you put out there, and I'd like to
start here. You know, we're talking to parents, sports parents,
you know, young athletes. When you look at a culture
of youth sports today as a parent, as someone I
would assume that played sports at some point, what are
some things that callege concerned in the culture that we
see today. Well, I'm the parent of a twenty two
(01:30):
year old and a twenty year old, and my son
was a tennis player. My daughter played lacrosse, so I
went through that. I was a youth sports parent. I
also played lacrosse in college. I played football and high
school and basketball throughout my life. So I understand sports
and I'm concerned and how we respond to the entire situation.
(01:51):
I mean, the way we're responding to everything, the way
we handle games, the way we put pressure from the kids.
I want people to know I speak from experience, because
early on, when my kids were young, I was one
of those fanatical parents. I actually put a lot of
pressure on my kids. I almost ruined my daughter giving
up across because I was so negative and I was
always pushing her too hard because I played across in college,
(02:12):
so I wanted her to be great like I was,
and I put too much pressure on her, so she
almost quit. My wife actually started talking to her encourage
her to stay on. We talked. I actually read a
great book by Joe Erman called Inside Out Coaching, which
was all about being a transformational parent instead of being
a transactional and a transformational coach. It wasn't about my
(02:32):
daughter performing well so that I could feel great. It
was about helping her be the best she can be,
helping her grow as a person, and so I started
to do that. I started to encourage her. I changed dramatically,
and as a result of that, my daughter then thrived
as of a crosse player. My son did a lot
better in tennis to my encouragement of him. But early
on I was that parent, and I see too many
(02:53):
parents acting the way I did. They haven't learned, they
haven't grown, and so I think we're putting too much
pressure on the kids today. I think the coaches think
they're actually pro coaches at times, the way they're driving
these kids to perform at a level that is all
about winning rather than having fun, rather than enjoying the process,
and the most important thing we can do right now
in use sports is to help these kids have fun.
(03:15):
The amount of these kids that are actually going to
go on to play college or pro are so small
that really it's about making sure that we help them
have fun, make sure that they are learning and growing,
make sure that they learn how to be a great teammate.
And if we do that and they have the skill,
they have the talent, they're gonna go on to play.
You know who's good enough, you know, as the talent,
that person will go on. I think we have to
(03:37):
stop acting like our kids gonna be the next Tiger
Woods and Tim Tebow. Let him have fun, let him
enjoy the process. And if we can do that as parents,
they're gonna have more fun and we will enjoy the
process a lot more. Well. I love how you said.
And the name reforms sports doesn't come from nowhere. I mean,
there was a time I'm going to the field my
son's eight, you nine, you baseball games, and I'm thinking,
I'm Joe Tory. It was just all about me, you know,
(03:58):
like my son did well, and you know, we're isn't
even about being happy for him. But I felt like
it was more about me. I was almost like I
was gauging my success or lack thereof as a parent,
tying that to my son's performance in sport. And it
became a little crazy. Thank goodness, like you said, I
became aware of it. But oftentimes I hear parents go
back and forth. And fortunately I played collegiately a little
bit professionally, and I've had done a lot of these interviews.
(04:18):
And you know a lot of parents coach their kids,
specifically at the youth level. You know you need some volunteers,
so it's it's difficult at times to separate that parent
coach relationship right that car ride. Can you talk a
little bit about how you separate, because it's most important.
I hear from every college coach to be dad or
mom first, Let the coaches coach. Can you talk a
little bit about how parents can work through that on
(04:39):
the car right home? No matter what, whether you're a
coach or parent, you should not talk about their performance.
You should not talk about how they played. There shouldn't
even be a conversation about that. It should be about
the Jeff fun and that's it and then move on.
And what I learned is in the future. If you
want to give advice, or if you're working out in
the yard, you're practicing, you say, hey, can I give
you some suggestions? Are you open to something? Are you
(05:00):
open to listening? Can I tell you something? I have
an idea? And you ask permission first, and if you
get permission, then you can speak. But if they don't
want to hear from it, don't speak without asking first.
And that was a rule that a good friend of mine,
Dan Britton, taught me, and I basically did that with
with my daughter and son. And sometimes they would say
yeah that I'm not I'm not interested in what you
have to say. No, you don't have permission, or they'd
(05:20):
say yeah that I'm open tell me and so you
ask permission and then you can speak into it. If
you're a coach and you're working with your child that
you're their coach, then you really got to work and
making it even more fun because you don't want to
get that relationship messed up. From a parenting standpoint to
a coaching standpoint, you really could affect your relationship when
they start seeing you as a coach not as a parent,
(05:41):
when they start to see how their performances tied whether
you love them or not. They need to know that
you love them unconditionally no matter what. So for me,
that could be very confusing in that regard. But if
as a coach, the goal is to help them become
the best that they can be, the best person they
can be, to help grow and learn and improve and
whatever it is, I think that's the goal and that
that's that's really where you just have to have great
(06:03):
conversations with your child and talk about you know, what
their goals are and what they want. But that's at
the older level, when they're younger again, up until you're
like in high school, it should just all be about
fun and learning and growing. If the child wants more,
if the child wants to get better, they will pursue it.
If you're pushing them and always pushing them to have
to practice and have to work hard, then they don't
(06:24):
really love it. They really don't know. If you say, hey,
let's go out and play. Hey you want to go
through the ball round, Hey you want to go hit
and you do that, well, guess what. The more you
do that, the more they're gonna love it. They're gonna
the more they're gonna get better at it. If you're like, hey,
we're gonna work on that swing today, that's probably not
the best way to approach it. But if you say, hey,
you want to go through the ball around, you want
to go you wanna go hit some home runs, or
(06:45):
you want to go hit some singles, you want to
go do this, then they're gonna be more likely to
do it. I read about Archie Manning Payton Manning's father
and Eli Manning's father, and he like, say, hey, let's
go through the ball around. He didn't say let's let's
work on your throws. Basically, the kids just loves football
and and play, and he found coaches who would coach
him and encourage them, and it was a great dynamics.
(07:05):
So it's not like they needed Archie Manning to become
great NFL players, you know. But there's this culture in
travel sports where it's the race to the head start.
John wi Sellivan from Changing the Game Project, I quote
him as saying, that's it's this race to the head start,
Like we're chasing this college scholarship. So oftentimes if our
kids aren't starting on a team, it's like okay, well,
well we gotta put them on another team. It's all
about instant gratification. Not many opportunities out there now. And
(07:28):
I have six kids, so I see it for our
kids to face adversity, and God forbid we they do.
We gotta, we gotta steer them in a different direction.
And not every parent right, but no one wants to
see their kids struggle. No one wants to see their
kid be uncomfortable. But every college coach I talked to,
every pro athlete, I talked to Trent Dilfer, just like
you did. And you gotta like kids. They gotta feel it,
they gotta learn. Can you talk a little bit about
how can you use love while allowing your kid to
(07:50):
experience adversity? Are those two intertwined somehow? From a parenting standpoint, Well,
you love you child, you don't want the best for them,
but you also know they have to go through their
own challenges and ruggles to become all they meant to be.
So a big part of this is having to go
through adversity. But I want to back up for a second.
Can talk about the club culture. That's something we do
have to work on and improve because too many clubs
(08:11):
it's about the club owner or the club president. It's
not about the players. It's all about them. Sometimes you
have a club president or a guy who runs the
club where husband wife runs it, and it's all about
their kids. And they're so focused on their kids that
you have issues with other kids getting playing time, and
you have a lot of politics involved. That's one of
the frustrating things I see at the club levels. There
are a lot there's a lot of politics. Sometimes you
(08:31):
have too many kids on a club team, so they're
not getting the amount of playing time that they need
to get. And there's so much pressure on these kids
to actually go play in college that it becomes very irrational.
Like I think about my daughter's lacrosse team, there was
so much pressure about who was getting recruited by who,
who was going to wit college, And as that went on,
kids were signing to go to schools just so they
(08:53):
can say that they signed. Whereas my daughter, towards the end,
made it clear to me that she did not want
to play in college, and we've decided that when she
was looking, she was only gonna play at a school
that she wanted to go to. But if the school
didn't have lacrosse, that was her no more parties, So
she wouldn't play in college if it was the right choice,
but if not, and she can go to a school
that she wanted to go to it I didn't have lacrosse,
(09:14):
and she was gonna go there because we said, whatever,
did you get hurt and you pick a school just
based on lacrosse. So that was our litmus test. If
you would still go there even if you got hurt,
then that's where you should go. But don't just go
to somewhere because you want to play lacrosse there, or
because it has a lacrosse program, or just because that's
the one coach that's giving you a shot. And so
we made it very clear that there was gonna be
college first, not lacrosse first, and that let her go
(09:37):
to Clemson University that did not have a little cross program.
And she made that choice, but we saw girls on
her team that were making all these choices. I would
say about eight percent of those girls did not finish
playing lacrosse at that college, actually transferred from the school
that they went to and are not evenna play a
lacrosse now. And I looked back and I remember the
parents being all stressed out and the club parents being
(09:59):
all stressed out. And everyone gets just swept up in
the emotion and the pressure and the collective kind of
you know, societal pressure of my kid has to do this,
because this is what it's all about. And I think
we have to take a step back from the club
level again and say, if your child is good enough
and they have the talent, they're gonna be found. They're
gonna get an opportunity. Like, don't stress about it. Not
(10:19):
many kids are gonna get a scholarship. Most kids at
the college level, even if on the men's side, do
not get full scholarships. This Courter Scholarships has scholarships, so forth,
there's not a lot of full rides going around unless
you're like a phenomenal goal you're one of the best
players in the country. And if your kids one of
the best players in the country, well good, then you're
gonna get that scholarship. But we'll know that your kids
one of the best in the country. For most of us,
(10:41):
we're gonna be a realistic like my daughter was good,
she wasn't great. She would have been on a Division
one team at a lower Division one level and being
able to play or set the bench on a top
D one level and would have been miserable. So we
really made the right decision. And I think so many
people are making the wrong decisions based on the pressure.
So back up from that. And then when you're going
through the club process and you are facing real adversity,
(11:03):
real challenge because maybe you do have to get better,
maybe you do have to improve, maybe you don't play well,
then that's a great time to to love your child
and let him go through the struggle and the adversity
in order to learn and grow, knowing it has to
be part of their growth process. Don't switch clubs if
it's because maybe you're not playing us. Switch if there's
a lot of politics. If you're not playing for the
(11:24):
right reasons, and there's a way that you can actually
work harder, improve and get more playing time, well then
you know that's that's a good struggle that you have
to work towards and work for that will actually make
you better. So I think you have to look at
why the decisions are being made, and then with decisions,
you need to make the counter that that's John Gordon,
best selling author and keynote speaker. When we come back,
John and I will discuss egos and the importance of competitiveness.
(11:54):
Welcome back to the Reformed Sports Project podcast where John
Gordon and I left off we were about to die
further to parent egos and the importance coaches put on competitiveness.
I'm thinking back in my perspective and how I started
the shift from you know, i'd like to call it
unreformed to now we're like, wow, it's not about me.
You know, this is not my journey. I had my time,
(12:15):
it's my kid's journey, and my ego was involved. What
are some tips because I don't think I ask enough
questions and I think, you know, this is kind of
your space, but ego, you know, keeping up with the jones.
How can parents have a headstart on recognizing because listen,
I don't want to be told how to parent, but
I will listen to someone else's experience, and I may
be able to make my own decisions based off of
someone else's experience. So I'm open minded, but I don't
(12:36):
want someone speaking down, you know, telling me that I'm
need to change. So I can appreciate people that don't
want to be told that. But what are some tips
that parents can maybe see where it can be recognized
that their ego might be involved. They don't even realize
that they're living vicariously through their kids. Well, if you're
putting pressure on your kid and then your egos involved.
If you're putting pressure on them performing, if you're talking
about the scholarship and you're talking about playing in college
(13:00):
matters more to you than it does to them, then
your ego is involved. And we know a lot of
parents that are actually doing that. I talked to college
level athletes and I'll talk to teams, and they still
feel the pressure of their parents even when they're in college.
It's their journey, it's not your journey. And so I
think you have to take a step back and recognize
that this is about them. It's about their growth, It's
(13:20):
about whether they love the sport. They have to own it.
They can't be playing for you. They have to own it.
And really, this isn't about you. And I think that
if you're finding yourself getting stressed, if you're finding yourself
getting fearful, if you're losing sleep and worried about it,
and then it is your ego that involved. If your
relaxed and you trust in the process, you have faith,
And for me, it's trusting in God. Then at that
(13:43):
point you know that your ego is not involved. Again,
I want to say earlier on in this club situation,
I was the guy that was, you know now no
longer putting pressure on my daughter, but now I was
frustrated that when she was playing, she didn't get enough
playing time because they had too many girls on the team.
And then in that one run that she's playing in,
notice coaches are watching and she played great in this
one moment and none of the coaches were watching. I
(14:04):
found myself watching the college coaches to see that they
weren't watching in that moment. Or you know, again, the
ref makes a bad call or winds up doing something
that hurts my daughter's opportunity that moment, and I'm so
frustrated stress in that moment that I'm literally recognizing to myself,
this is not healthy. So I'm a reformed parent as
well on the journey. And I think because we went
(14:25):
through it, we learned, and we know it. We're not
condemning these parents were not perfect, but we do have
to educate them and we do have to help them
because we don't want them to be like we were,
and we don't want them to continue being like we
were in the past. We want them to all reform
because they need to for their own health and then
their kids health as well. At the high school level,
like my biggest challenge was again no longer my daughter,
(14:45):
no longer, the coaches, no longer again in high school
with a lot of fun because there wasn't pressure from
the college standpoint all that, and it was more about
just for me. It was referees. Gets so frustrated with
all the bad calls and the referees, and so we
had this thing where, you know, I had an alter
ego named Joey Bagan Donuts and Joey Bagan Donuts with
yell when they make bad calls, and all the parents
(15:06):
around me when they look over and like, aren't you
this writer of like positive stuff, I said, oh, yeah,
that's John. This is Joey. This is nuts. So they
all started calling me Joey, and then I realized, Okay.
Then I got on the board of the Positive Coaching Alliance,
so I knew I had to stop write them there.
So I made sure I was like, all right, I
can't even get bad at reffs anymore. I gotta be
totally positive. So now I would be like positive. I
(15:26):
would just sit there, I would watch, not say a
word about anything, and all the parents like what happened
to Joey. I'm like, Joey died, He's gone. Joey's gone.
And from that moment on, I excellently Because of that,
I enjoyed the moment so much more. I enjoyed watching
to play. I enjoyed not being stressed about the outcome.
I enjoyed just the whole thing. And so it became
a much more enjoyable experience. And I know, I know
(15:47):
parents watch so much more fun when they stopped worrying
about the outcome of the games, the outcome of whether
their kid's gonna go to school, and the outcome of
whether they're gonna start or not. Just help them become
a better person, helped them grow, helped them learn, help
them improve. The purpose of sports remembers to make you
a better human being. And if we focus on that
everything else, what they can itself. John last question, We're
(16:09):
gonna have a lot of student athletes, you know, that
will listen to us, that are looking for tips as well.
The word that comes up the most when I talked
to college coaches, and I always ask him what are
you looking for? And of course, you know, depending on
the level you know, of course you need certain talents,
you know, all the physical gifts. But the word that
comes up the most is competitiveness. Competition. They want kids
that want to compete. Can you talk a little bit
about what kids can do to help themselves become more
(16:30):
competitive or work on their competitiveness. For me, it's about
being a great teammate. Like, if you're a great teammate,
you're gonna do everything you can to be your best
for the team, and that competition is going to come
out because you want to be best your best for others.
I wrote a book called The Hard Act based on
the life of George Boyarty who died playing lacrosse at
twenty two years old for Quinnell University. And he was
(16:51):
hitting the chest with a ball and died on the field.
And he was one of the greatest teammates to ever live.
And I wrote this book. All the proceeds go to
his foundation from the book. And he was really the
greatest teammate and because of the way he carried himself.
He was competitive, he worked hard, he loved his team,
he was selfless, he was loyal, He didn't care about stats,
And I think that's what you want for a player
(17:11):
on your team. You want someone who is all about
putting the team first. They will do whatever it takes
to help the team be their best. And when you
help the team improve, you improve. When you help the
team grow, you grow. So to me, being competitive is
about doing whatever it takes to help the team be
their best. And that's the kind of composition you want.
So if you need me to get a ground ball,
I'm going after a ground ball. If you need me
(17:32):
to play tough defense, I'm gonna play tough defense. If
you need to run up and down the field, you know,
as hard as I can, that's what I'm gonna do.
So to me, that's what it's about. Whatever it takes
tilp the team get better and giving your roll to
the team, focusing on we that made. That's the kind
of player I'm looking for. That's who what I would
want on my team. John Gordon, this has been awesome.
Could you tell the audience where you're at, where they
can find you, where they can find your books material,
(17:53):
all that stuff they're going to John Gordon dot com,
j O. N. Gordon dot com on Twitter, Instagram and
j O N. Gordon eleven. I'm always sharing tips and
information and I think you know, if you're looking for
a book for one of your student athletes. Training Camp
is is definitely my favorite about what the best do
better than everyone else. But it's really about striving to
be the best you can be, not being better than
(18:15):
anyone else. Hard Hat is great for being a great teammate.
And then you went in the locker room. If you're
a coach and you really want to build a winning
team or the Power of Repositive team, how do you
get a team to come together that wrote the Power
of Repositive Team to really be a great team, shared vision,
focus and purpose, connecting committed, making sure have difficult conversations,
making sure you're putting the team first. I think every
(18:35):
team should really read that book to really understand what
it takes to be a great team. And I think
again a club sport, going back to that, there's so
much focus with parents on the individual and it's all
about their child, and so learning from the tennis world
where my son was that's the case. I mean, your
son is an individual athlete, but you go to this
team sport and you have the same mindset as if
it's an individual sport. The parents are the same as
(18:56):
like it's tennis. The best thing you can do is
to teach your kids out to be a great teammates.
And if they're a great teammate who works hard and
gets better every day for their team, they're gonna get
better themselves and they're gonna be great leaders in the process.
So just remember that, parents, it's not about them in
that moment it seems like it is. Do you really
want to help them thrive in this world? They're gonna
(19:18):
learn have to learn how to lead others in the process.
That's John Gordon, best selling author and keynote speakers. Thanks
for listening to The Reformed Sports Project podcast dom Nick
Bonacore and Our goal is to restore a healthy balance
and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy.
For updates, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram,
(19:38):
or check out our website by searching for the Reformed
Sports Project.
It wasn't about my duarter performing well so that I
could feel great. It was about helping her to be
the best you can be, helping them grow as a person.
If the child wants more, if the child wants to
get better, they will pursue it. If you're pushing them
and always pushing them to have to practice the theft
to work hard, then they don't really love it. This
(00:26):
is the Reformed Sports Project, a podcast about restoring healthy
balance and perspective in all areas of sports and education
and advocacy. Hi, this is Nick Bonacore from the Reformed
Sports Project podcast. Joining me today is John Gordon, best
selling author and keynote speaker who's been featured on numerous
(00:46):
networks and TV shows like The Today Show, CNBC, and
Fox and Friends. He's also been featured in many magazines
and newspapers. His principles on leadership, teamwork, and culture have
been put to the test by numerous Fortune five companies,
per feshional in college sports teams, school districts, hospitals, and nonprofits. Man,
I'm extra charged up today. I got another awesome guest.
(01:07):
I'm just really honor and privileged to have him, John Gordon,
John thanks so much for hopping on man, and they're
great to be with you. I love your content, love
the message you put out there, and I'd like to
start here. You know, we're talking to parents, sports parents,
you know, young athletes. When you look at a culture
of youth sports today as a parent, as someone I
would assume that played sports at some point, what are
some things that callege concerned in the culture that we
see today. Well, I'm the parent of a twenty two
(01:30):
year old and a twenty year old, and my son
was a tennis player. My daughter played lacrosse, so I
went through that. I was a youth sports parent. I
also played lacrosse in college. I played football and high
school and basketball throughout my life. So I understand sports
and I'm concerned and how we respond to the entire situation.
(01:51):
I mean, the way we're responding to everything, the way
we handle games, the way we put pressure from the kids.
I want people to know I speak from experience, because
early on, when my kids were young, I was one
of those fanatical parents. I actually put a lot of
pressure on my kids. I almost ruined my daughter giving
up across because I was so negative and I was
always pushing her too hard because I played across in college,
(02:12):
so I wanted her to be great like I was,
and I put too much pressure on her, so she
almost quit. My wife actually started talking to her encourage
her to stay on. We talked. I actually read a
great book by Joe Erman called Inside Out Coaching, which
was all about being a transformational parent instead of being
a transactional and a transformational coach. It wasn't about my
(02:32):
daughter performing well so that I could feel great. It
was about helping her be the best she can be,
helping her grow as a person, and so I started
to do that. I started to encourage her. I changed dramatically,
and as a result of that, my daughter then thrived
as of a crosse player. My son did a lot
better in tennis to my encouragement of him. But early
on I was that parent, and I see too many
(02:53):
parents acting the way I did. They haven't learned, they
haven't grown, and so I think we're putting too much
pressure on the kids today. I think the coaches think
they're actually pro coaches at times, the way they're driving
these kids to perform at a level that is all
about winning rather than having fun, rather than enjoying the process,
and the most important thing we can do right now
in use sports is to help these kids have fun.
(03:15):
The amount of these kids that are actually going to
go on to play college or pro are so small
that really it's about making sure that we help them
have fun, make sure that they are learning and growing,
make sure that they learn how to be a great teammate.
And if we do that and they have the skill,
they have the talent, they're gonna go on to play.
You know who's good enough, you know, as the talent,
that person will go on. I think we have to
(03:37):
stop acting like our kids gonna be the next Tiger
Woods and Tim Tebow. Let him have fun, let him
enjoy the process. And if we can do that as parents,
they're gonna have more fun and we will enjoy the
process a lot more. Well. I love how you said.
And the name reforms sports doesn't come from nowhere. I mean,
there was a time I'm going to the field my
son's eight, you nine, you baseball games, and I'm thinking,
I'm Joe Tory. It was just all about me, you know,
(03:58):
like my son did well, and you know, we're isn't
even about being happy for him. But I felt like
it was more about me. I was almost like I
was gauging my success or lack thereof as a parent,
tying that to my son's performance in sport. And it
became a little crazy. Thank goodness, like you said, I
became aware of it. But oftentimes I hear parents go
back and forth. And fortunately I played collegiately a little
bit professionally, and I've had done a lot of these interviews.
(04:18):
And you know a lot of parents coach their kids,
specifically at the youth level. You know you need some volunteers,
so it's it's difficult at times to separate that parent
coach relationship right that car ride. Can you talk a
little bit about how you separate, because it's most important.
I hear from every college coach to be dad or
mom first, Let the coaches coach. Can you talk a
little bit about how parents can work through that on
(04:39):
the car right home? No matter what, whether you're a
coach or parent, you should not talk about their performance.
You should not talk about how they played. There shouldn't
even be a conversation about that. It should be about
the Jeff fun and that's it and then move on.
And what I learned is in the future. If you
want to give advice, or if you're working out in
the yard, you're practicing, you say, hey, can I give
you some suggestions? Are you open to something? Are you
(05:00):
open to listening? Can I tell you something? I have
an idea? And you ask permission first, and if you
get permission, then you can speak. But if they don't
want to hear from it, don't speak without asking first.
And that was a rule that a good friend of mine,
Dan Britton, taught me, and I basically did that with
with my daughter and son. And sometimes they would say
yeah that I'm not I'm not interested in what you
have to say. No, you don't have permission, or they'd
(05:20):
say yeah that I'm open tell me and so you
ask permission and then you can speak into it. If
you're a coach and you're working with your child that
you're their coach, then you really got to work and
making it even more fun because you don't want to
get that relationship messed up. From a parenting standpoint to
a coaching standpoint, you really could affect your relationship when
they start seeing you as a coach not as a parent,
(05:41):
when they start to see how their performances tied whether
you love them or not. They need to know that
you love them unconditionally no matter what. So for me,
that could be very confusing in that regard. But if
as a coach, the goal is to help them become
the best that they can be, the best person they
can be, to help grow and learn and improve and
whatever it is, I think that's the goal and that
that's that's really where you just have to have great
(06:03):
conversations with your child and talk about you know, what
their goals are and what they want. But that's at
the older level, when they're younger again, up until you're
like in high school, it should just all be about
fun and learning and growing. If the child wants more,
if the child wants to get better, they will pursue it.
If you're pushing them and always pushing them to have
to practice and have to work hard, then they don't
(06:24):
really love it. They really don't know. If you say, hey,
let's go out and play. Hey you want to go
through the ball round, Hey you want to go hit
and you do that, well, guess what. The more you
do that, the more they're gonna love it. They're gonna
the more they're gonna get better at it. If you're like, hey,
we're gonna work on that swing today, that's probably not
the best way to approach it. But if you say, hey,
you want to go through the ball around, you want
to go you wanna go hit some home runs, or
(06:45):
you want to go hit some singles, you want to
go do this, then they're gonna be more likely to
do it. I read about Archie Manning Payton Manning's father
and Eli Manning's father, and he like, say, hey, let's
go through the ball around. He didn't say let's let's
work on your throws. Basically, the kids just loves football
and and play, and he found coaches who would coach
him and encourage them, and it was a great dynamics.
(07:05):
So it's not like they needed Archie Manning to become
great NFL players, you know. But there's this culture in
travel sports where it's the race to the head start.
John wi Sellivan from Changing the Game Project, I quote
him as saying, that's it's this race to the head start,
Like we're chasing this college scholarship. So oftentimes if our
kids aren't starting on a team, it's like okay, well,
well we gotta put them on another team. It's all
about instant gratification. Not many opportunities out there now. And
(07:28):
I have six kids, so I see it for our
kids to face adversity, and God forbid we they do.
We gotta, we gotta steer them in a different direction.
And not every parent right, but no one wants to
see their kids struggle. No one wants to see their
kid be uncomfortable. But every college coach I talked to,
every pro athlete, I talked to Trent Dilfer, just like
you did. And you gotta like kids. They gotta feel it,
they gotta learn. Can you talk a little bit about
how can you use love while allowing your kid to
(07:50):
experience adversity? Are those two intertwined somehow? From a parenting standpoint, Well,
you love you child, you don't want the best for them,
but you also know they have to go through their
own challenges and ruggles to become all they meant to be.
So a big part of this is having to go
through adversity. But I want to back up for a second.
Can talk about the club culture. That's something we do
have to work on and improve because too many clubs
(08:11):
it's about the club owner or the club president. It's
not about the players. It's all about them. Sometimes you
have a club president or a guy who runs the
club where husband wife runs it, and it's all about
their kids. And they're so focused on their kids that
you have issues with other kids getting playing time, and
you have a lot of politics involved. That's one of
the frustrating things I see at the club levels. There
are a lot there's a lot of politics. Sometimes you
(08:31):
have too many kids on a club team, so they're
not getting the amount of playing time that they need
to get. And there's so much pressure on these kids
to actually go play in college that it becomes very irrational.
Like I think about my daughter's lacrosse team, there was
so much pressure about who was getting recruited by who,
who was going to wit college, And as that went on,
kids were signing to go to schools just so they
(08:53):
can say that they signed. Whereas my daughter, towards the end,
made it clear to me that she did not want
to play in college, and we've decided that when she
was looking, she was only gonna play at a school
that she wanted to go to. But if the school
didn't have lacrosse, that was her no more parties, So
she wouldn't play in college if it was the right choice,
but if not, and she can go to a school
that she wanted to go to it I didn't have lacrosse,
(09:14):
and she was gonna go there because we said, whatever,
did you get hurt and you pick a school just
based on lacrosse. So that was our litmus test. If
you would still go there even if you got hurt,
then that's where you should go. But don't just go
to somewhere because you want to play lacrosse there, or
because it has a lacrosse program, or just because that's
the one coach that's giving you a shot. And so
we made it very clear that there was gonna be
college first, not lacrosse first, and that let her go
(09:37):
to Clemson University that did not have a little cross program.
And she made that choice, but we saw girls on
her team that were making all these choices. I would
say about eight percent of those girls did not finish
playing lacrosse at that college, actually transferred from the school
that they went to and are not evenna play a
lacrosse now. And I looked back and I remember the
parents being all stressed out and the club parents being
(09:59):
all stressed out. And everyone gets just swept up in
the emotion and the pressure and the collective kind of
you know, societal pressure of my kid has to do this,
because this is what it's all about. And I think
we have to take a step back from the club
level again and say, if your child is good enough
and they have the talent, they're gonna be found. They're
gonna get an opportunity. Like, don't stress about it. Not
(10:19):
many kids are gonna get a scholarship. Most kids at
the college level, even if on the men's side, do
not get full scholarships. This Courter Scholarships has scholarships, so forth,
there's not a lot of full rides going around unless
you're like a phenomenal goal you're one of the best
players in the country. And if your kids one of
the best players in the country, well good, then you're
gonna get that scholarship. But we'll know that your kids
one of the best in the country. For most of us,
(10:41):
we're gonna be a realistic like my daughter was good,
she wasn't great. She would have been on a Division
one team at a lower Division one level and being
able to play or set the bench on a top
D one level and would have been miserable. So we
really made the right decision. And I think so many
people are making the wrong decisions based on the pressure.
So back up from that. And then when you're going
through the club process and you are facing real adversity,
(11:03):
real challenge because maybe you do have to get better,
maybe you do have to improve, maybe you don't play well,
then that's a great time to to love your child
and let him go through the struggle and the adversity
in order to learn and grow, knowing it has to
be part of their growth process. Don't switch clubs if
it's because maybe you're not playing us. Switch if there's
a lot of politics. If you're not playing for the
(11:24):
right reasons, and there's a way that you can actually
work harder, improve and get more playing time, well then
you know that's that's a good struggle that you have
to work towards and work for that will actually make
you better. So I think you have to look at
why the decisions are being made, and then with decisions,
you need to make the counter that that's John Gordon,
best selling author and keynote speaker. When we come back,
John and I will discuss egos and the importance of competitiveness.
(11:54):
Welcome back to the Reformed Sports Project podcast where John
Gordon and I left off we were about to die
further to parent egos and the importance coaches put on competitiveness.
I'm thinking back in my perspective and how I started
the shift from you know, i'd like to call it
unreformed to now we're like, wow, it's not about me.
You know, this is not my journey. I had my time,
(12:15):
it's my kid's journey, and my ego was involved. What
are some tips because I don't think I ask enough
questions and I think, you know, this is kind of
your space, but ego, you know, keeping up with the jones.
How can parents have a headstart on recognizing because listen,
I don't want to be told how to parent, but
I will listen to someone else's experience, and I may
be able to make my own decisions based off of
someone else's experience. So I'm open minded, but I don't
(12:36):
want someone speaking down, you know, telling me that I'm
need to change. So I can appreciate people that don't
want to be told that. But what are some tips
that parents can maybe see where it can be recognized
that their ego might be involved. They don't even realize
that they're living vicariously through their kids. Well, if you're
putting pressure on your kid and then your egos involved.
If you're putting pressure on them performing, if you're talking
about the scholarship and you're talking about playing in college
(13:00):
matters more to you than it does to them, then
your ego is involved. And we know a lot of
parents that are actually doing that. I talked to college
level athletes and I'll talk to teams, and they still
feel the pressure of their parents even when they're in college.
It's their journey, it's not your journey. And so I
think you have to take a step back and recognize
that this is about them. It's about their growth, It's
(13:20):
about whether they love the sport. They have to own it.
They can't be playing for you. They have to own it.
And really, this isn't about you. And I think that
if you're finding yourself getting stressed, if you're finding yourself
getting fearful, if you're losing sleep and worried about it,
and then it is your ego that involved. If your
relaxed and you trust in the process, you have faith,
And for me, it's trusting in God. Then at that
(13:43):
point you know that your ego is not involved. Again,
I want to say earlier on in this club situation,
I was the guy that was, you know now no
longer putting pressure on my daughter, but now I was
frustrated that when she was playing, she didn't get enough
playing time because they had too many girls on the team.
And then in that one run that she's playing in,
notice coaches are watching and she played great in this
one moment and none of the coaches were watching. I
(14:04):
found myself watching the college coaches to see that they
weren't watching in that moment. Or you know, again, the
ref makes a bad call or winds up doing something
that hurts my daughter's opportunity that moment, and I'm so
frustrated stress in that moment that I'm literally recognizing to myself,
this is not healthy. So I'm a reformed parent as
well on the journey. And I think because we went
(14:25):
through it, we learned, and we know it. We're not
condemning these parents were not perfect, but we do have
to educate them and we do have to help them
because we don't want them to be like we were,
and we don't want them to continue being like we
were in the past. We want them to all reform
because they need to for their own health and then
their kids health as well. At the high school level,
like my biggest challenge was again no longer my daughter,
(14:45):
no longer, the coaches, no longer again in high school
with a lot of fun because there wasn't pressure from
the college standpoint all that, and it was more about
just for me. It was referees. Gets so frustrated with
all the bad calls and the referees, and so we
had this thing where, you know, I had an alter
ego named Joey Bagan Donuts and Joey Bagan Donuts with
yell when they make bad calls, and all the parents
(15:06):
around me when they look over and like, aren't you
this writer of like positive stuff, I said, oh, yeah,
that's John. This is Joey. This is nuts. So they
all started calling me Joey, and then I realized, Okay.
Then I got on the board of the Positive Coaching Alliance,
so I knew I had to stop write them there.
So I made sure I was like, all right, I
can't even get bad at reffs anymore. I gotta be
totally positive. So now I would be like positive. I
(15:26):
would just sit there, I would watch, not say a
word about anything, and all the parents like what happened
to Joey. I'm like, Joey died, He's gone. Joey's gone.
And from that moment on, I excellently Because of that,
I enjoyed the moment so much more. I enjoyed watching
to play. I enjoyed not being stressed about the outcome.
I enjoyed just the whole thing. And so it became
a much more enjoyable experience. And I know, I know
(15:47):
parents watch so much more fun when they stopped worrying
about the outcome of the games, the outcome of whether
their kid's gonna go to school, and the outcome of
whether they're gonna start or not. Just help them become
a better person, helped them grow, helped them learn, help
them improve. The purpose of sports remembers to make you
a better human being. And if we focus on that
everything else, what they can itself. John last question, We're
(16:09):
gonna have a lot of student athletes, you know, that
will listen to us, that are looking for tips as well.
The word that comes up the most when I talked
to college coaches, and I always ask him what are
you looking for? And of course, you know, depending on
the level you know, of course you need certain talents,
you know, all the physical gifts. But the word that
comes up the most is competitiveness. Competition. They want kids
that want to compete. Can you talk a little bit
about what kids can do to help themselves become more
(16:30):
competitive or work on their competitiveness. For me, it's about
being a great teammate. Like, if you're a great teammate,
you're gonna do everything you can to be your best
for the team, and that competition is going to come
out because you want to be best your best for others.
I wrote a book called The Hard Act based on
the life of George Boyarty who died playing lacrosse at
twenty two years old for Quinnell University. And he was
(16:51):
hitting the chest with a ball and died on the field.
And he was one of the greatest teammates to ever live.
And I wrote this book. All the proceeds go to
his foundation from the book. And he was really the
greatest teammate and because of the way he carried himself.
He was competitive, he worked hard, he loved his team,
he was selfless, he was loyal, He didn't care about stats,
And I think that's what you want for a player
(17:11):
on your team. You want someone who is all about
putting the team first. They will do whatever it takes
to help the team be their best. And when you
help the team improve, you improve. When you help the
team grow, you grow. So to me, being competitive is
about doing whatever it takes to help the team be
their best. And that's the kind of composition you want.
So if you need me to get a ground ball,
I'm going after a ground ball. If you need me
(17:32):
to play tough defense, I'm gonna play tough defense. If
you need to run up and down the field, you know,
as hard as I can, that's what I'm gonna do.
So to me, that's what it's about. Whatever it takes
tilp the team get better and giving your roll to
the team, focusing on we that made. That's the kind
of player I'm looking for. That's who what I would
want on my team. John Gordon, this has been awesome.
Could you tell the audience where you're at, where they
can find you, where they can find your books material,
(17:53):
all that stuff they're going to John Gordon dot com,
j O. N. Gordon dot com on Twitter, Instagram and
j O N. Gordon eleven. I'm always sharing tips and
information and I think you know, if you're looking for
a book for one of your student athletes. Training Camp
is is definitely my favorite about what the best do
better than everyone else. But it's really about striving to
be the best you can be, not being better than
(18:15):
anyone else. Hard Hat is great for being a great teammate.
And then you went in the locker room. If you're
a coach and you really want to build a winning
team or the Power of Repositive team, how do you
get a team to come together that wrote the Power
of Repositive Team to really be a great team, shared vision,
focus and purpose, connecting committed, making sure have difficult conversations,
making sure you're putting the team first. I think every
(18:35):
team should really read that book to really understand what
it takes to be a great team. And I think
again a club sport, going back to that, there's so
much focus with parents on the individual and it's all
about their child, and so learning from the tennis world
where my son was that's the case. I mean, your
son is an individual athlete, but you go to this
team sport and you have the same mindset as if
it's an individual sport. The parents are the same as
(18:56):
like it's tennis. The best thing you can do is
to teach your kids out to be a great teammates.
And if they're a great teammate who works hard and
gets better every day for their team, they're gonna get
better themselves and they're gonna be great leaders in the process.
So just remember that, parents, it's not about them in
that moment it seems like it is. Do you really
want to help them thrive in this world? They're gonna
(19:18):
learn have to learn how to lead others in the process.
That's John Gordon, best selling author and keynote speakers. Thanks
for listening to The Reformed Sports Project podcast dom Nick
Bonacore and Our goal is to restore a healthy balance
and perspective in all areas of sports through education and advocacy.
For updates, please follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram,
(19:38):
or check out our website by searching for the Reformed
Sports Project.
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