Culture isn’t just a catchphrase on a locker room wall—it’s the foundation that defines who your team is under pressure. Every great program, from high school teams to college powerhouses, thrives on clear core values that guide athletes beyond the game.
But how do you go from a list of words to a culture that actually shapes behavior? In this episode of Coach360: Beyond The Game, Coach Stephen Mackey lays out four essential steps to defining, teaching, and living out core values in a way that gets buy-in from your athletes.
If you’re a coach starting a new program or looking to reset and strengthen your team’s culture, this episode gives you a proven framework to make core values come alive—not just for one season, but for years to come.
Key Takeaways from the Episode
- Connect Core Values to Character Traits – The best values aren’t just words; they are anchored in character like grit, accountability, or humility.
- Define Values Through Commitments – Athletes need clear, action-based definitions so they can assess themselves and hold teammates accountable.
- Coach Core Values Like You Coach the Game – Just like X’s and O’s, values must be taught, reinforced, and practiced in different situations.
- Turn Core Values into a Mantra – A great catchphrase or team mantra helps players internalize and own their team’s identity.
CONNECT WITH COACH MACKEY
Stephen Mackey is a keynote speaker, and founder of 2Words Character Development. Building on the Six Pillars of a Championship Character – Toughness, Integrity, Belief, Excellence, Effort, and Service – he helps equip players, teams and organizations elevate their performance by building a culture of character. If you would like to connect with Coach Mackey, invite him to speak at an event, or receive his weekly encouragements texts, click here to visit Stephen Mackey's Zaap page with all of his most current related links and information.
COACH 360 IS PRESENTED BY: 2Words Character Development
Interested in connecting or taking the next step with 2Words Character Development? Let us know! Email Colton Leonard at: Colton@2words.tv
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Episode Transcript
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Hey, everyone. My name is Colton, and I'm the host of the Coach 360 podcast. Here, our goal is to come alongside and equip coaches with the resources to help develop character through sports and raise up the next generation of leaders. Not only do we do that through this podcast and interviewing coaches from across the nation about character, culture, and leadership, but we also do it through our two words character development curriculums. If you want to learn more about these or anything else that we offer, visit our website, 2words.tv. That's the number two, words.tv. Or you can always drop me an email, colton at 2words.tv. Thanks for listening today. Let's get into the show. Have you registered for the Texas Way yet? The Texas Way is a collaborative campaign between Texas High School Coaches Association, Texas High School Athletic Directors Association, and Two Words Character Development to improve the level of sportsmanship at UIL sporting events. Decrease the number of ejections at UIL sporting events and strengthen communities and the relationships between coaches, athletes, officials, and fans. Register now for this free resource at www.playthetexasway.com. The Texas Way is powered by Mammoth Sports Construction. Do something big. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Coach 360 Today, I get to hang out with Coach Mackey. Again, we got him back on the podcast. Mack, what's up, brother? Big dog. My dude. Great to be with you, man. Great to get spend a little time encouraging like this rhythm that we're creating of getting back on the pod and encouraging coaches, you know, I know that it is it is harder now than ever. To be a coach and I feel like we could say that every year. But certainly, you know, as we're recording this in Texas, we're in the middle of a legislative session. Nationally, there's a lot of uncertainty about what may be happening or not happening. With federal funding. And so there's just a lot of uncertainty at the state and federal level. Maybe districts haven't sent out contracts yet. Maybe there's questions about. The funding sources of your unique position and just so many unknowns. And when there is a lack of clarity or a lack of information, negativity has a way of filling the gap, which you Oh, and what you don't know, what you understand and what you don't. And, and I would just begin today by encouraging you to say, I'm not going to let negativity fill that gap. Because when you do, it begins to affect not just how you live and how you go through the day, but it affects how you coach. It affects how you love kids. It affects how you do the thing you've been called to do. And so I would just encourage you hold on to what you do now. Hold on to your calling. Hold on to the fact that regardless of what states or federal governments do, the kid in front of you needs to be loved. They need to be loved by a caring adult who is a professional coach. Who has the skills to help them grow and reach their dreams. That kid needs you no matter what governments do. That kid needs you. And so as we begin today, I might just encourage you with that and say, stay in the fight and, and, and know that regardless of what happens, get in front of you, need you. Look at you going deep right out of the gate for us. But I can't, I can only imagine that there's some, uh, some listeners out there that needed to hear that. So. Thank you for for kicking us off that way. And as we get started today, Mac, um, you know, as I was thinking about the coaches that Tune into our podcast. We've got them from all across the state, all different levels, but a lot of our coaches are in that sort of up and coming, uh, part of their journey and their coaching journey. Maybe they have their eyes on a head seat one day. Uh, as we know, just in coaching in general, it's inevitable that at some point in time, they're likely to maybe make a shift or a change and they may experience at some point in time in their career. A chance or an opportunity where they have to maybe hit the reset button on a new program they're, they're taking over. And what I mean by that is they may need to be, they may need to make some cultural changes. May need to establish a new culture. And so I wanted to just propose this question to you. Um, what is that? What is something that they need to be thinking about if they come into a situation like that? What are some of the key components that they need to be thinking of to help establish that culture? It's a great question and it's something that I would imagine for a lot of coaches who are looking to take over a program or one day lead. A program that this is one of the exciting parts. If you're listening to this podcast, like you are a culture person, you are the kind of person. That wants to go beyond the game. And so, uh, as I've, as I've spent time with programs across the country and have looked at the different core values and spent time, what is it? That allows a program to take their core values from the walls of their locker water boy graphics showing up. Put all over the locker room winning kids with your with their eyes. What takes it from that or from an email signature or something on social media? To those core values coming to life in the actions of a, of a student athlete. Um, you know, we'll, we'll, we talk obviously a lot about character and we define that as who you are when the pressure is on. The patterns of your choices, your values, and your actions. That's your character. Well, culture is just the character of your program. It's who your program is when the pressure is on. It's the patterns, your choices, your values, your actions as a team and the guardrails or the, the, the framework within the Which those patterns are developed. That's your core values. And so, um, I would share today four things that I would think about in building. My core values for my program and I'll share how we've done that with two words. Um, the, the core values of two words and what we teach, um, each week through our, our weekly curriculum. Use that as an example, but I'll give you the framework that got us there more importantly. So when it comes to building your core values, the first thing I want you to do is Is I want you to ground your core values or connect your core values to a character trait. That those values have to have an anchor to hold on to. And the reason we need an anchor to let to to anchor down those values of a character trait is because different students. Different teams over different seasons can express different values differently. There are different expressions of values. And so we need to anchor them somewhere. And what that's going to do is it's going to give both the coach a sense of this is what's non-negotiable. But it's going to give students the, in each team, the freedom to express themselves within that. Let me give you an example. If our core value were to be rooted or grounded in something like grit. Um, there are different expressions of grit. We might think about grit as perseverance. We might think about grit as toughness or passion, um, that there are different expressions of that. And so by anchoring our value in the character trait of grit, we can allow now some Variance in how it gets expressed based on our circumstances, based on our team and our experiences, things like this. But it gives us an anchor point. One of the things that I've encouraged teams to do in the past is for coaches to say hey listen let's, let's talk about what we mean when we say grit or when we say Toughness or whatever trait, character trait that they're anchoring into. And we ask students to up on a whiteboard, say, hey, how would you define or describe Grit. What's the, what are the characteristics of a person who is gritty? And, and it's like a word cloud and they throw up all the words that describe someone that is gritty. And then they describe, they throw out all the different words. expressions of grit that they can think of or what it means to them and as you get these different kind of Word clouds describing grit. You start to see some connections and some through lines and then you go through and you start to circle the ones that are most important to the team. These are the characteristics. This is how you would describe someone who's gritty. This is how we define it. And you start to narrow those down into. Your team's definition of that non-negotiable character trait that is the anchor of your value. Does that make sense? It does. Can you, can you expand upon a little bit further the difference between a character trait and something we adopt as a value? What are the difference between those two things? Yeah. So I think the way I would distinguish the two is the core value is going to be, um, if I can make the analogy, uh, the core value is going to be, you got, you got an F one fifty And the character trait is going to be the engine within it. Is it that the V8? Is it the Eco V6? Did you get the lightning? What is, what is it that drives that F-150? And so there are some, uh, Different ways that you can drive, you can, you can propel that F-150 forward. Um, but it's all an F-150. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Would you say it's kind of like the character trait is the why behind the value? That's a great way to think about it. Sure. And so, you know, the value is going to end up be ultimately being the finished product. The character trait is going to be the internal part that It's the driver that drives it. You know, it's the framework. It's the why behind the finished product. Gotcha. That's a good, that's a good distinction there. So say the first thing we want to do is we're going to begin and connect it to a character trait. The second thing that we're going to do is we're going to define this value by a commitment. We're going to define it by a commitment. And so the reason that we want to do this is so that students can self-assess. Whether or not they are living this out. Um, so for example, um, if we were to use the two words, character traits, values, the six pillars. of a championship character. The first is tough people win, okay? That's the value, tough people win. The character trait it is connected to is grit. The way that we define Tough people win is with the commitment I will get knocked down in life and leadership. And I will always get back up grateful, smarter, and stronger because of it. This is not a textbook definition of grit or of toughness or any of the maybe expressions of grit that might come out. What it is. Is a standard and a commitment that we have made to say, you will know that you are tough. You will win when. If you get knocked down, you get back up, grateful, smarter, and stronger because of it. And I get knocked down. I, whether that means I made a mistake, I fell short, I missed a deadline, I tried and failed. Whatever the reason that I got knocked down, I didn't reach the thing that I wanted to reach. That's a part of life. It's going to happen to all of us. Adversity is going to come from everyone. Every person you know is either in a hard day, coming out of a hard day, or headed towards a hard day. This is just where we live as humans. So when I'm there, did I get up? Was I smarter, grateful, stronger because of it? If so, I am living out this value of tough people with. Every coach wants a player led team, but how do you build a player led team? That's the question that led to the creation of the captain's course, a ten week customizable leadership development course for student athletes. The captain's course will equip student athletes to lead their teammates, Promote the growth of leadership skills, create alignment on your core values from coach to athlete, and help build player-led teams. Learn more at www.2words.tv slash captainscourse. And so by defining this as a commitment, it helps students self-assess, but it also helps students hold one another accountable. Hmm. What is one of the things that students will say this day? They asked me this all the time. How do I call my teammates out? How do I have a hard conversation? They're terrified of it. They don't want to be hypocrites. They don't want to ruin the friendship. They feel like they're stuck between what coach wants and what their friend wants. And it's a hard, I empathize. It's a hard spot. But when we define these values that we all agree to through the lens of a commitment, it makes it easier. For students to have that hard conversation because now they come in and they go, okay, hey, you didn't live up to the standard. Are you? That's a fact. Are you grateful for what you're learning? Are you smarter? Are you stronger because of it? Okay, great. Is there anything I can do to help you be grateful, smarter, or stronger? Awesome. Let me do it. How can I help you get up? What do you need? And it, it helps them have that framework for that hard conversation. So that's the second thing I would look at is I would define it within the terms of a commitment. And it, it seems like, um, Defining it by a commitment gives the coach the opportunity to make this value personal to their team and who they are and clearly define it for themselves. Is that true? 100% and think about going back to the whiteboard example as we were thinking about the character trait and the all of this is is each team because your students will have different experiences in life. They're going to understand these, these traits, these values differently. They're going to see them differently. And so by allowing each version of the team. To. Turn the volume up on one expression or another so that their commitment is true, most true to them. It sets them up to live it out more. The less connected they are to the definition, to the character trait, to the core value, the less likely it is that they'll live it out. Oh, that's just what, that's what coach says. That's coach's thing. But when you let them put their fingerprints on it, now you didn't let them choose the value. You didn't let them choose the character trait it was anchored in, but you did let them choose the expressions of that character trait that we're going to emphasize as a team this year. You did let them define the commitment that they were going to make. Well, it helps their commitment count, helps them live it out. Why don't you take us to number three? Number three is that it must be coached intentionally, coached intentionally. We would never in a thousand years Tell our players, here's the play. Here's how you run it. This is your assignment. Go do it. You wouldn't have just one week of going through your plays and then never coach them up again. And yet we do that all the time with beyond the game topics, skills. We say, hey, we're going to have character week. We're going to have culture week. And then we do all of our character and culture stuff that week, classroom sessions, whatever. We never talk about it again. And we wonder why our kids don't live out our core values. Because we haven't coached them to do it. We go back to what we shared on our earlier podcast. The higher the expectations, the better the equipping we must have. And so just like you coach different assignments, plays against different schemes, against different strategies in different scenarios, if the weather is a factor. You must coach your core values in different ways. And so the way that I think about coaching core values is this idea of ask how and answer with an action. So ask how would a student live out whatever value or commitment we want them to live out and then answer that with an action. And then ask how again until the action that you get is so immediately doable that they can't fail. And then start working up the ladder. So the example that we use often is to make this point of ask how answer with an action is if a student says, I want to be a leader. We ask, how do you want to lead? Well, I want to lead by example. Okay. How can you set the example? I can get an extra workout in. I can put in extra work. Okay, how do you put in extra work? Well, I'll go to the weight room before school and I'll get a preschool workout in. Great. How are you going to get access to the gym before school? I'm going to ask coach if I can show up, if he'll open it up. Okay. What do you, how are you going to work out when you get into the gym that coach opens up for you? Well, I'm going to ask coach for a workout. Perfect. How are you going to get to the gym to do the workout coaches made you before school? Well, I'm going to go to bed two hours earlier. How are you going to go to bed two hours earlier? I'm going to put my phone in the other room so I don't scroll it and screw up my sleep, stay up late, but I can go to bed early. Okay, well, how are you going to wake up when your phone is your alarm and your phone is in the other room? I'm gonna buy an alarm clock. Now that's a no fail action to take right there. Buy an alarm clock. And when I get to that base level by an alarm clock, I then start working back up the ladder. When I buy an alarm clock, I can put my phone in the other room. When I put my phone in the other room, I can wake up early. When I wake up early, I can go get a workout in before school. When I get to school to get a workout in, I can do what coach told me to do. When I do what coach told me to do, I get extra work in. When I get extra work in, I'm leading by example. When I lead by example, I'm being a better leader. All we did in that coaching was ask how an answer with an action. We can do things like this, whether it's this detailed or not, again and again. Teach students how do you get smarter From being knocked down. How do you own a mistake? How do you learn from it? How do you move past it? How do you get stronger from a mistake? How do you give thanks? Whatever you are asking them to do. Coach them up on how to do it. Just like you'd coach them up with every minute movement on a free throw or in a pitch windup or in whatever you do. You coach every little piece up. Coach them up here. Why? So that those core values can come to life within their actions. It can become the patterns that they operate in, which is what we want on the field. And so how did coaches get. Their kids to buy into, memorize, use the vocabulary, use the language, start really kind of walking out that. So they're modeling it, they're coaching it intentionally. What's the next step? What does that look like? Yep. The framework is we model, teach, test, and reward. We live out the teaching that we're trying to get them to do in the character space. We teach them. That's what we just talked about. Then we test them. We give them meaningful opportunities to live it out. That test can look like, hey, set an individual challenge. And go do this for your leadership or to live out the core values. Have players set out individual challenges. It can look like having them teach their teammates how to live out this core value. That's one of the ways that Our leadership development course called the captain's course, it's one of the things that it helps students do is set, not just learn in the teaching, but we test them by building out personal leadership challenges. And by equipping young captains to teach their teammates how to live out the leadership. And then if they get it right, we reward them because what gets rewarded gets repeated. And if they get it wrong, then we go back and we reteach and we retest until they get it right. Take us to number four. Number four, and this is the one that many people start with. Now that you have taken your core values, connected it to a character trait, defined it by a commitment, you're coaching it intentionally, you've got a plan for that. Now you can create the catch phrase. Now you can make it cute. Too often we start with making it cute to make it fit our mascot acrostic or whatever cool phrase that really fires us up. That is just a part of our personality. I want you to have that. You need to have it. Your kids want to have it. Just make sure that before you get to the catchy cutesy catchphrase that you've connected it to a character trait. You defined it by commitment and you've got a plan to coach it intentionally. And so that is really what this all looks like. So if I put it all together for you. Here's how it would look for us. Add two words character about the first of our six pillars is tough people win. Our, our core value, our catchphrase is tough people win. It's rooted in the character trait of grit. It's defined by the commitment I will get knocked down in life and leadership, but I will always get back up grateful, smarter, and stronger because of it. We coach this intentionally by teaching how to remember the truth of who you are in the face of adversity, by practicing and developing a practice of giving thanks, a practice of gratitude. We value taking action because we believe this is a taking action is the quickest way to clarity, especially in the face of adversity. And we focus on what we have and what we can build, not what we don't have or what we're lacking. Those are the practices that we do to help one another live out the commitment Of our value tough people win. So that's how we do it. One example. Um, and, uh, and so that's, that's, um, that's what it looks like for us. And so if you're that coach, that's looking to take over a program or you're dreaming about what your pillars will be. These are a few things that will help you make sure those catchphrases go from the wall to the life of your kids. Love it. Mac, you gave us a great example of a two words pillar. Can you maybe outline the process or recap the process in the example of new coach stepped into a program? He's starting from scratch when it comes to culture and establishing these types of things. What does that look like? So the practical, this is who I meet with. This is, you know, the step I've defined. Okay. Now I'm bringing the kids in for their input. We're going to do the whiteboard session. Like, can you just lay that out briefly? I know there'll be many components to that, but give our, give our coaches maybe a couple step program of, of just what maybe you would do if that was you. Yep. So I will gladly walk through that. I will first though, share that there are two resources that are going to be super helpful for you in this process. One is found at 2words.tv slash purpose statement. And this is the seven part framework that allows you to go from brainstorm to coaching purpose statement. And I would begin there. As a coach and say, I need to do this personally. So I have my personal North star. And then if I were taking over a program, I would do this. I would have each coach do this individually. And then I would do it as a coaching staff so that we can align our personal values with our coaching staff values. And then I would do the same thing with my athletes. But rather than a coaching purpose statement, I would have it be an athlete purpose statement. And you can just play with the words, um, through the process at 2words.tv slash purpose statement. I would have my athletes go through it individually. Then we would go through it as a team. And then we would start to define our core values as a program. Because the best program core values are going to be a, a culmination or a, a blender, a mixed up version of each team's. Individual team members values where every team gets to put their fingerprint. So I would go to 2words.tv slash purpose statement and walk through that seven part process individually as a coaching staff, individually for athletes, collectively as a team. Then I would, then I would start to look at this four part process that we talked about today. I would have us on a whiteboard. And we would start to brainstorm and list out all of the different values, all of the different things that, that we could describe these, the people who live these values out as and word cloud it. And on the whiteboard, we're whitening it out, we're writing it down, and we're circling, and we're drawing lines, and we're letting them see. Yep, we value this over this and we're combining the list almost like a draft board for fantasy football or something. We're just combining it all all together and walking it through. I would let I would give students boundaries. I.e., they can't just completely change everything every year. There are certain boundaries that as a coach you've got to establish, but I would give them permission to express it uniquely. Mm-hmm. And then I would, I would have them once we've gone through this whole process, I would have them create a contract and sign a contract. And get them in the practice of recognizing that their word matters. That, that they, their commitments need to count. And so I'd have them sign a contract saying, this is, these are the values that I'm committing to not only live out, but uphold. And you can make that as detailed as you want. Uh, they're not more valuable when they're more detailed. They're more valuable when they are, um, something that students will agree to and can actually So I kind of, the second resource, uh, would just be two words dot TV slash four values. And that's where you'll find, um, A written version of what we have done here today, just like you would with a purpose statement. Awesome. And we'll include those links in the show notes of this episode so our listeners can find those pretty quickly. Well, Mac, I got one last kind of parting question for you. Man, you've been across the state, spoken to hundreds if not thousands of programs by this point. Have you come across any just like fun, playful, I don't know, what's your favorite value or mantra or rally cry that kind of you've bumped into across the state? Just curious. If you got one off the top of your head. Yeah, I mean, and there, there are so many just fun, cool, different ones that, uh, that, that we've seen, you know, um, I really, I think the, the ones that. I find myself thinking about most often. Are, are the ones that students have bought all into that. Like, it doesn't really matter what it is. It could be brotherhood. It could be sisterhood. It could be, you know, bucks nation, whatever. That part, you know, that's come and go, you know, but it's when the students have bought into it and whether that's with an affirmation or a chant or Or, you know, something that they say every day, they say it in unison, it's just become a part of their lives. That's when it, that's when it really, really clicks, man. You could, your catchphrase could be a hill of beans, but if they're bought into it. Yeah. Man, that makes, that makes all the difference. And, you know, I really kind of think about, uh, Clemson. Um, everybody's like, well, of course, like Dabo and, you know, and known for the culture thing, but I spoke there during fall camp, a few falls back. And what blew me away was It wasn't the, the visual. It wasn't the facility. I mean, they were world-class. Um, I heard a report recently that the Miami Dolphins went and visited Clemson to get ideas of how to make their NFL facilities better based on Clemson's facilities, you know? So it's like, obviously, that stuff is amazing. But the best example of being all in, which is something that they say, I saw was there was a young coach whose wife and young child had come up to eat lunch with them in the facility during fall camp. You know, they're there. twenty-four hours a day, you know, they don't get to see their families very much. And so the wife and son had come up to have lunch. And one of the senior, most senior, uh, Coaching staff, admin, um, one of the top two or three people running the program. Uh, called that coach by name, called his wife by name, called his son by name. And he said, Hey, why don't you guys let your boy go? Come hang out with, with uncle and come hang out with me and you guys eat lunch and have a little day date. And this senior football official said, Skipped eating his own lunch so that he could hang out with this kid so that that coach and his bride could have lunch together at a time where they rarely got to see each other. Wow. And I said, that's what it means to be all in. That's culture being lived out. That's the, that's the truth. That's it. And I was like, it's no wonder they're successful. It's no wonder they have the fewest transfers of almost any division one program football program in the country. It's no wonder they've been to as many or almost as many college football playoffs as any program in the country. Because their culture, their values, they're not just recruiting pitches. It is who they are. And they live it out when everyone is watching and they live it out when no one is watching. And that to me is what made it so phenomenal. Not that it was all in or the Clemson way or whatever it was, but that it was so fully lived out. Well, I, uh, I love it. Um, real polished, awesome answer. And, uh, I half expected you to maybe bring up like Quero, you know, uh, If you don't, if you don't know about the AKCs, if you don't know about the AKCs, uh, just go ahead and Google it and find out what they're doing out there. There you go. You know, we won't say it on the podcast, but if you know, you know, I love it, man. Well, Hey, thank you so much for your time today. Great chatting with you again. Hey guys, one last note before you head off for your day. Over 1400 schools across the nation have or are using one of our curriculums. Are you ready to jump on board? If you want a turnkey program to develop character in your athletes, give us a call at 281-723-9943. We will work with you and your budget to make it as easy as possible. Thanks again for listening to the coach 360 podcast. Now let's have a good one today.
Hey, everyone. My name is Colton, and I'm the host of the Coach 360 podcast. Here, our goal is to come alongside and equip coaches with the resources to help develop character through sports and raise up the next generation of leaders. Not only do we do that through this podcast and interviewing coaches from across the nation about character, culture, and leadership, but we also do it through our two words character development curriculums. If you want to learn more about these or anything else that we offer, visit our website, 2words.tv. That's the number two, words.tv. Or you can always drop me an email, colton at 2words.tv. Thanks for listening today. Let's get into the show. Have you registered for the Texas Way yet? The Texas Way is a collaborative campaign between Texas High School Coaches Association, Texas High School Athletic Directors Association, and Two Words Character Development to improve the level of sportsmanship at UIL sporting events. Decrease the number of ejections at UIL sporting events and strengthen communities and the relationships between coaches, athletes, officials, and fans. Register now for this free resource at www.playthetexasway.com. The Texas Way is powered by Mammoth Sports Construction. Do something big. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Coach 360 Today, I get to hang out with Coach Mackey. Again, we got him back on the podcast. Mack, what's up, brother? Big dog. My dude. Great to be with you, man. Great to get spend a little time encouraging like this rhythm that we're creating of getting back on the pod and encouraging coaches, you know, I know that it is it is harder now than ever. To be a coach and I feel like we could say that every year. But certainly, you know, as we're recording this in Texas, we're in the middle of a legislative session. Nationally, there's a lot of uncertainty about what may be happening or not happening. With federal funding. And so there's just a lot of uncertainty at the state and federal level. Maybe districts haven't sent out contracts yet. Maybe there's questions about. The funding sources of your unique position and just so many unknowns. And when there is a lack of clarity or a lack of information, negativity has a way of filling the gap, which you Oh, and what you don't know, what you understand and what you don't. And, and I would just begin today by encouraging you to say, I'm not going to let negativity fill that gap. Because when you do, it begins to affect not just how you live and how you go through the day, but it affects how you coach. It affects how you love kids. It affects how you do the thing you've been called to do. And so I would just encourage you hold on to what you do now. Hold on to your calling. Hold on to the fact that regardless of what states or federal governments do, the kid in front of you needs to be loved. They need to be loved by a caring adult who is a professional coach. Who has the skills to help them grow and reach their dreams. That kid needs you no matter what governments do. That kid needs you. And so as we begin today, I might just encourage you with that and say, stay in the fight and, and, and know that regardless of what happens, get in front of you, need you. Look at you going deep right out of the gate for us. But I can't, I can only imagine that there's some, uh, some listeners out there that needed to hear that. So. Thank you for for kicking us off that way. And as we get started today, Mac, um, you know, as I was thinking about the coaches that Tune into our podcast. We've got them from all across the state, all different levels, but a lot of our coaches are in that sort of up and coming, uh, part of their journey and their coaching journey. Maybe they have their eyes on a head seat one day. Uh, as we know, just in coaching in general, it's inevitable that at some point in time, they're likely to maybe make a shift or a change and they may experience at some point in time in their career. A chance or an opportunity where they have to maybe hit the reset button on a new program they're, they're taking over. And what I mean by that is they may need to be, they may need to make some cultural changes. May need to establish a new culture. And so I wanted to just propose this question to you. Um, what is that? What is something that they need to be thinking about if they come into a situation like that? What are some of the key components that they need to be thinking of to help establish that culture? It's a great question and it's something that I would imagine for a lot of coaches who are looking to take over a program or one day lead. A program that this is one of the exciting parts. If you're listening to this podcast, like you are a culture person, you are the kind of person. That wants to go beyond the game. And so, uh, as I've, as I've spent time with programs across the country and have looked at the different core values and spent time, what is it? That allows a program to take their core values from the walls of their locker water boy graphics showing up. Put all over the locker room winning kids with your with their eyes. What takes it from that or from an email signature or something on social media? To those core values coming to life in the actions of a, of a student athlete. Um, you know, we'll, we'll, we talk obviously a lot about character and we define that as who you are when the pressure is on. The patterns of your choices, your values, and your actions. That's your character. Well, culture is just the character of your program. It's who your program is when the pressure is on. It's the patterns, your choices, your values, your actions as a team and the guardrails or the, the, the framework within the Which those patterns are developed. That's your core values. And so, um, I would share today four things that I would think about in building. My core values for my program and I'll share how we've done that with two words. Um, the, the core values of two words and what we teach, um, each week through our, our weekly curriculum. Use that as an example, but I'll give you the framework that got us there more importantly. So when it comes to building your core values, the first thing I want you to do is Is I want you to ground your core values or connect your core values to a character trait. That those values have to have an anchor to hold on to. And the reason we need an anchor to let to to anchor down those values of a character trait is because different students. Different teams over different seasons can express different values differently. There are different expressions of values. And so we need to anchor them somewhere. And what that's going to do is it's going to give both the coach a sense of this is what's non-negotiable. But it's going to give students the, in each team, the freedom to express themselves within that. Let me give you an example. If our core value were to be rooted or grounded in something like grit. Um, there are different expressions of grit. We might think about grit as perseverance. We might think about grit as toughness or passion, um, that there are different expressions of that. And so by anchoring our value in the character trait of grit, we can allow now some Variance in how it gets expressed based on our circumstances, based on our team and our experiences, things like this. But it gives us an anchor point. One of the things that I've encouraged teams to do in the past is for coaches to say hey listen let's, let's talk about what we mean when we say grit or when we say Toughness or whatever trait, character trait that they're anchoring into. And we ask students to up on a whiteboard, say, hey, how would you define or describe Grit. What's the, what are the characteristics of a person who is gritty? And, and it's like a word cloud and they throw up all the words that describe someone that is gritty. And then they describe, they throw out all the different words. expressions of grit that they can think of or what it means to them and as you get these different kind of Word clouds describing grit. You start to see some connections and some through lines and then you go through and you start to circle the ones that are most important to the team. These are the characteristics. This is how you would describe someone who's gritty. This is how we define it. And you start to narrow those down into. Your team's definition of that non-negotiable character trait that is the anchor of your value. Does that make sense? It does. Can you, can you expand upon a little bit further the difference between a character trait and something we adopt as a value? What are the difference between those two things? Yeah. So I think the way I would distinguish the two is the core value is going to be, um, if I can make the analogy, uh, the core value is going to be, you got, you got an F one fifty And the character trait is going to be the engine within it. Is it that the V8? Is it the Eco V6? Did you get the lightning? What is, what is it that drives that F-150? And so there are some, uh, Different ways that you can drive, you can, you can propel that F-150 forward. Um, but it's all an F-150. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Would you say it's kind of like the character trait is the why behind the value? That's a great way to think about it. Sure. And so, you know, the value is going to end up be ultimately being the finished product. The character trait is going to be the internal part that It's the driver that drives it. You know, it's the framework. It's the why behind the finished product. Gotcha. That's a good, that's a good distinction there. So say the first thing we want to do is we're going to begin and connect it to a character trait. The second thing that we're going to do is we're going to define this value by a commitment. We're going to define it by a commitment. And so the reason that we want to do this is so that students can self-assess. Whether or not they are living this out. Um, so for example, um, if we were to use the two words, character traits, values, the six pillars. of a championship character. The first is tough people win, okay? That's the value, tough people win. The character trait it is connected to is grit. The way that we define Tough people win is with the commitment I will get knocked down in life and leadership. And I will always get back up grateful, smarter, and stronger because of it. This is not a textbook definition of grit or of toughness or any of the maybe expressions of grit that might come out. What it is. Is a standard and a commitment that we have made to say, you will know that you are tough. You will win when. If you get knocked down, you get back up, grateful, smarter, and stronger because of it. And I get knocked down. I, whether that means I made a mistake, I fell short, I missed a deadline, I tried and failed. Whatever the reason that I got knocked down, I didn't reach the thing that I wanted to reach. That's a part of life. It's going to happen to all of us. Adversity is going to come from everyone. Every person you know is either in a hard day, coming out of a hard day, or headed towards a hard day. This is just where we live as humans. So when I'm there, did I get up? Was I smarter, grateful, stronger because of it? If so, I am living out this value of tough people with. Every coach wants a player led team, but how do you build a player led team? That's the question that led to the creation of the captain's course, a ten week customizable leadership development course for student athletes. The captain's course will equip student athletes to lead their teammates, Promote the growth of leadership skills, create alignment on your core values from coach to athlete, and help build player-led teams. Learn more at www.2words.tv slash captainscourse. And so by defining this as a commitment, it helps students self-assess, but it also helps students hold one another accountable. Hmm. What is one of the things that students will say this day? They asked me this all the time. How do I call my teammates out? How do I have a hard conversation? They're terrified of it. They don't want to be hypocrites. They don't want to ruin the friendship. They feel like they're stuck between what coach wants and what their friend wants. And it's a hard, I empathize. It's a hard spot. But when we define these values that we all agree to through the lens of a commitment, it makes it easier. For students to have that hard conversation because now they come in and they go, okay, hey, you didn't live up to the standard. Are you? That's a fact. Are you grateful for what you're learning? Are you smarter? Are you stronger because of it? Okay, great. Is there anything I can do to help you be grateful, smarter, or stronger? Awesome. Let me do it. How can I help you get up? What do you need? And it, it helps them have that framework for that hard conversation. So that's the second thing I would look at is I would define it within the terms of a commitment. And it, it seems like, um, Defining it by a commitment gives the coach the opportunity to make this value personal to their team and who they are and clearly define it for themselves. Is that true? 100% and think about going back to the whiteboard example as we were thinking about the character trait and the all of this is is each team because your students will have different experiences in life. They're going to understand these, these traits, these values differently. They're going to see them differently. And so by allowing each version of the team. To. Turn the volume up on one expression or another so that their commitment is true, most true to them. It sets them up to live it out more. The less connected they are to the definition, to the character trait, to the core value, the less likely it is that they'll live it out. Oh, that's just what, that's what coach says. That's coach's thing. But when you let them put their fingerprints on it, now you didn't let them choose the value. You didn't let them choose the character trait it was anchored in, but you did let them choose the expressions of that character trait that we're going to emphasize as a team this year. You did let them define the commitment that they were going to make. Well, it helps their commitment count, helps them live it out. Why don't you take us to number three? Number three is that it must be coached intentionally, coached intentionally. We would never in a thousand years Tell our players, here's the play. Here's how you run it. This is your assignment. Go do it. You wouldn't have just one week of going through your plays and then never coach them up again. And yet we do that all the time with beyond the game topics, skills. We say, hey, we're going to have character week. We're going to have culture week. And then we do all of our character and culture stuff that week, classroom sessions, whatever. We never talk about it again. And we wonder why our kids don't live out our core values. Because we haven't coached them to do it. We go back to what we shared on our earlier podcast. The higher the expectations, the better the equipping we must have. And so just like you coach different assignments, plays against different schemes, against different strategies in different scenarios, if the weather is a factor. You must coach your core values in different ways. And so the way that I think about coaching core values is this idea of ask how and answer with an action. So ask how would a student live out whatever value or commitment we want them to live out and then answer that with an action. And then ask how again until the action that you get is so immediately doable that they can't fail. And then start working up the ladder. So the example that we use often is to make this point of ask how answer with an action is if a student says, I want to be a leader. We ask, how do you want to lead? Well, I want to lead by example. Okay. How can you set the example? I can get an extra workout in. I can put in extra work. Okay, how do you put in extra work? Well, I'll go to the weight room before school and I'll get a preschool workout in. Great. How are you going to get access to the gym before school? I'm going to ask coach if I can show up, if he'll open it up. Okay. What do you, how are you going to work out when you get into the gym that coach opens up for you? Well, I'm going to ask coach for a workout. Perfect. How are you going to get to the gym to do the workout coaches made you before school? Well, I'm going to go to bed two hours earlier. How are you going to go to bed two hours earlier? I'm going to put my phone in the other room so I don't scroll it and screw up my sleep, stay up late, but I can go to bed early. Okay, well, how are you going to wake up when your phone is your alarm and your phone is in the other room? I'm gonna buy an alarm clock. Now that's a no fail action to take right there. Buy an alarm clock. And when I get to that base level by an alarm clock, I then start working back up the ladder. When I buy an alarm clock, I can put my phone in the other room. When I put my phone in the other room, I can wake up early. When I wake up early, I can go get a workout in before school. When I get to school to get a workout in, I can do what coach told me to do. When I do what coach told me to do, I get extra work in. When I get extra work in, I'm leading by example. When I lead by example, I'm being a better leader. All we did in that coaching was ask how an answer with an action. We can do things like this, whether it's this detailed or not, again and again. Teach students how do you get smarter From being knocked down. How do you own a mistake? How do you learn from it? How do you move past it? How do you get stronger from a mistake? How do you give thanks? Whatever you are asking them to do. Coach them up on how to do it. Just like you'd coach them up with every minute movement on a free throw or in a pitch windup or in whatever you do. You coach every little piece up. Coach them up here. Why? So that those core values can come to life within their actions. It can become the patterns that they operate in, which is what we want on the field. And so how did coaches get. Their kids to buy into, memorize, use the vocabulary, use the language, start really kind of walking out that. So they're modeling it, they're coaching it intentionally. What's the next step? What does that look like? Yep. The framework is we model, teach, test, and reward. We live out the teaching that we're trying to get them to do in the character space. We teach them. That's what we just talked about. Then we test them. We give them meaningful opportunities to live it out. That test can look like, hey, set an individual challenge. And go do this for your leadership or to live out the core values. Have players set out individual challenges. It can look like having them teach their teammates how to live out this core value. That's one of the ways that Our leadership development course called the captain's course, it's one of the things that it helps students do is set, not just learn in the teaching, but we test them by building out personal leadership challenges. And by equipping young captains to teach their teammates how to live out the leadership. And then if they get it right, we reward them because what gets rewarded gets repeated. And if they get it wrong, then we go back and we reteach and we retest until they get it right. Take us to number four. Number four, and this is the one that many people start with. Now that you have taken your core values, connected it to a character trait, defined it by a commitment, you're coaching it intentionally, you've got a plan for that. Now you can create the catch phrase. Now you can make it cute. Too often we start with making it cute to make it fit our mascot acrostic or whatever cool phrase that really fires us up. That is just a part of our personality. I want you to have that. You need to have it. Your kids want to have it. Just make sure that before you get to the catchy cutesy catchphrase that you've connected it to a character trait. You defined it by commitment and you've got a plan to coach it intentionally. And so that is really what this all looks like. So if I put it all together for you. Here's how it would look for us. Add two words character about the first of our six pillars is tough people win. Our, our core value, our catchphrase is tough people win. It's rooted in the character trait of grit. It's defined by the commitment I will get knocked down in life and leadership, but I will always get back up grateful, smarter, and stronger because of it. We coach this intentionally by teaching how to remember the truth of who you are in the face of adversity, by practicing and developing a practice of giving thanks, a practice of gratitude. We value taking action because we believe this is a taking action is the quickest way to clarity, especially in the face of adversity. And we focus on what we have and what we can build, not what we don't have or what we're lacking. Those are the practices that we do to help one another live out the commitment Of our value tough people win. So that's how we do it. One example. Um, and, uh, and so that's, that's, um, that's what it looks like for us. And so if you're that coach, that's looking to take over a program or you're dreaming about what your pillars will be. These are a few things that will help you make sure those catchphrases go from the wall to the life of your kids. Love it. Mac, you gave us a great example of a two words pillar. Can you maybe outline the process or recap the process in the example of new coach stepped into a program? He's starting from scratch when it comes to culture and establishing these types of things. What does that look like? So the practical, this is who I meet with. This is, you know, the step I've defined. Okay. Now I'm bringing the kids in for their input. We're going to do the whiteboard session. Like, can you just lay that out briefly? I know there'll be many components to that, but give our, give our coaches maybe a couple step program of, of just what maybe you would do if that was you. Yep. So I will gladly walk through that. I will first though, share that there are two resources that are going to be super helpful for you in this process. One is found at 2words.tv slash purpose statement. And this is the seven part framework that allows you to go from brainstorm to coaching purpose statement. And I would begin there. As a coach and say, I need to do this personally. So I have my personal North star. And then if I were taking over a program, I would do this. I would have each coach do this individually. And then I would do it as a coaching staff so that we can align our personal values with our coaching staff values. And then I would do the same thing with my athletes. But rather than a coaching purpose statement, I would have it be an athlete purpose statement. And you can just play with the words, um, through the process at 2words.tv slash purpose statement. I would have my athletes go through it individually. Then we would go through it as a team. And then we would start to define our core values as a program. Because the best program core values are going to be a, a culmination or a, a blender, a mixed up version of each team's. Individual team members values where every team gets to put their fingerprint. So I would go to 2words.tv slash purpose statement and walk through that seven part process individually as a coaching staff, individually for athletes, collectively as a team. Then I would, then I would start to look at this four part process that we talked about today. I would have us on a whiteboard. And we would start to brainstorm and list out all of the different values, all of the different things that, that we could describe these, the people who live these values out as and word cloud it. And on the whiteboard, we're whitening it out, we're writing it down, and we're circling, and we're drawing lines, and we're letting them see. Yep, we value this over this and we're combining the list almost like a draft board for fantasy football or something. We're just combining it all all together and walking it through. I would let I would give students boundaries. I.e., they can't just completely change everything every year. There are certain boundaries that as a coach you've got to establish, but I would give them permission to express it uniquely. Mm-hmm. And then I would, I would have them once we've gone through this whole process, I would have them create a contract and sign a contract. And get them in the practice of recognizing that their word matters. That, that they, their commitments need to count. And so I'd have them sign a contract saying, this is, these are the values that I'm committing to not only live out, but uphold. And you can make that as detailed as you want. Uh, they're not more valuable when they're more detailed. They're more valuable when they are, um, something that students will agree to and can actually So I kind of, the second resource, uh, would just be two words dot TV slash four values. And that's where you'll find, um, A written version of what we have done here today, just like you would with a purpose statement. Awesome. And we'll include those links in the show notes of this episode so our listeners can find those pretty quickly. Well, Mac, I got one last kind of parting question for you. Man, you've been across the state, spoken to hundreds if not thousands of programs by this point. Have you come across any just like fun, playful, I don't know, what's your favorite value or mantra or rally cry that kind of you've bumped into across the state? Just curious. If you got one off the top of your head. Yeah, I mean, and there, there are so many just fun, cool, different ones that, uh, that, that we've seen, you know, um, I really, I think the, the ones that. I find myself thinking about most often. Are, are the ones that students have bought all into that. Like, it doesn't really matter what it is. It could be brotherhood. It could be sisterhood. It could be, you know, bucks nation, whatever. That part, you know, that's come and go, you know, but it's when the students have bought into it and whether that's with an affirmation or a chant or Or, you know, something that they say every day, they say it in unison, it's just become a part of their lives. That's when it, that's when it really, really clicks, man. You could, your catchphrase could be a hill of beans, but if they're bought into it. Yeah. Man, that makes, that makes all the difference. And, you know, I really kind of think about, uh, Clemson. Um, everybody's like, well, of course, like Dabo and, you know, and known for the culture thing, but I spoke there during fall camp, a few falls back. And what blew me away was It wasn't the, the visual. It wasn't the facility. I mean, they were world-class. Um, I heard a report recently that the Miami Dolphins went and visited Clemson to get ideas of how to make their NFL facilities better based on Clemson's facilities, you know? So it's like, obviously, that stuff is amazing. But the best example of being all in, which is something that they say, I saw was there was a young coach whose wife and young child had come up to eat lunch with them in the facility during fall camp. You know, they're there. twenty-four hours a day, you know, they don't get to see their families very much. And so the wife and son had come up to have lunch. And one of the senior, most senior, uh, Coaching staff, admin, um, one of the top two or three people running the program. Uh, called that coach by name, called his wife by name, called his son by name. And he said, Hey, why don't you guys let your boy go? Come hang out with, with uncle and come hang out with me and you guys eat lunch and have a little day date. And this senior football official said, Skipped eating his own lunch so that he could hang out with this kid so that that coach and his bride could have lunch together at a time where they rarely got to see each other. Wow. And I said, that's what it means to be all in. That's culture being lived out. That's the, that's the truth. That's it. And I was like, it's no wonder they're successful. It's no wonder they have the fewest transfers of almost any division one program football program in the country. It's no wonder they've been to as many or almost as many college football playoffs as any program in the country. Because their culture, their values, they're not just recruiting pitches. It is who they are. And they live it out when everyone is watching and they live it out when no one is watching. And that to me is what made it so phenomenal. Not that it was all in or the Clemson way or whatever it was, but that it was so fully lived out. Well, I, uh, I love it. Um, real polished, awesome answer. And, uh, I half expected you to maybe bring up like Quero, you know, uh, If you don't, if you don't know about the AKCs, if you don't know about the AKCs, uh, just go ahead and Google it and find out what they're doing out there. There you go. You know, we won't say it on the podcast, but if you know, you know, I love it, man. Well, Hey, thank you so much for your time today. Great chatting with you again. Hey guys, one last note before you head off for your day. Over 1400 schools across the nation have or are using one of our curriculums. Are you ready to jump on board? If you want a turnkey program to develop character in your athletes, give us a call at 281-723-9943. We will work with you and your budget to make it as easy as possible. Thanks again for listening to the coach 360 podcast. Now let's have a good one today.
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