S1E5: Winning Strategies with Carlette Patterson

This week WeCOACH Podcast welcomes life coach extraordinaire, Carlette Patterson. Founder of Patterson Sports Ventures and Sports Philanthropy League (SPL), Carlette oozes winning strategies for life. Host and WeCOACH executive director Megan Kahn leans in as Carlette offers insight on living a life in 3D — personally, professionally and philanthropically — and how to have more “10 moments” in your everyday being. Whether you are a CEO, a coach, a team, or just a weekend-warrior, Carlette is sure to inspire you to live your best self.  They discuss her journey, how she started her business, Sports Life Coaching with corporations, coaches and teams —agents in change - champions in life, living a life in 3D, Sports Philanthropy League and the G.I.V.E.H.O.P.E program, today’s coaches and student-athletes, coaching resiliency and longevity in this profession and the  WeCOACH partnership with SPL.

Host: Megan Kahn

A co-production of WiSP Sports and WeCOACH

For more conversations from the world of women’s sport including articles, blogs, videos and podcasts visit wispsports.com. WiSP Sports is the World’s Largest Podcast Network for Women’s Sport with more than 20 hosts, 1000+ episodes across 30+ shows and a global audience of over 2 million. WiSP Sports is on all major podcast players. Follow WiSP Sports on social media @WiSPsports. Contact us at [e-mail]. 

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Whisports the voice of women. Welcometo Season one, Episode five of the
Week Coach podcast Fun with Sports.Every two weeks, we sit down with

(00:25):
some of the best and brightest womencoaches, leaders, and industry experts in
the world of sports for fun andinspiring conversations. I'm your host, Megan
Kuhn, Executive Director, Week Coach. This podcast is a co production of
week Coach and WHISP Sports. Makesure to search for WISP Sports on your
podcast app and hit subscribe to catchevery episode dropping every other Thursday. Week

(00:48):
Coach has become the premier nonprofit organizationcommitted to recruiting, advancing, and retaining
women in the coaching profession of allsports and levels. Through programming resources and
an engaged community, we are changingthe landscape for female coaches and the next
gen of young girls who dream offollowing in their footsteps. Today's guests certainly
knows a thing or two about highspakes high level performance. Carltte Patterson is

(01:14):
an internationally recognized sports life coach,a professional speaker, author, and the
CEO of Patterson Sports Ventures. Ican't wait for you to hear what my
dear friend has to say. WelcomeCarlette thanks so much for being on the
Week Coach podcast. Thank you.It's great to be here and I'm excited
to talk about all the great thingsthat you're doing and coaching. Thank you
for that great work and that you'redoing with our coaches. So thank you.

(01:38):
The power of team I love it. Teamwork makes the dream work.
All right, let's do this.So I want to start. Probably a
bunch of our community isn't as familiarwith your background as I am, just
from our time working together over thepast couple of years. Can you start
by sharing a little bit of yourstory. I'd love for them to hear
your journey. Yes, thank youfor that. Well, the good news

(01:59):
is really my only news is thatI've been an athlete my entire life.
I grew up in a small townand played all the sports, and really
chose swimming out of the volleyball,basketball, and track adventure, and I
think came to a sue for ashort time to swim on the ASU women's
ASU women's swimming team, and thenended up getting married and having little athletes.

(02:24):
I have three daughters that have beeninvolved in sports, and really began
working strictly in the sports profession.I started my own business in the wellness
industry, and then went to workfor the NFL and the NBA, and
then started another business in terms ofreally starting to emphasize the work of sports

(02:44):
philanthropy and sports life coaching. Soreally my entire life has been about being
an athlete, serving athletes, andreally understanding the heart and the passion behind
sport really what it is from acoach's perspective and perspective, and later in
my life as a parents' perspective raisingathlete. Yeah, which you had three

(03:06):
little ones running around at one point. Time, We're going to get there.
I'm not going there yet. Iwant to go back to talk about
how you founded Patterson Sports Ventures.Well, my late husband, Steve Patterson,
I were blessed to be able towork in the sports industry for years,
and then later in life, afterwe'd had children, we were blessed
with what we call our that baby, our bonus baby, and she is

(03:30):
now twenty years old. She's nineteenand so Patterson Sports Ventchers is twenty years
old, So that gives you alittle bit of background from that perspective,
and we started that business because wewere blessed to have another baby later in
life and decided that we really wantedto focus on our passions, both raising
our family and giving back to aprofession that had blessed us. And so

(03:53):
we started Patterson Sports Finchers with thedesired outcome of serving the heart and soul
of athletes and connect professional athletes throughsports life coaching with a social cause to
help really become agents of change andconnect using their platform to make a difference
in the world. And talk alittle bit about how sports life coaching resonated

(04:14):
with you and at the time,I guess you were probably pregnant with McKenna,
and how that resonated and how youfound your sports life coach. Yes,
well, it was such a gift. And that's really what got me
into sports life coaching is that,you know, sometimes when life gives us
a few surprises, I wasn't quitesure, you know, exactly how to
be the best mom and to manageboth the profession that we had. Our

(04:38):
big girls were in college and soI mean in high school, and so
we really had kind of a certainlife plan that we thought was going to
happen. And being an athlete anda coach, the first thing I thought
of was, well, I needa coach for my life. And this
was again twenty years ago, andthat was something that wasn't out there.
And lo and behold, Oprah hada life coach and her name was Martha

(05:00):
Beck. And I read about herin Oprah's magazine and that my mother in
law had so graciously brought to me, and I said, Hey, that's
what I need. And so Icalled Martha and there was a two year
waiting list and said, you know, that's not going to work. So
the great part about being an athleteis we're very persistent and committed to making
whatever we want happen. And soI had those great skills in me and

(05:24):
just started to pursue how I couldget her to take me on as a
client. And I said, hey, I'll do anything you've got, any
appointment you've got, And I gotin and in Chicago. Martha lived in
Phoenix at the time, and Ilived in Phoenix. We actually lived a
couple of miles from each other.And I had to go to Chicago in
the winter to work with her,which was quite an adventure, just the

(05:46):
beginning of that whole adventure. AndI did, and she changed my life,
and I said, this is whatI want to do with the rest
of my life. And I askedher to train me, and she agreed
to train me again. And thiswas twenty years ago and none of that
was happening. And after she trainedme, she said, now you have
to give this to what you knowyou're passionate about. And I wanted to

(06:09):
give it back to sports. Andthat's where the idea and concept of sports
life coaching came to me. Sowe either all to Oprah or to your
mother in law started, or toMcKenna or to you know again the power
of team. Right, that's right, that's right. I love that story.
Every time I hear it, Inever get it. What do you

(06:30):
talk about sports life coaching? Youallude it to it there and you work
with Martha, How do you workwith these coaches or how do you work
with these corporations? What is itthat you're coaching now? Well, so
when I really started to think aboutit again, totally focusing on sports because
that's really all I know, Ithought, Okay, we play sports like,
for instance, with basketball, it'sthe same game. So you can

(06:53):
have a little pee weee guy playingNERF basketball and he's got the same you
know, he's learning the same rulesas our pro and so you actually,
you know, sports, as faras I know, is the only profession
that you could actually start at avery young age and literally have practice time
on the same profession all the wayup. So I mean, we actually

(07:13):
get a master our sport or ourlife skill very early. So I thought,
well, why aren't we doing lifethe same way? We kind of
play life our whole time, ourwhole game of life. And so that's
where I started with, just whatare the fundamentals, what are the rules?
I started from a game of basketballand just thought about, you know,
you can play basketball on a sportcourt. You can play basketball you

(07:34):
know inside of the YMCA just asit was started. You can play it
as a pickup game. And yetwe still know how to do it in
every country, in every language.There's just this fundamental of how to play
sport. So I really wanted todo the same thing with life, and
so I thought, Okay, whatare the fundamentals, and how can I

(07:55):
create a playbook and a rulebook andkind of follow that to create game that
we can start playing as twelve endersand continue to play all the way through
legacy. And is that when youtalk about the fundamentals of life, is
that how you incorporate than living alife in three D? Yeah, So

(08:15):
I thought about, well, whatare the three dimensions of our life that
we're really going to work from kindof birth to legacy on. And so
what I knew from my experience thatI really wanted to focus on was our
personal life, professional life, anda philanthropic life. And the way I
defined that was personal is really forsignificance, what matters to me, what's

(08:37):
really important to me. Professionally,I wanted to be for success however anyone
defined that. And philanthropically I wantedto be for service again, making sure
that every person gets to define howthey want to live a life personally,
professionally and philanthropically, but at leastthey could be anchored in the fundamentals time,

(09:01):
energy, and emotional management in thosethree dimensions. Absolutely, And so
you're coaching them on how to bechampions in life exactly and using all the
language of sport, the fundamentals ofsport. I mean authentically, I come
from a sports background. So Ireally just took everything that I'm about and
thought, Okay, how do Ipour this into the beautiful craft that Martha

(09:26):
bet gave me understanding the power oflife coaching, and I thought it was
quite ironic coming from you know,Martha is not into sports. She's certainly
an academic and known as the numberone life coach in America, and she
really gave me this kind of purevessel to pour something into that was very
different. And I thought, Wow, why not like what I know and

(09:52):
be able to do what she gaveme through that and just have it come
out something very different that I cangive back to the profession and really the
world that I live in. Andso I just invented kind of you know,
from a language of sport. Forinstance, when you meet with our
team, it's called a workout.We do team workouts, individual workouts,

(10:15):
We practice practice practice, you know, we do things in seasons. We
have scoreboards for life. So everythingis done just using the language of sports,
so that we'ren't connecting to that musclememory periodically. And you know,
it's irat that from a sports perspective. We will train in the XS and
o's hours and hours and hours,and you know, we'll watch film and

(10:39):
we'll pay attention to every detail.We'll monitor our sleep, our energy,
our nutrition, our you know,how every part of our body's feeling.
And then we come to basically ourlife and we don't have a coach,
we don't really think of it inthe same level. And the new thinking
for me was what would we beable to do with our sport if we

(11:01):
actually were as intentional training for ourlife as we are for our sport.
And I know you and I talkabout this all the time with we so
often see our female coaches, especiallyexactly training, the exos and the film,
the recruiting, all of those things, but they're not nurturing themselves to
make them be the best coach thatthey get. Yeah, and how would

(11:22):
we feel if our athletes were doingthat, you know? I mean I
find that so interesting just from aperspective. I know that was really what
Martha did that changed my life.As she said, you know, are
you your little women are watching youand you know you're actually raising the next
generation? And do you like whatthey see? You know, do you
want them to model what you're doing? And no, the answer was no.

(11:46):
You know, I was tired,I was grumpy. I felt like
I could never satisfy you know,anyone. I was never a good enough
wife. I was never a goodenough mom. I was never a good
enough professional. You know, Ijust came from a place of never good
enough and wanting it all versus timeout. You know, I can definitely

(12:07):
have it all if I train forit all. I just have to be
intentional for it and get the rightpeople on my support team to coach me
up on how to do this.I mean, you know, there's a
little peewee person said. You know, our young child says, hey,
mom, I want to play baseball, and in ten seconds, we're looking
for a coach. And you know, we come in and we say we
want to be champions in life,and we start figuring out how we're going

(12:31):
to do it ourselves. And whatabout you know, looking for a coach
for that. And not only areyou training somebody, but in coaches or
corporations or teams, you're also anaccountability partner. Yeah, I'm for them,
right. I mean, think aboutif you told an athlete, hey,
we're going to meet you at thefinal four, here's your playbook.
Go out on your own. Iwant you to figure out your own workouts,

(12:54):
find your own trainer, do yourown thing. You know, I'm
not going to talk to you.I'm just going to see you at the
Champion Chip and I expect you tobe in great shape. I expect you
to know the playbook. I mean, goodness, the whole group, the
whole thing about sports is just thatthat juice that comes from showing up every
day with your teammates and getting theconnectivity, energy that comes from somebody cheering

(13:15):
for you and lifting you up whenyou fall down. And you know what
if we did the same thing inlife that we're doing in sport. You
know what if every morning when Igot up, I had someone who was
for me and said, hey,Carl, that great job. You know,
what are your desired outcomes this morning? What would you like to achieve
today? And let's do this together. And you know, at the end
of the day, we got tocheck in and say, you know what

(13:35):
about you, how is your day? What were the good things? What
do we want to do differently tomorrow? Again, just really taking what we
know as women in sports and saying, why aren't we doing the same thing
in our life? Why aren't weas connected and for other women in sport.
As much as we're wanting from ateam culture perspective, our athletes to

(13:58):
be for each other, to checkin on each other, you know,
to just serve and support, whichit seems when we're talking about it,
like the simplest concept. But thefact that when you go in and you
present this to our coaches, howmany aha moments and recognition that happens within
just a room of fifty coaches.Well, and you know it took me

(14:18):
reading an Oprah magazine and you know, so again, I do find it
ironic that we live in this worldof coaching people up, yet when we
think of ourselves and you know,I don't know where that comes from.
I just know from my own filmthat I hunkered in and just kept trying
to figure it out myself. Andthe more I tried to figure it out

(14:39):
myself, the more frustrated I got, and the less I was able to
be the person I wanted to befor everybody that I loved and wanted to
serve and support because I was actuallynot my best self because I didn't have
any support. And yet all Ido is support people, and I think
as women coaches, that's that's allwe do, is support others. But

(15:00):
who's supporting us? You know,who's on our support team? Well,
You're on my support team. Everytime I hang up the phone from who
I always leave Ley, thank you. Yes, you are my support team
too. I love just the youknow, the passion of being able to
connect and say, how can weserve these coaches better? How can we
as women actually lift each other upand go to the level that we talk
about and aspire about. And whatI love about just that opportunity to talk

(15:26):
about it and think about it isyou know, we're brilliant as women were
figuring out all kinds of things,and yet we've never really directed that towards
sup towards us and towards the thingsthat we're passionate about. And I just
think we admit that power of teamthat as women, you're never going to
stop us. And especially as women, we're constantly giving to everybody else and

(15:48):
not turning enough attention on ourselves.So this is one way that we can
create resources, initiatives and support mechanismsfor our women to better support themselves in
life. And it's a new muscle, right. I mean, we're pretty
much workies at this. We havenot been doing many reps on taking care
of ourself. In fact, usuallyself is at the very end of the

(16:11):
night, and you know, asyou're supposed to be resting and recovering,
you've probably got a phone on onehand, and you know, watching some
film on the other and maybe jugglinga baby or a partner or you know
something while you're trying to be present. And you know, I can just
tell you from my film that that'snot a great winning strategy that it definitely,

(16:33):
um, you know, can cando it? Can you know we
can? We can survive that way, but life is so much better than
surviving. And again just thinking aboutwhat would we want for our children or
for our athletes, and how canwe begin to model that in a way
that they have new hope to say, Wow, I can do this.
I could stay in the profession,I can be a coach, I can

(16:56):
be a champion in life, andI can have other things that are really
important to me on three dimensions,personally, professionally, a film, propically.
In that little brief recap right there, you use so much of your
language that I was tuning into.I want to go back to one of
your winning strategies. You talk aboutten moments in living a life. In
ten moments, can you share thatlittle nugget with our audience. Yeah.

(17:18):
So one of my fundamentals that I'mjust passionate about is really a tool that
we anchor in stats, and thatagain from sports stats, is totally factual.
It can be it's just telling meexactly what happened in the game.
I don't have any film of it. I can just look at the stat
sheet and it says, here's exactlywhat happened. So I thought, what

(17:40):
kind of tool could we have forlife that really measured exactly what happened.
And so again the thinking is ona scale of one to ten, and
that's not original from that perspective,but what we do with that is we
really anchor in an emotional moment fromthat and so one would be low and
ten would be fabulous. And soyou think of a moment in time when

(18:00):
you've had a ten moment, anda ten moment is just something that really
matters to you. And so thinkingabout a ten moment, a ten moment
can be a life ten moment.You know, meeting your partner or having
children or getting a dog or youknow, there's so many amazing things that
happen, and then you can lookat it from a life perspective, and
you can look at it from aday perspective. You know, inside my

(18:22):
day, what are the teens thatare happening? And the way we trained
for a ten life is that everytime you invest your time, your energy,
or your emotions to really be presentand intentional and stat it up on
a scale of one to ten.How do you feel about this commitment and

(18:45):
if it's in the eight, nineor ten zone, to you go for
it? You know, fantastic,Go say yes and go and show up
and be a ten. If it'sa seven or below, we're going to
challenge you to figure out what youwant to do so that you have the
power to really live this ten lifeand think about what you need to bring
that seven up to the eight,nine or ten zone. And if it's

(19:07):
if you can't figure it out,you've got to figure out how to say
no, which is a hole inmuscle from women as well, or you've
got to be able to accept it. And we call back the cardio.
And so just like in sport,we have cardio and in life we have
cardio as well. And cardio issomething that's a low stat but yet it
gets you to a ten. Soyou know, for instance, from a

(19:30):
cooking would be a low stat,but eating would be a ten, which
is fabulous. So when I'm doingmy cooking, instead of using all of
my energy to be like, ohmy gosh, I hate this, I
can't believe I got to do itthree or four times a day. This
is ridiculous, you know, usingall of my energy towards the cardio,
I redirect all of my energy towardsthe ten. I feel great when I'm
eating well. I love feeding mylittle women, you know. And again,

(19:53):
now all of my energy and myemotions are anchored in the things that
are an eight, nine or tento me. So just like in a
sport game, if you look backon your stats, you know, you
don't get to delete the first half, or you know some errors that you
made, they actually stay on yourstat sheet. So the same as happening

(20:14):
in our life is that every dayis a stat day, it's a game.
Every day is game day, andwe're able to look at our stats
the way we've invested our time andsay, you know, well, gosh,
when I look at my stats,my day has been really a six
or seven and eight nine, ten, And that's how I'm going to feel
at the end of the day,and I never get that day back.

(20:36):
So our new thinking and really playingto be in the ten zone is investing
in making sure all of my choicesthroughout the day are in the eight nine
or ten zone. And I've gotsome cardio mixed in there. And so
if that's how I'm training every day, my days will be in eight,
nine or ten and then therefore mylife will be an eight, nine or
ten. So that's just a simpletool that we can hand a coach to

(21:00):
say, here, you go makesure that when you invest your time,
your energy, and your emotions thatit's in the eight, nine or ten
zone. Yeah, so simple.I was not going to bring up the
cooking. I know that's low onyour scale, but I'm glad you did.
Cor So all of that, yousay, I want to catch one
more piece of language here, becauseyou talk about this a lot when you

(21:22):
present, is to call your lifeplay. So we just I want to
finish up that conversation with the quickstat of call your life play and how
that can be a quick check inat the end of the day. Yeah.
So again, we start our workoutsand we end our workouts by checking
in. So how important is itthat we acknowledge who we are and in
the moment, because I'm coming intoa workout, So that's on the scale

(21:44):
of one to five. But Iactually came up with it from a point
guard perspective. You know, apoint guard dribbles down and she's going to
call her play to her team sothat everybody around her can know the play
she's going to do. So,you know, using your fingers on a
one to five, we say,call your life play. Everybody can hold
up their their fingers and say I'ma one, I'm a two, I'm
three, I'm a four, I'ma five, And as a team,

(22:06):
we can look around and be connectedand be like, wow, I can
see some of my team's a fourtoday, some of my team's a one.
And that way, whoever is aone, we don't have to talk
about it. We just acknowledge itand we know we've got them today maybe
a day they need a little extrasomething. And so again, the power
of team, the power of connectivity, the power of serving and supporting each
other. And so we start bycalling our life play, so we know

(22:30):
how you are when we start,and the end of a workout, we
end by calling our life play,just so we know that we've got you
when we walk away. All SportsOne Voice, We Coach. Tune in
to the voice of women coaches onthe we Coach podcast This is wis Sports.

(22:55):
I think that's so cool and I'veloved knowing that your three little ones
grew up knowing and understanding language andthis is how your family. Yeah,
as McKenna would say, she cameout of the one being coach, which
is very true, which probably makesher coach now very happy. So for
our listeners, McKenna's just finishing hersophomore season at Texas and m on volleyball

(23:15):
team. Yeah, so yeah,she definitely this is part of her life.
And it's men to actually have ageneration to see what it's like when
they're we're as intentional with their lifeas we are their sport. I've had
the blessing of serving serving Charlie TurnersBorn's team at Assume for the women's basketball
team for fourteen years, so she'sbeen anchoring this in her game of sport

(23:40):
and life for fourteen years. Andagain that's just such a just the new
thinking for a woman to be ableto say, you know, she came
to me and said, hey,I know you do this in the pros,
why not for our college girls.And there's a woman that is such
a pioneer that says, you know, I want the best for our girls
and tell me I don't know whatit is. I don't know what you

(24:02):
do. And she's trusted me completelywith this. It was very new when
we started fourteen years ago, andyou know, just through trusting in me
as a woman and also saying challengingme to come into her team and help
her team be the very best theycould be on and off the FOURT.
So just love all of us aswomen really challenging each other to figure out

(24:22):
a way to serve and support ata higher level. Yeah, and kudos
to Charlie because she's certainly using acountablehours. It's no kindible hours, and
the division one is very it's avery big deal. So kudos to her
for taking time to recognize the importanceof this and letting you use that time
with her student. Well in oneof your graduates. Melissa Llewellen is another

(24:45):
one of our great supporters of this. She's just been phenomenal. She's the
women's golf coach at Auburn University andI got to be her coach at a
issue because she's just such a phenomenallearner, and she was at as you
and knew Charlie was our winning ascoach today issue and said, I want
to be you know, whatever,whatever Charlie's got, I want because I

(25:06):
want to be the winning as coach. And she went to Charlie and said,
I don't you know what is it? What do you do? And
Charlie referred me to Melissa, andI've gotten the blessing of being with her
for ten years now. And whenshe went on to Auburn, she brought
me to Auburn with her as welland introduced it as her culture and she's
a graduate of the academy and justyou know, as constantly says, hey,

(25:26):
how can I support Melissa went onand became certified as one of our
sports life coaches, which is awhole other dimension that you know. Really
our mission of our company is tohave a sports life coach on every team
around the world, because we believeif we put as much energy and time
and emotion into serving the heart ofthe athlete, that we produced great people

(25:48):
as well as champions in sports.So Melissa is one of those that said
I'm in and she has done hercertification and really promotes this as well in
the model that we hope, youknow, we'll able to get more involved
with, which Melissa was the keyto the introduction of you and me,
so forever we'll be grateful to Melissafor that after she did attender and a

(26:10):
women. I want to ask,because I think you just recently had a
graduation for your certification program, howmany sports life coaches have come through your
program that are out in the worldthat be good? Now, Well,
we have over one hundred Life coachesaround the world. We do a lot
of work in New Zealand, Australiaand the US, and so I train
usually do a coach certification twice ayear. So been doing that for good

(26:34):
twenty years now. And you havemany, many people that some of them
come into the coaching just to getcoached at sixty hours of very intensive coaching
training and teaching, so and sosome people go on to use it and
become a certified sports life coach.Some take it into executive coaching. We've

(26:55):
now gone into the corporations as well, because sports is really the champions in
culture development, and I love thecorporations are saying, you know, well,
we actually want to know what you'vegot. And sports is really a
great model for going in and trainingpeople to be champions. And I love

(27:15):
that corporations are now saying, youknow, tell us how to do that
and taking it seriously, not justyou know, using the word team,
saying how do we do this?So we have both sports life coaches and
we have executive coaches as well,right, and because you are doing a
lot of corporate coaching retreats now,correct, And I do have corporations that

(27:36):
I serve as their coach as well. Right in all your spare time,
and I'm all three of my dimensions. But you know, I'm happy to
say I'm living in ten life.And you know, one of our sayings
that very much what Martha taught usis you've got to live it to give
it. So it's very much amatter of you know, I am living

(27:59):
the life that I coach people inevery day, and every tool that is
in our playbook is a tool thatI use daily and am very anchored in
our language and training and every day'straining and every day's a game day,
and that's what makes it interesting andfun and also competitive. You know,
another one of our fundamentals. Steveplayed for Coach Wooden at UCLA and coach

(28:22):
to me is the first life coach, sports life coach there ever was.
And he really took that orange balland said, I'm going to use this
orange ball to make great men.And everything that we do is anchored in
achieving competitive greatness, and coaches definitionof that was being your best when your
best is needed. And I thinkas women in sport, you know,
we are competitively great both in ourpersonal, professional and philanthropic life, and

(28:48):
that shows up differently to each oneof us. But we wouldn't be in
sports if we weren't competitive and reallyusing that competitive spirit to be my best
self and then to be all togive that away and to serve and support
others with that. I love beingable to incorporate just the spirit of who
we are and not saying that,hey, to do this, I've got

(29:11):
to really go to a recreational level, because that's just not who we are
as women in the field that we'rein. And you said it best,
you're living a life of Timmoth.If you are a friend or a colleague
of Carlette, and you get ina text conversation with her, I promise
you that ten emoticon is going toshow up. It's your favorite, it's
my favorite thing. Goodness say,invented these emojis has made my life so

(29:32):
much easier a little more expressive.If they just make it in purple,
I have to own it for sure. Exactly. You talked about spirit.
Another one of your buzzwords is hope. Talk about the Give Hope program.
Well, when I first started tryingto introduce sports philanthropy to the college market,
I thought, well, how dowe do this? You know,
what's the new thinking and it's notbased on money, and certainly I wanted

(29:56):
to introduce it in our three dimensions. And so you know, I'm training
in three dimensions for our little youknow, our twelve and unders as well
as our legacy coaches, And soI thought, how could I introduce philanthropy
in a very different way. So, to me, philanthropy means to give,
and what is something that we canall give? And I thought that
would be hope? And so Ireally introduce our sports philanthropy as giving hope

(30:21):
and it can really be in anyway. So we train everyone that we're
involved with to think about that thirddimension as how can I give hope today?
And that gives you an opportunity tobe opportunity to be a champion for
change by really being able to introducesports philanthropy at a very young level.
And it has nothing to do withgiving of money so or even giving of

(30:45):
time. I know when we introducedsports philanthropy to our college coaches, they
just looked at me and we're like, Charlotte, are you you kidding me?
Like there's no way I can godo community service? Well, I
am for a community service, butI'm also introducing sports anthropy as something of
giving hope versus giving of your timeor your energy. And we give hope

(31:06):
to our athletes every day. Wegive hope to the person we bump into
at the grocery store in terms of, you know, going through the line,
being able to ask how their dayis, being able to give a
smile away, being able to givekindness. So it really is just another
level of awareness that you know,I can give hope as well as giving

(31:30):
in my profession and in my personallife, and sometimes the first person to
give hope to is yourself and justbeing able to say, you know what,
I'm going to call that girlfriend.I'm going to call somebody and say,
hey, let's take a joy breakand just connect in a way that
is deep and that feeds my souland helps me get back out there.
So that's just our next level ofsports to anthropy. We want to introduce

(31:52):
that to the next chan and givethem hope that they can give hope at
a very simple level. And youtalked about next gen how do we bring
more women into the coaching profession.Well, I believe personally that we've got
to live it together. You know, again, my little women are thirty
six, thirty five, and nineteen, and so you know, the first

(32:12):
thing when my middle daughter, whois in the coaching profession and she's in
a high school at private high schoollevel, she just said, Mom,
I want a life. You know, I don't want to work like you
and dad all the time. Andcertainly, you know, our profession is
a lifestyle profession. And so Iheard her, and I think that's a
very valuable point that we do haveto come at this in a way that's

(32:34):
very respectful to having a life.And that's where those three dimensions are really
important. You know, I loveold school coach Wooden to me, is
as good as they get. AndI love listening to my new gen little
women and saying, you know,tell me how you want to do this
and still achieve competitive greatness. Andthat's where the value of those three dimensions

(32:55):
is really important. So I dobelieve sports life coaching is a winning strategy
for keeping the next gen in itand really saying we value who you are
as a person, not just whoyou are as a coach. And to
do that, it's going to takesome training, you know. I mean,
that's not the way I was broughtup. That's but I do know

(33:15):
that's the way the next gens thatI know they're The number one question they're
asking is how do we do thisin a way that's from a well being
perspective? You know, how isthis healthy? How does this honor my
mind, body, and spirit?I mean, I love that they're asking
those questions. I wish we wouldhave asked those questions earlier, and we
didn't. And so the people thathave trained us and come before us,

(33:37):
they didn't. They didn't have toinquire about that and figure it out,
or I know they would. Butthe good news is we've been given that
challenge, and as great women,competitive, passionate, involved and knowledgeable,
I challenge us to figure out howto give this great profession to the next
Yet, and we've talked about it, and we know this is unfortunately a

(34:00):
lot of too oftentimes twenty four sevenlifestyle profession, and with it comes failure
and resiliency. How do you helpcoaches navigate the difficult times, the getting
the fire, the challenges that theysometime face on campus. How do you
have coaches navigate through that? Well? I do think resilience is an anchor,

(34:21):
a winning strategy, a muscle thatunfortunately, as coaches and as people,
we get way more reps in itthan I would really ever wish for
anyone. And yet I do thinkwe can take that and say, based
on our strength of this, howdo we bounce back and learn from this
and find a way to come andbe better. I mean, just watching

(34:43):
the film of our athletes, thishappens to them day in and day out.
I mean they have a recruiting classthat comes up behind them that you
know, they come in as championsand they come into a system where they've
got to learn a new system andthey've got to get better, and they've
got to push themselves to levels thatthey truthfully didn't know if they had or
not. And I look at usin that same way, and I think,

(35:04):
Okay, how can we stay atthe top of our game? How
can we stay in shape? Andif we have a losing season, or
have a losing game, or havea losing day, you know, what
do we tell our athletes? Wetell our athletes get in there, watch
your film, connect with your coach, figure out how to be better.
Well, why don't we do thesame thing. You know, if we
have a loss, if we getfired, if we have a season that

(35:29):
isn't going as it is as wewant it to go again, what would
we tell our athletes? And it'sjust about connecting rather than isolating. It's
about connecting to the people that areon our support team and saying help me.
And as soon as a person reachesout. I know, any film
for a coach that's got an athlete, I think, if they say,

(35:50):
coach, help me get better,and when can I show up for film?
I don't know a coach in theworld that's not going to make time
to make that happen and have somereal dedication helping that player be better.
And I think that's what we aswomen coaches are all about, is we
are for you and you reach out. Let us share our film with you,
Let us share the winning strategies thathave gotten us to where we are.

(36:14):
Also, what are our performance barriers? You know, what barriers are
getting in the way of us beingable to be the women and the coaches
that we want to be. Andcollectively, what can we come up with
as our actions to change that we'recommitted to connecting with each other, committed
to each other and helping each otherto achieve those actions for change. Which

(36:34):
I think all of this is whatexcites me so much when we talk about
our work together because these are allretention strategies which for us, recruitment,
advancement or retention are three pillars ofwhere all of our work life. And
I think what you're doing is certainlya retention strategy to try to help women
achieve longevity in this profession for team, too many women leave the profession.

(36:54):
And I think what's so valuable aboutthat, just from my own life experience,
ants is because I was blessed toreally raise two generations of kids.
I know when my middle daughter graduatedfrom college, and she had been coaching
with us since she was sixteen.She was in a car accident at sixteen,
and so that ended her playing careerand she just started coaching, you

(37:15):
know, beside her dad. Andshe had her first coaching job when she
was fifteen, and so she couldn'treally coach so she was sixteen, so
I was the coach and then youknow, she would show up and do
the work and we really teamed upfrom that perspective. So the mentoring component
is very, very valuable, whichI think women coaches are phenomenal at really

(37:36):
taking him the next gen and helpingwith with that perspective. And then you
know, my daughter's name is Sarah. She went on to college, got
her you know, her psych degree, and came back and my youngest daughter
was being recruited and for I don'tknow, middle school or some silly school,
some silly level. But and Isaid, well, tell me about

(37:57):
your search program here, and theysaid, well, you know, you're
our a D and our coaches andthey were all men. And I said,
no, I really want my daughterto be coached by women. And
they said, well, we don'thave any women coaches and they said,
do you want to coach? AndI said no, but my daughter,
you know, just graduated, andthey interviewed Sarah and she started, you
know, as their coach and soand she coached McKenna all the way through.

(38:19):
So I do think as women wehave to advocate for ourselves. We
also have to advocate for ourselves ina way that we become the best we
asked for the jobs we want.We call the coaches that we love and
admire and respect and we say,you know, can I come to camps?
Can I come you know, canI work for you? Can I
serve in sport? Can I volunteerso that you get that experience and that

(38:42):
way, you know, when theopportunity comes up, they can say no,
I don't want that job, butI know somebody who does, and
they can they can refer a qualifiedwoman that is really ready to take on
that challenge and then stand beside herthe entire way and say, look,
I'm a phone call or a textaway, I'm for you, I'm on
your support team. You know,we just have to collectively keep building the

(39:05):
confidence of women as well as trainingthem, because as women, we are
authentic and We're not going to gofor something unless we believe that we're qualified
and that we can be great atit. And the only way that we
can we can do that is toget the work in and the Academy is
incredible for that and you know,really allowing women to understand and be coached

(39:29):
and then step into those professions.And so I do believe in the power
of team I do believe in womenlifting, women up, training, women
being for us. And also Ireally encourage women to have the courage to
go for what they want. Imean, I know, you know,
we challenge our athletes. I've challengedmy little women. I want myself every

(39:49):
day to go for things that areway up there for me, and that
really scare me because that's what keepsme in the game. I mean,
I've literally been doing sports life coachingfor twenty years, and I know a
lot of our legacy sport coaches havebeen in it forever, and people say,
you know, how do you dothat? And I know I do
it because I am passionate about thisand I am passionate about figuring out how

(40:12):
to be better every day. AndI love the curiosity, I love the
challenge, and I get so reallyenergized and encouraged by being around other great
women and great people in the industry, and very grateful that we coach just
set up that platform and just reallyencourage us to think differently about how can

(40:34):
we get great young next gen womenin it, and how can we train
them and keep them really believing thatthey are great at what they're doing,
and we have great film think aboutour athletes. We bring them in the
gym and we work and we practice, and it's time on task, and
let's just do the same thing inour profession that we're doing with our athletes,

(40:57):
which I think all of our audiencecould certainly see why our organization thinks
the world of you and why we'venow started to partner together to bring sports
life coaching into the week coach umbrella, and specifically with our pilot program right
now operating under the NTA Women CoachesMe with these coaches that graduated, it's
very exciting and again thank you forthe new thinking. Right just really you

(41:20):
know, again, just as Charliedid fourteen years ago, just as Melissa
has done, and you know,there's lots of coaches out there that are
trying this in really any different waythat you can do it. And that's
what I really appreciate about week coach, is that you know, we don't
know the answers. We just knowthat we would love to be able to
give this to women coaches and say, how can we introduce you to being

(41:44):
coached yourself? And we're here tolearn from you. Tell us you know,
we know our specialty in terms ofsports life coaching. You know your
life. You're the expert on yourlife. Let's team up in a way
that we can collaborate for you know, compare greatness personally, professionally, and
philanthropically. And it really takes everybodyhaving the courage and making a commitment that

(42:08):
I matter, and my team matters, and my family matters, and I
want to figure out how to dothis. And I just can't think of
a more powerful team of women toreally take on the challenge of living in
three dimensions personal, professional, andphilanthropic, giving hope to the next gen

(42:28):
as well as ourselves, and makingsure that when we live our lives we're
in the ten zone. So I'mreally excited to be able to capture this
wisdom and the combination that we coachhas from legacy coaches to rookie coaches and
say, you know what, it'stime that we do something different so that
we can really get a different resultand have women in the field that are

(42:52):
operating at a level we couldn't evenimagine as coaches when we were in that
sports field. And as a sportscoach, you know, many many moons
ago, so I really, youknow, from a muscle memory perspective,
just what it's like to really everyfiber of your body want your athletes to

(43:13):
be amazing and your team to beamazing, and you know, getting sleeping
drinking thinking how can I get thatone athlete to just do a little better,
And you know, let's just harnessthat energy for something so much bigger
than what we are right now.The cool thing I think, too,
is is we're going to be trackingin the future on if supporting these coaches
in three dimensions help them stay inthe profession longer. And what great stats

(43:37):
right to be able to have somecoaches that say, you know what,
I'm curious about the three D Ireally would love to see what my life
would even look like. And weknow from a change model perspective that change
is really difficult and especially for thoseof us that are anchored in some winning
strategies. It's like, hey,this is how I've won. I'm not

(43:58):
going to take my eye off theball. This is the way it's going
to be. And so it takessome you know, it's a risk to
change up your game and so andI know in sports we are very superstitious.
If we want to use that word, I would call it more based
on rituals and routines. We arevery set in our rituals and routines.
And so this is change. Whatwe are introducing is change. And that's

(44:22):
where that new thinking of being championsfor change rather than being afraid of it.
What if we stepped in into amodel that really was about change,
that was not about becoming less orgiving up, but it was about what
could we be like if we reallyoperated on three dimensions and coming at it

(44:45):
from that perspective. I mean,if you watch any film of our great
coaches, they are the fundamentals thatthey stuck with, and then there are
times when they changed based on theenvironment that was changing. And I know
in our sports world of college sportsas well, you know, our environment
is changing dramatically, and that's somethingthat I want to pay attention to and

(45:07):
I want to be an agent ofchange inside that model. I love that
we are conscious of well being.I love that we have said, you
know, the the well being ofan athlete and is very very important,
and I just want to say,the well being of a coach is very
very important. And how are wegoing to do that? We don't know.

(45:29):
There isn't a playbook that we havebeen following for really honoring the well
being of a person. And yetthat's a passion that I totally believe in
and will do every aspect of mypart as coach, says I want to
play a small role and something somuch bigger than myself. And you know,

(45:49):
Megan, you guys are doing agreat job at really making sure that
happens. And thank you, youknow, thank the NC DOUBLEA for just
the support of this, and thankyou and most importantly, thank the coaches
that are coming and taking time outof a very very intentional full schedule and
saying, you know, I matter, and I want to come to the
academy and I want to get aplaybook on how to do this. And

(46:14):
now we're saying at a new level, take the coaching back with you and
take what you've learned and committed toin your playbook at the academy and say
you're going to commit to practicing andimplementing that with a coach. And so
that's really the change that we're youand I are excited about exploring with our

(46:35):
coaches. I know, Brill,you're amazing at coaching other people up and
lifting them up and helping them growas leaders. How do you continue to
grow? Well, Thank goodness,I have a big support team and I'm
living it to give it. SoI've certainly got I've got a whole handful
of coaches. So that's you know. I love it. I'm passionate learner.

(46:57):
I'm a lifelong learner. So Iam constantly, as my little women
would say, like mom, ohmy goodness, now, now who are
you you know? Now? Whoare we going to see? Now?
What's happening? So I am constantlylearning from amazing people. I love reading
and love attending workshops, and Ijust I really love learning from people.

(47:20):
I'm a relationship person and so Ilove the connectivity of experiential learning and that's
important to me. And then there'salso that important part of coming home and
really anchoring into my family and kindof sniggling up and testing and recovering.
So those are my winning strategies.So we end every episode with rapid fire.

(47:40):
I'm gonna fire off some pressions toyou and you come back to me
with what first comes to mind?Ready? Ready, you said you loved
reading. What's your favorite book?Oh? Well, the Bible is a
big one for me. And alsoright now, I just finished The Defining
Decades and I do love to reada book week, so you're catching me

(48:01):
on a weekly status from that perspective. So Defining Defining Decades is a great
one for next GM. You saidyou love rest and recovery, and so
winning strategy for you. What's yourfavorite thing to do to recharge? Red
wine with fabulous friends, looking ata great view, with amazing food,
amazing conversation and little fabulous chocolate tandthere's my home. Oh my god,

(48:25):
you you just told my next question. I was literally gonna put you on
the spot. It was gonna sayhot chocolate or wine, but it sounds
like both of them. I thankyou for you stand in the morning with
the hot chocolate and end my daywith the red wine. So I'm going
to figure out a way to havetens all day long. No wonder you
have a lot of ten days.Favorite place we're going, favorite place you've

(48:45):
traveled. Pixar's one of my favorites, and now I love post ran Chen
is my favorite location. Oh it'sbeautiful there. You're making jealous. I
want to go back out there.No talk about a ten. Oh my
goodness. So yes, love,I can just like say the words post
ran Chan and I'm happy. Soif you could use one word to describe

(49:08):
yourself, what would you say?Love? That is a perfect and if
it was only written in purple,it would just be the epitome of Carlott.
Thank you so much. Yeah,thank you. This has been a
ten. Thank you for just theopportunity to connect, and thank you for
all your great work, my dear, absolutely thank you. Before we before
we drop off here, though,I want to make sure our audience knows

(49:30):
how to find out more information aboutyou and your great work. So our
website is Patterson Sports Pinchers Orcarlette dotcom, which is easy Carlett cr l
Ette dot com and my email iscoach Atcarlett dot com. Again that's cr
l E. T. T.Herlette. Thanks so much for being here,

(49:52):
Thanks for sharing so many nuggets ofinspiration. I have no doubt everyone
listening is leaving here smiling inspired,especially because it's the holiday season and who
doesn't need more positivity and kindness inthe world and rest store recovery. So
that's really important. Team, Somake sure that you know, as long
as you're starting with a little hotchocolate and ending with some red wine and

(50:13):
the whole day's filled with great relationships, how could it get any better than
that? See, you're always coaching. Okay, that's it for me.
Thank you, goodbye from Thanks forlistening to Today's show with Carlette Patterson.

(50:37):
Every two weeks, we sit downwith female coaches, experts, and industry
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(50:58):
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(51:20):
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We sit down with your twenty eighteenNCAA Softball National champion in Florida State head
coach Lonnie Alameda for a candid conversationon the cusp of their new season.

(51:45):
Until next time, All Sports OneVoice week Coach Dream. Please Gonna get
Star. I just give more Star. Everything is not be loved.