Coaching with Heart. Jerry Lynch
the wisdom of sacred books written over 25 centuries ago for leaders, generals, and heads of state in ancient China. The three major parts of this book will combine Wisdom to Inspire, Wisdom to Empower, and Wisdom of the Watercourse Way, the Tao itself.
SACRED CALLING
I have been working in the coaching professions for 34 years. During this period of time, I have established a consultancy that is unique, stimulating, practical, and game-changing, aimed at instilling the principles of leadership learned from extraordinary coaches and athletes.
When I give it some thought, I really haven’t had a job during any of these years. Instead I have had a “sacred calling,” honorable and privileged work of serving and giving to others where my focus has been on making a difference rather than making a living. The funny thing about that is the “making a difference” approach has provided me with making an extraordinary living. There’s an important lesson here for all of us who attempt to reverse the process.
It has been a joyful, sacred calling thus far, one of learning, growing, and expanding, and filled with much passion and love, a path of endless self-discovery, revelations, openings, and epiphanies along the way. It has enabled me to experience 29 National Championship teams and write this, my eleventh book on the subject. I agree with the observation of Cervantes when he said: “The journey is better than the inn.” And, I am not even halfway there. I have so, so much more to learn and many miles to go before I rest.
SACRED BOOKS
In Chinese, the word that best defines and epitomizes extraordinary leadership and coaching with a dancing heart is Jingshen, a Mandarin concept meaning to instill spirit, vitality, chi, passion, and personal power in those you lead.
To achieve Jingshen, the art of implementing ways to inspire and empower others, not only do I use my wisdom from my calling but I adapt the timeless lessons on leadership from several ancient sacred Chinese books, one of which is the Tao Te Ching, the most widely published book in the world aside from the Bible and a source of spiritual strength for centuries. It was written 26 hundred years ago, ostensibly by Lao-Tzu, a Taoist sage, for all who were in positions of leadership at that time and who possessed the potential to influence, inspire, and empower others in a strong, positive, and productive way. Each of the 81 verses contained within this classic offer ageless leadership lessons, principles, suggestions, and strategies for effective guidance that speak directly to one of our most challenging professions, athletic coaching. These lessons help to cultivate ideal relationships between you and your athletes while guiding them to go the distance in athletics and life.
In addition to this, these practical verses of sagely advice give insight into a more “natural way”; the way coaching and leadership were meant to be, in harmony with nature. For example, the Tao Te Ching talks about the power (TE) of a leader or coach to serve others from a place of love, caring, and spirituality, rather than the power over others by resorting to force and manipulation. This is the power you have to influence and encourage athletes to discover their motivation within, to have courage, commitment, integrity, perseverance, patience, selflessness, and be fearless. When this happens, there is a heightened sense of purpose, meaning, and relevance to what they do which happens to be the essence of motivation. The Chinese calligraphic symbol for Tao is made up of a head, signifying wisdom, and a foot, representing walking—literally translated it means “walking the way of wisdom.”
If you are anything like me, you want to kick it up a few notches in your coaching. The wisdom of the Tao Te Ching will help you to do just that as you experience significant change, improvement, and growth in addition to what you already have mastered from years of good work. The leadership lessons from the Tao Te Ching are a compelling way to get the most out of what you do. This wisdom, along with the wisdom from other Chinese sources, will help you to begin to understand the essence of extraordinary coaching, guiding, mentoring, and teaching not only for your work but for the bigger picture of life in all arenas of performance.
I’m excited and eager to dive in and begin the journey. This book is written in the spirit of giving to each of you, all that I have learned from so many others wiser than myself. I am like a hole in a flute where the breath of these great spirits comes through to you.
The following are several specific examples of what Coaching with Heart will help you to create and cultivate in your heart-directed culture:
• spark the flames of enthusiasm, excitement, and inspiration that flicker in all athletes
• encourage athletes to win the inner battles for success in all of life
• create environments that are emotionally safe, without blame and judgment
• enable athletes to realize their full, expansive capacity in sports and life
• nurture team cohesion, harmony, and unity of purpose, one heart, one soul, one goal
• gain the dedication, trust, loyalty, love, and appreciation of all those whom you lead
• communicate so that athletes will listen to you and you to them
• permit risk and help others learn the lessons of failure for sport and life
• model powerful humanistic styles of leadership
• resolve conflict more peacefully and effectively
• create more joy, happiness, and fulfillment for athletes, helping them to perform at higher levels
• cultivate independence, interdependence, and confidence in those you lead
• encourage athletes to turn to you in times of crisis, rather than to outsiders or drugs
• nurture self-esteem in others and in yourself
• be respectful and sensitive to athletes’ needs
• express anger or irritations without causing emotional damage
• become more accepting, flexible, and balanced in your coaching and in your life in general
• create a culture of winning and excellence in sports and life in general
• teach those you lead to prepare, plan, play, and compete with the heart of a warrior
• win the relationship game before winning the athletic game
• step outside the box and be more creative and dynamic in your coaching
• develop ways to inspire and empower others to find inner motivation to go the distance.
PART ONE
WISDOM TO INSPIRE
LEARNING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
The late great national championship coach Jim Valvano once said that “most people work by going to an office, I’ve been blessed…I get to coach.” Having coached in some capacity for the past 34 years, I also feel blessed. If you are a coach, manager, mentor, parent, or leader in any arena of life—or aspire to become one—you are very fortunate and blessed as well. Coaching, I believe, is not a job; it is a most important calling, a sacred and vital activity where we have been given the fortunate opportunity and privilege to guide and mentor others in a nurturing, selfless, passionate environment, instilling in them the profound sense that they can be something other than ordinary. This calling may very well be one of the most compelling, significant, and honorable paths one could travel in a lifetime, the opportunity to cultivate and develop in others deep spiritual qualities of inspiration, excitement, fortitude, enthusiasm, loyalty, balance, courage, and self-reliance. Wow…can you imagine this? With such characteristics, those we coach experience authentic growth and development on the physical, emotional, and spiritual plane. This is not only possible but inevitable for anyone under the leadership of one who coaches with heart. In order to coach with heart we must nurture and develop in ourselves