Tag: Coaching

Am I the man that I was coached to be?

This time of year is always a period of deep reflection for me and this year, it feels deeper, heavier, and more significant. There isn’t a person in the world that’s not impacted by this global pandemic and all of us are experiencing our own personal wins and losses.

I’ve been reflecting on personal role models, their impact on me, and how I apply their lessons as I navigate mid-life with a young family.

One of those was role models was wrestling Coach Ray Barron. He wasn’t just one of mine, he positively impacted thousands of young men and women. We lost Coach in late October, and over the past few months, I have been reminded of the impact he had on his family, along with all the men (and women) across generations of 50 years of coaching.

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the lessons that I learned from Coach on and off the wrestling mat in an attempt to ensure that I am still living up as one of ‘Barron’s Boys’.

Showing UP

  1. Be confident while maintaining humility
  2. You can do it, but you have to believe in yourself first
  3. Be willing to put in the work
  4. Respect everyone. Parents, coaches, teammates, teachers, and your opponent
  5. Your conduct is a reflection of the entire team (or family)
  6. No one person is bigger than the sport (or any organization you take part in)
  7. You are ultimately measured by your heart, not your trophies
  8. Play to your strengths
  9. Challenge yourself, but don’t beat yourself up
  10. Dig deeper, you will find even more than you realized was there

Winning and losing

  1. Win with class and lose with class
  2. There is no better feeling than when you know you gave it your best
  3. You always shake hands with your opponent
  4. You can’t always control the outcome, but you can control how you respond
  5. You can be upset you lost, but you can’t be a sore sport
  6. Never blame the referees
  7. The process matters more than the outcome

Being a Teammate

  1. True companionship lasts forever
  2. Celebrate others success and catch them if they fall
  3. Inclusivity is natural when you sweat together for a common goal
  4. You learn a lot about yourself carrying someone else up a flight of stairs or through other life challenges
  5. Seasons are short, but memories carry on
  6. Seize the opportunity to connect in meaningful ways
  7. Embrace growing together, you will never regret it
Coach played a significant role in shaping life long friendships beyond the wresting mat

I’m sure there are so many additional lessons that others took away from their time with Coach. At the end of the day, when I look back at Coach Barron’s legacy, I think it is very simple. That he just cared.

Coach set up young men (and women) for success no matter where they were in their journey. He had a knack for identifying the kid that could use some confidence just by being part of the program. He helped the most talented reach their full potential to compete for championships. He could also humble those that needed it and transform them in the most positive way.

At the banquet at the end of the season, the seniors would gather at the front of the auditorium. We called it senior goodbyes. He would say some final words about each wrestler and he could never make it through the speeches without shedding tears. He had invested so much time into us as young men and his return on investment was our growth and character that we took into adulthood.

Now that our girls have entered school-aged years, I can see how important it is to consistently pass on all of those lessons that I mentioned above. It’s not always easy and it takes significant commitment. How do I model it, teach it, and celebrate it?

But what if I asked myself each morning, “Am I the man that I was coached to be?” Maybe that’s the right tactic going forward to help me reach my potential. I believe answering that question will shape my everyday intentions, decisions, and actions. Then I can take comfort in being content with the consequences and outcomes that fall into place.

You can read more awesome stories about Coach Barron, learn more about his impact, and support the scholarship in his name at the Ray Barron Strength and Honor Fund.

Maybe you need some heavy metal during these heavy times

So the last few weeks have been very heavy as the whole world reacts to COVID-19. This virus impacts everyone worldwide and it really feels like we still don’t know the long-term consequences. Lives are being changed on a daily basis.

It’s been weighing on a lot of us and for me, it sort of sucked out a lot of energy while scrambling throughout the day to adjust to home quarantines, school cancellations, worrying about family members, and spending way too much time up at night watching the various newscasts.

However, I received some insight during a virtual happy hour yesterday with our Leadership Denver coaching group led by Margie Thirlby. We explored resilience and through an exercise, I discovered that my creativity trait has really been running on empty.

As I continued to reflect last night, I began to feel that it isn’t just creativity that is missing. I’ve stopped working out, I’m not as present as a husband and father that I want to be, and I’ve engaged less with my pods. I’ve been a bit frazzled and dreading the impact this is having on so many people.

So when I woke up early this morning wanting to change my attitude and to get some of that creativity flowing again. I turned on some tunes and started writing this blog. In some circles, I could be considered a Boy Scout and get labeled as a prude (probably deservedly so), but I do love myself some good hard rock music. Most of my tunes are generational and old school, like Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, and artists that were on KBPI in the late ’90s.

I suppose various types of music would work, but here are the reasons why I like to rock out a bit to the heavier stuff.

  • It gets me moving: Beats and riffs that you can’t just sit still and listen to in a chair. I’m usually inspired to go workout, start tackling big projects, get organized or even clean the house (one reason why Katie lets me jam out sometimes).
  • It focuses me on the future: For me, my mind always goes to my future-self rather than dwelling on the past when I jam out to the hard stuff. I think more strategically and begin envisioning what could be. I think this started when I use to run back in high school to make weight for wrestling.
  • It’s rooted in themes of resilience: Although I don’t understand most of the words in the music, I get a sense of resilience and mental toughness through it. For me, it’s usually not the lyrics, but the instrumentals that give me energy.
  • It releases tension: This may seem counter-intuitive, but I think it is a channel to let out my anxiety, anger, and other emotions.

My go-to band during times when I want to manufacture momentum is the band Tool. I was a bit curious about why this morning and I made some interesting observations. I correlated the Tool album release dates with what was going on in my life during that time.

  • Undertow (1993): I was going through puberty. Enough said.
  • Ænima (1996): I was a freshman in college and figuring out the man that I wanted to be. I was active 18-20 hours a day and didn’t sleep much. Heavy Metal helped.
  • Lateralus (2001): This was the time of the dot-com bubble bursting and my first taste of a recession while in the workforce. It was my first experience with friends losing their jobs and dealing with uncertainty. Ohh and then there was 9/11.
  • 10,000 Days (2006): An album that I listened to a ton while working on major projects to stay busy throughout the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 and beyond. It was a time in my life when I struggled to find resiliency and was initiating the transition from being work-centered to a desire to be more family-centered. It wasn’t until today, that I discovered the album title is referring to roughly the period of time it takes Saturn to orbit around the sun. Tool’s lead singer said this about the origin of the album title:

“That’s the time in your 28th, 29th year when you have presented the opportunity to transform from whatever your hang-ups were before to let the light of knowledge and experience lighten your load, so to speak, and let go of old patterns and embrace a new life,”

Maynard James Keenan ( Source)

I was 29 in 2006. I was definitely enlighted in the years following and going through a transition that definitely didn’t happen overnight. However, the best thing that came out of that period for me has been the insight to see when others are going through it, remembering the way I felt, and offering ways to help.

  • Fear Inoculum (2019): After a long hiatus tool released this album, (about the same amount of time we had a bull market and thriving economy). Not until today, did I know that the definition of inoculum is a substance introduced into the body to create or increase the body’s resistance or immunity to a disease. Prophetic or not, that is about a freaky as Disney quarantining Rapunzel to a tower in the movie ‘Tangled’, set in the Kingdom of Corona.

So if you see a Half-Italian / Half-Lebanese guy running through the neighborhood with headphones on. It’s just me getting some heavy metal in my day to get through these heavy times.

Also, if you need someone to jam out with, let me know and we’ll get through this together. The girls will always be willing to put on a show.

The girls are also discovering the joy of a good jam!