Standards Inspire. Rules Restrict. | Rob Miller

Leadership expert Rob Miller explains why culture lives at “3 feet,” not 30,000 feet. He breaks down the difference between rules and standards and how great programs define specific behaviors that athletes can actually execute.

If your team understands what you want but isn’t consistently showing it, this episode will help you close that gap.

In this episode, we cover:

•  Why vague standards lead to inconsistent teams
•  The difference between rules and standards
•  How to define behaviors athletes can actually execute
•  Why most culture conversations stay too abstract
•  How to make expectations visible and actionable

🎧 This conversation originally took place inside Momentum Sessions, a free community for coaches who take culture seriously.

If you’d like to join future sessions, ask questions live, and connect with other coaches working on this, visit:
 👉 momentumteams.com/sessions

About Momentum Sessions
Momentum Sessions is a free, private community where coaches explore how culture, leadership, and standards actually work inside real teams.

Join future sessions:
 👉 momentumteams.com/sessions

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I walked into school one time and a team came up and said, Coach, we want to show you all of our values. They're on the back of our t-shirt. I said, Great, turned around. That one for every letter of the alphabet. Who's going to remember after? I'm not going to remember after C.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Rob Miller is a partner at Proactive Coaching, one of the most trusted names in character development and team standards. He's spent decades helping programs at every level create clarity, strengthen accountability, and develop leaders who elevate everyone around them. Rob, welcome again to the session. Thanks. I'm looking forward to it. So before we dive in, we when we think about all the teams that you've worked with, what kind of maybe fires you up most right now about working with coaches?

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Well, I think that the two things I think that really I love working with is coaches and working with them, especially when they are engaged in getting their their athletes to take ownership. Because I think if we're asking them to do something, it's compliance. But when we get them to see the light and then they start doing it for the team reasons, then you get that Pat Summit quote, right? You know, the greatest weapon we have on any team is ownership. And when they own it, that's when we raise it. So that's number one. And I think the second thing right now is I'm not sure it fired up, but I think it's we're in such a weird world right now. We see it at, you know, I was at a Michigan State, Iowa game the other night. You see it at D1, but it filters all the way. I mean, all the way down into youth, where it's just a different mentality. And I think with a lot of young coaches, they're feeling that. And so I kind of use it this way. We got to be really good at teaching more uh skills than we are schemes. And part of those skills is character development and leadership development, just as much as they are whatever your sports skills are. And I think we kind of get into the scheme aspect more than we get in the skill aspect right now. And so working with them to see that, I think is really good. I think that's fun for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Awesome. And I can't wait to delve into some of those topics that you just brought in. But let's start here. What do you what are most coaches maybe getting wrong about culture without maybe even realizing it at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I think most of the coaches we work have a pretty good understanding, but I also think this um coaches like the people we have on this call right now. I speak 130 days a year with teams at all levels. And I say, you know who we work with? We work with those who are really good that want to keep getting better, and we work with people in crisis. You know, the ones in the middle, I think, are the ones that worry me the most. Well, we maybe not work with them as much, but I think they just hope leadership will develop. I think they hope character will develop. And it's not gonna. I one of my biggest frustrations is we had a great group of senior leaders and we're voided this year. Well, what were you doing to train that next group to come up? That needed to start about two or three years ago. And so I think intentionality, I think, would be the big thing I would say. We we need to be intentional about everything we do.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Intentionality. Okay. Well, one of the questions that came in just now from Kerry Costello what is the most common barrier for coaches to get over when it comes to not proactively building their team's culture and leadership foundation?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

I'll say two things. First of all, it's what I already mentioned. Some people intentionally don't know how to do it. So it just, oh, it should come. If we get good leadership and we get good athletes, that's just gonna happen. You know, it's no, you got to intentionally do it. But the second thing is I think time, I think we're all in an area of you know, we're in a time crunch right now. Our kids, and I actually said this to my uh my niece the other day about her kid who's a freshman in high school and they're involved in 20 different things, right? And I just remind her, I'm all for multi-activity, multi-sport kids. But at the same time, guess what? Overcommitment leads to undercommitment. And I think kids are coming in, I gotta go in an hour and a half, I gotta be gone, I gotta go do this, I gotta go do this. Okay, where do we fit that crunch in? And especially for those that, you know, if you're at school teaching kids, now I'm seeing them. I got a chance during the course of the day to hit that in the hallway, to hit that at lunch. But if I'm coming in after school and I haven't seen them till that moment, and I got them for 90 minutes to two hours or two and a half hours, and I got to get my reps in, I get that. But where are you also then coming in with the intentionality of the character in that? So I think the timing, the intentionality we have to do this, and then put that head to head with the time factor, I think that's facing a time crunch for our coaches right now. How do we do this and do this simply but effectively?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

And in terms of team culture, that's thrown around a lot. What is the simplest way that you define that? What's our standard?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

We call them covenants, okay, and I'll explain that. People call them standards, values, principles, all okay with that. I mean, I'm good with whatever you call. We call it covenants. And the reason is the definition for the word covenant is a binding agreement that can be witnessed. What's our team culture? It's going to be witnessed. Okay. And we want it to be different, noticeable, and appealing. I'm talking now 30,000 feet, right? And I don't live there. I live at three feet, but at 30,000 feet, what sets our team apart is our team culture. And your team culture is either going to be different, noticeable, and appealing. It's going to be different, noticeable, and unappealing, or it's not going to be different, not noticeable, not appealing, that's going to be average and mediocre. And no one wants to. I mean, I don't want to be average and mediocre, and I don't think everybody on this call wants to be average and mediocre. And so to me, that's the 30,000 foot. What sets our team apart that everybody lives to that if you if any of you come watch our teams play, what will you see and how will that affect our team? And then that holds over the course of time. It's the consistency that win, lose, the result doesn't matter, right? Okay. We're playing to our potential. We're, you know, so like I tell athletes all the time, well, you never want said you had potential. Never want that said. Okay. So we want to be playing to our potential all the time, no matter who we're playing, the best team in the country, the worst team in the country, we need to be playing to our potential. That's what makes us different, noticeable, and appealing. Hope that made sense.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah. So that's where the intentionality defining that specific thing comes into play, and then how it's going to show up in in real life. And I'll I'll go a little bit farther here if I got a second.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Um, I kind of put this matrix together. Um, 30,000 feet is kind of our our vision, you know, it's our vision, our purpose, our mission.

unknown 6:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

3,000 feet is our goals. Those are different.

unknown 6:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Our mission and our purpose can be choice based. Everybody can commit to them. Our goals are usually results based. That's different. Three 300 feet is our tactics, how we're going to get to our goals and our mission. But then three feet is the action statements. And that's where coaches live. They live at three feet, not 30,000 feet. Okay. But we need the 30,000, but we need to be at three. That's where we are every single day.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Gotcha. And I know you and Bruce, your other partner there at Proactive Coaching, talk a lot about, at least the way I understand it, rules restrict, standards can inspire. Can you walk through coaches what that what the real difference is between that?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah, if we just constantly have rules, you find kids breaking them. But if you have standards, you find kids reaching them. Okay. And so what's our standard? What's the difference between um no one late for practice, don't let your teammates down? What doesn't that cover? That's a standard. Every decision, don't let your teammates down. That covers everything, right? And now I don't need 50 rules. I can have one or two standards versus 50 rules. Okay. That covers everything. Now okay, how can I not? We all I always talk to athletes about this. Everything should run through this filter. What does my team need for me? Not what do I want to do? And that's that's hard. I mean, that's that's hard sometimes, okay? You know, and when I say team, you know, team's not always just your athletic team. I mean, that could be what's my coach need, what's my school need, what's my family need. That starts getting them to think about big picture about that. And so that's kind of how we play it into that that standard piece. You don't need as many. You know, I say have two or three, be really great at two or three standards instead of trying to find 20 or 30 rules. I walked into school one time and a team came up and said, Coach, we want to show you all of our values. They're on the back of our t-shirt. I said, Great, turned around. They have one for every letter of the alphabet. Okay, who's gonna remember after I'm not gonna remember after C, okay? That's not my mentality. I'm done at C. Be really good at a few things in your standards that kids, every kid at, and here's the other thing: everybody on your team should be able to reach them. Everybody should reach them, not just your talented. Every person on your team should be able to reach the standards.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Is that the biggest mistake coaches potentially make around when they're trying to set standards? Is set too many of them? Or what's kind of a common thing that we should be aware of?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

I think it's this. I don't think it's necessarily too many. I'll put it this way: if we all pulled out a piece of paper right now and wrote our definition of the word respect, how many different definitions the word respect would we have on this call?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

We're vague. And what respect might mean to me as a 62-year-old could be very different to that 18-year-old. What's respect look like? Okay, how do we not let our teammates down? Okay, now I can start defining that and show up inspired every day. I show up encouraging every day. You know, now I get in, okay, what's inspiring look like? Let's talk about that and get it down to three feet so that we give them a true action statement versus just a general statement.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Gotcha. And then kind of related to this, Coach Mike Hagan, who's in Colorado. His question is what to do when we have most athletes bought into high standards and expectations around hard work, but maybe one or two are not bought in. And those two one or two work just as hard to try to convince the others that our training is too difficult. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Oh, yeah, that's hard. I'll start with this equation, you know, because I think we all face it at times, right? What do you do with the highly talented, uh, totally committed player? Run with them, right? Okay. I mean, you just run with them. Okay. What do you deal with the um with the high, what do you deal with the high talent, low committed player, which you're talking about. But also we got to think about what do we do with the high committed, low talent player versus the low committed, low talent. Well, we all know that answer too, right? Low committed, no, no talent, we're not keeping them. Right. What do you do with that high, and what do you do with that high committed, low talent? Find a place for him, right? No matter what it is, we can find a role for him. But that's that athlete that's maybe high talent but not committed. Okay. Well, I think first of all, we have to work with them, okay? Because we know especially if they're coming to us, maybe they don't know anything's any different. Because maybe their last coach taught him this. We're gonna play you even if you're late because you're talented and we'll lose without you. That's what they got taught. So is that on them or is that on the last coach? Okay, so how are we gonna go about that? So we actually talk about how do you teach character through sport? We follow the same what's the how do you teach a sports skill? The laws of motor development. You define, you model, you shape, and you reinforce. Those are the laws of motor development. How should we teach a sport skill? How about the same thing? Define, model, shape, and reinforce. Okay, let's follow that same pattern. So that's our goal. We want to work with them to try to change them. At the same time, depending on age and situation, which I don't know here, I do believe there's comes a time where you know Bruce has a saying, he refers to this, a trade them or train them, a trade 'em or train them date. You know, when do we get to that point that, you know, love you, love to work with you still, but we need to move on with our shit if you're causing that much detriment to the team. Now, you're at a small high school, you're not gonna be able to do that because of numbers. So, what do you do? You protect what we call the inner circle, and the inner circle are those people who are committed. And the inner circle is not a click because anybody can get in the inner circle whenever they want. All they have to do is choose to commit. And you're you're open to come to the inner circle. Okay. But I think our biggest problem is that we have to deal with and why we have to protect others is how many times do you find those low committed people trying to drag other people with them? And that creates the clicks, and that's why we got to protect the rest of the team at that point from those people and make it very clear. Here's our expectation, here's where you will stand. And there has to be consequences, you know. That's just um, I think you were you and I were talking when I was heading up to Nebraska to speak at the for the Nebraska and was throughout the state of Nebraska speaking. And one of the other guys speaking with me was a Marine. And he was talking about um, you know, hey, you make a bad choice in the Marines, there is consequences, you know. There's there's you know, well, we have to have consequences because if we set a standard and then we don't hold people to it, we shouldn't set it. We gotta be able to willing to call them on it, but also work with them. And I think I'd say one more thing on that. When you start, we're too we're trying to change the behavior because the last thing we want to do is break the the athlete. You know, you hear someone we've got to break them down. Well, I kind of if they have a high spirit, I kind of want to challenge that spirit, right? And get its focus for me and our team, okay, not out where it's wrong. But I don't want that spirit to be gone and just them being a robot. I want that that personality can help us. So we need to be careful how we're going after the behavior, not necessarily the person. Because they act in a poor way doesn't make them a bad person.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

And you said there something really interesting that I think it would be great to unpack it a little bit more, but you said define it, model it, shape it, reinforce it, I believe. Those are the laws of motor development.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

So I'll take it this way. Let's say I'm teaching five and six-year-olds layups in basketball. That's my sport. Okay. Well, I better define what a layup is. Because I'm 62, I know what a layup is. They may not know what a layup is, and I draw out terms, they may not have a clue what I'm talking about. And I think one of the things I think coaches on here understand greatly is you know, kids are bigger, stronger, and faster than they've ever been, but they're less fundamentally sound than they've ever been. So I'm I see people at college throwing out terms, and kids are looking at them like, I have no idea what that was. And we may have learned that term as a junior high athlete. Well, they don't know those terms because they haven't been taught them. Okay. So we have to define it. Then model them is give an exact blueprint of how we want them to act. So I've told them what a layup is, I've defined it. Now I have to model it. Okay. When you go into the basket, balls on your hand, you know, one hand on the side, one hand here, hand of the cookie jar, leg comes up with that, all that. So I model it. The next thing is I shape it.

unknown 15:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

So if they have a hand behind a ball and they're rolling it, no, no, hands, I mean in front of the ball and they're doing a finger roll. No, no, no. Hand behind the ball. So I'm shaping it. That's confrontation, okay? Shaping, modeling, okay, excuse me, shaping confrontation. And the last one is reinforcement. Better job, nice job. Okay. You're progressing, whatever that is. That's defined, model, shape, and reinforce. We can do the same thing with a character skill. So let's define it because they may never have heard of it. Now, the beautiful thing is this unlike a physical skill where you have to, that's why they're called laws, not theories or hypothesis. Okay, laws, you have to go from define, model, shape, and reinforce. Okay, with a character skill, you can define it and they can choose to do it. So you can go from defining to reinforcing. But if not, we better model it. Give them a blueprint of how you want them to act. But number two is this, okay. You better model it. So if I want a young athlete listening to me, I define a teachable spirit, coachable. That's listening to coach with your eyes and ears with good, you know, with intent to learn. Okay. Now, when that kid talks to me, I better model that too. I better look at them with my eyes and ears. Okay. Shaping, now they're not looking at me. Hey, name an action. Todd, I need your eyes and ears right now. Look at coach. Okay. Name an action. Then reinforcement. Todd, that's a better job listening today. And then one thing I would say on that last one, I work with youth coaches all the time on this comment. We have a lot of youth coaches that the first time a kid does something, you know, better, their first comment, that was great. Save great for great. Don't give great on the first tie. Nice, better. You're progressing, you're getting there. Now, towards the end of the season or the end of, you know, if I have a kid for four years at college, their senior year, they might get great. Okay. But progress that because if you give them great and then they're not there yet, what are you going to do? You know, I got to backtrack now. So that's where I'm going with that.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Gotcha. And that reinforce part is kind of around the recognition piece, around it can be as small as what you're talking about, just a quick praise kind of comment, but it can go all the way up to further stuff, depending on Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

And I think we got to teach kids, you know, you're going to get corrected in athletics, but we also have to be able to praise them when they deserve it. And I'll be honest with these coaches, I'm not one of those for every three times you for every one time you critique somebody, you need to praise them three times. That's not me. But what I say is if you're going to critique them when they do something right, then you better praise them. I don't care if it's one to one, one to three, three to one. We just got to be consistent with that.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

From all the teams that you've worked with, can you share a story where you've seen the shift from rules to standards and that kind of can change sort of everything within their program?

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah, I think um I think she'll tell you this. I work a lot with UCF softball and um Cindy, the head coach there, Cindy Ball Malone. Um, she was a she she kind of was a player um through college, very good, all American, all that. Then she got into coaching and and she ended up with Heather Tarr up at Washington. And that's the first time I think she really kind of explored the standard piece and and and the culture piece. And then she went over to Boise as a head coach and I started to work with her. So she had Bruce, because Bruce actually was Heather Tarr's junior high physical education teacher. So those two had a relationship forever. So Bruce would talk to them. Okay. And then when Cindy kind of branched off on her own to Boise, we started working. And then she's now at UCF. And so I've been with her for nine or 10 years now, working with her team. And to see that progression from going, I want to, I want to, they can't do this, they can't do this. Here's who we are. We are, you know, they're the knights. So they have the knights honor. They call their their code, their their standards, they call it code is the knight's honor, and they list it all out. Now, here's the change. Okay, for them, at least at college, a little different at high school, okay, a little different in high school the way you do this. But at college, how do they go recruit kids now? Not just based on talent, but based on culture. Who are they bringing to their team? They want to know they're bringing somebody to their team that's going to follow the culture as well as be a good athlete.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Love that. And switching to something you said earlier, actually, I think one of the first very early statements, um, we sometimes hear coaches say, Well, I don't have any leaders on my team this year. What's kind of your feeling on when you hear the coach say that? That's kind of a little bit of a warning sign.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah, and and one, I do understand. I think we've got some great leaders out there, but I do think we're in a place in our culture, and I mean big culture, our world, that we have to do a better job training them. Because I think we've taken leadership opportunities away from our youth. And I'll just start with that. Um, think about all of us on the call when you started youth sports. Remember, think about when your first youth sport was. I'm 62. My first youth sport was eight years old, little league baseball. Basketball, which I played in college, sixth grade, football, which I was recruited to play, seventh grade. Okay. When do our kids start now? Three, four, five. Not saying that's bad, but here's what I'm saying. When we were, you know, when we were a three, four, five, we were playing too, but we were playing in the streets in the park on the playground with no adults around. Which means we organize ourselves, manage ourselves, let ourselves, got really good at confrontation because if we didn't, somebody got beat up or the ball went home. Right? Okay. Now parents are organizing everything. At three years old, everything's organized.

unknown 20:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Okay. Now kid has a problem, they don't deal with it, parent deals with it. So we've kind of taken that leadership away from them. So now we're wondering why we don't have leaders. Maybe they can lead, we haven't given the opportunity to lead. Second, is I think what I see a lot is this a lot of people confuse leadership in leadership, the difference between duties and responsibilities. And we'll talk about duties. Okay. Hey, as a leader, you need to get make sure, you know, the locker room's clean. You need to make sure, you know, we're we're doing this, you're communicating that. Okay, that's all good. Okay. But responsibilities with leadership is how do you protect and defend your team and your teammates and your coach as a leader? How do you confront situations? Talk to kids about confrontation right now. It's scary. I mean, you know, it's not the same as it was. We got to teach them how to work with that, how to deal with those kinds of things. One thing I talk about is communication. And the reason I talk about communication is now the one word we've all heard a ton is transparency. Good work. Good work. But there's a lot of people that want to talk about things they don't shouldn't need to talk about. And they'll use the word transparency, and that creates over communication, creates drama. And there's not a bigger undergy Energy sucker on our team than drama. And so we need to be very careful with our leaders. Here's what I need to be talking about. Here's what you and I need to be talking about. Here's what we talk about with all the team. Here's what is between me and my administration that you don't need to worry about. So we don't we need to be transparent about things we need to be transparent about. No doubt. Things that have to be transparent, we need to get it all on the table. But we don't need to know everybody's business either. There's some things that are outside, and that's we need to talk to them about that. So we we talk about creating a leadership job description that's more than just, you know, get the locker room. That's a duty that should be done. Okay. But that's a duty, and there's a difference. Here's our duties list, here's our responsibility list.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

And do you believe in having captains and some coaches look at how do you look at the rest of the team?

SPEAKER_01 22:50

That's sort of I've seen I've seen a million things work. So I'm not bought into um if you have captains, I'm fine with that. If you have a leadership council, I'm fine with that. What I want is we list we talk about seven important elements of leadership that have to happen on teams. Okay. And in those seven, I don't care if it's two people or the whole team doing it, we need to cover those seven. And so how different coaches want to approach that, I I'm open to whatever idea people have because coaches have great ideas. You know, I here's one of my favorite I ever saw was and and I've seen it more lately, but this is about 10 years ago. A coach posted their captain's position, and you had to apply resume, cover letter, reference letter, the whole thing. You then interviewed, you interviewed the coach, an AD, and here's what she did brought in a former player because who holds us to a highest standard more than anybody, our former players, right? Because any of us that coach more 10 years have all had people come up to us and coach, you're getting soft. Okay, they always get on us about being, you know, letting down. I just say we're getting wiser, not softer. But with that, then what did that teach kids? Well, one, it weeded out kids who didn't really want they wanted the title, not the responsibility. So I had kids that really interviewed, but you also prepared them for life. I'm not caught up into what the it looks like. I'm caught up in is it getting done? That's what I'm that's what I want to see. And here's the other thing I will say. And this is happening more at D1 now because of NIL. It's starting to filter down to smaller colleges. I hope it gets to high school. No one cares if the leader's a freshman or a senior at D1 anymore. Why? They're one-year athletes, they're just in and out anymore because of transfer portal. What can you bring to our team? And you know, that's one thing I don't, I'm not a big NIL person, but when it comes to that, I think that's really good. We need to let freshmen lead if freshmen can lead. We can't do it just based on status. Doesn't mean they have to have a title, but can we let them lead?

SPEAKER_00 24:54

You were talking earlier about kind of parents and sort of the community part. If we kind of delve a little bit deeper into that, um, when coaches and parents work together, I've heard you kind of say miracles can happen.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

When they work as a parents work together, kid wins, then miracles can happen.

unknown 25:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Yeah. And when they work apart, the athlete's gonna suffer, the whole experience is gonna go down. What does working together though really look like? And are there some things that we can implement right away to improve that?

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah, one, I think you know, we have to understand each a lot of times. I hear coaches say this, and I'm gonna come back the other way with it too. You know, I don't want parents telling me how to coach. Well, then just remember this don't tell parents how to parents. You don't want them to teach you how to coach, which I'm with you. I totally agree with that. We got to be careful telling them how to parent their kid. I think some of the keys is this if we make sure as a coach, parents understand we're here for the kids and we're giving them ownership. Here's here's one thing I think that is a changer of programs, okay? The the the parent meaning, right? Okay. Sometimes the most boring thing you'll ever go to in your life, right? You sit there and you go through the handbook and you do all that. One of the most best effective ways I've seen it is this. Okay. Coach gets up, talks about five to seven minutes about what they need to talk about. Athletic trainer might get up for five minutes, talk about what they need to talk about, and then turn the meeting over to the athletes. Mom and dad, if you watch us play this year, here is what you'll see. And they explain the standards to the parents. Because now it's not coming from me telling you, well, this is especially like this. How many times we need you to get you, you need to get your kids here on time.

unknown 26:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

I might not know. They're both coming from a job. They're busting their tails, they're trying to get their kid there. It's hard for them to get the ride. That's a pressure point. But now the kid gets up and says, you know, one thing we want to do this year is make sure we're all at practice, we're all here on time, we're getting to our summer workouts. That now that's coming from the kid, not from me. Ownership has taken place. I'll I want to help my kid versus I'm in line with my coach. But on the parent side, I think we need to set standards. And we do a parent's presentation. We speak about a I do it about a hundred times a year. And um, we talk about the role of parents in athletics, and we talk about what you can do before the season starts, during competition, and after competition. And um, it all comes from kids that Bruce interviewed over 35 years, and then we've added some data into it as well. And we talk about things like release them to the game, let all their problems be theirs and let all their successes be theirs, you know. Um uh and I'm going just doing, we do about 10 or 15. I'm only gonna get to a couple here, okay? But one thing we talk about when do you talk to a coach and when don't you talk to a coach? And we're very blunt and we think coaches need to set that standard. If I'm coaching your child, I want you to know you can come to me and talk to me at any time about if your son or daughter is hiding an injury. I want to know that. If they want to improve, let's talk. I'd love to help. Let's talk about that. Okay. If they're acting in a way you don't like, let me know because two voices are better than one. But you should for me, you should never talk to coaches about playing time strategy and other people on the team. That's the coach's job, not your job. So I think you got to set those standards really close, what they are. But then constantly remind them, our whole goal is here is that your kid walks away with a great experience. That's on me. That's doesn't mean we're not gonna be tough on them on times. We can get pretty urgent with them and get at, but our whole thing is at the end of the year, they loved what they did.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

This is powerful stuff, Rob. Really appreciate your time today. So if someone's got a question, if they want to raise their hand or just open up their microphone, go ahead and do that while we field any of those last questions from the group. Let's say, though, Rob, a coach you know is listening right now that just took over a struggling program. Culture is a little rough, trust is low. What are maybe the first two to three steps they should take to start to turn?

SPEAKER_01 29:01

I think you just said the key word, trust. We got to develop trust. Okay. If you're taking over a program, we got to develop that trust. And and uh we talk about that all the time. Without trust, nothing else works, right? I mean, if you don't have trust, nothing else works as you go through. So, how do you gain trust? Well, you know, let's just focus on three things. Be prepared, professional preparation. First thing that they're gonna want to know, do you know what you're talking about? Right? That's the first thing they want to know. Do you know what you're talking about? Because we do live in a world where kids will look and they'll compare what's my high school coach say versus my club coach, and they'll play that on both ends. Well, we want to come in knowing we're prepared. We're prepared. And by the way, I'm not gonna work against if I'm the high school coach, I'm not gonna work against your club coach. How can we make this work for you to be a better athlete? Okay. The second thing is care. So first thing I got to prepare. Second thing is that I have to care about our athletes. They gotta, they gotta know you see them as people as much as you see them as athletes. And then the third thing is um you have to be consistent with your character. Your words and your actions have to align. I can't ask them to come prepared every day if I'm not prepared. I can't ask them to give 100% if I'm not giving 100%. So I think it starts, if I was gonna start with anything, you start with preparation, caring, and consistent character. You start with those three things, not only will we get your kids, you'll get the parents and you'll get the administration and you'll get everybody else behind you as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:30

Amazing. And if coaches want to work with you or proactive coaching in general, you got, I know, tons of resources and one-to-one consulting and that kind of thing. Tell me, tell us all about how we can work with you.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Yeah, we do it, we do a lot of presentations at schools or um at colleges for sport organizations, you clubs. Uh, we do some that are just specific with programs. We do some that are for the whole the whole school or the whole club. Um, so we do that. I can send out anybody who's interested, I'll give my email address and they're welcome to I'll send them a sheet with all our topics on that, costs, formats, things like that. Second thing is Bruce has developed a series of 14 booklets. And I got an example. I forgot I have one right on my desk, and they look a little bit like this, and they're not books, see, because how many times do you buy a book and you just want one subject? So Bruce said, I'm not gonna write one book, I'm gonna write 14 chapter booklets, and that's that on you get them online for like seven bucks or something like that, okay? Um, that he sells them for. And then we got some other things on the website. You can look at some videos and and things like that on the website as well. But most of our stuff is we just love working with coaches and teams and and we're educational based, so we keep it very low cost because we're here's what we say we're not we're we're between not for profit and profit. We have very okay in that area, and so because we're educational based, we know what that costs people, and so we keep the price low because we just love that we're on a mission. That's how we look at it. We've been on a mission to work with kids and coaches, and we love it. Proactive coaching.info, proactive coaching.info. And then the email is just add rob at proactivecoaching dot info, and you'll get me.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Perfect. So before we wrap up here, we've covered a lot of ground. If one of these coaches we got practice tomorrow and they want to maybe act on one thing that maybe would be the biggest needle mover, what's kind of maybe the most actionable thing they should be thinking about right now? Well, be specific.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Live at three feet. Walk in and be at three feet because we are when we're teaching skills, teach culture at three feet too. So instead of just saying, guys, we need a you know, it's here here's one of the things that we've all been there, right? Guys, we need a better attitude. No one knows what we're talking about. Walk in and be specific. Rob, we need to have your eyes and ears on coach when coach talks. Okay, we'll do that's what attitude looks like. When coach talks, you have eyes and ears on coach. See, get specific. You want to make it be a difference maker, live at three feet.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

And again, I love the define it, model it, shape it, reinforce it.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

And then for anybody that's a physical education major, we had that bore into our soul from the first from PE 101 in college, because that's the laws of motor development, right there.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Right. And it works, it's timeless.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

So Brian says, Thank you, excellent presentation. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. Yes, and I echo that, Ryan. This has been, or I'm sorry, Rob, it's been an absolute pleasure. You're you and Bruce there for active coaching are absolute legends and really set the standard, I think, for I think culture and just understanding how to build teams that you know can win on and off the field. So thank you for everything you do, continue to do, and thanks for your time today.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Well, let me just say something. Thank you to all the coaches on here, not because you're on this Zoom. Thank you for the impact you make to kids. Because that's what we do this for. I mean, the wins are nice, love to win. I'm competitive as they can be. But I think we all agree the best thing that ever happens is when a former player calls you and says, Thanks. I learned this from you. I did. That's a paycheck. That's the paycheck we live for.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

That's it. Rob at proactivecoaching.info. If you guys want to reach out just as a thank you or see what other options are to work with him and the group down the road, that would be awesome. So again, thanks for everyone for being here. And Rob, hope to catch up with you down the road. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys. Have a good have a good rest of the holiday season. Hey, it's Matt. Thank you so much for listening. This conversation that you just heard originally happened inside of Momentum Sessions, a free community for coaches who take culture seriously. If you'd like to hear the full conversation, join future calls, ask questions live, and connect with other coaches working on culture and leadership, visit Momentum Teams dot com slash sessions. We'll see you there.