That’s my boy in the middle with the green flower petals around his head

Last night I went to the first grade musical at my youngest son’s elementary school.  If you’ve been to a first grade musical anytime in the last 20 years, you know how it goes.  It’s kind of cute, but there’s not a whole lot of entertainment value beyond that.  But yesterday I was talking to some of my middle school students, telling them how absolutely jazzed I was to be going to the 1st grade musical that night.  One of them commented, “you sure seem excited about going to that thing.”

I saw my opportunity.  I told those students that I had a choice to make, and it would be easy to say to myself, “man, I’m exhausted.  This has been a long week of late nights and early mornings.  I just want to go home and crash.  I don’t need something else on the calendar and of all things, a first grade musical just doesn’t really do it for me today.”

But would it not make more sense, since I am going to this show anyway, to get excited about it?  To tell myself how great it is that I get to go watch my son and his friends sing their little songs in cute little costumes?  And doesn’t my 6-year old son deserve a Dad who acts like he wants to be at the show?

Some of the coaching mentors I’ve had through the years put that idea into my head.  I grew up as a young Coach with a steady diet of sayings like these:

“Our players will always be a little less enthusiastic than we are.”

“If you don’t feel it, fake it.  Pretty soon you’ll start to feel it.” (which is the cousin of)

“Fake it ’til you make it.”

“It’s a great day today!!!!”

Sorry if this is a little bit preachy, but I’ve been around plenty of Coaches who wonder why their athletes are unmotivated, when those same Coaches show little desire to be at practice.  I had an Assistant Coach in college who flat out told a group of us once, “I know practice sucks, but we’ve got to do it.”  He was right, practice sucked.  It didn’t have to, but it did.  And it probably did because at least some of our Coaches decided to believe that it did and even worse, share that with my teammates and me.

By the way, no surprise here, our team kind of sucked too.

I don’t want to go too far off on a tangent here, but this is the same mentality that says, “Hooray, it’s Friday!” and “Boo-hoo, it’s Monday…”.  I get it, we work hard, we appreciate and enjoy our rest.  Nothing wrong with that.  But do we allow ourselves to get pulled into the idea that work stinks and weekends are inherently preferable?  Do we really believe that?  Do we allow that attitude to come through to our players/students?  Do we say “Happy Friday!” as if all the other days of the week are just an obstacle on our way to the next Friday?

OK, enough tangent.  Here’s the challenge.  Be great where you are, every day and all the time.  Be full of energy and enthusiasm, and help the people you are responsible for leading discover that practice doesn’t have to be a drag.  It can be awesome.  Decide that it is.  Want to be there, and do your best to help others want to be there as well.  I know we aren’t going to do it perfectly and that sometimes we do have to fake it.  I’ve heard people say they don’t want to fake it, they don’t want to be phony.  Let me say this: if I’ve decided that I’m going to be a Coach who leads with enthusiasm, then there’s nothing phony about faking a little enthusiasm.  If that’s who I’ve decided to be, I dare say that nothing could be more authentic.

Don’t our players deserve that from us?  Don’t they deserve a Coach who wants to be there?