Here is the foundational building block for all my champion teams who value COMPETITIVENESS as a team value. It works so well. This is taken from my book, WIN THE DAY.
"Through our conversation, emails and texts, Jerry Lynch helped me to pass on his Win the Day philosophy to our Warrior culture to achieve success. I believe a team culture has to be connective, caring and authentic and Win the Day. In his book, he’ll help you to implement its guiding principles".
Coach Steve Kerr, Golden State Warriors
The ancient Chinese book of strategy, THE ART OF WAR by Sun-Tzu, teaches us that the war is won before the battle begins. In other words, for sports, it’s all about preparation, doing all the controllable little things that position us for ultimate victory. It is in reading this 2,000 year-old tome that the win the day approach was first conceived of by me.
When a team shows up to win the game, their focus is on outcomes and results, something they cannot control. In turn, this could cause them to become tight, tense, tentative, nervous, fearful and stressed. When such feelings occur, confidence declines and self-doubt rises. Losing confidence positions you to compete at levels lower than what’s possible resulting in a lackluster performance.
Conversely, when a team shows up to win the day, they focus on all the little things that they can control. For example, a basketball team would concentrate on boxing out, crashing the boards, sprinting the lanes, diving for the 50/50 ball and playing “in your face” defense. What are the little things in your sports? Ask your athletes to create a list and when appropriate, do it by position. When you execute your controllables, you become calm, relaxed and poised. As a result, confidence climbs as self-doubt wanes. Even the pros like the Golden State Warriors forget about their culture norm of winning the day and must be reminded by coach Kerr to show up to simply compete and let the outcome take care of itself. This happened during their 2015 championship run when they were down to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the finals 2 games to 1. The distracting media talked about the fourth “must win” game. Steve reminded his guys to play Warrior ball, focusing on all the controllable little things and compete in this way. They won big that night on the road to the NBA title, their first of 3 in 4 years. They accomplished this by winning the day.
I used the concept of win the day recently on a visit with one of my teams, men’s tennis at Middlebury College. To give a little history, they had
played for the national championship the year before and lost in the finals. The team came back determined to win it this past season. I listened, observed and noticed how stressed they seemed and they hadn’t even begun their season, four months away from the tournament. They wanted to talk about winning it all and I suggested that they let that thought go and focus on what’s important now? (WIN). I mentioned that when they focus on outcome and results, it’s something they can’t control and it can make them tight and tense...no way to play tennis. In its place, I recommended that they focus simply on the important process of being connected with their values and friends and thereby win the day: doing their mental and physical routines, working hard at a consistent high level, one ball at a time, demonstrating positive body language, supporting each other, being selfless and fearless, demonstrating courage, patience and perseverance, getting proper rest, eating well and doing all of this each day. They adapted the concept, placed the mantra “win the day” on the back of a shirt and rode this focus to winning the national championship.
Their head coach, Bob Hansen, talks about it this way: “Win the Day is a concept that has helped me crystallize what I’ve been trying to do for years. The guys could get their heads and hearts around this idea and focus on what’s most important in the moment. Now, every single practice is a Win the Day event.”
Cindy Timchal, coach of a national championship team in women’s lacrosse, continues to ride my win the day mantra to victory at NAVY. “We shout it out all the time. It helps us to play free, confident and release ourselves from competing. It diminishes the fear because we can believe that winning the day is within our power.”
This win the day concept does not guarantee victory on the scoreboard but it does assure that you’ll give your all and get the most out of yourself. It helps a team to connect. It is manageable, measurable, and controllable.
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