SERVANT LEADER

 Here is the latest excerpt from a section of TCB called Servant Leader. The concept is ancient yet its modern application is powerful. See what you think.I hope it makes sense. It governs the way I lead and coach. 

In Buddhist thought, there is the notion of the Samurai leader warrior. The word Samurai in Japanese means service with heart, honor and integrity. In this sense the ideal coach or leader is akin to the Samurai, one who serves and leads with heart. Service is not about servitude or catering to all the wishes of those you lead. It is about valuing those you lead and adding worth to their lives. As a servant coach, you are in charge and oversee the big picture, but you offer your service by providing an honorable and humble environment for all to reach their potential.

As a member of the Onondaga nation, Native American Faith-keeper Chief Oren Lyons, in an interview called “Leadership Imperative” says that the purpose of leadership is to serve others. It appears that the most effective leaders examine their hearts and ask the question: am I here to serve or to be served? Obviously, it’s to serve. Therefore, the most important question that a servant-directed leader and coach needs to ask is “how can I best serve you?” When you follow the answer to this simple query, those you lead will experience a heightened sense of self and you, as a result, gain more power, not over people, but the power to influence and dance with them, and help facilitate change and growth for all involved. This is why we say, “to serve is to lead.”

Buddhist thought expounds the idea of selfless servant leaders who embody profound compassion and wisdom in their unrelenting effort to promote the growth of other mindful leaders with an open heart. The Buddha servant leadership mission is to transform the relationship between leader and follower through conscious choice for genuine care and common interest in a shared vision. That vision of leadership emphasized the code of the Samurai (servant) which included the following behavior:

• Willingness to admit mistakes and use them to better oneself

• Adhering to a set of personal values and be the change you

  want to see

• Mediating conflict in a cooperative way

• Picking up the slack when needed

• Acknowledging all opinions

• Listening

• Performing random acts of kindness

• Holding self to a higher standard

• Supporting those you lead during the hard times

• Committing to the growth of others

• Being patient and understanding

• Being demanding out of love for the benefit of others’ growth

• Catching those you lead doing something right

  While executing these Buddha servant leader behaviors, make sure that your followers’ highest priorities and needs are being served. Help them to grow as people to become leaders in their own right. In this model of servant leader, you share power and put the needs of the team first. Your behavior and servant actions inspire and empower others to dream, learn and expand. Servant leaders invite others in to work with heart side by side rather than from above.

  That good leaders must become good servants is best exemplified by head coaches Phil Jackson, Pete Carroll, Tara Vanderveer, Gregg Popovich, Cindy Timchall and Quin Snyder. Then there is Steve Kerr, whom I mentioned in the previous section. Steve believes in this concept and felt honored by the title I used for this section.

  As the title to this section intimates, Steve is the SERVANT LEADER OF WARRIORS. Like a true servant, Steve leads his athletes by walking behind them, inspiring and empowering them to develop their full human potential, regardless of their tole on the team. In a recent podcast we did together, Steve told us how you never want to let the last athlete on the bench to not feel important, valued and respected. He talks about how he uses several of the Buddha servant behaviors above to motivate all his athletes to find their personal greatness as athletes and as human beings.

  The question many have about coaching at this level is how do you get a cohort of wealthy athletes to selflessly give to the collective good of such a star- studded team? According to Kerr, you make everyone feel relevant and important as part of something greater than any one individual. This is an essential aspect of servant leadership. By being a humble, servant coach...while still being demanding...he is able to manage egos, keep them engaged and build a strong team culture embodying the servant leader approach.

While Steve seems to come about this coaching style naturally, he humbly gives credit to many of his coaching mentors who taught him the servant way, coaches like Lute Olson, and I’ve already mentioned, Phil Jackson, Gregg Popovich and Pete Carroll among others. For all of us who desire to adopt a more servant approach, the most important lesson that Steve learned from these masters was simple: be true to your values, principles and ideas...be yourself. He believes, as do all great leaders, that these values must be shared and followed every day. Steve’s values are deeply rooted in the competitive Buddha approach such as joy, selflessness, competitiveness and mindfulness.

As a true servant leader, Kerr is consciously aware of individual needs, concerns and personalities and remains flexible to adjust his coaching to these players, helping them to maintain their uniqueness while working together for the greater good of the team. The servant leader needs to give the athletes the bandwidth to be themselves while still holding on to the overall mission of the organization.

And, as a true servant leader, Steve is able to control his own ego and remain humble as he listens to his athletes. He understands that he doesn’t know all and encourages athletes and staff to contribute to his process. Ultimately, the decision is his but he seriously considers everyone’s input.

As a servant leader, Steve has a high level of emotional intelligence. He is humble, empathetic, genuine, authentic and vulnerable. Vulnerability in a leader is a high level of functioning. While some view it as weakness, servant leader coaches understand it’s a strength. All extraordinary leaders, by definition, realize the power of demonstrating vulnerability. Steve is not afraid to admit he made amistake. He’ll apologize to a player he has wronged and will not take anything personally.

Perhaps one of the most vital signs of a servant leader is the ability and eagerness to listen to others. Coach Kerr will often ask for an athlete’s input regardless of their role on the team, listen to their words and implement them if relevant to the team’s mission. This open dialogue gains the trust and respect of the team. He connects with the guys to understand and be empathetic to their personal lives as wonderful human beings. Steve knows that there is more to life than basketball; he understands what matters in the lives of those he leads. He is the extraordinary SERVANT LEADER OF WARRIORS, whose coaching philosophy has deep rooted connections to the competitive Buddha way.

If your wish is to have others follow your coaching, perhaps the most crucial quality of leadership you could possess is to think beyond self-interest. This is the Buddha servant style of guiding others to be self-reliant and expand in the long run. As servant leaders, our mission is simply to guide others to pathways for a greater, more meaningful experience in life. An athlete recently told me, “Jerry, it is widely known that Jesus was the quintessential servant leader. He was the lamb- like servant of the church.”

The well-known Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy once said: “The sole purpose of life is to serve humanity. It is the honorable and right thing to do.” And, in the process, you become more respected, loved, and worthy as you enhance the lives of all as their servant leader.

STRENGTH OF TEN TIGERS

 Here is an excerpt from THE COMPETITIVE BUDDHA, on Mindfulness practice. The book is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble for preorder...July arrival.

If you know the art of breathing you have the strength, wisdom and courage of ten tigers. The quiet, focused mind can pierce through stone.

Ancient Asian Saying

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind, there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Buddhist Monk

The practice of meditation, often referred to as “the still point,” is a learned skill that, when developed, can impact not just your leadership and coaching, but your entire life. It is important to know that the Buddha believes that effective mindful leadership is developed with an open heart through the practice of meditation.

Over the years, meditation has become a universal household word that when applied to sports can help you to experience a feeling of mastery and perform at your very best. Motivation, competition, training, injury recovery and focus are a few of the ways I apply meditation working with athletics. It is how we tame what the Buddha refers to as the “monkey mind.”

Phil Jackson was the master of using mindful meditation with his Bulls and Lakers teams, on his way to winning a collective 11 championship rings. In Phil’s book by the same name, ELEVEN RINGS: THE SOULD OF SUCCESS, he devotes several detailed pages on his thoughts about, and use of the meditation approach he used for his team, detailed in Shunryu Suzuki’s renowned book, ZEN MIND,BEGINNER’S MIND.

To help his players on both teams to quiet the chatter of their minds and focus on the competitive nature of the game, he introduced them to the concept of mindfulness meditation, based on a practice he learned years ago. He would get the players to sit in a room for ten or so minutes together. As I previously mentioned, he called it ‘the warrior room.” He wasn’t trying to make them Buddhist monks; it was to bring them close and bonded at the heart.

All of the athletes who took part in this voluntary exercise loved it. It was a special, unified group, who were, in the words of Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, “dwelling happily in the present moment,” with quiet, simple, and clear minds. Jackson found through such practice that when athletes marinate themselves fully in the moment, they develop a deeper, stronger awareness(mindfulness) of what’s happening right now, in the present moment. And, in Jackson’s words, this “leads to a greater sense of oneness, the essence of teamwork.”

With reference to helping his athletes foster team connection, cohesion and gain a sense of unity, Phil Jackson applauds the value of mindfulness meditation in facilitating the team’s ability to break out of their me-oriented attitudes and giving them the opportunity to consider going to a more -we-orientation.

In so doing, in his brilliant book, Jackson quotes the 13th century Buddhist priest and teacher, Nichiren:

The spirit of many in body, but one in mind, prevails among the people, they will achieve all their goals; whereas if one in body, but different in mind, they achieve nothing remarkable.

The following is an inspirational story about mindfulness meditation. During the Chinese cultural revolution during the 1960’s, Chinese pianist and composer Liu Shih-Kun was incarcerated for six years in prison, with no piano, and no paper to write on. During his incarceration he practiced his music in his head, mindfully visualizing himself playing at a high level over and over. He even composed a concerto and kept it memorized. In 1973, following his release from jail, Liu played before his peers and was deemed to be even better than before he went to prison. Thus, the power of mindfulness meditation.

And it is apparent in all sentient beings. You may have noticed that animals instinctively use a method of stillness in nature. They all meditate. Observe the heron poised motionless on one leg, the monkey climbing to the uppermost branch, the snake basking in the warmth of the summer sun, or the cat lying on a pillow, its eyes focused on a small object. Speaking of cats, I observed my cat, Simon, sitting and staring at the fireplace watching the flames dance for twenty minutes without movement. He was in the zone.

What follows in the book is the specific way I teach how to meditate and practice mindfulness each day

RIGHT MINDFULNESS COACHING

 Excerpt from the Competitive Buddha, once again, as it applies to the eight Noble  traits of great coaching.

According to Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, Right Mindfulness is the foundation of ancient Buddhist teaching. When Right Mindfulness is present, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path are present as well. The most well-recognized western definition of mindfulness comes from one of the most prominent, best-known teachers of the concept – Jon Kabat-Zinn. According to him, mindfulness is “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment.”

Mindfulness, in Buddhist terms, is being aware and wakeful to the present moment on a consistent basis. It helps you to see clearly and act more appropriately with your actions, words and decisions in all aspects of life. In his classic book BE HERE NOW, the late Ram Dass teaches us how wakefulness is about being alert to the present without letting past experiences or fears of the future color and obscure this moment.

James Baraz, from AWAKENING JOY, says “mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes; being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way.”

In Buddhism, we are introduced to the notion of the “Monkey Mind.” It is a mind that is out of control, agitated and scattered. Buddhist practices with mindfulness are designed to help leaders quiet these monkeys, to tame them and bring us back to the here and now. One of these practices is called meditation, a skill I will address and teach in the very next section.

Why is it important to develop a state of Right Mindfulness? In my teaching with athletes, coaches, teams and others, I encourage them to practice mindfulness because it helps to be happy and improve the quality of how you live, what you do and how you do it. It feels good to be relaxed, calm and peaceful. It lowers stress, anxiety, worry and depression, all important variables that must be contained if we want to experience masterful performance. It helps you gain perspective on the up and down, gain and loss nature of life...and, of course, athletics.

Speaking of sports, what athlete or coach doesn’t experience the Monkey Mind by bouncing back and forth between our past mistakes, future outcomes, potential injury, and, as a result, get distracted from what’s happening right here, right now.

To help his team develop a strong sense of such mindfulness, coach Phil Jackson of the L.A. Lakers created the “warrior room” at their practice facility in El Segundo, California. In that sacred space, with the help of author George Mumford, team members would enter to practice mindful meditation. It was

voluntary but athletes like Kobe Bryant used this time effectively. When he was with the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan embraced the value of mindfulness and soon proclaimed as I stated in Part One, “this Buddhist stuff really works.”

I know that sports is one of the best venues to practice mindfulness. You need not be a Buddhist monk to have a successful practice. I have experienced the growth of mindfulness over a forty-year span in my career to a point where today it is profoundly mainstream. My teams on all levels of performance don’t just want it, they crave it. Most of the top athletes and coaches in sports embrace the concept of mindfulness as a way to quiet their minds and hang out in that heavenly place, a place of complete involvement in your sport for its own sake. This is the most essential key to the competitive Buddha, effective leadership and masterful performance as you begin to consistently tap into the flow of the event, in that present moment.

As I mentioned earlier, the next section of my book TCB will be devoted to this topic and guide you through the process of mindful meditation, the same one I used with 115 championship teams over the past 30 years.

RIGHT LEADERSHIP ACTION

 Here is the latest from The Competitive Buddha, the fourth Noble Eightfold Traits of a Buddha leader.

The fourth aspect of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Action and it relates to ethical conduct, right morality and the ability to live harmoniously with others. According to Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, right action happens when you do all things in mindfulness. When you do, you act in harmony with respecting life, you demonstrate generosity giving to and serving others, you promote social justice, you avoid sexual misconduct and exploitation and you pay attention to what you consume, choosing healthful foods and avoiding harmful intoxicants, and refraining from lying.

As it relates to sports, Right Action could influence your athletes’ behavior such as showboating or trash talking or disrupting the practice or game. These common behaviors are a sign of disrespect for others. Buddhism teaches compassion and kindness and these actions are the antithesis of such teaching. Phil Jackson, using Right Action in his coaching, has stated how the right action of compassion with his teams proved to be one of the foundational building blocks of his championship teams.

Right Action is also about being honest. It applies to a coach’s integrity and character. If you say you’ll do something, you do it even when no one is looking. Cheating is about doing all the illegal things that break the rules to gain advantage. Intentional fouls are harmful and disrespectful to an opponent. As a coach, be sure your athletes know this about their behavior.

Whining or creating unnecessary drama are destructive actions. Also, being selfish is an action contrary to the Buddhist teaching of generosity. Right Action for a coach and athlete is about giving and serving your team in a selfless way. When a coach asks an athlete to assume a certain role, it is accepted as a way to serve the team, to do whatever it takes to make the team better. See the story about Andre Igoudala in the section on Selflessness in Part Two.

As coaches and athletes, we also want to pay strict attention to our diet. Many professional and collegiate programs that I serve, have hired nutritional experts to help everyone take the right action with regard to health and wellness. Many of my teams have fruitful, helpful discussions leading to big changes in alcohol consumption, especially during season. The deleterious effects of alcohol consumption on leadership and performance are well documented.

Finally, we all are benefiting from social activism such as the “me too” movement as it relates to sexual misconduct with athletes. The Buddhist teaching about Right Action continues to help all of us address these current issues in sports. This issue is relevant to an entire sports organization.

                    

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS FOR SUCCESS

 Here is a BLOG that I wrote several years go... several... that is worth repeating. These touchstones are foundational building blocks for everyday living and competing at your very best level. You can now pre-order the Competitive Buddha at Amazon and Barnes and Noble

All successful athletes and people in all walks of life seem to have certain innate core virtues or traits that define their path of success. Remember this: there is no path to success; success is that path. Here are the top seven that I find weave a pattern connecting such extraordinary people:

1) BELIEF---your lack of belief in yourself is your opponents greatest advantage. When you have self-doubt and lack confidence, it is usually due to your focus on outcomes and results, items that are beyond your control. Such focus on outcomes makes you tight, tense and tentative and as a result, your confidence diminishes. Focus instead on what you can control, those little things that you do over and over and believe in doing that. When you do, confidence rises as you become relaxed and calm, assured that you can demonstrate those behaviors. Remember this: from little streams come big rivers.

2) INFLUENCE--- Know that your influence is NEVER neutral. Your body language, tone, posture, eye contact, words chosen and attitude can either light up a room or cast it into eternal darkness. The more aware I become of the power of my influence, the more "say" I have in the outcome on or off the court.

3) COMPASSION--- the ancient TAO says we lose and in this way we win. Errors, mistakes, setbacks and failure are our best teachers and mentors. The arrow that hits the bulls eye is surely the result of 100 misses. Embrace loss as a necessary link to success. I have failed many, many times yet I am more fortunate because of that. My best seller in over 10 languages was rejected for publication a dozen times or more. Understand this natural path and have compassion for yourself and others, particularly those whom you have perhaps defeated.

4) COURAGE--- the word courage comes from the French word "coeur" meaning heart. You must have the courage to take risks and learn from your setbacks when they occur. The author, Ray Bradbury once said that when you are afraid to fail, when you are standing at the ledge of a cliff, you must jump and build your wings on the way down...then you'll fly. Remember the first time as a kid when you jumped off the diving board into the pool although you were petrified prior to jumping. You landed safely and let out a scream because you had such a successful flight into the water.

5) THOUGHTS--- your thoughts will strengthen you or weaken you. Every thought has its own energy. If a thought is contrary to the direction you wish to go, the thoughts will win. We all have two wolves inside us at the same time, fighting with each other everyday. You may wonder...which wolf wins? The answer: the one you feed. Using positive thoughts will set you on a path that is healthy, strong, forward moving and successful.

6) INTEGRITY--- this is about narrowing the gap between what you say and what you do. The less the gap, the more the integrity. Integrity relates to trust and respect, the two key components of meaningful relationships, so necessary for life of congruence and authenticity. This means that you do what you say you will do even when no one is looking.

7) GRATEFULNESS--- all achieving, extraordinary athletes that I have met demonstrate the quality of Gratefulness. In fact, I say: FROM GR8FUL 2 GR8. I ask that you list the top 7 things in your life that you are grateful for. When you get the feeling of gratefulness, breathe in into your heart( eyes closed) three times and hold it there. Then, go about your day making it a reflection of all that you have been given... live your day giving back to your team, friends, family, work, performance because of your own good fortune.

Being aware of these 7 items each day will change your life in significantly good ways.

RIGHT THOUGHT COACHING

 Here is the next Eightfold Noble Leadership Traits, Right Thoughts. Thoughts create feelings and feelings determine function. Also, Thought determines the direction we go in our lives. Here are a few ways to get a handle on this important topic for leadership and performance.

Buddhist thought teaches that we are shaped by our mind. We become what we think. We lead and perform as we think. We live as we think and no one other than ourselves can alter our minds. We control our thoughts and those thoughts control us. According to the Buddha, the mind is the ultimate cause of our suffering. It is also the source of our happiness. A tamed mind brings happiness; a wild mind brings unhappiness. In Buddhist thought, changing the suffering mind to the joyful mind is the key to a happy life.

When I am coaching athletes, I encourage them to be aware of how thoughts about missing a shot, dropping a pass, losing a race or striking out feeds the possibility of those results happening. I encourage them to think of how realistically, these things could happen but that’s okay and not the end of the world because there will be other chances. I ask them, as well as myself, to replace maladaptive thoughts with positive thinking such as: I can do it, I’m strong, next time I’ll get it done, I’m an awesome athlete, coach, leader.

There’s a legendary Cherokee story that is emblematic of the greatest battles we’ll ever fight, the one between our good and bad thoughts. An old Cherokee grandpa says to his grandson, “a fight is inside me. It’s between two wolves. One is evil who has anger, hate, greed, envy and resentment. The other wolf is good and has joy, love, peace, hope, truth, compassion and kindness.” The grandson thought about it for a minute then asked his grandpa, “which one will win?” The reply was simple, “the one who’ll win is the one you feed.”

Along the Noble Eightfold Path, a mindful coach knows that right thinking will cause freedom from suffering. We all suffer when we worry about outcomes and results. We also suffer when we try to hold on to victory and achievement. I call this negative uncontrollable process “stinking thinking.” Buddhist thought teaches us to let go of our needs to not lose or hold on to victory. These are uncontrollable. As a leader or coach, I ask others to care more about what you can control such as your efforts, work ethic, and focus on all the little things like diving for the 50/50 ball, play tough defense, communicate on the field, encourage teammates and never give up. This is the “Buddha Ball” that leads to Right Thoughts which opens the door to mastery. It makes it easier to lead and compete with less fear, to be present in the moment, and more tolerant of the ebb and flow

of your emotions, your game, your life. Such thought places you in the middle between loss and gain, pleasure and pain, fame and disgrace, praise and blame.

As a mindful coach, tell your athletes that thoughts can strengthen or weaken them. They have an energy of their own. The direction your thoughts go is where you will go. And you can control your thoughts and mitigate your suffering on this planet, in your life, in your work, in your sport.

Going from Buddha to Bob Marley, in his Redemption Song, he suggests that we must all work to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. If we as leaders don’t, who will, I say? When we free ourselves from bad thoughts, we create greater peace, calm, confidence and a stronger outlook in our team’s sports culture. This inner battle can be won because each of us has the power of choice. Think about how you may be feeding the bad wolf thoughts and replace them with the more positive narrative. I suggest that you think about what makes you feel grateful in sports and life.

RIGHT EFFORT

 Following in line with my last post on RIGHT SPEECH, here is yet a second excerpt from TCB and the Eightfold Noble traits of great leaders, called RIGHT EFFORT. 

Gandhi once said, “live as if you’ll die tomorrow.” When you do, you live, coach and lead with loving kindness, harmony, generosity and focus on only that which is important. When Steve Jobs was diagnosed with cancer, he alluded to the notion that all expectation, fears and loss fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering you are going to die is the best way to avoid thinking you have something to lose or something to gain. Buddhism supports this assessment in its teaching about impermanence. All things are fleeting including winning and losing games in sport and life. With that I will segue into the meaning of Right Effort as it relates to sports.

In athletics, I call it Effort Without Effort. Care about your effort and work ethic but not about outcomes and results. This makes it easier to compete because it frees you: less to worry about, less to be fearful of because you can control the little things and not be concerned about the uncontrollable results. Clinging to the outcomes, titles, minutes played, contracts negotiated are futile efforts that lead to suffering.

Try to stop caring about how you do and just think about how you can be. Be brave, courageous, patient, persistent, respectful, aware, positive and kind. I often tell myself when concerned with my outcome, “to hell with it” and this helps me be calm and relaxed. My advice is to follow the way of Effort Without Effort.

You see it constantly in sports and exercise, when you decide to cut back, let up and exert less effort, your performance begins to improve. This principle of effortless effort was successfully demonstrated years ago by Olympic runners Ray Norton, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans. Their coach, Bud Winter, developed the ninety percent law. When runners try to perform at one hundred percent, they get anxious and tense. Too much effort blocks their energy, their life force, and diminishes their power. Performing at nine-tenths effort is more relaxing and results in faster speed.

Let’s say you’re trying to run up a steep hill. The more effort you exert, the more difficult it seems to be. Rather than apply effort, enjoy the natural surroundings and try to glide rather than push yourself up. Rigidity sets in when anything reaches its full limit. When you do your weight training, for example, relax your muscles yet keep your arms firm as you lift. Notice how much stronger

you feel by not exerting as much. All of your physical activity will go up a notch as you begin to exert less. This is easily demonstrated by doing push-ups. Get in position, relax your arms and face, and effortlessly do five of them. Now, repeat the process using tensed arms. Notice how much easier it is when you apply less force, effort and push. Maybe we should call them “rise-ups.”

When you learn the advantage of paying attention to the energy flow and rhythms in your coaching, see how pushing or forcing is counterproductive, then you begin to apply this Buddha non-force way of effort to work and the rest of life. Oftentimes your inner turmoil, struggle and pain related to your leadership are the result of your continual effort to force what cannot be. You quickly enter a spiritual vacuum as frustration, anger, depression and fear begin to take over as a result of your futile attempts to control the uncontrollable.

When you find yourself forcing and exerting to finish a project, you increase the chance of getting stuck. Authors are famous for getting “writer’s block” when they try too hard to be creative. When blockage happens, focus on the inner spiritual elements of joy, beauty and the flow of your art. Notice how much better you feel about your work as it begins to go more smoothly. Tell yourself that you’re simply here to enjoy the task, and don’t perseverate on the outcome. Ask yourself, “How can I do it more effortlessly?” Then follow your advice. You practically have to “not care” yet not be totally “care-less” in this delicate balance of effort without effort.

Notice the peace you experience in coaching when you choose to step aside as tension mounts, rather than to force your opinion on others; when you choose to enter a relationship and not force the process; when you choose not to push for an unnaturally speedy recovery when sick or injured. Martial artists have understood for centuries that the less effort you exert, the more proficient and spiritually sane you will become in all that you do.

When we master this concept by simply coming back to it when off track, we begin to function more like the Buddha “Middle Way”, effort yet without effort.

RIGHT SPEECH AND LEADERSHIP

 Here is one of the Eightfold Traits of Mindful Buddha leaders from my next book, THE COMPETITIVE BUDDHA. You can PRE-order this book now on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. 

According to the mindful leader, right speech involves five conditions: speak at the right time, speak only the truth, speak gently without hardness, speak words that benefit others and speak with loving kindness, avoiding all maliciousness. The key factor in Right Speech is the creating of harmony and happiness among those you lead while at the same time avoiding harmful words to reduce suffering. All of this is relevant when speaking to oneself as well.

The basic rule of thumb for Right Speech is if it is helpful, true, factual, timely and pleasing, then you may say it. If something is not pleasing, yet helpful, true and factual, you may need to choose the right time to say it. All Right Speech needs to be pleasing. All Right Speech gives rise to peace, happiness and connection in oneself and others. If you as coach get off this path, that’s fine but know that with such awareness you can choose to get right back on track.

Sports leadership is a perfect venue to provide many opportunities to practice Right Speech. In the cultures I help coach teams we choose to compete and live by values that enhance how we relate and speak to one another. Respect, compassion, joy, selflessness, love, trust, mindfulness and positivity help to create environments where Right Speech can proliferate. There is no room for whining, drama or harsh behavior in places that wish to inspire mastery.

Right Speech is rooted in the fundamental belief that we truly care for one another. Masterful performance and mindful leadership in sports is all about such caring. Steve Kerr, head coach of the champion Golden State Warriors, told me recently that “I want to make sure that my guys feel valued, respected, important and relevant.” When they feel this way, magic happens and they compete at higher levels. But how does he do this? How do any of us make this happen?

How can we best demonstrate our caring for each other? It’s not about connecting my professional coaching head to your head. It’s about connecting my human heart to your human heart using Right Speech. The following can help you to better understand this factor in your coaching.

To connect my heart to yours, I imagine that I open the little door to my heart and become mindful of how I care for you. This “open door” policy reminds me to be caring, genuine, authentic, and vulnerable. I can then use Right Speech such as “I love being with you. There’s not another team (person) I’d rather be with than you right now.”

How does that make you feel? How do you think your athletes would feel if they heard this? Have you ever said this to an athlete? Why not? To not do this, there’s a chance you could lose them. To do it, you increase the chance of getting your team to go the distance, to work harder, to be loyal, and become mentally

tougher. Performance on and off the court is all about how the coach leads with Right Speech; how you feel is how you’ll perform. It’s really quite simple. When you care for your athletes like this, they reach their full potential. How you impact another, with regard to how they feel can be determined by what I call the RIVER effect.

Having kindness through Right Speech for all others is what the RIVER effect is truly about. The RIVER effect is a five-letter acronym that I use consistently as a reminder for me to be mindful and extend kindness to all my relationships. It helps me to connect and care more deeply. I do what I can to help others feel the RIVER and what it represents. In that regard, I want others to feel relevant, remarkable, important, inspired, valued, validated, empowered, excited, respected, and revered.

How do those you coach behave, act, play, work, and compete, when they feel the river consuming them? When you remember and adopt the acronym RIVER, you can easily create amazing opportunities to inspire, empower, validate, and respect others using Right Speech. It becomes a mindful touchstone that, when used, increases the chances that others will be loyal, go the distance, work harder, and be mentally strong.

The following are examples of Right Speech that you can use to coach the RIVER effect with others.

• You’re important to this team. We need your awesome efforts.

• (Relevant)

• I love your work ethic. It motivates all of us. (Remarkable)

• If you keep playing like that, you’ll be one of the best athletes I’ve

  ever coached. (Inspired)

• We value your presence on this team. You bring out the best in

  everyone. (Valued)

• That last week of practice was one of your best thus far. (Validated)

• I want to give you permission to keep being a great leader. (Inspired)

• When you play and compete like that, you’re being a true champion.

  (Empowered)

• Without you, we wouldn’t be the great team we are. (Revered)

• I appreciate and love how much you give of yourself to your

  teammates. (Important)

  
  

  Golden State Warrior head coach, Steve Kerr, uses the RIVER concept on a consistent basis and by so doing, gets the most from his players. Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks is always looking for an opportunity to demonstrate similar caring strategies that help his athletes feel respected and important. I told him about the RIVER acronym, and he agreed how helpful that is in bringing out the best in others.

Cindy Timchal, winningest lacrosse coach ever, for men or women, has adopted and adapted the RIVER effect to her coaching style. When she’s mindful of using it, she notices that there is a major “buy-in” to her system. She bathes her athletes in the RIVER and then notices the tsunami, that is, how “the athletes are super willing to put it all out on the field.”

While I didn’t realize it at the time, my first and only meeting with the iconic men’s basketball coach at the University of North Carolina, Dean Smith, showed me that he was brilliant at using the RIVER effect, even though he hadn’t thought about it in this way. He was the kind of leader who used deep, genuine Right Speech. Following an intimate 45-minute meeting together, I felt so inspired, valued, and important that I committed myself to writing my book, Coaching with Heart.

The RIVER effect fulfills all of the components of Right Speech. It is helpful, true, factual and pleasing and the time is always perfect for such words. Make the RIVER your “go-to” acronym for effective leadership.

DISCOVER YOUR NORTH STAR

 

Here is an excerpt from my book WIN THE DAY, published in 2020. A great book to help you use strategies of coaches like Steve Kerr, Phil Jackson, Tara VanDerveer, Pete Carroll and others yet remain true to who YOU are. This is a recent media photo that will be on my next book, Competitive Buddha

Until I understand where I am, I can’t get to where I’m going. This is the value of a compass when we need to know we’re going in the right direction. But we also have an internal North Star...that little nudge that tells us if we are on the right path to fulfilling our potential.
                                                           John C. Maxwell, Author, Leadership, Coaching

For me, that nudge is a set of core values that keeps us on track as a culture. My advice is to pull out the spiritual compass that I present in this book every so often and make sure you are going in the best direction on this journey in sports and life.

My purpose in writing this book is to make a difference in the lives of coaches and athletes, to change the status quo of sports cultures and to offer an ethical, spiritual and emotional compass that can inspire, empower and guide others to believe that their lives can be something other than ordinary. It is a book about caring, core values and connection, of competing and coaching with love in athletics and life. As a philosophical base, I lean on the wisdom, teachings and values of a variety of cultures such as ancient Chinese and Buddhist thought, Native American tradition and Western psychology. For example, Taoist warriors understood that the power of their honorable core values (included in this book) was greater than the power of arms. This is what the Chinese call Wu Shi, or the Warrior spirit, which is about being totally alive to experience your potential for peak capacity using values they considered weapons of the heart. These core values - connection and caring are our non-negotiables. They are our North Star. According to President Barack Obama, “There are gonna be a set of core values that shouldn’t be up for debate. They should be our North Star.” Much in agreement with Obama is CEO of Apple Tim Cook: “Your core values matter. They are your North Star.”

Being a champion is more than simply winning on the scoreboard; it is about winning the bigger, deeper more meaningful lessons of life through the experience of athletics. Basically, coaches and athletes champion what I call a “win the day” attitude by executing the important little things they can control now. It is an attitude that asks and answers the question: what’s important now? Greg Mckeown, in his book, Essentialism, talks about how

WIN is an acronym that stands for “what’s important now?” – the “in the present” experience of the play at hand, rather than obsessing over future results or outcomes. You WIN by staying focused on how you’re competing now and thinking about your game plan, not the opponent’s, and concentrating on what I call the essential absolutes, all those items you can control...your North Star.

WIN THE DAY lays out the essential core values of championship sports cultures. This book is a way to care, connect and help unite others, embrace diversity, have each other’s backs, be selfless and work together for a common cause greater than any ideology or any one individual. It is a book to help build, cultivate and sustain a culture of champions who “win the day” by practicing specific core values that we all crave. It is about rediscovering our North Star or conscious compass in a chaotic world and infusing those values into our nervous systems in order to experience extraordinary performance and a sense of equanimity with right action and a more mindful way of competing and living. “Win the Day” means that coaches and athletes control what they can and let go of outcomes and results. It means to never give up regardless of the score, never be fearful of losing because it’s our greatest teacher, and never let your opponent defeat your spirit, your commitment to winning the day. It is about physical, emotional, spiritual and mental preparation and doing the little important things brilliantly in the present moment rather than the big things marginally in the future. It’s all about “what’s important now” (WIN) in order to win the day.

I combine the body of work I have created with 115 championship cultures in the hope of changing the world of sports as we know it, while inspiring more joy, happiness, fulfillment and success to anyone ready for a change in the status quo. I will make available to the reader practical, easy to implement tools, strategies, exercises and activities that I have successfully used with coaches and athletes in championship cultures for a more caring and connected environment.

For example, to implement the value of selflessness, I tell a story about a professional athlete who gave up his starting role because it was in the best interest of his team. Then I offer this exercise for all athletes to use: Every Monday, group text your team telling them what specifically you will do that will demonstrate a “giving attitude,” a selfless act of kindness. In this way, they take ownership and accept responsibility with a willingness to be held accountable. We discuss this together and make sure all are on the same page in order to win the day.

I also combine this wisdom and experience from my work over the past 30 years with the expertise of twelve nationally acclaimed Hall of Fame head coaches from the professional and collegiate ranks who utilize the core values presented in this book with their championship cultures. Together they have amassed well over 100 national championships in a variety of sports. I have had the honor of working intimately with most of these iconic coaches and their teams as well as having had the opportunity to talk with and/or simply observe the others. A point that should not be lost here is thatthese 12 coach examples I’ve chosen to feature present an interesting mix of personalities and used a variety of practices throughout their careers. Despite their disparate approaches and differences in personality, all of them recognized the significance of team culture and were open to learning about how to create environments that allowed themselves and their athletes to excel. There are other, current successful coaches I’m less familiar with that I refer to in this book who have cultivated and sustained winning cultures such as Dabo Swinney, head football coach of nation champions at Clemson University.

FAITH NOT FEAR

  I'm back to my next book, out late Spring. Here is a message for sports but much needed during this pandemic where fear is confiscating our spirits. 

My new book, The Competitive Buddha, is now available for pre-order from a local bookstore near you or in hardcover from Amazon

Like the Buddha, when I speak of faith I speak about belief and confidence in oneself. I speak about the essence of the Mamba Mind and how Kobe’s confidence was simply about his belief that he could be the best he could be at most times. To have confidence in ourselves requires that we have within us right now, the Buddha nature, the faith that we can act and behave according to the Noble Eightfold Path (see PART THREE). This notion is affirmed by the insightful, empowering words of Buddhist master Hakuine who says in “THE SONG OF ZAZEN”, “Sentient beings are primarily all Buddhas.” He asks that we have faith in the thought that each one of us is a Buddha. Without this faith and belief in ourselves, we wind up drifting along in a confused state of fear, afraid to journey inward as we’re being controlled by sources of ourselves. We lose all self- confidence in our ability to choose and make good decisions. We fail to trust that the wise Buddha is already present within. The true nature of our reality is dependent upon only that which resides on the inside.

How is this related to the Buddha sports? To begin with, in so much of athletic performance, anxiety and fear is caused by external things: past mistakes, future possible losses to name two. Fear is the biggest obstacle to mastery and success. I call it a cancer of the athletic soul. It weakens you causing you to be tight, tense and tentative. The cure of this cancer is faith – faith that you have the Buddha mastery strategies well within; faith in your coaches and the system and faith in your team. It is a faith not in outcome but in all the little things you can control such as solid defense, work effort and ethic, attitude about competition, preparation and all the competitive Buddha precepts outlined in this book. Knowing that you can have an influence in these ways will improve your confidence, trust, belief and faith from within without being manipulated by external sources that cannot be controlled.

What I’m saying is to have faith that the Buddhist teachings included in this section are available and can be practiced daily. This is the way to strengthen your belief and weaken your fear. Here are how things work when you elicit the Mamba “Beginner’s Mind.”

If your mind believes “I can’t,” you will sabotage your work efforts. You won’t do what’s required to be in a state of mastery. But when you use the Buddha Brain and Mamba Beginner’s Mind, you believe, “I can,” and you follow paths of behavior and thought that help ensure that mastery is possible. The psychology of this thinking includes the mindsets of hope, motivation, commitment, confidence, courage, concentration, excitement, and observation.

It takes work to renounce your restrictive beliefs about what you can and can’t do in sport. Your power as a Buddha athlete starts with awareness that you have unlimited potential once you align yourself with the belief “I can.” Remember that acting “as if” you can achieve something is self-direction, not self-deception.

It places you on the path of mastery. As you forge ahead, you can learn from your setbacks and mistakes. Hard opinions about yourself distort the truth about your potential. Be flexible in your beliefs: Rigidity will block your growth.

When you function with a flexible Mamba mind, you access a clear vision and a nonjudgmental mental state that gives you faith and belief. Then what’s needed is to simply “act as if” and focus your behavior on all the ways of Buddha and Mamba Sports, a process-oriented approach with the wisdom of a diligent work ethic.

Most athletes on all levels of play, from the recreational enthusiast up to the professional, utilize far less than half of their potential. Why should you believe anything other than ‘I can”? Approach each free throw, putt, pitch, fly ball, pass, stroke, spike, or technical maneuver with a positive inner belief of yes – act “as if,” and activate your concentration, your belief and your faith in the Buddha within, the Mamba mind path of mastery.

William James, the great American philosopher, once said that the greatest discovery of his generation was that “human beings, by changing the inner beliefs of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” And Buddhist teaching reminds us that if you’re facing in the right direction, all you need to do is keep on walking that path. This is exactly what the Mamba Mentality is all about, showing how changing inner beliefs can change outer aspects of life.

WHAT IS A CHAMPION

 I am always asked the question, What is a Champion? since my business name is called 

WAY OF CHAMPIONS. So here is my way of answering that question. What are your thoughts on this and does my definition make sense?

CHAMPION CHARACTERISTICS

Champions share many characteristics, none of which are determined by their talents. Here are some of those characteristics. How many of these statements also describe you and your life?

• A champion has the courage to risk failure, knowing that setbacks are lessons to learn from.

• A champion uses an event to gain greater self-knowledge as well as feedback on physical improvement.

• A champion trains their thought processes as well as their body to produce a total approach to performance.

• A champion understands their athletic weaknesses and trains to strengthen them.

• A champion actively creates a life of balance, moderation and simplicity - values that help improve running and life.

• A champion views competitors as partners who provide challenge and the chance to improve.

• A champion understands performances are like a roller coaster, with many ups and downs, and that you have to accept both the good and the bad.

• A champion enjoys sport for the simple pleasures it provides.

• A champion has vision. A champion dreams of things that haven't

  been and believes they are possible. A champion says "I can."

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

 Another excerpt from my coming book, The Competitive Buddha. You can pre-order it on Amazon now. 

Gratitude is the bedrock of all grate leadership and performance. If you like this, you'll love the book as it is chock full of similar nuggets. 

According to Buddhist thought gratitude is one of the best practices for living in daily life. It is closely connected to the concept of mindfulness. Practicing gratitude helps us all to get connected to our lives and how we are a small part of a larger purpose. It liberates us from the worry, endless desires and suffering caused by seeing what we lack. Gratitude is the key to personal happiness and joy. It helps you to change fear into faith, and faith into courage. It brings about feelings of love, compassion and connection. It is life changing.

Buddhist thought encourages us to be mindful of all the good that is in our lives. All that we’ve been given by our parents, friends, teachers and to do it intentionally, to cultivate it rather than to let it happen randomly. It is a simple daily practice of what I call “counting your blessings.”

How relevant is this concept to the world of sport? Many athletes complain about what they don’t have, what they’re not getting rather than what they have been given. The Buddha athlete does not dwell on lack of playing time, poor stats, little or no recognition. Rather, the focus of this athlete is on feeling well, healthy, strong and all the fortunate opportunities given like friendship, community,
growth, development, joy and fun being able to be part of a team, something bigger than personal gain or loss. It has become well known that gratitude is good for athletics: it tops negativity, rewires your brain, eliminates stress, improves self- esteem, and raises levels of performance.

What I notice working with athletes over several decades is how most of the truly great ones are filled with gratitude, one of the foundational strengths of the Mamba Mentality. The teams that perform at their very best are grateful. They are also very happy and joyful, states of mind that translate into better performance. My friend and Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast reminds me that theroot of joy is gratefulness...it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.

In the world of sports, we fall into the trap of what’s missing; we’re not big enough, strong enough, talented enough, good enough...enough already! It’s easy to think about scarcity rather than abundance, to be grateful for what we have. To help with this, I recommend expressing gratefulness as a daily practice. For five minutes each day, focus on your gratitude for what you have been given, all of your blessings. Then go about the rest of your day making everything you do and how you’re being a mere reflection of these gifts.

Gratefulness is the process of becoming mindful of what is genuinely important and holding that feeling in your heart. What’s important to you, what you’re grateful for, can change each day depending upon what comes your way. For me, certain items are more constant, as in, “I am grateful for my family, my life partner, my ability to make a difference in the lives of others through my writing and work, my healthy body, my comfortable home, my mental clarity, my sense of humor,” and so on. Each day new items get added to the list.

Here’s an exercise that I practice regularly. I do this before getting out of bed, and it has the power to transform my days and impact everything I am doing and how I am being. Give this a shot and be sure to include everything that’s good and special about your life.

• Make a list of five or more items that make you feel grateful.

• Go over the list and get connected to how these make you feel:

  calm, peaceful, loving, fortunate, blessed...all feelings of

  gratefulness.

• Take in one deep, slow breath through your nose. And as you

  do, take in this feeling of gratefulness. Have the feeling surround your heart, hold your breath for four seconds, and then slowly release it.

• Repeat this deep breathing three times.

• Notice how relaxed and peaceful you feel. Now – go about the

  rest of the day and make everything a reflection of what you’ve been given. In other words, give back.

  Notice the difference in how you perform. The ordinary will become extraordinary. This alignment with your heart will give you a broader, richer, more meaningful perspective on all the mundane realities of sports as well as in life.

  Here is more wisdom from Brother David:

  Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful...Everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is a measure of our gratefulness, and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness...We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.

  Having gratitude is an attitude...the “attitude of gratitude” contributes to your overall health and has a profound impact on masterful performance as you go from “grateful to great.”