environments of loyalty, trust, respect, and cooperation where resistance and counterforce are virtually eliminated, while instilling a strong sense of personal power in those you lead. You will discover that by being such a heart-directed leader, you will empower others and, simultaneously, gain power yourself. Like electricity, the more energy and love you conduct, the more you receive. In truth, you never need to display power. Others just feel it and respect it because such an extraordinary leader radiates and emanates personal power.
The principles, strategies, wisdom, and overall lessons of this book will guide you to develop a more athlete-centered approach for those under your guidance, thus helping you to master the art of highly effective, enlightened, and extraordinary leadership.
This book is written for the entire population of people and professionals who desire to become inspirational and empowering coaches, helping those they lead to grow and develop into their full human potential and capacity. Such coaches in athletics, business, education, church congregations, military organizations, and parents of athletic-oriented kids are but a few of those targeted populations that could benefit from this book. The wisdom and lessons within these pages offer to all of us concepts, strategies, and tools for inspiring and empowering relationships in all walks of life. It is a book designed to help you be in position to accelerate the process of readiness for those whom we lead, who hesitate to move forward even though they desire to do so.
Think of this book as a commitment to change, transform, improve, and optimize the effective skill-set you already possess. We all feel from time to time that something is missing from our repertoire and we need to “rock the boat.” Sometimes we feel stagnant or on a plateau and wish to take our performance to a higher level. Perhaps we want to get a stronger sense of purpose or motivation and have a different success experience, one that does not rely on outcomes and results. This just may be the book to nudge you along the path, requiring all of us to think outside-the-box, in order to coach with a dancing heart.
AVENUES OF WISDOM
There are two ways, essentially, for each of us to accrue wisdom in our lives. The first is painless: learning from the teachings of others. The second is painful: learning from the experience of our journeys in life. To accomplish the task of writing this book, I will intersperse both avenues of wisdom, alternating between wisdom from my professional calling and the wisdom of sacred books written over 25 centuries ago for leaders, generals, and heads of state in ancient China. The three major parts of this book will combine Wisdom to Inspire, Wisdom to Empower, and Wisdom of the Watercourse Way, the Tao itself.
SACRED CALLING
I have been working in the coaching professions for 34 years. During this period of time, I have established a consultancy that is unique, stimulating, practical, and game-changing, aimed at instilling the principles of leadership learned from extraordinary coaches and athletes.
When I give it some thought, I really haven’t had a job during any of these years. Instead I have had a “sacred calling,” honorable and privileged work of serving and giving to others where my focus has been on making a difference rather than making a living. The funny thing about that is the “making a difference” approach has provided me with making an extraordinary living. There’s an important lesson here for all of us who attempt to reverse the process.
It has been a joyful, sacred calling thus far, one of learning, growing, and expanding, and filled with much passion and love, a path of endless self-discovery, revelations, openings, and epiphanies along the way. It has enabled me to experience 29 National Championship teams and write this, my eleventh book on the subject. I agree with the observation of Cervantes when he said: “The journey is better than the inn.” And, I am not even halfway there. I have so, so much more to learn and many miles to go before I rest.
SACRED BOOKS
In Chinese, the word that best defines and epitomizes extraordinary leadership and coaching with a dancing heart is Jingshen, a Mandarin concept meaning to instill spirit, vitality, chi, passion, and personal power in those you lead.
To achieve Jingshen, the art of implementing ways to inspire and empower others, not only do I use my wisdom from my calling but I adapt the timeless lessons on leadership from several ancient sacred Chinese books, one of which is the Tao Te Ching, the most widely published book in the world aside from the Bible and a source of spiritual strength for centuries. It was written 26 hundred years ago, ostensibly by Lao-Tzu, a Taoist sage, for all who were in positions of leadership at that time and who possessed the potential to influence, inspire, and empower others in a strong, positive, and productive way. Each of the 81 verses contained within this classic offer ageless leadership lessons, principles, suggestions, and strategies for effective guidance that speak directly to one of our most challenging professions, athletic coaching. These lessons help to cultivate ideal relationships between you and your athletes while guiding them to go the distance in athletics and life.
In addition to this, these practical verses of sagely advice give insight into a more “natural way”; the way coaching and leadership were meant to be, in harmony with nature. For example, the Tao Te Ching talks about the power (TE) of a leader or coach to serve others from a place of love, caring, and spirituality, rather than the power over others by resorting to force and manipulation. This is the power you have to influence and encourage athletes to discover their motivation within, to have courage, commitment, integrity, perseverance, patience, selflessness, and be fearless. When this happens, there is a heightened sense of purpose, meaning, and relevance to what they do which happens to be the essence of motivation. The Chinese calligraphic symbol for Tao is made up of a head, signifying wisdom, and a foot, representing walking—literally translated it means “walking the way of wisdom.”
If you are anything like me, you want to kick it up a few notches in your coaching. The wisdom of the Tao Te Ching will help you to do just that as you experience significant change, improvement, and growth in addition to what you already have mastered from years of good work. The leadership lessons from the Tao Te Ching are a compelling way to get the most out of what you do. This wisdom, along with the wisdom from other Chinese sources, will help you to begin to understand the essence of extraordinary coaching, guiding, mentoring, and teaching not only for your work but for the bigger picture of life in all arenas of performance.
I’m excited and eager to dive in and begin the journey. This book is written in the spirit of giving to each of you, all that I have learned from so many others wiser than myself. I am like a hole in a flute where the breath of these great spirits comes through to you.
The following are several specific examples of what Coaching with Heart will help you to create and cultivate in your heart-directed culture:
• spark the flames of enthusiasm, excitement, and inspiration that flicker in all athletes
• encourage athletes to win the inner battles for success in all of life
• create environments that are emotionally safe, without blame and judgment
• enable athletes to realize their full, expansive capacity in sports and life
• nurture team cohesion, harmony, and unity of purpose, one heart, one soul, one goal
• gain the dedication, trust, loyalty, love, and appreciation of all those whom you lead
• communicate so that athletes will listen to you and you to them
• permit risk and help others learn the lessons of failure for sport and life
• model powerful humanistic styles of leadership
• resolve conflict more peacefully and effectively
