When your time is up on this Earth, who are the people who will come to your funeral?
I recently completed an impactful three days at the Cannonball Foundation Coaching Fellowship in Boston, Massachusetts. Every August, the Fellowship brings together high school, college, travel ball coaches and leaders from across the country who are looking to grow themselves as a person and a leader. Coaches learn how to become transformational leaders while building relationships.
As I stepped on the plane heading back home, I couldn’t help but reflect on how powerful those 20 Fellows were to me. In three short days, I was able to create relationships that potentially could last a lifetime. Throughout the week, there was time to connect and share our personal journeys. As well as time to build on our strengths through workshops and leadership panel discussions. But at the core of the Fellowship, were the transformational conversations being held between sessions and late into the evenings around the hotel bar. These moments gave the Fellows time to share their stories and offer advice from their own experiences. It was moments like these, where everyone could let their guard down and participate in meaningful and uplifting conversation.
It reminded me of WHY we were all there in the first place – to grow with one another.
We cannot go through life alone. We need the support of others. Someone to lean on. Someone to vent to, ask questions and be vulnerable with. We are who we are because of the relationships we build.
It Takes a Village
When I was a young coach, I wasn’t even aware of, let alone sold on, the impacts of relationships. I took for granted a lot of the people that I knew in the game and in my life. Looking back on some of my interactions with those people, I viewed some, not all, as transactional relationships – I shake your hand, you shake mine. It makes me cringe how I handled some of those situations early on.
As the years progressed, I slowly began to understand the power of a genuine relationship.
If you’re a coach in charge of a group of players, it’s your job to gain your player’s trust in you. If you’re going to be a leader who people follow, they first have to know that you care about them. It’s the old saying, they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. They want you to know them as a person first and a player second. It’s not what your team can do for you as a leader; it’s what your team can do for the greater good of everyone associated with that team.
So How Do We Go About Doing This?
It starts with building relationships. I often say that “all it takes is five minutes to change someone’s life.” Whether you are spending five minutes with one of your players, or five minutes with the janitor, treat everyone the same. The goal is to make everyone around your program feel special. Make them understand their specific job means a lot to you and your team. By building relationships, you are beginning to create a culture of value. If people feel valued in the role they have, they will go above and beyond what you ask of them. They will feel a meaningful connection to the organization
The culture you build by way of authentic and genuine relationships, will not only pay off for your team but will last a lifetime.
During the Cannonball Fellowship, John Casey (head coach of Tufts University) shared with us the number of weddings he was invited to AND attended this year by former players – it was ELEVEN. He values those wedding invitations because it reinforces the relationships that he’s building. And some of you may be asking how that translates into the win column at Tufts – 30-10-1 overall, making it to the NCAA DIII Regionals this year.
A few days after the Fellowship ended, my good friend Joe Ferraro, creator and host of the 1% Better Podcast, shared this is in a tweet:
This is pretty powerful. Joe is a dear friend. He’s a great coach, husband and father. But what he witnessed, just like I did all those years ago, was himself being a transactional coach, more than a transformational coach. I’m not saying you need to start keeping a running tally on how many weddings you get invited to, but a wedding is a great example of the kind of relationships you are building – genuine and long lasting.
Think about it, you don’t invite just anyone to your wedding. For many, it’s a very thoughtful process when deciding who to invite to your big day. There are a lot of variables at play including, but not limited to, venue size, who might become a distraction after consuming too many cocktails and how much money are you willing to spend? So for most, being invited as a guest to someone’s wedding means that they are willing to share their most intimate day with you.
That should not be lost on anyone.
So, if you remember, at the beginning of this post, I asked you, “Who are the people who will come to your funeral?” Unlike weddings, you have no control over who comes or doesn’t come to your funeral. We would like to think that it will be well attended, but we really don’t know. At the end of your life, how will your funeral be a reflection on the life that you lived? I don’t know about you, but when the people who have been most impactful to me have passed away, I have dropped everything I was doing and made sure that I paid my respects in person. Why? Because I had a genuine and authentic relationship with that person and it was the least I could do for everything they had done for me.
What do you value more in life? Building transactional relationships that improve your status or building meaningful relationships that are truly transformational, not only when you’re around others, but last long after your time on this Earth is up?
Inspire someone today.
Love,
KW
For more than a decade, Kevin Wilson has been one of the most respected hitting coaches in the game. He works behind the scenes as a private hitting consultant to some of the best hitters in Major League Baseball. In 2013, Kevin was the hitting coach for the USA Baseball 18U National Team. Team USA beat Japan for the Gold medal at the IBAF World Cup in Taichung, Taiwan.
He is the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller The #GoodBatting Book and co-hosts a popular podcast, KWB Radio, that showcases unique conversations with the pros. If you want Kevin to speak at your next event or if you want take advantage of his popular 2-day KWB Experience for players and coaches, contact Kevin today!
Follow Kevin on twitter @KWBaseball and visit his website KWBaseball.com