Coach Barbier

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

Monochrome Thursday!

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

Another great season starts today!

[Jim Shapiro @jimshapiro]

Yep. This.

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

Another year with 3 kids finishing the Ames Triathlon. 2 of them won their divisions!

[Billy Oppenheimer @bpoppenheimer]

After his second year at Michigan, Tom Brady wanted to transfer.

He wasn’t playing in games, and he was so low on the depth chart that he only got 2 reps in practice.

Brady met with his coach to express his frustration, “The other quarterbacks get all the reps.”

Coach replied,

“Brady, I want you to stop worrying about what all the other players on our team are doing. All you do is worry about what the starter is doing, what the second guy is doing, what everyone else is doing. You don’t worry about what you’re doing.”

Coach reminded him, “You came here to be the best. If you’re going to be the best, you have to beat out the best.”

And then he recommended that Brady meet Greg Harden, a counselor who worked in the athletic department.

Brady went to Harden’s office and whined, “I’m never going to get my chance. They’re only giving me 2 reps.”

Harden replied, “Just go out there and focus on doing the best you can with those 2 reps. Make them as perfect as you possibly can.”

“So that’s what I did,” Brady said. “They’d put me in for those 2 reps, man, I’d sprint out there like it was Super Bowl 39. ‘Let’s go boys! Here we go! What play we got?’”

“And I started to do really well with those 2 reps. Because I brought enthusiasm, I brought energy.”

Soon, he was getting 4 reps. Then 10, “and before you knew it,” Brady said, “with this new mindset that Greg had instilled in me—to focus on what you can control, to focus on what you’re getting, not what anyone else is getting, to treat every rep like it’s the Super Bowl—eventually, I became the starter.”

Takeaway 1:

Greg Harden telling Brady to focus on being great during his 2 reps reminded me of a piece of advice from the entrepreneur Mark Cuban.

“People come to me all the time and tell me they’re stuck,” Cuban explained. “They’re stuck in a job they don't like. They’re stuck working for a boss they don’t like. They're stuck on a team they don't like.”

“I just tell them, ‘Be great.’”

“The reality of life is that you can’t just always quit your job. You can’t just always go to your boss and say, ‘Give me the promotion, or I’m out of here.’” You can’t just always go to your coach and say, ‘Give me more reps, or I'm transferring.’

“So when you’re stuck, you’ve gotta find it within yourself to say, ‘Ok, this is where I am. And if I’m going to be here, I’m going to be great.’

Because if you’re great at your job, typically other people and companies find out, so it creates opportunities.”

Takeaway 2:

In the field of strategic management, there is a distinction made between “lead measures” and ��lag measures.”

Lag measures are the results you’re trying to achieve: getting a promotion, winning a championship, being the starting quarterback. Lead measures are the actions that predictably drive those results. 

The core characteristic of a lead measure, the authors of “The 4 Disciplines of Execution” write, is that “a lead measure can be directly influenced by you.” To achieve your goals, they write (echoing what the Michigan Coach told Brady), “apply a disproportionate energy” to the things that are in your control.

Starting at Michigan and for the rest of his career, that’s what Brady did.

After he was selected by the New England Patriots with the 199th pick in the 2000 draft, Brady was asked: “Are you aware that [along with starting quarterback, Drew Bledsoe] there’s another quarterback here that they drafted last year?” 

Brady said he was aware of that, “and I know he’s a heck of a player. But I’ve always concerned myself just with the things I can control. I don’t put a lot of thinking into the other guys because I know I’m not at my best when I’m not just thinking about playing as well as I possibly can.”

- - -

“I never once in my life ever said I wanted to be the best of all time. Ever. I wanted to be the best I could be, period. I learned that in college. It didn’t matter what the other guys were doing. It didn’t. It mattered what I was doing.” — Tom Brady

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

@TheFieldOf68 So UCLA didn't have access to a map when they chose to join this conference? What'd they think was gonna happen?

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

Great day at the Wartburg Cross Country meet!

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

And older brother Matt finished the entire Triathlon!

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

Jack Barbier won his division in the Ames Duathlon (biking and running)!

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

When I coached at Sioux Central we were often confused with Sioux Center, but you'd like to think the girls union would know who's playing in the state tournament.

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

Shoutout to Deb Anderson. Not only is she the world's greatest bus driver, but she also kept the scorebook for both JV games last night! Thanks Deb for your commitment to the Tigers!

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

A great start to the Girls BB season. All of my favorite teams won! Congrats to @gilberths_bball @SiouxCentralCSD and @OgdenGBBALL

[IHSAA @IHSAA]

The Class 3A team #iahsxc champion: Gilbert! Tigers scored five runners between 7 and 18 to hold off the defending champ.
🥈Pella
🥉Lewis Central
🏃 https://t.co/rq0plQXXez

[Thomas Fidone II ⁸⁶ @ThomasFidone]

Probably one of the best things I’ve heard in a while

[Gilbert CSD @gilbert_schools]

The most famous 6th grade softball team in the state, perhaps even the country this week was interviewed by KCCI this afternoon. The story of Gilbert’s championship team coached by ISU football coach Matt Campbell will air Wednesday at 10 pm! #GilbertPride #TigersTogether

[MacKenzie Bloem @MissBloemsClass]

This is awesome!!!

[Coach Barbier @CoachBarbier]

I got to watch the Royals win twice today- In person at the K. Pretty good day!

[Tom House 〽️ @tomhouse]

We need to make it okay to be bad at baseball until you’re 14 or 15 years old. So many quit because their coaches give up on them at far too young of ages.