It’s Free, and We’re All Worth It
I recently was asked about why I started writing this blog 15 plus years ago. The short answer is that it gave me my own space to write whatever I wanted—things about the sport that interested me or bugged me or got talked about in lodges, on chairlifts and on the side of the course. Early in my writing career I had regular columns in both Ski Racing and SKI where I could do just that. I did not appreciate what a luxury that was until I no longer had it. I started racerex.com to be that place. It has been sporadic and seasonal, but consistent in its purpose to support the sport I love.
All these years down the road, the players have changed, but many things have remained the same. The sound of a kid skidding, skidding, skidding then cross blocking a gate then chattering underneath it in an unwinnable fight against physics—the very thing that inspired a manifesto of sorts in 2012—still grates on me, though I’ve accepted it as training hill ambience.
What grates much more, and what, sadly, still happens, is any individual or institutional form of discouragement. One of my first Racer ex columns in Ski Racing circa 1993, in fact, was on leaderships style of X vs Y managers. (The upshot: the collaborative, supportive Y’s beat the authoritarian, pressure-cooking, X’s).
From the rec to the World Cup level, I hear stories of both transformative and destructive coaches and programs. The details are different but the takeaways are the same: Time after time, athletes have breakthroughs when they are in programs with coaches who believe in them; when they feel relaxed and at ease; when they feel included in the team; when they focus on process rather than outcomes; when they have a sense of perspective and value beyond sport.
On the flipside, never, ever in my athletic or writing career have I run across an athlete who credited his or her success to a program or a coach who really put the pressure on in a crux moment; who tried to motivate their athletes by playing mind games or pitting teammates against each other; who ignored certain athletes, made them feel like they didn’t belong or were past their primes; who played favorites; who culled the herd early for “stars” and abandoned the rest.
And yet….these approaches persist. Clearly, nobody goes into this business wanting to be a crappy coach or to crush dreams. My best guess is that this style of coaching or leading stems from the lack of an abundance mentality. If you aren’t familiar with that term, CHAT GPT has you covered:
An “abundance mentality” is the belief that there are enough resources and opportunities for everyone, while its opposite is a “scarcity mentality,” which is the belief that resources are limited and not enough to go around for everyone; essentially, an abundance mindset focuses on what is available, while a scarcity mindset focuses on what is lacking.
With regard to developing good skiers, or good athletes in any sport, the abundance mentality encourages athletes to explore their full potential by embracing that “talent” resides along a continuum. It assumes that success is attainable by many rather than reserved for a few, and that it can be achieved by many paths and on many timelines.
The scarcity mentality discourages athletes with the notion that success is finite, and accessible to only a few top dogs. “Talent” is a fixed snapshot from sometime early in their journey that foretells their future. Whereas the “abundance mentality” floats possibility and removes limitations, the scarcity mentality becomes a foregone conclusion—those who are routinely discouraged will underperform, thus rationalizing the choice to discourage them.
Discouragement happens on an institutional level as well. Another thing that hasn’t changed over my many years tracking it, is the conversation about development. I recently ran across a spirited email exchange from 2014 about development. I had saved the file as “the sliver philosophy” because the expert (with whom I agreed to disagree) advocated for heavily supporting a small number of elite athletes early, and “encouraging” the rest as participants. So motivating!
The development conversation always starts with a shield of limitations— dollars, numbers, ages—backed by the stats and reasons why people outside tight parameters don’t or won’t belong. We’ll never know the talent we “missed” if a systemic scarcity mentality bakes discouragement into our sport.
Any form of discouragement is especially mind-boggling in this post Ted Lasso world, where the benefits of Positive Coaching are well-documented and widely popularized. The best part about encouragement is that it includes every ski racer’s favorite four letter word: FREE.
FREE ADVICE ALL AROUND US
Back when I lived this sport as an athlete and then started writing about it, there were few resources explicitly about Positive Coaching. It’s not like the “Golden Rule” approach to coaching was invented with the Internet; but now it is being substantiated with stories from the top of sport, proven with studies and blasted out on accessible platforms. We are awash in websites, blogs and podcasts on the topic. Positive coaching is celebrated in the work of experts, many of whom are represented on this crowd-sourced reading list (which might come in handy around Christmas).
The Positive Coaching repertoire includes work by Michael Gervais (master of high performance mindset), Jonah Oliver (normalizing pressure), David Epstien (why generalists win), Daniel Coyle (culture culture culture), Steve Magness (the science of real toughness). Even Malcolm Gladwell in his more recent work about the revolutionary (in the 70’s) technique of “relaxing to find speed,” walks back the 10,000 hour “rule” that sent youth sports into an overtraining, early achievement frenzy.
They, and so many others, talk about the vagaries of early specialization and talent selection; the merits of playing multiple sports and of taking a longer road to mastery vs blazing bright and burning out; the importance of positive culture and the power of a supportive team environment where everyone feels safe and valued. All of these highlight ways to encourage individual differences and unique paths rather than stifling or discouraging them. The word love is liberally called out in the context of positive coaching, for the way it makes everyone stronger rather than softer. “Tough love” can be an essential component to improvement, but without the love part it is just bad coaching.
When leading a group of kids or a club or a country, it costs the same to wield the sliver philosophy as it does to embrace a basic philosophy of encouragement. Which messaging do you think will inspire more hard work, commitment and the kinds of big audacious goals, comebacks and underdog breakthroughs that make sport exciting?
Positive coaching it isn’t any type of policy or certification to check off a list, but you know it when you see it. You know it when your athletes are having fun, are relaxed, are lifting each other up and are performing from an abundance mindset where success is boundless, available and maybe even attainable.
At the end of each of his trove of positive coaching interviews on Changing the Game Project, John O’Sullivan reminds coaches that, “your influence is never neutral.” It’s a great message for all to keep in mind as the season gets going.
I hope your winters are off to a productive start, be that fast, slow or anywhere in between.
Great stuff Edie! as usual.
We UVM alums have been riding high this week after the UVM Men’s soccer National Championship victory. The Cat’s championship run was an incredible testament to coach Rob Dow’s philosophy of team-first culture and allowing for individual expression and self determination within that structure. He knows how to get the best of the players. and he clearly knows it is the athletes who win the games and not coaches. He always defers the credit to his players for the team successes and he means it. He takes credit for working hard to try to create the atmosphere where the athletes will be their best. To me, that’s the take away for ski coaches. The best we can do for the athletes is to create an environment of abundance and a positive culture in which the skiers can do their thing… develop and achieve their successes.