The other day I was having breakfast with my son, and as our usual, I was reading the newspaper and he was looking at memes. If I see something interesting in the paper I’ll stop and read it to him.
Sometimes it is political, sometimes a news story, sometimes it’s about the Bruins.
I’ve been reading to him since he was born. Since he won’t let me read to him at bedtime anymore, I torture him with the paper.
He always listens but may times he is not interested in the story.
I try to engage him in conversation about what I read after, but if any of you have a 14 year old, you know…….
He’s 14, so he is pretty much interested in his friends, Rainbow Six and not much else. He is not too interested in the Boston Herald.
Once I was was finished with a section of the story I tried to start a conversation and since this was not a political topic, I figured he would talk to me about it.
Instead, after I asked him a question, he looked down at me across the table (he’s 6’3”), and casually said:
“Can I have a corn muffin?”
This made me stop for a second. I was not expecting that.
“Sure you can have a corn muffin, as long as it’s grilled.”
He agreed and got a grilled corn muffin.
I went back to the paper as I took this as a cue that he either was still hungry after eating two breakfast orders, or that he was not too interested in this topic.
We finished eating and went to my friend’s house to help him hang and mud sheetrock for the day.
While I was doing the first coat of mud, I was thinking about this and it made me think about training, coaching and how to better communicate with people (including my boy).
I’ve always said that you have to know your audience and speak to the room or the individual you are talking to, but I don’t always succeed.
Anyone who has been coaching for a while knows this.
When I work, I always try to use examples that the person I am working with can relate to.
If it is an athlete you can use a sports analogy, but if you are talking to a computer programmer that never played team sports, or watches them, it will be a useless analogy.
Same goes vice versa.
When you coach, think of the corn muffin.
I was trying to get through to my son and have a conversation with him about anything. The parents will understand this.
When the kids are young all they want to do is talk to you, about anything.
As they get older, a natural part of their growth is to develop their own group and talk to them more, and their parents less. It’s normal.
As parents, we still want to talk to them, and I try to find ways to get him involved in conversation.
About anything.
As coaches we need to know SOMETHING about the people we are coaching so that we can get through to them.
You don’t need to know every detail about their life.
You do need to know something.
- What kind of work do they do
- Do they have kids
- Did they play sports
- What sport
These are just a few examples of things you can use to relate to someone.
You also need to identify their personality type to some degree.
EG: Introverts will not respond to yelling and negative feedback. Not that a coach should be yelling!
Knowing your audience makes all the difference.
Here’s another example.
This week and next week we are hosting the grad students in an exercise physiology program from a local university for a training seminar here at TPS.
I can use all of the big words, talk about circumduction of the shoulder joint, sagittal plane movement and wicked smart sounding science guy terms.
If I talk like this in my TPS Method adult strength group, most of it will fall on deaf ears because they have no idea what most of these terms mean.
Will they be impressed by my vocabulary and understanding of kinesiology?
Probably.
Will my coaching analogies and cues get through?
Probably not.
So, if I change my pattern and use the corn muffin theory, know the audience and try to keep them engaged on a level they can relate to will they make more progress?
I’d argue that yes they will.
I used this the other night with my son.
He came upstairs as I was watching a game and started talking to me about music.
We have very different tastes in music and he knows that I am not a fan of what he listens to.
BUT.
When he started talking, I listened. He told me a lot about how a certain artist has changed and his music now sucks, he talked about why he felt the music changed and the life factors the affected the artist.
Now, I can give two shits about the person he was talking about. I don’t like the music, and I don’t like the image he puts out.
BUT.
I do care deeply about my son and if this is what he wants to talk about, I am 100% in.
I thought of the corn muffin.
Once we were done and he went back to Rainbow Sixing, I thought more about this subject and how I can use it to be a better father and coach.
I hope that I laid it out out well for you here.
Thanks for reading, you have no idea how much I appreciate the ability Dave has given me here to reach all of you.
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