🏆 Train, then Trust.

A powerful phrase. A phrase that can be applied in so many aspects of life.

Author

Greg Berge
July 13, 2023

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Here's what's coming:

  • Train, then Trust 🏆

  • Some Kobe GOLD🥇

  • A great Brad Stulberg Tweet 🐦

  • Read Time ~ 4 minutes.

Let's dive in

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💭 ONE THOUGHT

TRAIN, then TRUST.

Jim Larrañaga, the head basketball coach at the University of Miami, used a great phrase with his team as his team advanced to the NCAA tournament this past spring.

TRAIN, then TRUST.

What powerful words.

A phrase that can be applied in so many aspects of life.

Where did Coach Larrañaga first hear and use this phrase?

“I’ve gotten a lot of very good advice from a lot of people during the course of my career. In my coaching career, a dear friend, Dr. Bob Rotella, said, ‘Train, then trust.’ I’ve tried to live by that.

It’s been a very important part of my teaching. I’m a college basketball coach working with players and staff. For us to really do our job well, we’ve got to train our players well in practice, in meetings, in talks. If you train the guys in practice and under game conditions, then you just need to trust in actual games they’ll do the things they practice.

You don’t want to be trying to teach and correct mistakes constantly during a game. You should clap after mistakes, showing your emotional support.

I also received some very good advice from my brothers, Bob and John: ‘If you ever need an answer, go to the library.’ They said you can find every answer to every subject in a book. That was many years ago. Now they’d say to Google it.”

- Jim Larrañaga

When I first heard this phrase, I thought of two things:

Coaching and Parenting.

In my opinion, a parent’s most important job is done when kids are young. Parents are laying the foundation for when more challenging decisions and choices have to be made.

We are in “Training” mode with our kids when they are young. When they reach middle, high, and beyond, we naturally shift to the “Trust” mode. Parents tend to have less control and influence during these years.

We hope that all of the work we have done when they are young will help them make good decisions when they get older.

Train, then Trust.

Trust the Process. Trust the Habits you have helped your kids develop.

As coaches, we have the responsibility of getting our players ready for the game. We do this by practicing and helping them develop good habits for competition. Our main goal is to build confidence in our team. Confidence comes from being prepared, having experience, and forming good habits.

The art of coaching is to simplify the complex. To help put our players in a position where they have developed strong habits that will be able to be applied during the pressure situations of a game.

It is easy to over-coach. To complicate the simple. When we do this, we hurt our team’s confidence and their ability to react.

As coaches, it is our responsibility to consistently train our players, instilling in them strong daily habits that will translate into the game. However, we must also know when to step back and allow them to take control.

We have to TRUST our players to play the game.

We have to TRUST the Process.

Here is Kobe discussing how important it was for him to “Trust The Process.”

Trust the process. Trust your training.

As a young coach, I struggled with trying to do too much and control the game. I coached basketball like football, focusing on one play at a time.

What I have learned over my career is that less is more.

The more I have given up, stepped back, and “trusted” the process, “trusted” my players, the better our teams have got. And we have been fortunate to be pretty dang good.

Let kids play, let them make decisions, let them make mistakes, and let them play free.

As coaches, parents, and leaders, we do not have “control” over our players or kids. Ultimately, they will make choices and decisions in the game or the game of life.

Our job is to lay the foundation and train them so that when they are off in the game or the real world, they make good decisions.

TRAIN, then TRUST.

My new favorite phrase!

📜 TWO QUOTES

"I've never lost a game. I just ran out of time."

- Michael Jordan

“Don’t make excuses – make good.”

- Elbert Hubbard

🐦 THREE TWEETS 

🙋🏼‍♂️ POLL QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

In which areas of life do you think the phrase "TRAIN, then TRUST" is most applicable?

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Last Week’s Poll Results:

Which mindset do you most often embrace?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 The Lion Mindset: Perceiving challenges as opportunities for growth and success, embracing the chase. (12)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ The Gazelle Mindset: Perceiving challenges as threats and finding motivation to exceed expectations. (0)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ A Mix of Both (4)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I have not thought enough about it! (4)

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