Can You Make Eyes Shine?

This week we are going to take a different approach. We are going to not look at sports from the perspective of an athlete, but that of a coach. Many of the upper team girls at Revel are Junior Coaches, some of you may even want to pursue it as a career in the future, or maybe you just want to help give your child their best sport opportunity. Attached below is a link to a Ted Talk with Benjamin Zander that was given to me for my own learning purposes. Please check it out before finishing the article!

https://www.ted.com/talks/benjamin_zander_the_transformative_power_of_classical_music#t-1213513

Even though Zander is not looking from specifically a sport point of view, it is still performance based and therefore relevant to sport performance psychology. Zander's quote of: "Now, I had an amazing experience. I was 45 years old, I'd been conducting for 20 years, and I suddenly had a realization. The conductor of an orchestra doesn't make a sound. My picture appears on the front of the CD, but the conductor doesn't make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful." A coach has the same experience, a coach never gets on the equipment or throws a routine. It is the job of a coach to make his or her athletes powerful and prepared. It is their job to make an athlete's eyes shine, as Zander stated. 

So, I ask you... Do you make your athletes' eyes shine? What could you do to make more shine? Find what makes them feel powerful, what inspires them, what drives them to train day in and out. If you are able to find this you won't need fame or money, you will have changed at least one life for the better.