We provide innovative educational programs for coaches and athletes that build the people and leadership skills necessary to experience success and significance in their role within the team experience.
Our WHY
Coaches:
Coaches at all levels are trained in the X’s and O’s of their sport but very few are trained in the self-awareness, management, leadership or communications skills necessary to lead a program and their staff. Almost all coaches would say that their greatest stress comes from managing the people dynamics within their team, staff or department and yet we do very little to train coaches in these skill sets. Most coaches know their sport but very few know their HOW or their WHY they coach. Our goal is to develop competent, conscious and caring coaches while providing them a supportive community where they can collaborate and share ideas with coaches of ALL sports.
Athletes:
Athletes are now committing to a college program as early as they 8th grade! While they play their sport year round within the club team system, very little is offered to provide these athletes with the self-awareness and people skills to move through the college transition with confidence. Mental health issues, anxiety and stress among college athletes is very well documented. We believe if we can provide athletes a “transition tool kit” along with a community of support, many athletes will have a more fulfilling college career and be a better teammate.
Coaches Programs, Philosophy
We call it “Begin Within Coaching.”
True North Sports is dedicated to working with coaches of all sports to find their unique True North and to coach from that place inside of themselves. An aligned coach knows their purpose. They are authentic, genuine and seem fully alive with a sense of happiness about their work. They are in the “FLOW.” They are the coaches people want to work with and the coach athletes want to play for. They are dedicated to developing a keen sense of self and are disciplined at staying connected to their True North. They have a fine-tuned inner compass.
“X’s and O’s Do Not Win Championships, PEOPLE DO!”
There are management, leadership and communication skills needed to be a great coach and all our programs will offer classes in these topics. All coaches respect the need for the practical X’s and O’s needed to be successful at their sport, but the coaches interested in leaving a true legacy know it’s about the people around them. The greatest coaches know it is not WHAT you coach that is most important, it is the WHY you coach and the HOW you coach that matters the most when building their legacy. Deep in their core, they know their program will always be a reflection of their highest values. They know that X’s and O’s combined with love for what you do and whom you do it for, is a recipe for a thriving team culture!
Coaching is not for the faint of heart. It is a challenging profession that will push you to your limits and test your confidence level. We often say it is the most challenging profession outside of being a parent or a teacher!
We can all agree that one of the hardest things we need to learn is how to ask for and receive help and support. It is much easier for most of us to give support than it is to receive it.
We believe in the power of community and we also believe our world needs more ways for us to all connect in a deep, authentic and expressive way. We can guarantee you that if you attend one of our programs you will experience a learning environment and community like no other you have ever experienced in your professional life.
Community building is our strength and it is the foundation all our coaching education programs are built upon. We care about coaches and believe coaching is a sacred calling. At True North Sports, “coaches are at the heart of everything we do!”
It does take courage to be a “Begin Within” coach and to examine our life stories, our behaviors and our beliefs and to open our hearts and truly care about who you are as a person and the people you work with each day.
Be Brave. It will change your life!
We believe the greatest coaches love!
Yes, we said love! They love themselves, they love coaching, they love their staff and they love their athletes. It’s easy to care, but do you have the courage to LOVE – to go deeper, to be vulnerable – let yourself be seen?
If you can be authentic and coach from your True North, results will not define or drive you, in fact, there is a stronger possibility you will find success and significance!
Coaches! If you want to win, you must Begin Within!
What We Have Learned About Coaches:
- They need more self-reflection, vitality and self-awareness.
- They need to find their “True North,” their coaching purpose and coach from that place.
- They need a tribe of people outside of their staff or athletic department they can belong to and rely on to give and receive support and to share ideas.
- They enjoy sharing ideas.
- The coaching profession is non-sport specific. Coaches of all sports struggle with similar things and need the same skills to be successful.
- They rarely get fired because of a lack of knowledge about the X’s and O’s of their sport. They get fired because they are poor managers; they cannot handle conflict; they make bad recruiting decisions, their communication skills are weak, they hire a bad staff; their team culture is toxic; or they make poor ethical decisions and yet most coaching education programs are about the X’s and O’s and strategy.
- Many head and assistant coaches have received no formal training outside of the X’s and O’s. Most people simply coach the way they were coached or they learn as they go and HOPEFULLY they work for some good people along the way in their careers.
- Some assistants take head coaching jobs before they are ready making it hard for them to experience success, which sometimes causes them to leave the profession.
- Some assistants feel like they are not ready so they avoid applying for head jobs and stay in an assistant role too long and get stuck in a “comfort zone” and never leave!
