'The Biggest Mistake With Coaches Is They Wing It'

Regardless of the hotel, his routine is the same.  

Dr. Bhrett McCabe places his towels in the sink and his garbage can on the bathroom counter. His bed, while unmade, is clean.

Then, when he sees the service staff in the hallways, he makes direct eye contact and says “Thank you” with a smile on his face.

“They’re not servants,” McCabe says. “They’re doing their job. They teach me, and I see inspiration from people who work in that setting.”

McCabe, a prominent psychologist best known for his work with the University of Alabama, often cites the lessons of the hotel service staff working in silence when he speaks with patients.

“They’re making the decision to be the best in an absolutely unrecognizable position,” he says. "That's what it's all about." 

The Daily Coach recently caught up with McCabe to discuss lessons from his military upbringing, why we tend to compound our mistakes, and why leaders need to write. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for brevity.

Dr. McCabe, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us about your childhood and some lessons from it.

I was raised in a military family and was an only child. My dad was a college baseball player and joined the Air Force. He was a lieutenant colonel, a navigator for C-130s, and he was a pharmacist as well.

We moved around a lot and lived all over the world. As a kid, you’re playing youth sports on the military bases overseas. You’re on the baseball team, the bowling team, you did everything. When my dad retired, we moved to Plano, Texas, back in the mid-80s when it was booming. I was the new guy, the new kid. My dad would coach baseball teams and he would always take kids who had been overlooked.

Being an only child, you tend to be pretty isolated and learn to entertain yourself. It was no big deal riding my bike, playing golf by myself. I wasn’t the biggest social butterfly, but it taught me to be self-reliant, to put my head down and do my work. It also gave me a big appreciation for starting something and having to acclimate.

You played baseball at LSU and won a couple of National Championships. What stands out to you most from that experience?   

I didn’t have options to go anywhere else. I got the opportunity to play because our coach believed in developing players. In April of my senior year of high school, he told me, “Look, I want you to come here and be a part of this, but you’re two- to three years away from playing. If you do what I’m asking you to do, though, I think you can be something special.”

I think a big mistake coaches make is they don’t clarify the role for a player. The real thing is coaches are afraid they’re going to lose a player by telling him the truth. So, we’re not going to tell them something, we’re going to create ambiguity and get them frustrated? You’re guaranteed to lose them, 100 percent.

The way you do it is you say, “This is where you are right now. I want to get you more time. These are the elements I need.” Now, you better follow through on that as a coach because if they do this, this and this and you don’t give them the opportunities, they’re done. If you don’t have a player-development plan for every player you’re coaching, the game is over. This biggest mistake with coaches is they wing it.

You’re also a big believer that every coach should have a philosophy binder.

I’ll give a talk to 5,000 coaches in an audience and ask, “How many of you have your system and philosophy written down?”

Coaches are all going to say, “Trust the process. Follow the system.” So you’re the expert and leader of your organization but don’t have your material written down? The mind can only remember so many things.

Then what happens is we go to a conference, watch something online and now we’re going to reactively teach our kids everything David Goggins does? Well, that may not be the right idea. Or we’re going to do everything Jocko Willink does? O.K. Then, we’re going to follow Brene Brown’s ideas and be vulnerable? Wonderful content, but those are just the seasonings of a philosophy.

What I tell every coach to do is what I call “Red Wine Therapy” or “Beer Therapy” or “Coffee Therapy.” Take out a piece of paper and just start writing. In-game strategy, what are we specifically trying to do in a given scenario? If we look at Coach Saban, we know what his philosophy is, and yeah, it’s written down. Coach Oats at Alabama basketball, it’s very clear what his philosophy is. If you meet with a surgeon about a hip replacement, I guarantee you there is a system in place. When pilots fly, they have a checklist. But as coaches, we’re just going to wing it?

You seem to really be about the specifics and details.

We tell our players “Trust the process,” but the players don’t even know what the process is. They don’t have a clue. It’s like, “Just be happy.” Well, they have no idea how to be happy. Happy to me and happy to somebody else are two different things.

This all started with a college softball coach I was working with. She said, “We’ve just got to trust the process.” I looked around and the players’ eyes were huge. She just kept saying it and saying it. I finally asked, “How many of you know what the process is?” None of the players raised their hand. Finally, one of the older ones said, “Coach, you say it all the time. But what are you talking about?”

She said, “Well you just have to trust what we’ve done in practice.” And the player said, “What? What have we done in practice?” It was a pretty striking moment. It became an argument between the players and the coaches that just couldn’t be resolved until we laid it out.

You have some pretty interesting thoughts on making mistakes and why we tend to compound errors.

If we take a look at college basketball, if a player misses an easy layup, I can guarantee you within 15 seconds they’re fouling. If you miss an easy putback, now we have to be on guard not to commit a dumb foul and give in to statistics. That’s process. We’re going to win the next 15 seconds.

I love to ski. Someone once told me when you wipe out, be careful for the next minute or two. Take your time because you’re rattled. Go back to the basics. We compound errors because our brain is built in loss aversion. Once you experience a loss, the brain becomes three- to four-times more likely to try to prevent the next loss. We self-correct.

There's a great quote of yours: “Success is a journey that is defined by the number of insecurities that we face.”

One of my favorite prayers is the serenity one. There’s a second verse to that prayer, which is understanding the hardships we experience in life are the true pathway to our piece. When we’re on a journey, we’re exposing ourselves to new insecurities, doubts and fears because we’re moving up the intensity level. As we’re advancing, we have to appreciate and understand they’re not telling us we’re not capable. They’re giving us an invitation to learn.

It's like playing campaign on Call of Duty. You start off as a soldier with a helmet and rifle that doesn’t aim very well, but you have to learn the basic skills. You experience, you compete, you fail, you compete, you fail, then you get to the final threshold, win that threshold and move to the next level. There’s a lot of struggle and insecurity in that, but you figure it out.

Then, you get to Level 46, flying in a blackhawk helicopter calling in bomb strikes and you struggle and think, “Gosh, I suck at this game.” But you’re at Level 46! You’re not at Level 1 anymore. What happens is we immerse ourselves in it and we learn to become better through it.

We don’t walk out there and say, “I’m a finished product! This is who I am.” No, you say, “I’m a work in development, and I’m trying to become the best version of myself.” 

Q&A Resources

Dr. Bhrett McCabe ― Website | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | Book: Break Free From Suckville