Everyone Needs A Coach

July 22, 2019

Bill Campbell coached football at Columbia University from 1974-1979 and won 12 games over those six years. We all know some situations are impossible as often the record is not an accurate indication of anyone's coaching talent. (Check out former 49ers Super Bowl-winning coach George Seifert’s won-loss record at Cornell.) Campbell decided to alter his career after being fired in 1979 and moved to Silicon Valley to help coach a different kind of player. A book by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle called The Trillion Dollar Coach details Campbell's influence. Campbell became a coach for some of the greatest entrepreneurs we know today, from Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Sundar Pichai at Google, Steve Jobs at Apple, Brad Smith at Intuit, Jeff Bezos at Amazon, John Donahoe at eBay, Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, Dick Costolo at Twitter, and Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook. I’m sure you are wondering how a man that averaged just two wins a season could help anyone. Not only did Campbell help them, but he also endeared himself to them for the rest of his life, and they all credit his daily advice, wisdom, perspective valuable to their success.

The point to fully comprehend is not how Campbell helped; instead, why did these incredibly smart and talented people even need a coach? How did they bury their own massive ego’s and become willing to welcome advice? However, the more fundamental question to ask is: if they need a daily coach, don’t you? We all know you do, which is why The Daily Coach went from a simple idea to a plan in action.

We are about to embark on a morning journey together to help one another. As my hero, mentor and friend Coach George Raveling wrote about in his newsletter this week, “a platform and community that educates inspire, and empowers individuals to invest in their self-leadership. It is only when we authentically and consistently manage our lives with discipline and excellence that we can lead others to the Promised Land.”

Our mission here at The Daily Coach is to offer you inspiration, wisdom and empower you to become the best leader, teacher, and person each day with short stories and challenges that will make you think and react in a positive way. In coaching, we always discuss ways to improve the talent base, improve the team, when we never talk about how self-improvement is the first step needed to correct any situation. Becoming the best leader each day requires a willingness to have a growth mindset and an ego willing to accept criticism as coaching. From my experience around the best of the best, players only truly respect in-depth knowledge; they don’t care about age, race, or anything else. They ask one question of their coach: can you make be better today? We cannot make your players better; we promise to make you better, just like Bill Campbell made those around him better.

We are all excited to take this journey together.

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