'How Can I Help Them Get Better?'

On a frigid, overcast day in southern Slovakia last winter, a rundown city bus sat parked by a curb, as a professional basketball team stood nearby about to head on a road trip.

"He needs to get out of the way so our bus can pull up," the team's American head coach, Daniel Sokolovsky, told his manager.

"This is our bus," the manager said.

For the last five years, Sokolovsky — a New York City native — has been coaching in Europe's frigid gyms, riding dimly-lit buses and navigating countless other leadership challenges as a professional basketball coach abroad.

The Daily Coach caught up with him recently to discuss lessons from coaching abroad, adjusting to adverse circumstances, and strategies to lead a team older than you.

This interview has been condensed and edited for brevity.

Daniel, thanks for doing this. Tell us about your upbringing and some lessons from childhood.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, the child of immigrant parents from the former Soviet Union. My mom is from Uzbekistan, then spent 10 years in Israel before making her way to the U.S. My father immigrated from Ukraine to the United States.

You grow up in that household, some of the old adages hold true. The immigrant work ethic is a real thing. My father vividly relayed that he literally walked into the country with one penny in his pocket and said he held onto it. There’s a sense of urgency that comes with it. It was a humbling message to get. I always had to bring my best as a young person in the classroom. They were very smart and realized early on to dangle basketball over my head. If I wanted to play, I had to have a certain grade point average. If I didn’t meet the standard, I didn’t play.

Take us through high school and into college.

I went to a very non-descript academic high school where a 4-foor-11, 95-pound freshman who talked a lot of trash could make varsity. But nobody loved the game more than me at that time. I fell into a situation with a coach who was also kind of a gym rat. I got a little taller and had interest from one college: SUNY-Potsdam called about me. It was the coolest day of my life. I didn’t end up going there. I took an academic scholarship to Hunter College in New York, really the bottom of the barrel, walking on to Division 3. Again, low-weight freshman tries out and walks onto the team.

When did coaching on your radar?

I was in my junior and senior years at Hunter averaging low single digits in Division 3. Coaching was never on the radar. It’s something that fell into my lap. I broke a bone in my leg the last half of my senior year and was thinking about what to do with my life. I was working on photoshop to go into copywriting. I thought maybe I’d write punch lines for ads, something with a creative outlet.

I went to work Five-Star Basketball camp and that eventually led to a job at a high school. During that time, I also bought a textbook and went through a course to get certified as a strength and conditioning coach. I wanted to go to graduate school, and I essentially paid to work for free at Columbia University as a graduate assistant. I sold it to my parents, who thought I’d have an Ivy degree and eventually stop this basketball stuff. I squeezed out my Master’s in a year.

You finish at Columbia. How’d you get your first professional coaching job?

I went out to Las Vegas to go to NBA Summer League to network with coaches from all over the country, all over the world. You can never anticipate who you might meet at something like that. My life changed on the flight. There was a young Latvian coach with bags under his eyes who looked dead tired, but I tapped him on the shoulder and we got to talking. He had just been appointed the head coach of PARMA, a team in the Russian VTB league. He needed someone who could do strength and conditioning, coach and do video, who also spoke Russian and English. Three days later, I had a job offer.

You’ve since coached in China, Germany, Israel, Slovakia and New Zealand. What enables you to embrace so many different environments that might be a struggle for most people?

Gratitude is a big driver in everything I do. Get to vs. have to. Ten out of the last 12 months for the past six years, I haven’t been home. You can identify all the things you miss, but I couch it in opportunity. You live in your own perspective. Everything is what you say it is. It’s not the event, it’s how you perceive the event. For me, taking these challenges in stride is about constantly reframing and keeping myself in check about the opportunity at hand and what I get to do.

Obviously, being a coach in your 20s, you’ve had to coach players who are older than you. What’s the key to leading someone who’s older and more experienced than you?

This is the EQ aspect of the job. Your being vested with the title of coach doesn’t suddenly imbue you with the ultimate authority. You’re a leader based on the people who allow you to lead them. My starting point was, what can I learn, what can I bring, how can I help them get better? They don’t care how old you are if you can help them get better, earn more money, extend their career.

Availability at all hours goes a long way. A lot of players interact with people who are very transactional. When you enter a relationship as a coach with “I want nothing from you but for you to be your best self,” it’s refreshing for a lot of them. You also have to know what you’re talking about, and if you’re not sure, keep your mouth shut.

What’s the scrappiest or grittiest thing you’ve done on your journey?

The scrappiest thing I’ve done is fight the natural human tendency to embellish or write the story of how hard stuff is. Not feeding into “I’m a grinder. I’ve earned where I am.” Not feeding into this grit, scrap narrative. I’m not standing on my soap box talking about I’ve earned success. It’s acknowledging how much luck I’ve had. There are a lot of very, very good coaches who have worked just as hard, if not harder, who haven’t had the opportunities I’ve had.

What’s a quote that’s really impacted you?

From Conversations With God. “If there were such a thing as sin, this would be it: To allow yourself to become who you are because of the experience of others.”

Three books?

“Conversations With God,” by Neale Donald Walsch“Good to Great,” by Jim Collins“Sapiens,” by Yuval Noah Harari

What’s an unconventional leadership belief you have?

My players laughed when I gave them this example. The famous New Zealand Rugby team the All-Blacks mention leaving the jersey better than you found it. It has to apply to everything you do. The example is the public toilet seat. I may not have urinated on that seat, but if I walk into that stall and there was urine on that seat, I’m grabbing toilet paper and wiping it off.

Q&A Resources

Daniel Sokolovsky ― Twitter | LinkedIn