{"id":820,"date":"2017-05-18T10:55:10","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T14:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/?p=820"},"modified":"2017-05-18T15:14:28","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T19:14:28","slug":"how-to-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/2017\/05\/18\/how-to-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Lead – Tom Allen Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"

These are some general notes taken from the Tom Allen Luncheon.<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/b><\/div>\n
Coaching is awesome profession. You have a captive audience. You have an opportunity to impact many young lives.<\/div>\n
Impacting Young Men. How to motivate. How to capture their heart. That’s what is at the core. At this level, you forget why you do this in<\/div>\n
Impact has to go well beyond the game. The question I’ll eventually get asked by Jesus is<\/div>\n
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Stood Before Defense A Year Ago<\/b><\/div>\n
I held up FCA Bible and said I’m going to lead this defense by the principles of this book. Here are some of those principles.<\/div>\n
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1. Lead by Example.<\/b><\/div>\n
A mantra for my life is, “Work like it depends on me. Pray like it depends on God.”<\/div>\n
As believer, we should be the hardest working guys out there.<\/div>\n
Mark Batterson book, “The concept of prayer depending on God” has been a big part of my life.<\/div>\n
I’m a big believer in reading. In spring, I have all of my staff spend 30 minutes in reading.<\/div>\n
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2. Connecting with their Hearts:
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It’s about capturing their hearts. I meet with every player one-on-one to talk about life. Family members who they live with.<\/div>\n
Ask what are three most important things to you. Invariable, some will mention faith or God. I ask them if they said God, I said, “How is your relationship with Him.” If they don’t bring it up, I don’t go there.<\/div>\n
I pray regularly with my wife. We pray for things going on in their lives. I ask how I can pray.<\/div>\n
When I find out things in their lives I pray for them.\u00a0LEO (Love each other) can’t be a phrase on the wall, it has to be a lifestyle.<\/div>\n
I care about their value as a man.<\/div>\n
Be anxious for nothing. Pray over and over. Philipians 4:6 is a verse I hold onto.<\/div>\n
This is a stressful profession.\u00a0The pressure to win. The moves, the schedule. Philippians\u00a04:6 – Be anxious for nothing.<\/div>\n
Pray with fervency and intensity. I want to live by that verse. Peace of God will guard hearts and minds.<\/div>\n
Biggest perk of being a believer, is the peace that comes. My peace comes from knowing that there are things much bigger than me. My confidence does not come from my performance on the field.<\/div>\n
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3. Big into accountability.<\/b><\/div>\n
Accountability – toughness and love. That’s what I want this program to be built on.<\/div>\n
The book “The Traveler’s Gift”<\/i> by Andy Andrews. 7 traits for success in life.<\/div>\n
First trait is, “The buck stops here.” \u00a0When I came here, I owned our past. A lot of what was missing was “trust.”<\/div>\n
This theme kept coming up there was no trust. The banner on way out to field had the word “trust.” Yet they were not paying attention.<\/div>\n
Without trust, there is no relationship.\u00a0When I first met with the team, I heard a lot of blame going around.<\/div>\n
The words “It’s not my fault” should never come out of your mouths again. This is from the Andrews book.<\/div>\n
Set standards high and hold players to it.<\/div>\n
Challenge to “Capture the hearts and minds of player.” Hold your players to the little things. Accountability.<\/div>\n
Being late is unacceptable. Whole team pays the price. Doing the little things right, really counts.<\/div>\n
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4. Pursuing Toughness
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My\u00a0definition:\u00a0Ability to make quality decisions, over and over and over again. \u00a0That’s what the great ones do. Anybody can do it for a little bit. But the great ones do it over and over again.<\/div>\n
I’m a great believer in studying the great ones. Fascinating to see what they focus on and what they do.<\/div>\n
Mental and physical toughness is what is demanded to be a great football team.<\/div>\n
Big thing, nothing can break us. \u00a0I look for opportunities to break us. I try to get into their head.<\/div>\n
I tell them “If I can break you, then Michigan, or Ohio State, or cold weather, or hot weather will break you.”<\/div>\n
Get our minds stronger and train them. If I see somebody frustrated, I will go after them in the right way.<\/div>\n
When you love them, you can be hard on them. Because they know you care.<\/div>\n
Proverbs 23:7 – “As a man thinks, so is he.” \u00a0I challenge them all the time. Most kids can probably complete the phrase.<\/div>\n
Do they live it out.<\/div>\n
I chalI believe you are a product of the books you read, the music you listen to and who you hang out with.<\/div>\n
Who you fill your mind with and who you hang out with tells who you are. It doesn’t change when you’re and adult.<\/div>\n
If I want to be a great man of whatever, I hang out with that guy.<\/div>\n
To be a great coach, I find the coaches who coach like I want to be and try to hang out with those men.<\/div>\n
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Have a dream that is so big that it will fail without God.<\/div>\n
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5. One Word – What do you believe<\/b><\/div>\n
The “one word” is a big deal. Everybody in our program came up with one word. To give us focus, purpose and passion about what we are doing.<\/div>\n
What makes those words so powerful is that they picked them. We put them on a mural on a wall. We use one word as the focus of our practice.<\/div>\n
In the middle of it is the word “break though” – It’s about belief.<\/div>\n
What is belief. It is about what you have convictions about in your heart.<\/div>\n
What do you take a stand for. What do you live for. What are you ready to die for.<\/div>\n
I want the players to understand that I really do believe in them.<\/div>\n
3 by 5 cards powerful example. Ask them what they think record will be. Now write down names of teams you think we will get beat by.<\/div>\n
I then read names of teams that I thought I would see. I then said, “When we go to play Michigan, if you wrote that team down. I don’t want you on the bus.”<\/div>\n
If you don’t believe, stay home. They got the point. If you don’t believe…<\/div>\n
I wrote numbers 50-26-10. I asked, “What do they represent.” \u00a050 years since we’ve one the big ten, 26 years since we’ve won a bowl game, and 10 years since we had a winning season. If you don’t believe we can do better, it’s time to go.<\/div>\n
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Summary and Close<\/strong><\/div>\n
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What gives me strength. Three messages from first day I came that I wanted to drive home.<\/div>\n