Unfortunately, button pushers get a bad rap.  They’re considered rude, inconsiderate, disrespectful, intrusive, self-absorbed and insensitive. They are the difficult people in life.  Teachers send them to the principals office, coaches pull their hair out and bosses fire them.

I see it differently.  I believe my job as a coach, partner and a parent is to push buttons and to welcome my buttons being pushed.  Why?  I’ve found that the best at anything – sports, public speaking, sales or surgery, have the fewest buttons and the ones they have are really hard to find.

Attempting to protect athletes or ourselves from button pushers is to do them (and you) a disservice.  Our competitors are all about to pushing our buttons.  The more buttons we discover within ourselves and the more we learn how to manage them, the better we will be under pressure.

So how do you know a button has been pushed?  Here are some classic signs:

• Getting angry and upset at someone’s behavior.
• Feeling annoyed by something.
• Feeling taken advantage of
• Being rebuffed, spurned, made fun of or humiliated
• Feeling unappreciated, unimportant or devalued
• Feeling falsely or unfairly accused

Typically when one of our buttons get pushed it send us down an unwelcome path of anger, hurt or withdrawal.  Unfortunately these patterns do not allow us to learn about ourselves.  Remember, when a button gets pushed – you’ve just discovered another area for growth.  So instead of reacting when a button gets pushed, stop, breathe and reflect.  Stay calm – do not get angry or yell.  Cool off before you say anything.

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Success can be tough.  While UCLA Softball won its 11^th title in program history this week, the Arizona Wildcats, with 6 titles, finished runner up for the fifth time in it’s history.

I interviewed UA Coach Mike Candrea at the beginning of the season.  While his words inspired me, some of them haunted me.  Success is tough – it breeds expectations. Coach noted, “The expectations are very high. It’s a unique situation here because when we finish second, the College World Series people say, “What happened?” They don’t say, “Great job!” You’re not going to get a ticker-tape parade just because you got to the College World Series. That’s expected.”

With only two seniors and six freshmen on this year’s squad, Candrea had his work cut out for him despite the annual expectation of a national title.  It’s too bad runner up is not enough anymore.  One more win and the press coverage would have been different.  They would have splashed the Wildcat home page with photos and banners.  Instead, there’s no mention of the Cats title run.  Candrea put it in perspective, “It’s always tough to end the season on a losing note, but there’s many kids that dream of getting to the College World Series and getting to the championship series.”

It’s informative to go full circle and examine the foundation for another Championship season. Here are a few highlights from my interview with Coach Candrea:

Wake Up Call

I’ve always found that it’s much more effective to be tougher on kids early on and ease up on them than try to ease up on them and get tougher. My first meeting many times is a little bit of a wake-up call to the recruits because you’ve spent a few years recruiting them and filling their heads with all these good things about how great they are and how much they contribute. Then all of a sudden, reality sets in. You tell them, “Here are the expectations. If you don’t follow the expectations, here’s the door.”

I lay it on the line pretty well the first day about what the expectations of this program are and what I expect out of someone who puts on the Arizona uniform and represents this program, university and community.

A lot of it deals with the recruiting process and getting the right type of kids who understand the expectations here. Secondly, it’s a matter of whether you’re going to allow the tail to wag the dog or the dog’s going to wag the tail. I’ve always been a firm believer that discipline is the foundation for success.

Coaching Philosophy – The 3 C’s

The first one is being competent at what you do. One of the great parts of coaching is trying to get young kids to become students of the game. That’s something that I have always been in my life. Something that’s missing for young kids today is the desire to understand their sport inside out, forward and backward. Any good coach has to be competent at what they do because the players are the recipients of their hard work and efforts.

The second thing is that you need to be consistent in how you are as a person and your approach to things. I have a consistent approach and have our players are aware that my approach is one of our strengths.

The third and probably the most important thing is that you care about them as individuals. One thing I’ve found is that kids will forget about the X’s and O’s that you teach them, but 10 years from now, they’re going to remember whether you really cared about them as an individual and helped them grow, especially in the game of softball.

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With a coaching philosophy deeply influenced by Taoism, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Deepak Chopra, Jim Sochor helped turn a mediocre UC football program into a Division II dynasty.

My first exposure to Coach Sochor came years ago through my work with Positive Coaching Alliance.  I was instantly smitten.  His presentation and presence captivated me.  When I started Inside World Class Coaching, Coach Sochor made the short list.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing Jim and walked away again in awe.  I now refer to him as the “Yoda of Coaching.” I kept muttering to myself: “This guy is a football coach, a very successful one.  I can’t believe he thinks like this.  Amazing!”

In 1970, when Coach Sochor took over as head coach, the team had not had a winning season for 22 years let alone won a championship since 1915. Under Sochor, UC Davis won 18 straight league championships, more than any other football program at any level in NCAA history.

“Everyone else was bigger, faster, stronger and more talented than our UC Davis players,” he said. “So we had to figure out how to best compete, and that was by believing in ourselves.”

Here are a few other insights from the “Yoda of Coaching”:

• I tried to make football fun and yet held every athlete accountable for his own actions. Negativity — “whining” or “scapegoating”  — and emotions like fear, anger, envy and doubt were to be avoided.
• I never once coached a game that I didn’t firmly believe we would win.
• We can program our state of minds – when you’re feeling good about yourself, you can do anything.
• I always talk up to my athletes. I’m very big on the positive aspects of coaching. Coaches should “gild their soliloquy” constantly; better your own self-talk, and raise your own level of expression and consciousness.
• Our power truly is inside ourselves – realizing this, we’re unstoppable.

To hear the entire interview go to www.InsideWorldClassCoaching.com

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