PCA Voices
Last Saturday, I had the privilege of attending Positive Coaching Alliance's National Youth Sports Awards event where Billie Jean King was honored with PCA's Lifetime Achievement Award. The entire evening was inspiring as coaches across the country were recognized for their efforts in creating "Better Athletes, Better People".
In her speech, Billie Jean King mentioned that "everybody matters" and "everybody's an influence". One of the coaches who won an award was Carlos Strong, a basketball coach from Georgia. He started his coaching career coaching kids who didn't make "the team", and he realized that, even though they didn't make "the team", those students shouldn't miss the opportunity to develop qualities such as resilience, teamwork, integrity and accountability or to learn important life lessons through sports.
Billie Jean King mentioned three other points that resonated as keys to success:
I wanted to write this post to pass on these insights from someone who has achieved greatness -- both on and off the court. In listening to Billie Jean King, it was clear that she focused on improving things that she noticed needed improvement (notably, gender equity) and she also used her greatest strengths to accomplish her goals.
As I left the dinner, I committed to paying a little more attention -- not only to the things that I need to do better but to the things around me that can be improved, and how I can use my strengths to make the world, the workplace, and the energy around me a little better.