I found it. The best icebreaker & team builder 🏆👑

Published: Fri, 07/21/17

"Being positive won't guarantee you'll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won't" - Jon Gordon

If you've followed me for a while, you know I am huge on starting practices with energy builders that build team comradery.

And recently I've been fascinated by diving into studying the concept of leadership and captains on teams.

So what could be better than developing your leaders while playing games?

When I first met Adam Bradley a few years ago, he was in the process of developing a curriculum that did just that. The cool thing is that he partnered with an expert company on games, Game On to 'gamify' the experience, because we know lecturing kids on leadership isn't a sticky way for them to learn, getting them involved and participating in activities/games is.

I don't endorse many products, but the biggest no-brainer of a product I believe in is the curriculum Adam and his team have developed at Lead 'Em Up. In talking with Adam, I wanted to help spread the word, so he offered a discount for Winning Youth Coaching followers - just enter discount code 'wyccoaches' and save 10% off at checkout at leademup.com.

This post starts a 4 part series on captains & leadership, inspired by my friend James Leath's post about the book The Captain Class. (read that post here).

Here's the plan for this series:

1 - Captain training - Lead Em UP

2 - The Captain Class

3 - Anatomy of a Teammate - leadership video by Coach Patrick Murphy

4 - Emerging leader groups

I hope you don't find this post 'salesy', I just wanted to share one of the best coaching tools I have found. I look forward to diving into the a-ha moments I have been having reading through The Captain Class.

NEW WYC PODCASTS

WYC 123 – The Positivity Experiment – Kate Leavell talks culture, Jon Gordon, & Lacrosse

Kate Leavell: 'I have been an NCAA lacrosse coach, a high school varsity lacrosse and strength coach, a youth and travel coach of many different sports, swimming instructor, NASM certified personal trainer and senior fitness specialist, board member, a national coaches education trainer for US Lacrosse, an eternal college student, a parent of youth and high school athletes, speaker, teacher, and apparently now after four years of blogging and nationally featured articles and a book…a writer. I’m drawn to all things motivational and figuring out what makes people reach and discover what seems impossible. After a recent shoulder surgery led to staring a pulmonary embolism in the face (or staring at it in the lungs?!) i had time to reevaluate what is important. I came to the realization that it’s not an interest after all that I spread motivation around, it’s in fact, a necessity. So my mission begins, one kid, one coach at a time if need be.'

Go to podcast episode

I love hearing your stories and experiences, both the positive ones and frustrations you're having - just reply to this email and it goes straight to my inbox.

Make winning the right way your habit starting today,
Craig

Craig Haworth is the founder of Winning Youth Coaching, a site dedicated to helping coaches and parents make youth sports an awesome experience for the youth and the parents. He interviews coaches from around the world and posts them on his podcast, which currently has over 120 interviews and has been downloaded over 190,000 times. He writes a weekly note to coaches and parents. He is married to his high-school sweetheart and they share the blessing of 3 children and live in Franklin, TN. You can sign-up for his weekly note here, find him on twitter at @craighaworth1, or visit his website winningyouthcoaching.com.

"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men"

- Frederick Douglass