Kobe Bryant: A Legacy of Talent, Hard Work, and Overcoming Adversity

Kobe Bryant, one of the most iconic players in NBA history, is a prime example of how talent, hard work, and resilience combine to create an enduring legacy. His natural ability was not evident until he practiced and practiced every day. He used to play on the courts as a kid and score no points. He even admits in podcasts that he was terrible. But he said it was from this point, and his love of basketball helped him develop his talents.

Professionally, his mentality was characterized by his relentless pursuit of improvement and his intense training routines. Bryant was known for his grueling practice sessions, often starting at 4 a.m., and his commitment to perfecting every aspect of his game.

Kobe Bryant’s legacy is a powerful testament to the impact of combining natural talent with relentless hard work. His life and career inspire athletes and individuals worldwide, demonstrating that true greatness is achieved through love, dedication, perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to one’s passions and goals.

Tom Brady: Blend of Talent, Hard Work, and Overcoming Challenges

Tom Brady is one of the greatest quarterbacks in the NFL. He exemplifies how talent, hard work, and resilience can lead to extraordinary success. Despite being selected 199th overall in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft, Brady’s natural talent and relentless determination propelled him to unparalleled heights in professional football.

Brady’s rise to NFL stardom was not immediate. Known for his rigorous training regimen and meticulous attention to detail, Brady has always sought to improve his skills and physical condition. His off-season workouts have become legendary, often involving unconventional methods to enhance flexibility and longevity. Brady’s commitment to his craft is evident in his longevity in a sport where the average career span is notably short.

Even in his 40s, Brady’s performance remains elite, showcasing his dedication to maintaining peak physical and mental condition.

Tom Brady’s story is an inspiring example of how talent, unwavering dedication, and the ability to overcome challenges can lead to legendary achievements. His journey from an overlooked draft pick to a seven-time Super Bowl champion illustrates that true greatness is achieved through perseverance, hard work, and an unyielding desire to succeed.

The Role of Talent

If you look at how talent develops, it develops through repetition. Each day, the repetitive love of the game and practicing your abilities creates inspiration and motivation. Even if you have a subpar talent, it will inspire you to improve. You can see that with many athletes like Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan. In their younger years, these guys were seen as sub-par, but they had the will to want to be the best.

Tom Brady was one of the last draft picks. Kobe Bryant couldn’t score points when he was younger and played basketball on the courts. And Michael Jordan, when he was in high school, the basketball coach told him he would never be good enough to play on the varsity team.

These are three of the best players who ever played their sport, so if they were not so good, how did they climb to the top?

While talent can get you through the door, hard work keeps you in the room. Continuous effort and perseverance lead to mastery and sustained success.

Unlock Your Potential

Master the Fundamentals

Mastering the fundamentals is the bedrock upon which greatness is built. When you dedicate yourself to perfecting the basics, you lay a solid foundation for growth, skill development, and achieving your full potential.

Here’s how embracing the fundamentals fuels your journey toward excellence:

• Empowerment through Understanding: Fundamentals provide a deep understanding of the core principles and techniques that underpin your sport. It empowers you to make informed decisions, solve problems effectively, and confidently approach challenges.
• Unlocking Creativity and Innovation: A firm grasp of the fundamentals frees your mind to explore and experiment with different ideas and approaches to develop techniques and innovative solutions. A lack of understanding does not constrain you, but instead, you are empowered with a solid base from which to build.
• Building a Strong Skillset: Fundamentals are the building blocks of any skill. By mastering the basics, you develop a solid skill set to tackle complex tasks easily and precisely. Each fundamental you master becomes a tool in your arsenal, enabling you to create, perform, and achieve at a higher level.
• Fueling Continuous Improvement: Pursuing mastery of the fundamentals is an ongoing journey. As you refine your understanding and execution of the basics, you’ll constantly discover new ways to improve, enhance your skills, and expand your knowledge. Commitment to continuous improvement is what sets high achievers apart.

True mastery begins with a deep understanding and unwavering dedication to the fundamentals. You unlock your true potential in the repetition, refinement, and relentless pursuit of excellence in the basics.

BELIEVE!

Belief in yourself is a powerful catalyst for personal growth and achievement. It’s more than positive thinking; it’s a deep-seated conviction in your abilities, potential, and worthiness for success.

Here’s a deeper look into the role of belief in unlocking your potential:

• Motivation: When you believe in yourself, you tap into a wellspring of intrinsic motivation. You’re driven by a desire that proves you can become the best version of yourself.
• Resilience: Challenges and setbacks are inevitable on any journey. Belief provides the resilience to be consistent and bounce back from what you think are failures and mistakes that are not. Failure and mistakes are guides that should be in your mind to improve, not affect you emotionally, so you can keep moving forward with determination.
• Possibilities: Belief opens your mind to new possibilities and opportunities. It encourages you to take risks and explore uncharted territories outside your comfort zone.
• Attraction of Positive Outcomes: Belief is a magnet for positive outcomes. When you radiate confidence and optimism, you attract people, resources, and circumstances that support your goals.
• Creation of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Belief in yourself can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. By expecting success, you set a chain of events that lead to its realization.

Think of belief as a flame that ignites your passion, fuels your perseverance, and illuminates your path toward personal excellence. Without belief, you may hesitate, doubt your abilities, and settle for mediocrity. But with belief, you unleash your full potential and embark on a transformative journey of growth and achievement.

If you listen to Kobe and Tom speak, they say master the fundamentals first. Learning the fundamentals motivates you to be better. It is where skills and techniques grow. Mastering skills inspires you to be the best. But you need to follow the steps and believe.

Along the way, acknowledge your strengths, recognize your weaknesses, and cultivate deep trust in your ability to learn, adapt, and overcome obstacles.

It’s embracing the greatness within you to take the steps towards making it a reality.

Success and failure should not be the outcome. Your talent and skills are what you train for.

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A child’s younger years can have a great impact on how they are later in life. Our personality as adults is because of our experiences as children. Exposing a child to physical activity through sports early on can greatly benefit them as they progress through childhood. Many of the traits learned through sports can positively impact as the child goes through school into adulthood.

Four Ways That Youth Sports Can Boost A Child’s Mental Performance

Youth Sports Boost Self-Esteem

Children often have no filter when it comes to speaking their minds. With social media, anxiety, and depression have become major issues with youth. The more physical activity a child can get, the more serotonin is released from the brain. This is a hormone the brain releases to make you happy and confident, so you can keep being the awesome person you are! The more someone is physically active or participates in sports, the more likely they will be a healthy body weight, increasing their positive self-image.

Helps Classroom Success

The more physical activity one gets, the brain takes in more oxygen. When the brain takes in oxygen, more brain cells grow, which allows you to remember more information. It allows you to study better and have success in the classroom. That classroom success can also be beneficial to the field of play.

Often athletes get labeled as someone who is not smart and solely focused on sports. To be involved in athletics, you have to remember plays, react to an opponent’s actions, and learn to be mentally tough. All of these traits can help in the classroom. In the classroom, you have to study for a test, participate in the discussion, and sit through class when sometimes you don’t want to. To succeed in the classroom or the field of play more oxygen needs to be taken in so brain cells can grow.

Improved Sleep

The more activity you get, the better your sleep will be, helping you fall asleep faster. This is important for playing sports or having a big test the next day. When you sleep, your body repairs itself and allows the brain to rest. The more sleep you get, to more, rested you are when you wake up to tackle that big test or perform your best on the field of play. When you get less sleep, you are less likely to remember all of the information you studied for your big test!

Develop Discipline

Having success is not easy. Getting good grades is not easy, but it will be easier to achieve with good structure and routine. Sports allow children to learn that early. Children have to learn how to balance school, homework, practice, and games. Youth athletes learn that one can’t survive without the other.

A child won’t do well in games without practice, and they won’t do well in school without doing their homework. If they do not do well in school, then they can not play sports, this teaches discipline. When they watch TV rather than do homework, school will suffer and they can’t play sports. If they go to bed late, they will be tired at school and practice and might not do as well. As fun as watching cartoons, they learn that doing their homework is the better choice.

Read More

• How To Avoid Coach Burnout
• How Kids Can Tell If Their Coach Cares
• Develop a Successful Mindset for a Youth Athlete

If you spend a game warming the bench, it can be frustrating. If you spend a season warming the bench, you have become better at precisely one thing: increasing the wood temperature. Every player, including Aaron Rodgers and Michael Jordan, has sat watching their teammates play at some point in their career. No one expects you to enjoy the situation, but how you handle it can stand you in good stead with your current coach and, more importantly, keep you involved in the sport for longer.

How much is enough playing time?

The answer is different at different levels of development. For young players learning the game, the answer is simple: you need to play. If you are only getting a few minutes here and there, you should consider moving to a different team or even sport, where you can get game time and have fun. Good coaches and teams recognize the need for everyone to play and be involved, which may mean running additional teams. At an early age, it should not be about winning championships but encouragement and participation.

In middle school, when children start to make more of their own decisions about sport, the two questions I would ask are:

1. Am I having fun?
2. Am I getting better?

If the answer to both of these is, ‘yes, then you are in a good place. You are enjoying the sport and improving. This is a perfect place to be, even if you aren’t the starter. However, people can get into your mind: teachers, parents, and other adults can all add their opinions, whether helpful or informed or not.

“You should be getting more game time,” and ”I don’t know why the coach is playing X. You clearly should be starting.” Those may seem positive but can give you a sense of either entitlement or resentment. Neither are positive character traits.

Coaches sometimes make mistakes on selection. They are human beings, after all. They may be focused on winning the match this weekend rather than looking after your future career.

If you are not improving and think lack of game time is the reason, you may have to switch clubs. However, at this level, that is more difficult.

Look In The Mirror

The hardest thing to do is look in the mirror and say, ‘What can I do to get better?’ Some things are out of your control: height, muscle fiber type, your parents, and being drafted by an NFL team with a 3-time league MVP starting at quarterback ahead of you (Brett Favre). But many things are within your control, and it is best to focus on those things rather than what you can not control. Here are three of them:

• Do I work harder than any other player? (Effort is entirely within your control).
• Do I know what I need to do to improve? (I might need to ask the coach this).
• Am I a good teammate? (Being nice and supportive will encourage other players to involve you and help you get better. It will definitely be noticed that you are a good ‘locker room’ person).

I was rarely penciled in as a starter when I was competing, and I spent many fruitless hours fretting about being selected. Remember that, unless your Mom or Dad is the coach, you are not in control of team selection: the coach is. You can choose to improve and get better and give the coach no choice but to select you, or you can gripe and whine and look for someone else to blame.

Sometimes, you do have to change teams to get more playing time, but that should be a second or third resort. The first is to look to work harder and get better. The second is to be patient and bide your time. You are only one tackle or one ‘flu bug away from being called on to replace the player ahead of you.

Make sure you are ready for it. And enjoy the time with your teammates while you can.

Read More:

• 20 Tips to Help Your Athlete Get Off the Bench
• How Kids Can Tell If Their Coach Cares
• How to Develop a Successful Mindset for a Youth Athlete

These qualities are essential in sports and all aspects of life. They help you become the best version of yourself and reach your full potential. Combining your mental, physical, and emotional strengths creates an environment where you can constantly strive without worrying about success or failure.

Understanding and embracing these qualities will unlock your potential and help you achieve goals you never thought possible. You can discover better versions of yourself and improve your performance in all areas of life.

Love

Love is a feeling that holds the power to transform the way you approach your commitments. When you love what you do, even the most challenging tasks become enjoyable and fulfilling. This is especially true when you have a special love and passion for your sport.

Athletes who love their sport tend to have a clearer sense of purpose and direction, which helps them achieve their goals more easily. When you genuinely love what you do, the time you spend on it becomes moments of fun, excitement, inspiration, and motivation. You enter a state of flow where you are so focused and energized that you forget about time, distractions, and fatigue.

The joy and enthusiasm that come from engaging in what you love helps you stay motivated and determined to achieve greatness. Your commitment to your sport becomes something you willingly dedicate your time to despite any challenges or obstacles that may come your way.

Love infuses you with boundless energy and puts you in a flow state where you feel refreshed, focused, and motivated, not tired. When you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work; it feels like a calling to continue to achieve greatness.

Passion

The passion you have for your sport is what makes you successful. It is the fuel that drives your love, dedication, perseverance, and commitment. When you genuinely love your sport, you have a lot of passion, which helps you push yourself beyond your limits and constantly improve your skills. You have the ability to overcome any challenges that come your way.

Every training session and practice is an opportunity for your genuine passion to challenge yourself and grow. When you have passion, training is not a chore but rather a chance to improve and get better at what you love.

Love and Passion

Regarding sports or personal pursuits, love and passion are two concepts often used interchangeably, but they are distinct. Passion is the energy, the drive, and the excitement you put into your training sessions. It is the strong desire to achieve your goals and continuously develop your skills in the best possible way. Passion keeps you going even when things get tough. When the going gets tough, passion motivates you to keep striving forward with excitement and enthusiasm, whether winning or losing. You focus on strategy rather than losing and fatigue.

On the other hand, love is a deep and enduring connection that you have with the sport or activity itself. It is a feeling of attachment, admiration, and respect for the game or activity and everything it represents. Love draws you to the sport or activity. Understanding why it attracts you will boost your potential.

Both are important and complementary, but they are distinct concepts that must be understood separately.

Honesty

When you face failures or setbacks in life, it’s natural to feel discouraged and disheartened. But what if I told you that failures are opportunities for growth and progress?

When you view your mistakes through an honest and self-aware lens, you can start seeing them as a stepping stone toward refinement. Instead of feeling defeated, you can reflect on your actions and perspectives and learn from them.

It’s important to remember that making mistakes or weaknesses doesn’t mean you are inadequate or not good enough. It’s just a part of life and a signal to use to your advantage. Strengthening a weakness or fixing a mistake unravels instructions about how to be better. Extracting the valuable lessons from these experiences offers insights and instructions on navigating challenges, enhancing your abilities, and ultimately evolving into a better version of who you aspire to be.

This change in perspective can help you cultivate a mindset of continuous learning and growth. Instead of dwelling on the past, you can focus on how to play better in the future. It’s like having a constructive conversation with yourself that emphasizes growth, resilience, and understanding.

So, the next time you face a setback, don’t be too hard on yourself. Change your perspective. Let it be an opportunity to reflect, learn, and grow. Remember, failure is not the end but a juncture for introspection and progress.

Sincerity

In sports, being honest and genuine is very important. It means you are genuinely dedicated to your sport and committed to achieving their goals. This sincerity helps you recognize your strengths and weaknesses and understand how to improve.

Sincere athletes don’t get discouraged when they face challenges. Instead, they use their mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. You become more genuine, motivated, and inspired to do your best when sincere.

Focus on doing your best rather than just winning or losing. Because you are a part of the outcome, believe that the process of working hard and striving for excellence is more important than the outcome. When sincere, you will experience a deeper and more meaningful connection to your sport and find fulfillment in your pursuit of success.

Honesty and Sincerity

Honesty and sincerity are two qualities that are closely connected and reinforce each other. Together, they create a foundation of authenticity and integrity. Honesty is the raw material from which sincerity is produced and made.

When you acknowledge the truth about yourself, communicate transparently, act consistently, build trust, accept your imperfections, and align with your values, you contribute to the sincere expression of your character. By integrating honesty into your way of being, you become a sincere and honest individual whose actions and commitments genuinely reflect your authentic self.

Discovering your potential and becoming the best version of yourself requires a thoughtful and intentional process.

Steps to Transform Your Journey

Self-Reflection

Have you ever thought about what drives your love and passion for your favorite sport? Reflecting on your values and interests is essential to understand why you’re so passionate about it. When you know your core values, it helps you to unlock your potential and achieve great things in your sport. So, take some time to think about what really matters to you and how that relates to your favorite sport.

Strengths and Weaknesses Assessment

It’s essential to understand and acknowledge your limitations to improve yourself. This powerful way will transform your weaknesses into strengths, but requires honesty and sincerity. By recognizing and addressing your shortcomings, make positive changes to help you achieve your goals and lead a more fulfilling life.

Explore New Opportunities:

It’s always a good idea to be open to new experiences and try different things. This includes trying out different sports, types of training, or activities. When you explore new things, you may discover hidden talents, skills, and interests that you didn’t even know you had. This can help you become better at what you do and come up with new and creative ideas. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and try something new!

Continuous Learning

Make it a habit to keep learning new things. There are various ways to do this, such as trying different ways of learning, observing and getting inspired by other people, etc. Learning helps you grow and keeps you motivated to achieve more.

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Stepping out can be intimidating but crucial for personal growth and development. You can challenge yourself by taking on tasks or responsibilities that push you beyond what you’re used to. This could include learning a new skill, speaking in public, or simply doing things that make you uncomfortable. The key is to embrace discomfort and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow. It may not be easy, but when you learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve!

Practice Self-Compassion

Being compassionate towards oneself and others can teach you to be patient, which is a valuable skill to have in life. Patience helps you keep going even when you face difficulties and setbacks. It’s important to understand that success takes effort and time, and setbacks are a natural part of the process. You should see them as opportunities to learn and grow. Sometimes, taking a step back can help you move forward by allowing you to see how you can improve and progress toward your goals.

Adaptability

It’s important to be open to change and willing to adapt. Don’t get too set in your ways. When you’re open-minded, you can develop new and creative ideas. Remember only to keep what works and let go of what doesn’t. This way, you can adjust to different situations and learn from them. Life constantly changes, and flexibility allows you to gain new perspectives and opportunities.

Love, passion, honesty, and sincerity are invisible pillars in your sports journey. They are the forces that transform your routine into ritual, repetition into mastery, and challenges into triumphs. As you continue to explore the depths, they will unveil secrets to athletic excellence, unlocking your potential mentally, spiritually, and physically.

1. They Have Almost Zero Chance of Being a Pro Athlete

Along the way, somebody has told you that your kid has talent, and that praise became a drug. In fact, 26% of parents believe that their kid could play professional sports! The number is so absurd that you have to wonder where this confidence is coming from. For context, just 1.2% of all NCAA men’s basketball players go on to play in a major pro league. Obviously, the percentage of youth basketball players who go on to do the same is exponentially lower.

So many things have to break right for a child to go on to become a professional athlete, and many of those things are entirely out of your control. Even if your child does make it to the pros, the odds of them having a long and financially lucrative career remain quite low.

As sports parents, it’s important to simply focus on the moment and prioritize fun above all else. Adding unnecessary pressure to the situation only makes the sport less fun, leaving your child more apt to give up on it all together.

2. The Odds of Them Getting a Full D1 Scholarship Are Nearly Just as Low

Only 2% of high school athletes play Division I sports.

The only men’s sports that offer full scholarships are basketball and football. Women’s sports with full scholarships are tennis, gymnastics, basketball and volleyball.

All other Division I sports receive money based upon the athletic program and coaches’ discretion. Partial scholarships at 60%, 30% or less are the norm. And even if you do receive some sort of verbal offer, it doesn’t mean anything until an official grant-in-aid is signed on the dotted line. Ask anyone who’s had experience in college sports, and they’ll have plenty of stories of players getting misled during their recruitment.

You may hear other parents brag about how their child is “being recruited” simply because they received a letter from such and such school, but that often means very little. Yes, they may have received a letter, but that was one of hundreds sent out. A player is not getting recruited until one of the coaches contacts them personally.

While the odds of receiving a full scholarship are rather small, there are a number of steps you can take to increase your odds of receiving some sort of scholarship.

3. Division II, Division III and NAIA Can Be Great Options

If your child loves their sport and has the passion to play and practice, then they can play in college. But the biggest question for most athletes is whether or not they’ll actually get to play on the college team they join.

I know several athletes who were “good enough” to play at the top level of collegiate sports, but weren’t quite good enough to receive substantial playing time. Yet they chose to go with that route instead of going to a school where they could actually play and contribute on a consistent basis. I’m not saying one is right or wrong, but it’s all about your priorities.

Division I sports also represent a massive time commitment. It’s essentially a full-time job in addition to school, as most days fall into the pattern of work out, classes, practice, dinner, studying, bedtime. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

This is where Division II, Division III and NAIA sports can help a student-athlete find the right balance. These different levels of collegiate play are highly competitive and are excellent options to explore. Great academics plus competitive sports plus a great college experience equals Winning as a Parent of an Athlete. These other levels are a part-time job compared to the full-time commitment of Division I.

4. Don’t Tie Their Self-Worth to Their Sports

How do you introduce and describe you child?

If it’s something along the lines of “This is Johnny, our star second baseman,” perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate this habit. The words we use to describe our own child carries meaning and can have a massive impact on their feelings of self-worth. What happens if Johnny gets hurt or doesn’t make the all-star team?

Instead of linking your child’s worth to their sporting achievements, praise them on their positive personality traits or work habits. Click here to find out the best name to call your kid.

5. You Can’t Want it More Than They Do

“The will to prepare has to be greater than the will to win.” – Bobby Knight

Passion is the prerequisite for achieving anything great in life. As bad as you may “want it” for them, if they don’t take ownership and want it themselves, then the struggle will be real.

Those who have passion often don’t have to be asked to practice, nagged to work on something, or coerced into playing. There’s a good saying that goes along the lines of “it’s tough to be driven when you’re being driven.” If the drive to get better doesn’t come from within, you can’t force it on them. They are the ones that have to want it.

As opposed to simply forcing your goals upon them, have a conversation with your child about the goals they have for themselves. Then find out how they want to achieve those goals and how involved they want you to be in that process. Simply knowing what they do and do not want you to do in regards to their athletic career can help you build a much healthier relationship.

6. Get Off the Emotional Roller Coaster and Ride the Carousel

Vicarious parents live through their child, whereas supportive parents live with their child. If you treat every performance as life and death, then you’re on the roller coaster of emotions. That equals stress, stress and more stress.

Your role as a parent of an athlete is to provide balance, stability and support in their life. You must remain detached from outcomes! If you get caught up in the drama or results of winning and losing, you can’t remain level-headed. Think of your energy and attitude as being more of a consistent carousel then a rollercoaster of alternating rage and ecstasy.

7. Your Body Language Matters

In sports, we see positive and negative body language all the time. Players and coaches know the benefit of positive body language as well as the negativity that can radiate off bad body language. But as a sports parent, are you aware of your own body language?

Since your child was little, they watched for your reaction in the crowd. They saw you slumping in your chair or throwing your hands up in disgust when they made that bad play or mental error. Your body language spoke so loud, they didn’t even need to hear what you were saying.

Negative body language does not show that we care or are passionate, it communicates that we are not confident. We are signaling that we do not have faith in our own child to overcome a mistake and have a short memory.

This is not easy, but essential: Your own body language must ride the carousel as well. It must be confident and supportive. Head up, clapping or cheering. If they do look, always a thumbs up, a smile or some clear sign of support!

8. Don’t Fight With the Cook

How many of you have eaten out at restaurants? I’m guessing all of you, and it’s an experience most of us enjoy.

How many times have you been dining out and personally returned a dish to the cook to belittle their effort? I’m guessing almost never.

So why do we feel that we can go talk to the coach and criticize their methods or style of play? Sports parents yell, coach from the stands, complain, and even write anonymous emails to the administration or other parents. I’m here to tell you to stop this behavior.

If your own son or daughter wants to develop the skill of communication and ownership, then it is their responsibility to talk to coach about playing time on their own. Role-play with them all you want, but it is ultimately up to them. Being able to establish a productive dialogue with a superior or authoritative figure won’t just serve them well in sports, but it’s also a crucial skill for life.

9. Let Your Child Lead the Car Ride Conversation

There are good times to provide feedback to your child on their play, and then there are not so good times. The car ride home immediately after the game is not the time to offer unsolicited advice. Waiting for a time when everyone is cool, calm and collected to thoughtfully discuss the game is a much better approach than having an emotionally charged discussion minutes after the conclusion of the competition. This video explains how parents often ruin the car ride home!

10. It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

The best 12-year olds in the nation right now (pick the sport) should go on to become the best 14-year olds, the best 18-year olds, the biggest college stars and, eventually, the best pros.

Right? Well, it does happen in the case of phenoms like LeBron James, but such cases are extreme outliers. It is rare because there are so many factors in play when it comes to long-term and sustained success. But for some reason, we still rank the top 7th graders in the nation!

We look at the short-term development with a microscope, and speculate into the future with a telescope! The point is that there will be many losses, failures and setbacks along the way. If we don’t allow our children to experience these setbacks, we slow their progression as a person and an athlete.

Difficult times are what produce character. It’s not about the setback, it’s about the comeback. Sport teaches whatever we want it to teach. So as a parent of an athlete, should we focus only on the material gain our child may reap from sport? Or should we care more about all the lessons they can learn from their sport?

Leadership, creativity, effort, passion, confidence, teamwork, communication, perseverance, mental toughness, focus, letting go of mistakes, handling conflict, overcoming obstacles and being in the zone are all skills that last way beyond the conclusion of an athletic career.

If your entire focus is trying to turn your child into a world-class professional athlete, you run the risk of developing a person with second-rate social and life skills.

If you have some additional reminders you’d like to share with sports parents, please email me. Maybe it’ll make my next book.

Photo Credit: vernonwiley/iStock

READ MORE:

• 10 Signs You’re a Horrible Sports Parent
• 5 Behaviors of High-Performing Sports Parents
• 10 Things Sports Parents Should and Shouldn’t Do