The Encouraging Leader

Five years ago I was inspired by Mike Neighbors, an assistant coach at Xavier University, to begin a newsletter on leadership entitled THE ENCOURAGING LEADER.  Neighbors was doing a newsletter for basketball coaches and I really enjoyed it.  My entire life as a coach, I studied leadership and felt that I could add value to others with the insights that I had learned.  It started as a monthly newsletter but has since become a quarterly publication.  We have had some great leaders that have contributed over the years and I am so grateful for their generosity and willingness to write articles. For three years, I worked on the newsletter consistently but then in May of 2014 I took a new job.  I left a good college coaching job to become the athletic director at a traditional high school powerhouse in Indiana. It was a very grueling job and I put the newsletter on hold.  I kept coming up with reasons why I couldn't publish another issue.  The main one was "I am too busy".   However, what is in the middle of all excuses?  "U".  It wasn't the job that kept me from publishing more issues, it was me.  I was constantly making choices to push it further down my priority list. 

It takes time to put a newsletter together but every time that I put one together, it made me sharp and helped me learn more about leadership from many different perspectives.  Essentially by choosing to not publish the newsletter, I was taking away an opportunity for me to learn.  Just like Coach Neighbors newsletter, no doubt, keeps him sharp, at the same time helping others.  He is now the head coach at the University of Washington and they advanced to the NCAA Final Four this season.  He is a head coach in the Pac-12 and yet still religiously puts out his newsletter.  How inspiring is that?  That is one of the reasons that I decided to start being an encouraging leader again through the newsletter.  Click here to read the latest edition of The Encouraging Leader.  

Jamy Bechler is the executive director of U-Leadership and a John Maxwell Certified Leadership Speaker and Coach.  Contact him at CoachBechler@CoachBechler.com to find out how you or your team can be more successful.  

My Favorite Quotes

In the last issue of THE ENCOURAGING LEADER, we highlighted some of the best books to help you become a better leader.  This issue’s theme centers around quotes.  We asked a number of leaders to write about their favorite quote and what it means to them. 

Just as I am obsessed with reading books, I love quotes.  The first motivational quote that I ever learned was “Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal”.  When I was an aspiring junior high basketball player in Michigan, the state’s Mr. Basketball was a player out of Saginaw by the name of Mark Macon.  He went on to have a great career at Temple University.  I saw him featured on a CBS special.  In the segment, he mentioned that quote.  I wrote it out on a piece of paper and taped it to the wall next to my bed.  Every morning when I’d wake up, that was the first thing that I saw.    

That quote still resonates with me.  Through the years, I have worked with many athletes and that quote is still a go-to for me.  The Kentucky Derby was held last week.  Every time I think of horse racing, I am reminded of this quote.  Horses have blinders on that keep them from seeing what is beside them.  All they do is look straight ahead.  They focus on where they need to go.  We’d do well to remember this concept.  Why get caught up in drama, distractions, detours or disillusionment?  Set your eyes on the prize and focus on the goal.

See the entire newsletter of favorite quotes from top leaders across the nation. 

Jamy Bechler is the executive director of U-Leadership and a John Maxwell Certified Leadership Speaker and Coach.  Contact him at CoachBechler@CoachBechler.com to find out how you or your team can be more successful.  Click here to signup for THE ENCOURAGING NEWSLETTER