“You should slow down and get advice from a particular kind of person. Somebody who likes you but doesn’t care too much about your feelings. That person is more likely to give you good advice.” - Daniel Kahneman

My title might trigger a lot of people in today’s society. With every passing day we’re told to be more sensitive and aware of other people’s feelings. But a real coach, a real leader, can’t care too much about your feelings. 

A great coach cares about progress first, then the player’s happiness Not the other way around. And that’s because if the progress the player is looking for occurs, they’ll be happy. 

Too many tennis coaches are better salesman than coaches. They care more about making you smile and happy. They lie to you and make you think you’re working hard and doing the right things. They care more about getting the parents to pay for another lesson instead of keeping the player on track to achieve their goals. 

It’s hard work for a coach to get real progress out of a player. It takes a lot of energy to push a kid when they’re tired and want water. It’s stressful to ask them to focus more and tell them they CAN try harder. Lots of verbal fights have occurred because a player feels they were “pushed too hard.”

The coaches get tired of those stressful days so they give up. They forget the real reward is years down the road. They realize it’s easier to sell a lie to parents who have no idea how to build a great tennis player than it is to do the real work. Lies like the player wasn’t lucky enough to be born with talent. Not the player’s fault so no shame in that right! They at least did their best!

But the truth is the coach failed the player. They cared too much about making them happy. When they needed to tell them:

They could focus more

They had to move their feet faster

They weren’t tired, just out of shape

They told them:

Awww good effort

It’s okay, grab some water

Ohhh you were just unlucky

And because the player nor the parents are the experts, they believed them. 

A real coach tells the truth in a caring way. They’re not insensitive. If anything, a real coach is more caring than the salesman coach. They know that by teaching a player the work required to achieve goals, they’re setting them up for long term success in whatever field they’re willing to work hard in. And nothing will provide more happiness than that.