Sometimes, when coaching, I forget that it's not all about me.  The role of a good coach is, as well as all the program design, training planning and preparation and sorting the myths from the Stuff That Works, is to be very good at interacting with the people who've chosen a coach as their coach. 

It's a big responsibility.  As a coach, I have, for example, somewhere between 10 and 30 riders (depending on how you count them!) who've chosen me as part of their team to achieve their goals.  This means that I have 10-30 people to manage in a way, but each of them only has one career.  I expect that they've chosen me because they trust that I will do my best to be part of their team to help them achieve their goals. It's important, as such, to take the time to listen to them.  For example, our Spin sessions.  Riders don't come to our training sessions to hear about my latest squat effort or what I did yesterday, they're there to have a solid session that's tailored to their goals and to go home afterwards feeling positive about what they did at the session and about the people they trained with.

How do I know what their goals are? I have to ask them, sometimes coaxing them to talk more about what they want, how they feel and so on.  Sometimes it's like pulling teeth, other times it's hard to get a rider to not monopolise my time by chewing off my ear when I have lots to see to!  Finding the right balance here is tricky and we can all do better at it and it's important to keep fine tuning how we approach running training sessions.  As a coach I have to avoid the temptation to think I'm some sort of a celebrity.  Yes, I'm in front of 20 or so people at a spin class and they're all doing pretty-much what I tell them to do, but that doesn't give me cart blanch to expound on my latest adventures, even if it's very tempting.  I try to make a point of celebrating riders achievements but we all occasionally slip into the trap of thinking that because we're centre-stage that we're the important person present.  I know I'm not, or a least, I try very hard not to be.  I know I don't get that right every time, but it's something I'm very conscious of, and my friends know me well enough that they know they can tell me to pull my head in and I won't take it personally and that I'll respect them more for doing so.  At least, I hope they know that!  If you're reading this, and you know who you are, I think you know you can tell me when I'm out of line and I won't be offended or hurt by it! I'll probably even shout you lunch or something for doing me the favour.

My blog, my facebook stuff etc, that's where I can whack off about what I've been doing and am doing etc, but that's not appropriate at a Spin or DISC session etc, that's where the emphasis is on encouraging and developing riders and celebrating their successes.  Sometimes also people need to be told that something they're doing isn't being done as well as it could be, but again that has to be done in an encouraging way.  "That's no good" is not a good way to develop an athlete.   We need to identify the positives in something a rider is doing and work on improvements to the things that need improving in such a way that it doesn't offend or demotivate the athlete we work with.  Some athletes like a "that's rubbish, do it this way" approach but they're rare, most appreciate (and thus, come back again for more!) a more considered approach.   We all get it wrong sometimes but I think it's a good thing to consider regularly and to be constantly vigilant against falling into the traps of "I know it all" and "I'm the Star".