Questions

Learn to ask the right (appropriate) question. Be willing to ask the hard questions others are unwilling to ask. Here are some questions I find myself asking quite often:

• What is the difference?
• Can I replicate that?
• Will that work in a different environment and situation?
• Is that result an outlier?
• Where do you go from here?
• How do you dial it up or dial it down?
• Is what you are doing facilities, equipment and technology dependent?
• If so can you do it without facilities, equipment or technology?
• What is the absolute minimum you do to achieve an adaptive response?
• If you have just achieved a personal best or won a championship – What do you have to do to get better?
• How do you measure the effectiveness of your training program?
• Where do you get your ideas?
• Who or what inspires you?
• Can you explain what you do to a ten year ?
• What are you personally doing to get better as a coach?
• Where will the biggest gains in your sports come from?
• Where are the possibilities for marginal gains?
• Do you have mastery of the basics?
• Do you review the basics everyday? If not why not?
• How do teach and refine the technical model of your sport?
• Is your technical model sound?
• Who is your alter ego? Who keeps you on track and honest?
• What are the facts?
• Is what you are doing proactive or reactive? Why?
• Does your system and methodology rely only on evidence based practice or does it take into consideration practice based evidence?
• Who are your role models?

When it is all said and done the words of Gertrude Stein come to mind:

“The answer is there is no answer.”

-Author Gertrude Stein

So keep asking questions to grow and learn.