Paul J. Meyer once said: “You never work for someone else. The truth is someone is paying you to work for yourself.”
Someone recently suggested that coaching for the purposes of self-actualisation was possibly selfish. In the end, don’t all humans choose their actions in order to satisfy a need (physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation)? Even those employed in an altruistic occupation do so because helping others meets their belonging, esteem, or self-actualisation needs.
The suggestion was made with a somewhat negative connotation. I couldn’t disagree more. People are free to act as they wish and no one can tell someone else how to make the most of themselves. Conventional wisdom is very popular and a revelation that all action is incentive based (economics is merely a model to understand life) can be hard to accept.
Why do we coach? Obviously, we love the game and the people – players, coaches, referees, and fans – who play it. But don’t coach to indulge ourselves; there are many ways to satisfy our basketball jones without affecting the lives of young people. We chose to assume positions of influence in the lives of student-athletes because we wanted to give back and make a difference.
Basketball (or any sport) is the vehicle, personal best sand self-actualization are the destinations. Since we coach because we want to help players become the people they aspire to, how do we make the biggest difference?