Let's Play to be Coachable

Being coachable is one of the most overlooked skills in sports—and it can completely change your experience as an athlete.

In this episode, Coach Jojo breaks down why most athletes are never actually taught how to build a real relationship with their coach, and why that matters more than you think. Whether you have a great coach or a difficult one, your ability to be coachable can either elevate your game or hold you back.

She’ll talk about how to handle tough coaching situations, why taking accountability (instead of playing the victim) gives you control, and how developing this skill can impact your confidence, playing time, and overall performance.

Not only that, Coach Jojo also dives into why it’s not about how often you talk to your coach—it’s about how effective those conversations are. One honest, intentional conversation can do more for your growth than constant surface-level communication.

If you’ve ever struggled with a coach, felt frustrated with feedback, or want to stand out in a way most athletes don’t think about, this episode is for you.

Tools:

1. Quality over quantity conversations
2. Don’t be a victim (stop complaining)!
3. Approach communication with open ended questions

CONNECT WITH ME:

Website:

mindsetcoachjojo.com

Email:

jojo@mindsetcoachjojo.com

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@mindset.coach.jojo

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/mindset.coach.jojo

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/mindset.coach.jojo

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I am here to change your mind of why you need to be coachable even when you don't want to be, and even when you have a coach that you don't like or respect. Today I'm not only going to be talking about being coachable in a sense of just being respectful and just saying okay and moving along. I'm actually going to dive into what I find to be coachable. And there are so many other definitions to being coachable and so many other qualities in being coachable. It is not taught to us athletes to have a good relationship with your coach, but the thing is that a coach makes or breaks your experience. And sometimes that's scary. Sometimes it's scary to communicate with a coach, but I am here to convince you to have those conversations, to have better quality of conversations rather than quantity of conversations. I am also here to talk about how to not be a victim and that you should not be a victim. And that is somebody who makes excuses and complains, and we're doing it every single day in our lives, and we don't even realize that we're doing it. So I am here to try to change your perspective on why you need to be a coachable player because it is something that you need to have. It is going to be one of the greatest skills that you're going to have throughout your entire career if you are able to be coachable. So let's get right into it. Hello, my fellow athletes. Hello, the parents of athletes, hello, coaches, whoever you are listening, mainly my mom probably listening to this podcast three times through. Hello, I am back. I am sorry that I did not post for two weeks. I am finishing my semester up of college right now, and I kind of just want to live a college life. I haven't been able to do that for four years of college because of basketball. So I'm finally just living like a kid, living like a student. And that meant that I was going to sacrifice a few workdays turned into two podcasts. I sacrificed, and I am sorry about that. I do miss talking on this podcast, and I'm so excited to be here today. So thank you for joining me. And just know that I will be posting once a week again. So now let me actually dive into talking about being coachable. But when I talk about being coachable, I do not just mean being coachable in a sense of like, yeah, I'm gonna listen to my coach and yeah, I'm not gonna give him attitude, and that's a really great quality. You should do that all the time. That is something that is a bare minimum in my expectations for you guys, in an expectation of an athlete, being coachable is just something that you need to do all the time. But there's actually such a bigger meaning and so many other ways that we're able to be coachable. And I love when we do things in our sport and it translates to the things that we do in our lives and the humans that we become. And I know that's probably not something that's on your guys' mind, but I do like to, as a mindset coach, I am also a life coach. You know, that's how I was trained. And so I like to tell you guys things that you do in your sport will help you for the rest of your life. If you ever feel like what you're doing in your sport doesn't have any purpose, like if you're somebody that's not gonna go play pro and you're like, oh, why am I here? And it's kind of hard to get going every day, to get motivated every day, just know that playing a college sport, playing a sport in high school is something that will stick with you and be with you for the rest of your life. And it is such a blessing to be an athlete to play a sport. So I actually specifically am making this podcast. Well, I always make podcasts based on the things that I work on with my clients. It gives me just so many ideas, and then those ideas form into a podcast with so many other ideas. But I am actually somebody who has dealt with abusive coaches in my career, and it's really set me back not only in my sport, but mentally, it has set me back for things in my life, and I couldn't move on in my sport, couldn't move on, you know, throughout my life, and I had PTSD, I had trauma. And so I'm I'm saying that because I am also making this podcast for people who are struggling being coachable or wanting to be coachable because you have a coach that you really dislike and you do not respect because you're like, why would I respect somebody that doesn't respect me? Or why would I be thankful for somebody that doesn't feel like they're thankful for me? This podcast is also for people who maybe do struggle in general, just being coachable, having a good attitude. In general, maybe you just kind of have attitude in your life and you don't know really how to get rid of that ego. But ultimately, this is just for anybody that's struggling with feeling like they cannot be coachable. And I am here to tell you that we need to fix that. I know that you're probably in a place where you do not want to choose to be coachable. I am telling you, I am going to change your mindset right now of why you need to be coachable. And listen to me here. I was never the player that sucked up to a coach. I just was never. I've I've never been, I've been like a favorite on a team in a sense where it was like I didn't get special treatment. They just liked me, but I've never been a favorite where I got special treatment or, you know, I don't know, like anything where I'm people feel threatened by me from the coach because that's just never been me. So it's not like I'm coming on here for the coaches, and I'm like, let me let me tell you about how to be coachable's player because I'm a suck up and I want coaches to like me. Like, that's not at all what I'm doing. I literally think it's going to, I don't think I know that this is going to help your well-being in your sport if you become a coachable player. This is going to be one of the greatest skills you are going to master in order to become a successful athlete. Let me break down my principles of what coachable means to me and what I think that it should mean to you, and how I'm going to help you navigate all of the ways that you are going to become a coachable player and you're going to unlock so much power. Like I mentioned, obviously being coachable. If you are going to define being coachable, that means that you are being respectful, you're saying okay, you're listening to what your coach has to say. But there's so much, there's so much more to that definition to me. And to be honest, I can't sit here and give you guys examples like I usually do because I love an example to explain things, because it is very situational and I understand that. I have had the best coaches, I have had the worst coaches in my career. I have had a coach who got fired for being so verbally abusive and so psychologically abusive, but I've also had coaches like when I had that abusive coach at my first college, and then I went to my second college, my coach healed me there. You know, and my coach in high school, he set me up to love basketball in the first place. And I do say that a coach is going to make or break your experience. So, Coach Jojo, how could I be coachable when I do have that abusive coach? When I do have a coach that I don't respect and that I don't like. First, we have to change our perspective because coaches are not always out to get you. They are not, they have so many players that they are worrying about. They have a program to run, they want to win their games. So a lot of times their coaching could come off as very aggressive and very, very personal. That is one of the perspectives that we have to change. And I know that's very situational. I've had abusive coach, like I literally have been saying, and I know that there were certain times where he was personally coming after me. So I understand I'm not sitting here trying to not validate people's feelings and people's coaches and the experience that you're having. I know that some coaches are coming as a personal attack, but we really have to sit down and be like, wait, is that personal or are they just trying to coach me? Because that's the thing. Coaches are there to have a winning program. And it also depends. I think that high school coaches, for the most part, they obviously want to have a winning program, but they're also there to teach you how to get into college. High school coaches, if you're playing at a high level too, they are they have connections to college coaches and they're trying to get you there. They're trying to help you out. In college, they are literally there to have you win in there. They they want to keep their job. Like they are there to coach you so that there is team chemistry, so that you could be a part of the team, so that you could connect, so so that you could have playing time. So not everything that they're doing is personal. And if we are able to take what we think is criticism and change the perspective to them critiquing us, then we are going to not spiral. And that's one of the reasons of why you need to be coachable, because you will not spiral. Like you will have such a freer mind if a coach is coaching you either way. Either if whether or not they are yelling at you or they are pulling you aside for a little chat, either way, if you take that as like, oh, okay, they just want me to be better on the team because they want to win. And also, you have to have the perspective of like, I want to fucking win. Like, I want my coach to critique me. And also, I do have to say, if coaches aren't saying anything to you, then that means that they do not care for you and they do not see any potential in you. But do you see how I'm able to drag all of these positive reasons of why a coach is talking to you and why a coach is yelling at you and seems like they care for you? Coaches have to be passionate, they have to yell at you. Sometimes they think that there are different tactics of how to coach players. Um, I know that I'm trying to think of like in general, but I will speak off of my own experience. And I've changed over time. So, like in high school, I was you yelled at me. Like coaches yelled at me, that got through to me. And I I was okay with that. Like I had thick skin. Then I got to my second school and there was definitely a lot of yelling. That doesn't really count in my opinion because it was very abusive yelling, and that really did not work with me. And it just really depends on like, hey, are you yelling at me because you're fucking motivating me and you're talking about the sport, or are you yelling at me because it's pretty personal and you're kind of attacking who I am as a person? But then my coach knew my at my second school, my coach knew that I needed to heal and that uh yelling was not the way to go. And I really pray that your coaches understand you and know what you need. And so if they don't, that is on you because and I know that sounds pretty harsh to say, and you guys really just want to be a victim and say that, you know, well, it's on the coach that they don't understand me and they should get to know their players more. They, and I don't always want to advocate for coaches because I'm on your guys' side, but they do have a lot of players to deal with. And if you're not communicating with them and taking the time to get to know them and for them to get to know you, then how are they going to be able to coach you the way that you want to be coached? But let's just say that you are somebody who takes it very personally. You think that when a coach is trying to coach you about a skill that you don't really have or a skill that you need to work on, and you're like, oh my god, they don't think I'm good enough, they're not gonna play me. I'm, you know, this they think that this player is better than me, and you start comparing yourself, and then you find yourself thinking that you're not a favorite on the team. And we know I've talked about in other podcasts about feeling like you're not the favorite, and it really sucks to feel like you're not a favorite on the team, and coaches do pick favorites, and that's just reality. But if you are feeling that way, then it is on you to communicate with your coach. Communication with your coach is something that's not taught to us athletes. I was always somebody that wasn't very good at talking to people. I did not like to do small talk, and this is going all the way back to high school. But I remember struggling in school a lot, and I would always have to talk to my teachers, and I remember like my brother never had to because he was a very school-minded person. He was very smart in school. He was always getting A's on his test, so he never had to talk to his teachers, but I wasn't getting A's on my test. I had to go talk to my teachers to get extra credit, or I had to redo a paper. And the funny thing is that that taught me actually how to talk to coaches and how important a relationship is with somebody that's teaching you or coaching you. They are a mentor to you, and you have to take advantage of that and not only taking advantage of that to learn new things, to learn new skills, to develop into a different type of player, but also it's creating this dynamic between the two of you where now you're having a better experience because you understand them more and they understand you more. A story I really like to tell people is how bad I was at Spanish in high school because I had this teacher that felt so bad for me. I had to go after school, talk to her, try to get help, stay after class because I was just so bad at Spanish, and it created this relationship between us and this soft spot that she grew for me. But the funny part of the story is that I when whenever we would take quizzes in class, I she would come over my shoulder and I would put my pencil to the answer that I thought it was, and she would just be like, mm-mm, mm-hmm, mm-mm, and just wait for me to finally put my pencil over one of the circles that was correct. I remember my friends getting mad at me, and I'm like, guys, you can't get mad at me. I'm not, I mean, like the way that I'm cheating is literally from the source. It's from the teacher. But that just goes to show that it was the relationship that I created outside of school and the effort that I was putting in to show her that I did care about something and that I wanted to get better at something made her do that. And like, what teacher, what teacher has ever done that? You know what I mean? Like, I've never heard that before. But it was not only nice, obviously, to get better scores on my quizzes and to get a better grade in that class, it was so fucking nice to have somebody on my side. When you show effort to somebody, they will show you effort back, and especially in a role where you are the student and they are the teacher, or you are the player and they are the coach and they want to mentor you. The reason why coaches become coaches most of the time, which this is why they should become a coach, is to mentor and inspire and to create humans to be the best that they could be and to show the capabilities that they have, to show off skills, to find a purpose in life. So I say that. I say the example of me talking with my teacher and the relationship that I grew with them. And this has happened with so many other teachers. Like I have had to talk to so many teachers and they give me extra credit just because I was showing so much effort. Like they want to help you. And I say this because coaches are the same way. They both have the same role where they want to mentor you, where they want to just change you in some way where it just feels good to help somebody else out. And that is exactly what they do when they coach you. They aren't trying to bring you down, they aren't trying to strike you with so much personal shit. They are literally there to make sure that you grow and become a better player on the team so that you could have a better experience. If we are able to think this way, you will be, I think that this is the biggest reason and change that you're gonna see in how you just want to be coachable because when you don't take things personally in general, you can notice that things don't affect you as much, things don't bother you as much, and you're able to just be a happier person with a better attitude. So being coachable is uh being respectful to the coach, but it's also communicating with that coach and trying to grow a relationship with them. And being coachable also means that you're not taking stuff personally, and this is what's going to bring me into my next point that I want to talk about today. Do not be a victim. A victim makes excuses, a victim complains, a victim blames others or blames karma or blames bad luck. I read this book called The 10x Rule, and it basically talks about doing things 10 times more than somebody else would, and not even maybe somebody else would, but just do something 10 times more than you would that day. It's just whatever your average self would do or the average person would do, do it 10 times better. Do it 10 times more. And so in the book, it talks about not being a victim. And of course, when I'm reading this book, actually at the time I read this a few months ago, it talked about, you know, well, really try to evaluate yourself and see if you are a victim. And they're like, I guarantee that you do think that you're a victim. And I'm like, no, like, no way. Like I work hard, like I am starting my business right now, like I do CrossFit, like I'm not a victim. But then it made you reflect on how many times a day are you complaining? And to tie this to the podcast that I'm talking about, because I don't want to do a bunch of random examples. I'm just gonna get straight to the point. If a coach comes up to you and critiques you, how many times in your head are you saying, that's stupid? How dare they say that to me? I'm better than what they think I am. I don't need to work on that skill. I don't want to hear them critiquing me. I don't want to like they're just attacking me. That is being a victim. You blaming them for who they are and blaming them for what they're telling you. One, that's super defensive. And being defensive in any way is being a victim because you're making excuses. That is not taking accountability, and that's what we want to do, and that is something super freaking hard to do. When we are born, we are a victim. It is a survival mechanism to make excuses, and that is what I believe. It feels safer to blame others and not yourself because it feels good and we always want to feel good. We always want to have dopamine, and that's a survival mechanism thing. We always want to feel safe. So to break that is super hard and it is an ego thing. And to break an ego, I've talked about in other podcasts how much an ego can affect us and could affect our well-being is super, super hard to do. But if you want to keep living that life, if you want to keep complaining with your other teammates about how horrible your coaches and how ridiculous they are and that they make no sense, by all means, please keep living your shitty life. Keep riding the bench, keep feeling like you are a nobody on the team. But if you're somebody that's gonna listen to this podcast and be like, okay, wait, let me reflect on this and let me get some thicker skin and let me stop fucking complaining so that I could have a better fucking life. Then it sounds like you were somebody that I could coach and that I would be loving to coach. And I know that your coach probably loves to coach you right back. So instead of when your coach comes up to you and is coaching you, like let's say that they pull you aside and they're just like, okay, well, it just seems like you really aren't caring out there. And maybe it is gonna seem super personal, right? Like if some if a coach said that to me when I was working really hard in practice one day and they come up to me, they pull me aside, and they're like, Hey, it really looks like you don't care out there today. I would, I would get fucking pissed. But if I'm in the mindset to not be a victim, then I'm gonna say, Okay, let me see why he thinks that. And let me see what I could do to make this conversation better and to kind of ask questions along the way in this conversation to get me to the point where I'm gonna be feeling good again. Always take accountability for something that happens, and it's you're gonna realize that you're gonna build such thicker skin and you're gonna be able to take things a lot better and a lot more. Your capacity is going to grow for the things that coaches are gonna say to you, for the things that other people are gonna say to you, because it feels like control. We always want to have control, and if you're able to just be mature and to actually take in about what and you don't always have to agree, you don't have to agree about what people are saying to you. You don't have to agree that the coach is, you know, his philosophies right, his IQ is the same as yours. That's not what I'm saying. You just don't have to sit there and make excuses and feel sorry for yourself and feel bad and start to hate your coach because you can't take what they're saying. It is so much easier to blame others and to make excuses and to hate your coach when they're trying to tell you something and yell at you the way that you don't want to be yelled at, the way that you don't want to be coached. But if you want to have success, then you are going to have to make this sacrifice where you're going to have to surrender your ego and where you're going to have to be coachable in every aspect. I was really good at talking with the quality of my conversations with my coaches and the way that I communicated rather than the quantity. And I think that that is a super important thing to do. I think that when playing a sport, actually, the quality of things are way better than the quantity because I would be shooting. This is like an example for basketball. If I went out and I was practicing and I was shooting, let's say that I was shooting a thousand shots, but let's say by 500. Shots, my form starts to get sloppy. There is no point in me doing 500 more shots if I'm not going to be there and do 100% effort and make my form as good as I can make it because that practice is actually making me worse. And the quality of which I'm practicing in is not good. Same thing with talking to your coaches, because maybe you're also somebody sitting here like, well, I talk to my coach all the time. What are the the what's the quality of the conversation? How are you communicating with them? Are you just talking to them a lot and like so much quantity? But then think about okay, wait, let me actually get this conversation going. Let me get sometimes it's going to have to be confrontation in order to get somewhere with your coach. And your coach knows that. A coach signs up knowing that they're gonna have to deal with confrontation, they're gonna have to deal with parents, they're gonna have to deal with players having attitude. But this is what I mean by that. Like if you are going to have a conversation with your coach, it's really it's it's very important the way that you approach things because coaches also are very defensive. That is some they also have an ego, they have a program that they're running, they have a certain way that they want to do things. So it does suck that you are being coached by this adult. And sometimes you have to be the more mature person. But it is good to talk not only surface level things and kind of just brush off things that they tell you. Like sometimes a coach is gonna tell you something and you just want to be coachable, maybe, or maybe you just want the conversation to end. So you're gonna be like, okay, okay, okay. And then I just went through this with my client actually, because she's not a very big fan with her coach. And she told me that he came up to her and he was telling her these things. And then she said that she was being very coachable and she was like, okay, okay, okay. And then she goes, and then I was super mad afterwards. And I'm like, that's great that you're coachable, but now you're mad. Like, there was no, you got nowhere with being coachable in that conversation because you just feel like you hate him even more now. But something that you could do um in that moment, that if they are telling you something and you still want to be coachable, you still want to be respectful, you could totally be respectful even when you disagree with them. And this is what I always did with my coaches because there would be a lot of times where, at least uh at the last school that I attended with my last coach, we didn't have the same idea on things, we didn't have the same IQ, but I still respected the hell out of him. So if he were to say something to me where I disagreed with him, I'd be like, okay, why do you think that? And it would just be an open-ended question where I wasn't threatening in any way. And I was just like, okay, no, I hear you. I 100% hear you, but I just want to know why you think that way. And also another question I have, what can I do to make you feel like I'm headed in the right direction? A coach really respects when a player seems like they care. Asking questions is a very good indicator of being somebody that wants to know more and wants to learn more. And it feels like you are giving them power. And when we could feel when we make a coach feel like they have power, they will be very satisfied. But the thing is, you have all the power. You have all the power because you are controlling this whole entire conversation and you are controlling your emotions and your reactions and your feelings. And that is something that I mastered, and it always made me feel better because it does it is upsetting when a coach comes up to you and you disagree with them and maybe it feels like a personal attack, but you want to get to the point where you're not upset. And so that means probably asking them questions and just diving deeper into the conversation and not being scared to have that communication and just being steady the whole time and controlling your emotions and being mature. And if you couldn't tell by all the things that I'm saying, if you are coachable in this way, if you are making efforts, if you are communicating, if you are not just being coachable by just agreeing and then feeling like shit and going and complain, complaining with your teammates or something, and you're actively making efforts for not only for him or her to feel good, but for you to feel good, then that is something that we want to achieve and something that we want in our skill set because it is going to feel like so much freedom. Your coach can make or break your experience. And if you are literally making actions to which you are putting in a lot of effort and care, it's going to be reciprocated and it's going to make you have such a better experience. Again, I really want to emphasize that it is going to be not always this way. I understand that, but I really want you guys to try to not be a victim as much as you can. And that's what I did for the first school that I went to with my abusive coach. I did have a hard year, my freshman year. And then I was like, you know what? I'm not going to be a victim anymore. I'm not going to make any more excuses. And I came back the next year. I got my starting spot. And I'm actually going to make a whole podcast about my experience with that because I think that is very important. I think that's going to touch a lot of people, and it's going to just be a story where you guys could feel seen and heard. But I did try everything in my power to communicate, to show that I cared a lot, to work hard. I didn't make any excuses. I wasn't complaining. I wasn't being negative. I was actively doing mind things, like to help my mental and to help myself physically on the team. I did everything in my power to not be a victim and to just try to be happy in my sport. And I still didn't get the result I was getting. I was okay with that. I was proud of myself. And I think that is the only time. If you have tried your hardest and you're still not getting the experience that you are wanting, then honestly, I am literally here to say that I am sorry. And that honestly, you do not need to be coachable in that circumstance. But again, you guys, if you are trying your hardest, your very, very hardest. And if you just are you just happen to have a coach who's really, really messed up. But even reflecting on that time, even being in that moment where I knew that there was nothing in my control anymore and that I was just living in this hell, I still was like, well, if I just transferred last year, then I wouldn't be here. You know, that is a thought of not being a victim. And another thought could be, well, at least I'm with all of my teammates that I love and I'm making best friends right now, and I will get out of here soon, and I'm just gonna make the most of what I can right now. That's also not being a victim. It's just always trying to be positive and always trying to find positive things, trying to be grateful for things. And I usually do tools in my podcast, but honestly, I think that even though I'm not specifically naming them one by one, these are tools for you guys, like just not being a victim. I literally have written still on my calendar, don't be a victim. It is the most one of the most life-changing things, a quote or a sentence that I live by still. And I read that 10x rule, like the 10x rule book. I read that a few months ago, and it still sticks with me. It helps me throughout my life, and especially in your sport, this is definitely a sentence. Do not be a victim. That is going to help you with so many things. And then I also am telling you guys to just communicate with your coach a quality amount, not a quantity amount, but a quality amount. Am I even saying can I even say a quality amount? Yeah, like in the amount that you are talking to your coach, have that be that could literally be less conversations and better quality than more conversations and surface level quality. The relationships that you have with your coaches are going to make or break your experience. And we are not taught this. And I want to tell you guys this because we it's almost we just want to be there to play our sport. But the thing is that the coach is controlling the team that you're on. You go and play for a certain coach because you like their play style, whatever it is, the reason why you went on a team to play for a certain someone. And that's the thing is that they will have a lot of power. And so if you are able to distribute that power and to communicate with that power, then you are going to have a better experience. You're probably going to have the best experience. You're going to keep loving your sport throughout your whole career, however long you want to play. But that is all that I have for you guys today. Thank you so much for listening. But of course, you're always thanking yourself for listening, taking the time out of your day, out of all of your busy schedules that you guys have. And you sat down, you listened to a podcast to help your mind. That's amazing. You should always be proud of yourself. If you guys really want to be more coached on this subject and it is something that you guys really didn't know that you wanted coaching on, please sign up for one-on-one coaching and I will help you if you need help with confidence, consistency. If you are feeling scared in your sport and you don't want to feel that way anymore, I am here to help you. I want to help you. So please sign up for one-on-one coaching or get a personalized video. And it is on my website. More explanation is on there, but I'm going to end the podcast here. Let's play to be great. Let's play to work hard. Let's play to not give excuses, and let's play to be coachable. Bye.