Constantly Thinking About Others (Bot9 #302)

We think about ourselves a lot. One of my favorites pieces of advice to give young people is to keep this fact in mind. When they’re worried about what other people are thinking about them or about something they did, I remind them that those people are thinking about themselves. Those other people have already forgotten whatever it is and started focusing on themselves.

This is our human nature. To think of ourselves. It’s what makes the teachings of Jesus so great and clear. His teachings aren’t about us, but about whether or not we’re willing to live supernaturally and focus on others. Jesus shares the highest form of love in John 15:12-17:

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”

These verses have led me to think a lot about how much we focus on ourselves in coaching and leadership. When we ask things of the players on our team, is what we’re asking about us or about them? Of course there is a greater good, something bigger than every individual player, but is the coach the sole proprietor of that thing or do the players have some insight to provide as to how the “team” is defined? Asked a different way, are the players or people we lead the gift, or is the coach?

I’ve swung this pendulum as far away from “me” as possible. We pay as much, if not more, attention to rest, recovery, physical therapy, and outside training than we do to grinding out practices as I used to define them. We throw less, swing less, and run less than we ever have before in order to attempt to accomplish the goal of our players being at 100% physically for every game. We are very careful about pitch counts and giving an abundance of rest in between outings for our pitchers. I go to the field every day having no idea if what we’re trying will work in terms of wins and losses. All I know, in this moment, is that the players know I truly have their best interests in mind and heart.

Humility is important to me and I hope to continue to grow in this area for the rest of my life. A simple definition of humility I once heard was simply this. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but it is thinking of yourself less. No matter how this season ends, I know I’ve grown. I hope others will join me in coaching and leading people fully focused on others and not themselves.