The Basketball Podcast: EP100 Jen and Chris Oliver on Life Lessons

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Jen and Chris Oliver Quotes:

Chris Oliver: “Every generation of coaches thinks that the players are different than their generation . . it brings up something that’s really important: . . don’t generalize. For example, kids not going to play pick-up . . meanwhile, we’re the reason they don’t play pick-up . .”

Jen: “They’re probably feeling what I felt . . it’s a situation where . . you’re put in a box and you are supposed to feel this certain way . . there’s expectation when that is put on you instead of chosen.”

Chris Oliver: “We want to acknowledge where it [a drill, technique, knowledge] came from, we want to honor where it came from . . you can adopt this, but I prefer that you adapt it because that’s me giving something to you that you make your own or you make better.”

Chris Oliver: “It’s been the biggest gift of the Basketball Immersion community and the Basketball Podcast . . is just giving stuff to coaches and then . . they had a better idea or they added to it and then I become a better coach, and that’s the whole point of this sharing community.”

Jen: “Things like blocked and random practice . . My coaches, bless them and their patience, never knew who they were sometimes going to get in a game but they knew who they were going to get in practice . .”

Chris Oliver: “The way you practiced wasn’t the same as the way you played the game . . The other part is . . that people expect to be taught the way they’re used to being taught . . there’s still a resistance to what I’m saying which is to coach the game by playing the game . .”

Jen: “It was so intimidating to me. I think at some level I knew that was what I needed to do to really be good and instead I wanted to go to the gym and take shots because that felt safe and comfortable . . doing things that were against a defender didn’t feel comfortable . .”

Chris Oliver: “What also struck me through all these conversations, it seems to me a separator between good and great coaches is what I would call ‘after care.’ . . these moments where you can create the right mindset, the right environment, the right emotional fitness for players . .”

Jen: “The word ‘fitness’ in general, I like to think of as a certain level of strength . . a measure of someone’s fitness often is not necessarily how hard they can go but how fast they can recover . . is your body able to physically recover from working out hard . . if I’m pushed in some direction [emotionally] am I able to recover back . .”

Jen: “[When] you get into what’s really your core value or what’s the core decision you need to make . . you’re going to be aligned and centered in what you really stand for . .”

Chris: “And these are learned behaviors . . I think that’s sometimes lost when we talk about mental skills or psychology . . we can learn this . .”

Chris: “As coaches we’re not very good at celebrating small victories. We don’t celebrate enough with our players . . we don’t celebrate enough with ourselves, with our families.”

Jen: “Being open to learning is the way to honor each other.”

Chris: “Don’t coach it out of them. We spend so much time as coaches coaching things out of players rather than honoring them. Now, they have to fit within our non-negotiables but . . sometimes players just have better solutions . . I’m not saying, don’t coach it, but what I mean by coaching is inform it, guide it, enhance it, teach when to apply it . .”

Jen: “When we introduce ourselves to someone we go on a long diatribe about something or we just don’t really interest them in any way whether it’s online, our posts, our videos. . so use the first 10 seconds when you introduce yourself . . say something to someone that is of interest to them, make them the person that you’re talking about or who you want to help or be . .”

Chris: “You don’t know how someone’s going to internalize things if you aren’t specific about your feedback . . when we’re not very specific and very actionable with our feedback then things get lost . .”

Chris: “My view . . how to do and to be able to provide feedback is . . ‘keep and add’ . . keep doing something, add this. So, you’re giving me something that I’m doing well and then you’re telling me something I can improve . . ‘keep and add’ has become a part of my coaching lexicon, that’s been the most important thing that I’ve added over the last few years.”

Chris: “We talked a little bit about me starting Basketball Immersion and one of the things that came through to me is this concept of replacing compliance with curiosity . . so much of coaching is doing it the way . . you were taught . . What I tried to create with Basketball Immersion was basically an outlet for curiosity.”

Chris: “How have we sustained a 10+ year marriage and 14+ year relationship with this coaching life? . . No matter what, it’s an imbalance of time. I’m going to spend way more time in-season with my team than I am with my family. So how do I make sure that I make that time count? . .”

Jen: “I truly believe quality time trumps quantity, anyway . . we always have so much respect and excitement to see each other because we didn’t have that much time together . . that allowed us to be very intentional with our time and be present and to choose to do certain things . .”

Chris: “And coming back to the feedback, just how many coaches and spouses either way don’t communicate truly what they need. It’s scary to communicate openly and honestly . . we’re probably better at telling our players openly and honestly what needs to be present for our relationship to succeed versus our spouse or our significant other.”

Jen: “The greatest thing we can do as coaches or humans is let our ego hang out in the back seat but not drive the car.”

Jen and Chris Oliver Breakdown:

1:00 – Introduction
3:00 – Not Generalizing
7:00 – Adapt or Adopt
10:00 – Learnings from the Past that Improve Her Game
12:30 – After care and Emotional fitness
15:30 – Helping Players with Mental Recovery
17:00 – Techniques to get back to the Center
21:00 – Learning the Technique
23:30 – Competitiveness
27:30 – I Love Coaching
29:30 – Public Identity
31:30 – Honor Someone
36:00 – Origin of the Podcast
40:00 – Living a Life of Servitude
43:00 – Importance of Building Relationship with the Players
46:00 – Connecting at the Heart level
48:30 – 10-second Pitch Idea
52:00 – Sandwich Approach
54:00 – Keep and Add
55:00 – Communication and Feedback
57:00 – Replacing Compliance with Curiosity
59:00 – Coaching and Relationships
1:01:00 – Weaknesses become Strengths
1:06:00 – The Story I’m Telling Myself
1:07:30 – Concept of Holding Space
1:10:00 – Conclusion

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