I don’t know about you guys but I have never been so ready for a week to just be over. The last few days have been rough and as easy as it would be to just stay angry, all that’s going to do is keep us in the same place we are now instead of moving us forward. I’ve felt pretty lost this week and while I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I can do in the coming weeks, months, and years, I know that in the interim I’m going to be even more determined to help you guys grow into the leaders we need right now. If all of this has proven anything it’s that we all need to stand up for what we want, deserve, and believe in and not rely on others to do it for us. It starts with us and as coxswains, on our teams, it starts with us.
On Tuesday night I wrote a post on leadership and coxswains that I hope you’ll read and share with your teammates. Being a leader is hard. It’s not easy, it’s not always fun, and it’s not always going to make you popular … but if you uphold the values that are important to your team, hold yourself and others accountable to the standards and goals you’ve set for yourselves, and commit to doing what you can to make things better for those around you, it will earn you respect. Freshman, senior, man, woman, it doesn’t matter – we as coxswains need to step it up in all of those regards because it starts with us.
I want to do what I can to help you because I recognize that if I’m asking you to be better, I have to be better too. It starts with me. So, tell me what you need. Tell me how I can help. What challenges are you facing, what questions do you have, what tools haven’t you got. Let me know so that we can collectively move forward with a goal of doing more and being better, not just for ourselves but for each other. It starts with us.
https://play.spotify.com/user/1241641027/playlist/6Ms3rCma3gsxebUVYLoF8Y