Sharing a story

Welcome back to another week in my life! This week is fun because I will be a guest on a podcast and though it makes me a little nervous- I love sharing my journey with a new audience.

Some coaches have reached out to me after I appeared on a podcast and I LOVE the conversations that come after it. Since a podcast generally isn’t a live filming where everyone gets to ask questions on the spot, I love the connections I’m able to make afterwards with different people who may share a similar story.

I will keep you guys updated for when the episode drops, but I appreciate y’all for continuing to support me and this newsletter week after week.

Gaining Mutual Respect

I generally fill this section with an interesting tweet or a good book to give everyone some insight or a possible resource.

This week it’s my own tweet. Because I feel like if you haven’t seen it, as a female coach, you may need to.

I think we often get on social media or look at other coaches' pages and think they have it all figured out and that their athletes love them and all is good. When I actually think that is far from the truth.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my athletes hate me (most of the time), but it is definitely not guaranteed that they're all going to like me or trust me right away, and some of them maybe not at all.

I believe I shared with you guys that I started training a new soccer group 4-5 weeks ago and it is a large group of boys… high school boys. Which surprisingly is usually a fairly easy demographic for me to work with.

There’s always a few athletes that I can tell are not bought into me, and that’s ok. It doesn’t change my training or make me feel any different. But there was one particular kid in this group that I could pinpoint just blatantly did not care what I had to say.

He came up to me after our last training session and asked if he could talk to me for a minute. He told me flat out he was sorry for slacking off the last few weeks and that he did not take me seriously. When I asked him why he didn't he told me that originally, it was because I was a girl.

This didn’t surprise me or upset me, I told him I understood that. He then mentioned that he lived 45 minutes away and the practices are long and his drive is long so by the time it got to my training he was tired and thought it was a waste of time.

He said he was telling me all of this because he sincerely apologizes for not respecting what I was doing here when “you really know what you’re talking about” and have made him a better athlete in a short amount of time.

He saw the improvements he has made in his speed and is embarrassed by how he has acted. MUTUAL RESPECT WAS PAID WITH THIS YOUNG MAN!

I tell y'all this story only because trust within athletes doesn’t start right away and it isn’t ever guaranteed. That doesn’t mean you change up your program or what you preach- you continue working hard and the respect should come with the territory.

Quote of the week

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” - Michael Jordan

Appreciate y’all,

Cici

See you again next week!

In the meantime, here are 3 ways you can stay tapped in:

1. Get access to more free game here.

2. Join a group of badass women here.

Click the link below to apply 20% off your order with code CICIMURRAY. I’m telling y’all, it has literally changed the tone for my day.

https://strongcoffeecompany.com/?ref=Qs92GFc6gn9Q3e