With the new season of Ted Lasso out, which I consider one of the best shows in the past decade, it got me thinking about coaching. I guess I never really stop thinking about coaching. Over the summer, I had a month's worth of sports summer camps. Now I’ve started coaching my son's U8 soccer team. Next week, our volleyball and flag football teams return to school to begin practice before the school year starts because we are starting so late (after Labor Day) that we actually have games the first day we get back! We can’t have them playing their first game without even one practice!
Back to Ted Lasso. He is the coach that every single one of us wishes we had. If I were trying to make a coaching archetype, the traits I admire most about Ted are his patience, his positive attitude, and his unshakable faith in his players, even when they are not at their best. Basically, he is the opposite of a Bobby Knight-style coach, who, if you don’t know who this is, I’m sure you can find a compilation of him throwing chairs on the basketball court in defiance of the refs. It’s funny and strange that he has an undying fan base group that thinks his method was worth it because he won three national titles. However, a completely different approach by the legendary John Wooden (who Ted Lasso is partly based on) won ten NCAA championships.
There may be a legitimate argument for the old-school, authoritative style of coaching. Those coaches emphasized accountability, discipline, and personal responsibility, and many of them achieved extraordinary competitive success. But I think there is an important distinction between accountability and humiliation. A player can be held to an extremely high standard without sacrificing their dignity. The Zen approach from Wooden, and what I'd say about Phil Jackson of the Bulls Dynasty, can also be successful without killing character. Jackson famously let Dennis Rodman have more freedom than a traditional coach would allow, but by trusting Rodman, he got in return the hardest-working defender in NBA history.
Thinking about coaching also has me thinking about how much coaching and parenting have in common. One aspect I can’t help thinking about is the ego of the parent and the coach. Specifically, how do we invest in our child’s success without making their success about us? Because this is one of the hardest parts of working with children. We invest so much in them. We teach them, encourage them, correct them, support them, challenge them, and celebrate them. When they succeed, we feel proud. When they struggle, we worry. When they fail, we feel like we have failed with them. Or even more nefarious, that we ourselves have failed, and it’s not even about the child anymore.
How does this happen where our child’s grades, athletic accomplishments, behavior, or achievements become our own? Why does a winning season prove that we are a good coach and a losing season means that we, the coach, are a loser? The hard truth is that good parenting can dramatically affect a child's development, just as good coaching can completely transform a team. We shouldn't pretend that our influence is insignificant. The environment we create matters. The expectations we establish matter. The lessons we teach matter. The opportunities we provide matter. A child who grows up with adults who believe in them, challenge them, hold them accountable, and give them room to become independent will have a very different experience from a child who doesn't have those things. Likewise, a team with a coach who establishes trust, teaches effectively, creates a positive culture, and holds players to high standards can become something very different from the team that walks into the season.
So how do we reconcile those two ideas? How can we acknowledge that our influence is enormous while also recognizing that the outcome doesn't belong to us? I think the answer is found in one of the most important ideas in Montessori education: the adult is there to prepare the child by preparing the environment and themselves, the teacher (or, in this case, the parent/coach). From the prepared environment, we constantly observe. We decide when to introduce something new, give room for exploration and guidance, set boundaries and expectations, and challenge them to keep developing. Then we observe again and repeat. The ultimate goal is that our children develop independence, confidence, and problem-solving skills.
This sounds like good teaching. But it sounds like good parenting. Good coaching should work the same way. We teach skills, constantly improving and refining them. We develop strategies to promote our strengths and hide our weaknesses. We build a team culture that responds to adversity by preparing players for situations they are likely to encounter in competition. In this environment, players feel safe enough to make mistakes and challenged enough to build confidence in their abilities.
As the coach, once the game begins, we can’t play for them. As a parent, there comes a point when we have to recognize that our child's decisions are ultimately their own. As a teacher, there comes a point when the student has to continue learning without us directing every step. This is where we see whether we have prepared them enough to be independent, confident, and able to use their problem-solving skills. We've all seen the coach who barks commands from the sidelines for every play, the helicopter parent who micromanages their child, and the teacher who practically does the child’s work for them. In every case, we get the instant result we want at the expense of the child's future ability. Our instant success comes at the expense of the child learning how to play the game or live life on their own.
However, there's tension around control. We're not throwing them to the wolves, but we have to get comfortable letting them struggle. Sometimes that struggle will result in failure, and sometimes it won't. The important part is that we don't automatically remove every obstacle simply because we are uncomfortable watching them experience difficulty. If we constantly intervene, we can accidentally teach them that they can’t handle things without us.
This doesn't mean we remove accountability. In fact, I think the opposite is true. An egoless adult can hold a child to a very high standard because the standard isn't about proving the adult's authority. Sometimes the pattern we observe tells us that a child needs more freedom. Sometimes it tells us that they need more structure. Sometimes they need another opportunity, and sometimes they need a firm boundary. The challenge is telling the difference.
We must reframe our concept of failure. The traditional understanding of failure is that you get one chance, and if it doesn’t work, that’s it, game over. However, failure should be synonymous with learning, and that can only happen if we exercise our powers of observation. Instead of seeing failure, we look at how they failed, and this gives us a roadmap for improvement. We see where the deficiency is, and we make a game plan to improve on that. This isn't a static, one-time situation, but an ongoing process that leads to the growth we are looking for. We are still very much involved, but we are not the product. The child is both the developer and the product under development, while the adult is quality assurance. The adult isn't building the child. The child is doing the building. The adult observes the result, identifies what isn't working, and helps create the conditions for the child to make the next iteration. QA doesn't write the code. And that's precisely the point. A parent, coach, or teacher can observe the "bug," identify the pattern, provide information, adjust the environment, or suggest a different approach. But the child has to do the developmental work. Failure is not evidence that the adult failed. It is feedback that gives the child information about what to try next.
One of the most important skills a coach, teacher, and parent can develop is pattern recognition. We have to notice when something has changed, recognize that the current approach isn't working, and determine what kind of response is needed. The adult may not always need to intervene, but they always need to pay attention. A coach might notice that the other team has figured out their defensive strategy. The players are struggling, the same pattern keeps repeating, and something needs to change. The coach calls a timeout, not because the players are failing as people, but because the current strategy isn't producing the desired result. The coach observes the pattern, adjusts, and puts the players back in a position to solve the problem. A Montessori teacher does something very similar. A child who has suddenly begun squinting, losing their place while reading, or avoiding certain work may not need another lesson or more repetition. Perhaps they need glasses. Perhaps the material needs to be changed. Perhaps they need a different kind of help. The teacher's responsibility is to observe the child closely enough to recognize that what looks like a lack of effort may actually be information telling us that something about the environment or approach needs to change.
This is another reason why removing ego is so important. If the coach sees every mistake as a reflection of their coaching, the teacher sees every struggle as a reflection of their teaching, or the parent sees every behavioral challenge as a reflection of their parenting, observation can quickly turn into judgment. We stop asking, "What is this telling me?" and start asking, "What am I doing wrong?" or even worse “What is wrong with them?”
Those are very different questions. The first leads to curiosity and problem solving. The second leads to ego and self-worth. The third leads to blame and anger. What they all have in common is that we cannot control the child. What we can control is our response: recognize what is happening, provide appropriate support, and give the child the opportunity to take the next step. If I see my child's mistake as my failure, I'm likely to immediately fix it. If I see the mistake as information the child can use, I can resist the urge to take the problem away from them.
Put this in the context of the Nature vs. Nurture debate. It’s always interesting to see an individual ultimately succeed when it seemed like everything was against them and their environment didn't support them. We are also fascinated by the person who seemingly was made to do what they do, almost like they grew in a lab with precise instructions on how to make individual X. It is tempting for adults to believe that if we create the right environment, provide the right lessons, and give the right opportunities, we can produce a particular outcome. But children aren't products. Their temperament, interests, abilities, experiences, relationships, choices, and environments all interact in ways that we cannot completely predict or control. We influence the child, but we do not create the child. That distinction is important because it gives us both responsibility and humility. We are responsible for the environment we provide, but we have to accept that the person who emerges from that environment ultimately has a degree of agency that belongs to them. So, our ultimate influence and responsibility comes down to preparation. But preparation and control are not the same thing. A coach can prepare a team for a difficult opponent but cannot guarantee a victory. A parent can teach a child how to handle disappointment but cannot prevent them from experiencing it. A teacher can provide a carefully prepared environment but cannot force a child to learn. We can create the conditions for growth, but we cannot do the growing for them. So, if our job is preparation, our definition of success needs to change. Success needs to be defined by outcomes that don’t require us to take credit for them. For example, did they become better decision-makers and problem solvers? How did they handle adversity and disappointment? Did they gain confidence and independence?
This is the paradox of “traditional” success. We usually judge success on things like wins and losses, grades, or achievements. This also means we instantly judge a loss or bad grade as failure. However, each of those things is fleeting and momentary. But if we improve intangibles like problem-solving or becoming a better teammate and learn from mistakes, we give ourselves a better chance of success tomorrow. If we get better at things like handling adversity or gaining independence, “traditional success” is more likely, but never guaranteed. The funny thing is the wins and losses are not the point, but the side effect. The point is learning and improvement.
There is a famous Montessori quote, “The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, 'The children are now working as if I did not exist.’” This is one of the things I love about the Montessori approach. The ultimate goal isn't to create a child who is exceptionally good at following an adult's instructions. It is to help create a person who can think, choose, problem-solve, and act independently. The adult's role is incredibly important, but the adult is ultimately working toward becoming less necessary. I think coaches should strive for the same thing. I’ve heard plenty of times that the ultimate sign of success is that our adult kids are not living in our basement anymore.
There is a saying: "The tighter you squeeze a handful of sand, the faster it runs through your fingers." So another paradox emerges in how we parent, coach, and teach. Our influence can actually grow when our ego shrinks. When we stop needing to prove that we are the reason for a child's success, we can focus more clearly on what that child actually needs. When a coach stops worrying about whether a team makes them look good, they can make better decisions for the development of their players. When a parent stops viewing their child's accomplishments as a reflection of themselves, they can give their child more freedom to become the person they are meant to be.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't celebrate their successes. We absolutely should. I am proud when my athletes accomplish something they have worked hard for. Parents should be proud of their children. Coaches should be proud of their teams. There is nothing wrong with that. The distinction is between being proud of them and needing their success to validate us. That may be one of the most important lessons we can learn as adults working with children. We are not the outcome. We are the preparation. We create the environment. Our job was never to guarantee that they would succeed. Our job is to prepare them well enough that, when the challenge comes, they are ready to try, and then we have to trust them enough to let them take it from there.
This may be Ted Lasso's greatest attribute, and it's why I love that show so much. He is the epitome of the egoless coach. It’s not about him. It was never about him. Yet, he is singularly one of the most captivating and important characters in the show, even though he goes out of his way to make sure it’s not about him, but the team. The ability to care about my teams and not make the result about me is still a constant struggle, and one I will never completely escape. And maybe that is the point.
Removing our ego isn't something we accomplish once and check off the list. It is something we practice every time we choose curiosity over judgment, preparation over control, and the child's development over our own need to be right. But knowing that means I can embrace that part of myself and move forward with the knowledge that my focus must be on the team's growth. Perfect will not be the enemy of good, but my good must get better.