Happy New Year! I hope your 2016 was a great year and 2017 will be even better. 2016 was a great year for me for a number of reasons but none of it would’ve been possible without the coaches in my life. Whether you realize it or not, if you’re a leader—you ARE a coach. You’re taking your people from one level of performance and coaching them to get to the next level. I believe the greatest role and the one that comes with the most responsibility is the role of coach. It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly. Ever wonder where the term “Coach” originated?
One of the things I discovered when we moved to our new house was that our property backed up to Skyline Farm, a beautiful horse farm in our community. It’s also home to one of the largest horse-drawn carriage museums in the country. You’re probably wondering what’s this have to do with anything? Stick with me, you’re about to find out…
The term coach comes from the Hungarian word kocsi and means “carriage”. It’s named that because the first horse drawn carriage was invented in the village of Kocs (pronounced coach) in Hungary in the 1500’s. Their carriages or coaches transported people and goods between Budapest and Vienna. Later, from the term horse drawn coach came the terms stage coach, railway coach, motor coach, air coach. And, in the 1800’s Oxford University began using the word coach to reference tutors “carrying a student through an exam”. Then in the mid 1800’s the word began being commonly used in similar fashion in athletics.
Their purpose and meaning are synonymous: to transport people and things from where they are to where they want to be. So the word coach we use today in sports and business is a powerful metaphor. A coach is an absolute competitive advantage in that they can help us get us from where we are to where we want to be faster than we can on our own.
I share this with you because thanks to my coaches (more about them next week) 2016 was one of my best years ever. But I won’t spend much time looking back on 2016 because I know I’m capable of so much more and so are you. This quick 30 second video filmed in my driveway explains why…
P.S. Coaches (aka carriages) don’t have rear view mirrors. Coincidence? I think not.