Tara VanDerveer on Authentic Coaching
b'Tara VanDerveer is an absolute legend in the world of basketball. She\\u2019s a hall-of-famer, she\\u2019s a 5X National Coach of the Year in College Basketball, she\\u2019s won 3 NCAA Division I titles, she\\u2019s been to 13 Final Fours, and she\\u2019s won a gold medal with USA Basketball. Her awards and accolades are up there with just about any college coach, and she\\u2019s the all-time leader in wins in women\\u2019s basketball. However, you\\u2019re going to find out pretty quickly that Tara does not really enjoy talking about herself and her accolades. She loves talking about her teams. She loves talking about the athletes that she\\u2019s had the privilege of coaching. She loves talking about Stanford University, where she is currently the Head Women\\u2019s Basketball Coach. But Tara is the real deal when it comes to humility. She\\u2019s authentic. She\\u2019s somebody who cares deeply about the world and basketball. She genuinely cares about the people she serves, and she really makes it about them.\\n\\xa0\\nTara had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:\\n\\u201cIt really helps my energy during the year, that I can be all-in during the season, when I\\u2019ve had that great time on the lake in the summer\\u201d (7:55).\\n\\u201cWhen you die, no one\\u2019s going to say, \\u2018Do you wish you worked more?\\u2019 I want to wish I\\u2019d played more\\u201d (10:05).\\n\\u201cWork will always be there. You can always come back to it\\u201d (12:00).\\n\\u201cSometimes I think less is better\\u201d (13:00).\\n\\u201cI have to pace myself. You only have so much tread on the tire\\u201d (13:30).\\n\\u201cI want to really pick my spots of what I\\u2019m going to do, how I\\u2019m going to do it, and how well I want to do it\\u201d (14:30).\\n\\u201cI just like being in the gym with our team\\u201d (16:30).\\n\\u201cThe things that keep me grounded are what\\u2019s really fun\\u201d (16:40).\\n\\u201cIf I were in junior high right now, with all the basketball on TV, I\\u2019d probably flunk out. I just love basketball\\u201d (17:40).\\n\\u201cI work hard at taking care of myself\\u201d (17:55).\\n\\u201cI try to do things that are nurturing to me so that I can be effective with our team\\u201d (18:15).\\n\\u201cI don\\u2019t really think about [legacy] at all\\u201d (18:45).\\n\\u201cThe energy at Stanford and the people I meet there, that gives me a lot of juice\\u201d (20:25).\\n\\u201cA college degree is a very valuable thing for women\\u201d (21:45).\\n\\u201cI love coaching the quintessential Stanford student\\u201d (22:10).\\n\\u201cI love the challenge of working at Stanford\\u201d (25:00).\\n\\u201cThe court is our classroom\\u201d (29:00).\\n\\u201cI want to enjoy today\\u201d (31:10).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019m not going to stare in the rearview mirror as I\\u2019m going forwards\\u201d (31:45).\\n\\u201cParenting and coaching are very similar, and they\\u2019re both very similar to gardening. You don\\u2019t just sit there and look at the garden. You water the garden, you weed the garden, you fertilize the garden\\u201d (38:00).\\n\\u201cThe world is bigger than just you\\u201d (39:20).\\n\\u201cThe thing that can really destroy us is greed\\u201d (42:00).\\n\\u201cI like it when our team is happy for other people\\u2019s success\\u201d (42:05).\\n\\u201cI want our players to love playing at Stanford and love playing for me\\u201d (55:00).\\n\\u201cI can look in the mirror and be happy with being myself\\u2026 I can\\u2019t try to be someone else\\u201d (56:35).\\n\\u201cI\\u2019m a copier by nature, which I\\u2019m proud of\\u201d (56:55).\\n\\u201cBeing a person takes work\\u201d (1:00:10).\\n\\u201cMy job is to help them be the best they can be\\u201d (1:02:30).\\n\\xa0\\nThank you so much to Tara for coming on the podcast!\\nI wrote a book called \\u201cShift Your Mind\\u201d that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter:\\xa0@brianlevenson\\xa0or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.\\nThanks for listening.'