Install Day 3: Coachability: Listen, Learn, & Get Better

Let me make something crystal clear, if you can’t own your own mistakes, you sure as hell can’t lead anybody else. That’s not just a football truth, that’s a life truth. I’ve played with All-Americans, backed up Hall of Famers, and coached some freakish athletes. The ones who truly got better? They took responsibility for every move they made, good, bad, or ugly.

The best players don’t make excuses. They don’t blame the weather, the scheme, or the guy lined up next to them. They own it. They say, “That was on me. I’ll get it fixed.” You know how rare that is? Rare enough to make you a leader the second you start doing it. Weak players point fingers. Real ones point thumbs.

Here’s the first step to becoming coachable: listen. When a coach is talking, your mouth better be closed, your eyes up, and your attention locked in like your job depends on it, because it does. Don’t be that dude whispering to your buddy or scrolling your phone during install. That’s disrespect. If you don’t understand something, ask. Ask loud. Ask proud. That kind of courage is contagious. It gives the next guy permission to get better too.

And I’ll just say it while we’re being real, everything you do communicates something. Fix your face and fix your posture. Body language tells the truth when your mouth won’t. You slouch, roll your eyes, act like a know-it-all? Yeah, the whole team sees it. And it spreads. But when you sit up, stay engaged, nod your head? That spreads too. That builds trust. Coachable athletes choose to carry themselves like pros, even when they’re getting chewed out.

Let me tell you something else, failure isn’t your identity unless you let it be. If you pout every time you mess up, congrats, you just chose to stay average. The best athletes I’ve ever known don’t just tolerate failure, they chase it. They lean into it. Because they know failure ain’t a dead end, it’s a detour. It’s a damn good teacher, if you’re willing to listen.

You want to be elite? Ask for feedback. Don’t wait for it. Go to your coach and say, “What can I fix?” Most players don’t have the guts to ask that because they’re scared of what they’ll hear. But great ones? They want the truth, even when it hurts. That’s how you get better. That’s how you grow. Avoiding criticism doesn’t make you tough. It makes you replaceable.

I don’t care if you’re the best player on the field today, you sure as hell better learn to drop your ego and realize you’re still just a small fish in a tiny pond. Complacency can put your butt on the bench tomorrow. Stay hungry. Stay humble. You start thinking you’ve got it all figured out? That’s the moment you start falling behind.

Now let’s talk about handling criticism like a pro. Not every piece of feedback is gonna be perfect. That’s life. But if you get butt-hurt every time someone tells you the truth, you’re gonna cap your potential real quick. Take what’s useful, toss what’s not, and keep it moving.

Finally, execute, no matter what you think. You love the game plan? Good. You hate it? Doesn’t matter. Your job is to do your job. Period. Being coachable means respecting the process and the people running it. Winners find ways to win within the system. Whiners? They find reasons not to.

Bottom line, coachability isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being honest. Being open. Being obsessed with getting better.  So be humble enough to recognize you’re not that good, be smart enough to know your coaches want what’s best for you, and be man enough to get coached hard and not let it faze you. 

Go be Coachable! Every. Damn. Day.