Of the four pillars of our organization: the Body, the Brain, the Heart, and the Soul, I want to focus on the Brain, i.e., being a lifelong learner..being a student of your craft.

Deborah Gray-Young, an ICF accredited coach, commented on what it means to be a student of your craft. She wrote: “To teach is to learn twice” was a mantra of a former spiritual education teacher, Dr. Helen Carry. She would reiterate, time and again, the importance of exhaustive preparation before standing before a class to provide instruction.

Years later, I have translated and repurposed that mantra for my own leadership development work. Every chance I get, I remind my audience to become a student of their craft. It is not enough to have just cursory knowledge. Things change too fast. The quickest way to get left behind is to not keep up with the marketplace or not develop subject matter expertise about something valuable (Gray-Young, 2020).

This week’s posts are coming “live” from San Diego, California, while I’m attending the IEC conference. Why? Because we want to learn how to best serve our families and student-athletes by learning from the Best in this industry.

You must continue to be a student of your craft on the field, understanding the plays and the scheme your coaches are trying to get across.

You must be a student of your craft in the classroom, understanding the knowledge your teacher is trying to convey.

And in your business, organizations need to be students of their craft, constantly learning what’s going on, the nuances, and the growth in their industry.