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The One Person Who Can Help You Reach the Top

If you are going to be great in any area of your life, you need help. Finding someone to teach, guide and support you is essential to your success.

If you are going to be great in any area of your life, you need help.

Maybe you want to become a violinist in a top orchestra. Maybe you want to become an outstanding public speaker. Maybe you want to compete for awards in marathons, or you want to be a great parent to your children.

Whatever your big goal is, you can’t achieve it alone. You need a mentor, a coach, an instructor or trainer, to help you improve and reach the top.

Finding someone to teach you, to guide and support you isn’t always easy, but it’s essential to your success.

Following in the footsteps of her mother, Ronda Rousey took up judo as a child. Training in a judo gym in her California hometown, she quickly became a force in local tournaments.

Ronda didn’t dream of simply winning matches in local competitions. She wanted to be an Olympic champion. She knew she needed to leave her hometown coach to learn from the best trainers in the sport.

Ronda had been training with her coach, Trace Nishiyama, since she was 11. While he was among the best at teaching drop shoulder throws, he recognized that some coaches knew other moves better than he did. He encouraged Ronda to learn from them too.

By the time she was 16 years old, Ronda knew she had to find a world-class coach. She wanted to train in Boston with Jim Pedro, who trained his son to become a world champion. Ronda’s mom agreed with the change.

Ronda walked into her gym and explained to Trace that she was leaving and moving to Boston to train. By the end of the conversation, she was in tears.

Trace put his arm around her and simply responded, “You got to go to grow, kid.”

If you’re just starting out, it might be acceptable to hire someone to teach you the basics. Trying to lose a few pounds or get a little stronger? A trainer in your gym might be fine. Never played the violin? A performer in a local college orchestra can help.

At a certain point, though, you will need to find people who can get you to the top in whatever field you want to excel. You need a coach who can guide you to become the best, one who has done it before.

Don’t be afraid of seeking out the best mentors, coaches or trainers. And don’t worry about leaving your former trainers behind. Sometimes, you’ve got to go to grow.

Bob Bowman might be one of the best coaches in all of sports. He took swimmer Michael Phelps at 11 years old, coached him for over 18 years, and helped him to win 23 Olympic gold medals.

Bowman insists that with any goal you want to pursue, you need a coach who can both instruct and inspire you. That coach or mentor must want you to succeed and then give you the support and feedback you need.

Bob stresses that your coach must be honest with you. It does you little good if you’re working to get in elite shape for a race if he lets you do the exercises with poor form or with half effort. Instead of telling you “Great job” for less than your best effort, he needs to hold you accountable and make you do it again and again until you do it correctly.

Finally, that coach, trainer or mentor needs to believe in you. He or she must see your potential to become great even if you doubt that potential. Your coach must help you develop confidence and a belief in yourself.

Bowman calls it his “three In’s” of coaching: instruction, inspiration, and involvement.

Wherever you are on your journey toward your big vision, find a mentor, advisor, trainer or coach who will offer you all three — instruction, inspiration and involvement.

When it comes to a coach who believes in you, there aren’t many better examples than Mike Tyson and Cus D’Amato.

Mike Tyson grew up in Brooklynamid tough circumstances. He got involved with the wrong crowd and was arrested many times for robbery and other offenses. He spent a good amount of time in juvenile detention.

While living at Elmwood, a home for troubled children, young Tyson watched some of the other boys there work with a boxing trainer, Mr. Stewart. Tyson immediately wanted to try it. He cleaned up his act to gain the opportunity to work with Mr. Stewart at the facility. After several sessions, that trainer took Mike to work with Cus D’Amato.

While Mike was certainly raw, Cus immediately recognized Tyson’s potential greatness. He invited Mike to live and train with him.

Cus didn’t just train Mike in a physical sense — the techniques and movements of boxing. Cus taught him how to think. He gave Tyson affirmations to repeat to himself throughout the day. “The best fighter in the world. Nobody can beat me. The best fighter in the world. Nobody can beat me.” He had Mike visualize fights and see himself doing everything well, and winning, in his mind.

Cus develop confidence in Mike that the young fighter never had in himself before working with him.

Tyson worked extra hard to show Cus what that support and belief meant to him. After his daily coaching sessions, which involved a lot of talk aimed to help Mike believe he could become a champion boxer, Tyson would be so energized that he would immediately start running, doing sit-ups, or shadowboxing. Filled with Cus’s love, young Mike would cry throughout the extra training.

Find a coach who makes you reach for the stars, one who pushes you toward goals far beyond any you could have chosen on your own. Look for a mentor who truly believes you can achieve it one day and who helps you develop the confidence in yourself to pursue it without giving up.

Someone who teaches you skills in the individual steps required to develop your ability in that field is great. Someone who can help you develop the mental and emotional traits to get there is even more important.

No matter how good you are, you can always improve.

We look at the MVP of the championship team or the CEO of the top company in the industry and think they’re set. They have mastered their fields and their skills. They don’t need to get better. They don’t need coaches or mentors.

But the opposite is true. They have coaches. They often have the best coaches.

When Tony Dungy was hired as the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, he inherited a team that was fairly successful before he got there. In fact, the Colts had Peyton Manning at quarterback, arguably one of the best at his position in the NFL.

Dungy didn’t know how Manning would react to having a new coach with a new philosophy. He knew that he had to meet with the team’s star player and get on the same page. But Peyton beat him to it.

Manning asked to meet with Dungy. As they sat down in the coach’s office, Peyton explained, “Coach, I’m glad you’re here. I want to be coached. I want to win. I want you to treat me like any other player and teach me what I need to do because I want us to win.”

Understand that in any field, with any goal, you can always grow. You can always improve. You have to get better.

After all, if you aren’t growing, if you aren’t improving, you’re falling behind. You’re getting worse.

A top mentor or coach will help you continue to improve. Sure, you might have to find more expensive, more sought-out coaches or trainers. You might have to travel to work with them. But you must always seek to grow. Your coach can help you do it.

If you don’t know who the best mentor or coach is for you, look to see who is the best at what they do in that field. Look for someone who has already reached the top in your profession. Then reach out and ask to work with that person.

When Dale Brown got the head basketball coaching position at LSU, he knew he needed to become not just a great basketball coach, but also a public speaker and entertainer. He sought out Lawrence Welk, who had grown up in North Dakota but became a TV star. For speaking, he studied Bob Richards, a top public speaker in the 1970s. He traveled to meet them both and learned how they became great in their professions.

For basketball, Dale reached out to John Wooden, the UCLA coach who won 10 national championships in a 12-year period.

Brown called Wooden, who invited him to spend five days with him in Los Angeles. Brown prepared for weeks, writing down questions and ideas. Wooden filled him with knowledge that would last a lifetime.

Likewise, current University of North Carolina coach Roy Williams wanted to learn from Coach Wooden. He started by reading all of Wooden’s books. He read every article published about Wooden. If he ever saw one of Wooden’s former players at a coaching clinic or camp, he would ask that player for insight into what Wooden taught.

Williams learned from John Wooden for years without actually meeting him.

Eventually Roy Williams did meet the legendary coach, and the two became good friends. Even though they didn’t talk often, Wooden served as a mentor for Roy for decades.

Sometimes just being in the presence of a great teacher can influence and guide you. Andy Hill was a player on John Wooden’s UCLA teams, but he rarely played. He was fairly bitter about it during his years with the Bruins.

Eventually Hill entered the entertainment industry. He ultimately became president of CBS Productions. One day, while dealing with a difficult director and crew filming the pilot episode of “Touched by an Angel,” Andy recognized that almost every trait that helped them reach the top of CBS, he had learned from Coach Wooden.

Hill never sought out Wooden or specifically asked for instructions. He just showed up to practice every day, listened, and worked.

Kevin Costner, one of the biggest stars in Hollywood over the last few decades, describes a similar story about the person who had the greatest influence on his life.

Augie Garrido was the baseball coach at Cal State Fullerton while Costner was there. Augie became one of the greatest college baseball coaches ever, having won 5 College World Series titles.

Costner wasn’t a player on Augie’s Fullerton teams. He only attended the games — at least at first — because his best friend was on the team. After a few games, Costner only went to listen to the coach and his inspirational messages for his players.

He listened to Garrido as he instructed and inspired each player.

Absorb everything you can from the greats in your field. Watch their speeches on YouTube. Read their books. Take their online classes.

Or go one step further and reach out to them. Sit in on their class. Travel across the country to observe them in action. Take them to lunch or dinner. Ask for advice, wisdom and guidance. Try to keep in touch and become friends.

Hopefully you have seen that mentoring can take many forms. More importantly, recognize that a great coach or mentor can help you become great.

Find someone who can not only teach you but also push you to continually improve. Find someone who supports you, who believes in you. And find someone who helps you believe in yourself.

That is the coach or mentor for you. That person can help you become a champion in sports, business and life.

I’ve created a checklist that will help you get more done, focus on what matters most, and succeed in every aspect of your life, every single day. If you adopt these qualities, your career and life will improve immediately.

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