 What are you going to do? Create your own training plan. We're all in different situations, but we all need to improve and we need to be organized. So write down your training plan for the next seven days. What are you going to do? Pause, move forward. Let's go. Number six, focus on relationships. So I need you to understand this. Stop saying that. But seriously, I want you to understand all these things. Focus on relationships. Your attitude is more important than your ability. And maybe before we get into that, I should just like. I should elaborate on what I mean by that focus on your relationships, especially for me as a coach. This coming more and more important, but even as a player, you understand. You're playing on a team right now, but the people that you're playing with, you might know them for the rest of your life or in the future, they might have the opera. They might have the ability to give you an opportunity. The coach you're working with right now, maybe he knows someone who knows someone. And if he doesn't like you or he doesn't like your attitude, he's not going to help you. So when I'm going into situations, especially now as a coach, if I interact with one of my players, I'm trying to elevate them. I'm not just telling them how to do a drill. I'm telling them how to be a better person. I'm trying to build a stronger connection with them. I'm trying to elevate their soul. And that's some deep stuff right there, but that's the truth. If I'm talking to you, if you're part of my team, you're part of my family. If you're my teammate, you're my brother. You know what I mean? So I'm not going to talk. For me, I don't like talking negatively. I know with some people that we're joking around. It's okay to make jokes, but especially young kids, they're very cruel and mean and they say things. And if I'm not mentally strong, that might affect me for the rest of my life. So if you're communicating with your teammates, I want you to motivate them. I want you to lift them up. I want you to build stronger relationships. This is a brotherhood. This is a family. If you're a female player, these are your sisters. Do you know what I mean? Okay, it's about building strong relationships because as we'll go into it later slide, this goes much more than sport. It goes deeper than sport. This could give you a business connection in the future. They could introduce you to your spouse. Whatever. It's so much more than sport. You need to focus on building relationships. And if we have a stronger relationship, you and I as teammates, we're going to play better on the field. If I have a stronger relationship with my coach, he's going to give me more opportunity even if my ability is not there. Okay, so I want you to just think about that idea. If I'm interacting with someone, coach, teammate, referee, I'm trying to build a better relationship with you not because I'm trying to play some mind tricks on you because that's just going to serve me in the future. And it's a good skill to have the ability to make friends wherever you go. Your attitude is more important than your ability. So especially as a coach, I'm judging you not on just what you do with your feet. It's how you conduct yourself as an individual. You need to learn this from a young age. If I come into a new team and number one, I'm shy, I don't look at anyone. I don't talk to anyone. Someone shakes my hand. I have a weak handshake. I don't interact well with other people. I don't care what you do on the field. If you can't be a team player, if you can't come into this team and be part of this team and communicate with your teammates, I don't want you in my team. Okay, so I look at attitude. I look at attitude a lot and coaches look at attitude. You need to understand this. It's not just about ability. It's about your attitude. Your attitude determines your altitude. Your attitude determines how far you go in this game, how far you go in life. Okay, but this is more about professionalism and relationships and conducting yourself. Be professional even if you're not trying to be one. So show up on time. Don't be late. Show up on time. Dress properly. Wear the right gear. Be prepared. Have your bag packed. Do you have water bottle? Do you have all the things that you need? Your shin pads, your player card. I don't know whatever you need. Do you like having your supplements? Make sure you have all that stuff. Be professional. You don't want to be asking other people for tape and all these things. You want to come ready. You want to be organized. You want to be professional. Communicate respectfully, especially as you become an adult if you're still playing. But even when you're younger, maybe your parents are doing most of communication. But if the manager sends out an email saying, hey, can you respond to this by today? Respond by today and respond right away. Communicate respectfully. Communicate efficiently. Okay, so if the coach asks you a question, is communicating if the manager needs some information, is getting back to them right away? If you're communicating with your parents, this is huge for me. And I got to talk on this. I didn't write this one down on this page, but this is huge for me. If you want to be one of my players, you need to treat your parents with respect. They drive you to games. They pay for your team fees. They give you all this stuff. And for kids to be disrespectful to their parents, it hurts my soul. It really does. Okay, so have more class than that. Realize how much these people have given you. Even if they're not nice to you all the time, they're still giving you all this opportunity. And guess what? If you're nicer to them, they're going to be nicer to you. So please treat your parents with respect. They do so much for you. They give you the opportunity to play this game. Treat them with respect. Okay, and this wasn't my next point. Treat people with respect. The coach, the manager, the referee, teammates, opponents. Okay, if you're the type of player, like trash talking and opponents, I don't know what gets you up. It gets you going. Maybe I can't say don't do that. For me, that's a waste of energy. It's not something I ever do. If someone's talking trash to me, I just like look through them. I look through their soul. I look like I act like they're not even there. Like I might smirk at them. I don't engage with them at all because I'm on a different level mentally. If you're engaging, if you talk trash to me and I start bickering with you, you've brought me down to your level. I'm wasting energy with you. Why am I talking to this guy? I'm up here. He's down here. I'm playing a whole different game than him. I'm playing on a whole different level. Okay, so don't waste your time with trash talk. Referee, if the referee makes a bad call, you can't change the decision. You can't change the decision. I've been playing in this city for a long time, but all the referees know me. I have a good relationship with all the referees because whenever they made a bad call, I've never, I've never confronted them. It's okay in the moment to be like, Oh, no, you're like, Why, why did you make that call? But you treat, you still treat them with respect. You don't call them an idiot or threaten their family or whatever to some people do. It's so bad and it works out for me. And I talked to them off the field as well. I build relationships with them and I'm not saying like I'm doing this to trick them. It's like, I just like making good connections and being nice to people. It always comes back to serve you. Referees give me calls all the time that I don't deserve. Maybe I got tackled and the guy actually took the ball and I fell down. He's key. Sometimes he gives me the call that he shouldn't and I don't know if that's because he likes me. Well, maybe maybe it is but build good relationships. Okay. So respect the referee. The referee has the hardest job on the pitch. Whether he does a good job or a bad job, someone is always mad at him. So most of the times both teams are always mad at him. But even if he does everything perfect, someone's always mad at him. The losing team is always mad at him. It's always his fault. Okay. So have a lot of respect for that guy and if you show respect, you'll get respect back. And even if you don't, that's okay. Conduct yourself with respect. Be respectful to your coach. Even if you don't like his decision, if you're stuck on the bench, communicate with him. Don't be in the corner talking trash about him. Go to his face and ask him, why am I sitting on the bench? I want to play. I respect your decision but please give me more information so I can get myself on the field. Respect for your teammates. Respect for your teammates. Don't bring them down. You're supposed to be a leader. You bring them up. Okay. If they make a mistake, give them descriptive advice, motivate them to do better next time. Be coachable. So if a coach speaks, you have to listen. How many times is a coach speaking? You're not even listening to what he's saying. You're like, when is this guy going to shut up and we're going to do these drills? Listen to the coach. Listen to the coach. Okay. You'll get good coaches. You'll get bad coaches. Even if you don't like the information that they're giving, be respectful. Look them in the eyes when they're speaking. Nod your head when they give advice. Show them that you're actually listening. It's going to serve you. They're going to like your attitude. They're going to give you more opportunity, more respect. Seek out criticism. So this is talking about being coachable. What I mean by that is a player can be really good but if I know I can't get into his head and make him any better or he won't take the advice that I give him, it's a waste of my time. Why am I working with this guy? I can take a worse player who will actually take my advice and make him into a better player because he can take criticism. He can take advice and he can actually apply it. So seek out criticism and don't take anything personally. If a coach says, hey, you need to work on this or a teammate says or our opponent trash talks to you about something. Don't take it personally. Take it as information. Say, you know what? I'm glad that he identified this. So now I can actually improve this. But seek out criticism. Most people just seek out praise. They just want to hear all the things that they're good at. I want to hear what I'm bad at so I can get better. So adopt that mentality. Seek out criticism. Don't take anything personally. Use it as information to improve and actually apply advice. So many players, the coach will give you advice where you say, stop making this mistake. Do it differently. Do it like this. And they say, yes, yes, yes. And then they go and make the same mistake again and make the same mistake again. Make the same mistake again. Remember that mindset we talked about earlier? It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to fail. You learn from it. Just don't make the same mistakes and same failures again and again and again. You have to learn. So if a coach gives you advice, take that advice and apply it quickly. And if he can see that you can apply advice quickly, then he'll love your attitude. He'll say, this is a coachable player. I can do something with this player. I like this player. So take advice. Seek out criticism. Take advice. Apply it quickly. Be a team player. Like I said, motivate and inspire. Give descriptive communication. Be a leader. Lead without, lead without title. Just because you don't have the, the captain's arm man doesn't mean that you're not a leader. Everyone on the team should be a leader. So lead by example, communicate descriptively. So don't just yell random stuff. Just open your mouth. Say something with the words that come out of your mouth. Help other players. Give them descriptive communication. Man on. Turn to your left. Play me here. Good play. And then, and then the next step is motivate and encourage and inspire and praise. If someone does a good job, say yes, well done. Encourage them to do better next time. Motivate players. If they're doing poorly, say come on man, you can do this. I know you're a good player. Come on. You've done this before. Let's go. You can come back from this. Motivate people. Don't push them down. So many players when their teammates play bad, they say, what are you doing? That's shocking. Be better. Okay. Like it's so negative. If you're an environment where everyone is yelling at you and saying, why are you so bad? Do you think you're going to play better? If you're really mentally strong, you can. Most players won't. So you need to create an environment for your teammates where they'll actually play better. You need to lift them up. You need to expect, expect them to play at your level. Expect them to have a high standard. That's okay. If they're doing something bad, that's okay to give them advice, especially when you're in the game and the heat of the moment. But you have to do it in a tone and in a way with the words that make it. That's good. And make it for them. They feel like they're supported. Okay. Even if I make a mistake, you know what? This guy's got my back and I want to work for him. I want to work for this team. These guys care about me. They want me to do well. When you're in a situation where you think everyone's against you, it's hard for you to do well, especially if you have a weak mind. Okay. So good players make other players better. Good players are just, average players just like focus on themselves. Sorry. I think it's like average players, blame others. Good players focus on themselves. Great players make other players better. You got to make the people around you better with your attitude, with the way that you play, with the way that you conduct yourself. So focus on relationships. Build those relationships. Better relationships with your coach. Talk to him. Shake his hand. Look him in these eyes. When you go to practice your teammates, they're your friends. Build connections with them. Shake hands. Give hugs. Build this camaraderie, this family, this friendship. It's so important. And develop the skill that wherever you go, if I go into any situation, I have the ability to make everyone my friend if I want them to. If I think that's a good person or it could be a good relationship, or I just want to make that person smile, I have that ability. And I only have that ability because I've looked foolish and been uncomfortable so many times. If it feels weird to you to say hi to someone new, then you need to do it. If it's awkward for you to go into a new team and say hello, my name is Dylan. Nice to meet you guys. I'm happy to be here. Then you need to do that a hundred times until it doesn't feel weird anymore. I can go into any situation and be comfortable only because I've been in so many situations and I made myself uncomfortable in the beginning. Okay, so in the beginning, it's going to feel weird to be friendly and to make friends and to build relationships. But over time, it's going to be natural. It's just going to be part of who you are and it's going to serve you in the end. So again, coming back to stories and I'm not going to put any names on this person but a player in my city, fantastic player, like one of the best players in the city, very dynamic, skillful, can score goals, great player. But not many people want him in his team, want him in their team. Why? Because he's not good at relationships. He's burnt a lot of ties. He talks poorly about other people. He's negative. He just creates a dangerous environment. People don't like being around him, even though he's so good. A lot of people, a lot of coaches are willing to overlook his ability because his attitude is poor. So I need you to understand that this game is more about ability. It's about your attitudes, how you conduct, it's how you interact with other people. It's about the relationships that you build. So first thing I want you to do, actionable step, is I want you to add and I didn't talk about this one, but I wrote it down. I just want you to add eye contact and posture to your life, but also to your soccer, your football interactions. So what I mean by that is if the coach is talking to me, I look him in his eyes. So many times, especially young players, coach is talking to you and you're listening and you say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It shows that you're weak. It shows that you don't believe in yourself. It shows that you're unashir- unashir- I'm stumbling on words. It shows that you're not confident. Okay? If someone's talking to me, I need to look in their eyes. You don't have to be super creepy and do it the whole time, but give them eye contact. You can break eye contact every so often, but if someone's talking to me, it's respectful to look them in the eyes and this builds better relationships with eye contact. The other thing is posture. Okay? So I want you to focus on posture. If I, whether you're in life, in school, in business, in on the field, if I'm like this, my shoulders hunched. I'm looking down. I don't look people in the eyes. Okay? It's bad posture. Bring the shoulders back. Bring the chest up. Look, look slightly above your nose. Walk into a room. I need you to exude confidence. If I walk into a room, nobody knows me. They know I'm, I'm one to be reckoned with. They know I'm one to mess with because just of the way that I walk in the room, the way that I conduct myself. Okay? You need to do the same thing when you step on the field. When you go into new soccer situations, it's not here. It's here. It's here. It's confident. It's the shoulders back. It's the chest up. It's the chin. It's good facial posture. Okay? I'll look people in the eyes. I'll look into your soul. Okay? But focus on eye contact in your communication and your relationships and just posture. These are two things you can change instantly. They make a big difference. I want you to exude confidence when you step on the field. Okay? The chest is up. I believe in myself. I'm bringing it today. I'm playing well today. I'm not down here. I'm not scared. I'm not nervous. Scared to look people in the eyes. What's going on? You want to look at me? I'm going to look right through you. You don't want this. That's what it is. Okay? So add that to your game. Let's keep going for it.