6 Trends That Could Change The World World Sport Coach Craig Johns

SIX TRENDS THAT COULD CHANGE THE WORLD

By Craig Johns

When I am out riding, I love to challenge my mind to work out what the world will be like in the future. Here are my six trend predictions that are already in their early stages or I feel will become part of the way we consume, relax, challenge our bodies, belong, use our time and play sport.

1 – LONG CONTENT WILL COME BACK IN FASHION

The world is going through a phase of short versus long content. A lot of businesses changed their approach to meet the consumer wants. However this phase is already showing signs of change back to longer content. Generation Z, also known as Millennial’s, who have been  synonymously linked to having short attention spans, are showing signs that with the right environment they are happy to absorb content for long periods of time. E-Sports is a great example of this, where spectators are happy to watch a live event for hours on end. People will tend to spend more time understanding, absorbing and enjoying content.

2 – WE WILL LEARN TO SWITCH-OFF

People are already beginning to move away from the frenetic nature of digital devices, especially mobile phones, where social media apps attract our attention multiple times per day. In the future we will see a decline in digital device use, outside of work and school as people start to naturally adopt more activities that allow the brain and body to recover more effectively. The rapidly stimulating nature of flicking through posts means the brain is constantly firing, preventing recovery and effective thought-processing. It’s kind of like rope-learning for an exam, where you briefly absorb a lot of information, but it doesn’t convert to long-term memory. There is also a major global epidemic brewing where by 2030 mental health issues will be somewhat out of control as our brains are constantly switched on and aren’t getting the recovery they need.

3 – THE RETURN OF THE ENDURANCE SPORT CHALLENGE

Isn’t it uncanny that most things in life have a tendency to repeat themselves? They have a cyclical nature, which quite often is generational. Fashion is a great example where it tends to repeat itself every 25 to 30 years. In sport we are seeing the end of a cyclical trend where people focused more on adventure (Cross-Fit, Mud runs, Spartan, Neon runs, etc..) type challenges versus endurance (marathons, triathlons, cycle races) type challenges. The adventure challenges (similar events with different names) were popular in the 1980’s and returned in the late 2000’s. They seem to be more of a one off type nature compared to the endurance challenges, which act more like traditional sports where people look for continual improvement over a period of time. Cross-fit maybe an exception with its cult-type following that it has generated.

4 – I WANT TO BELONG

As the world has become increasingly complicated and people feel like they must be constantly doing something, they have lost the real sense of community. How often do you go and introduce yourself to new neighbours or hang over the fence and have a yarn with them? There is a real sense that the act of volunteering is losing its appeal and that people are happy to pay for someone else to do it. In the future people will realise their sense of belonging is not being fulfilled and will want to have a greater part to play in their community and be more associated with things they enjoy and like being a part of.

5 – PEOPLE WILL REALISE THEY AREN’T TIME POOR

How often do we hear people say that they are too busy or don’t have enough time? The average number of hours worked per week hasn’t changed, and neither has the number of hours in a day. People are either adding more things to their day or are choosing activities that take longer to complete. Digital device’s have become an addiction for some people and that tends to absorb a lot of our time and attention. People will realise that it is about the choices they make and if the prediction, that people will want to switch off more holds true then we will see a lot more people going back to the simple things in life, such as have a few laughs over dinner with their friends and reading  physical books again. They will understand that they have control over the choices they make.

6 – SPORTS WILL CHANGE THEIR RULES

As the world evolves, so will the sports we play, watch and consume. Soccer will realise, like field hockey has, that taking the off-side rule out of the game and introducing unlimited interchanges will create a far more exciting, faster and more technical game.

Cricket will begin to understand that the umpires on-field have to have greater authority to control behaviours such as sledging, ball tampering and other forms of cheating. At present there are no immediate consequences or ramifications for breaking the rules during the game. The “Spirit of the Game” will be enhanced through the umpires having the ability to give a yellow card and send a player off the field for 10 minutes or a red card for the rest of the game.

Rugby League will realise that they need to take a much firmer stance on tackles near the head, like rugby has, before someone is seriously hurt or even killed on the field.

Triathlon will implement a heats, semis and finals format of a short, fast and exciting format, at the Olympics. This will result in attracting exponentially more non-triathlon followers to watch the sport, rather than a one off race. A person loves to follow their nation and connect by knowing that someone, from their country, has made it to the next stage and has a chance of winning a medal.

WHAT DO YOU PREDICT WILL BE THE NEXT TREND?

Leave a comment and let us know what you are thinking.

Craig Johns NRG2Perform World Sport Coach Speaker Coach Consultant Corporate Coach 2020 Vision Brand Marketing Speaker Speaking BMW

Trademark Yourself

Craig & Megan

By Craig Johns

Do you know who you are and what your identity is?

Four years ago I was fortunate enough to deliver an impromptu presentation on Branding and Marketing for Coaches at the Triathlon Australia Performance Coach Course in Canberra at the Australian Institute of Sport. I was pretty excited to be able to speak to the next generation of performance coaches on this topic, as it is an area that isn’t given much time in the coaching world, but is extremely important to succeed in a world of limited opportunities.

“If you don’t know what you stand for, you will fall for anything.” 

SANDRA YANCEY

What follows is not only practical to sports coaches, but also to business coaches. managers and leaders.

The Trap

It is common for coaches to launch into coaching as a profession, with a world of passion and emotion, and fall into the trap of coaching everyone, no matter what age, ability, desire and characteristics. Coaches are like kids in a candy store without any boundaries, and before they know it they have consumed too much and are barely able to tread water, let alone have enough energy to lift the weight off their shoulders.

Authentic Delivery

A coach is a salesperson, whether they know it or not. To sell something effectively they have to know its heart and soul. To convince, motivate and inspire an athlete and team of athletes effectively, a coach needs to be able to deliver messages authentically and consistently. They need to know what it is that separates themselves, to stand out, from the rest.

The Connection

It doesn’t matter whether a coach is a volunteer, works on a performance program or sets up their own coaching business, being able to clearly define and nurture their identity will allow them to cultivate a successful career and most importantly deliver an environment where success, for the athletes, is inevitable. The coach needs to position themselves in a way that allows potential and current athletes to perceive, think and feel more connected to them compared to other coaches or coaching businesses. (Bence, 2012)

“Your  SMILE is your  logo, your  PERSONALITY is your  business card, how you LEAVE OTHERS FEELING after an experience with you becomes your trademark.”

JAY DANZIE

Trademark

Photo Credit: David Sun

Leave Your Mark

So what is branding for a coach? It’s about creating a consistent message through the way they talk, move, act, deliver, motivate, inspire and bring the best out in the athletes they are working with. It’s about developing an underpinning philosophy that the coach whole-heartedly believes in and is passionate about. It’s a way of life for the athletes the coach works with. Most importantly, it’s the distinctive aspects of the coaching style, personal characteristics and environment that leaves a mark on everyone who comes in contact with the coach.

Coaching Brand

It is important that a coach can identify what types of athletes (markets) are most suited to their coaching identity and market effectively to them. Whether it be speaking with a potential athlete for the first time or setting up a new website, the messages need to be clear, consistent and from the heart. A successful coach-athlete relationship, the foundation of coaching, is based on factors such as trust, emphatic understanding, acceptance and respect (Jowett, 2005). A clear, concise and consistent coaching brand will go along way to ensuring a successful relationship is created and developed.

People Sell, Not Products

For those starting a coaching business, it is important to know, that it’s the “person” that people are attracted to, not the product. Athletes are attracted to the personal characteristics of the coach and the business. The coaches ability to sell the products requires a consistent and powerful (coach) brand that they can passionately communicate. It is important a coach doesn’t just copy what other successful coaches are doing. They need to create their own identity.

“ Every time you shake a hand, you market your brand.”

How are you communicating your coaching identity?

Craig Johns active CEO Podcast coach consultant corporate, leadership high performance

Complexity is Your Enemy

Complexity Coach

By Craig Johns

Why do we fall down the trap of thinking and making things more complex than they should be?

Simplification is Sophistication. Do you find it easy to make something difficult, but a challenge to make it simple? The simpler you make something the more sophisticated it becomes.

KISS – Keep it simple stupid is a great acronym too seldom used. We often make everything very complex, leaving both ourselves and those we are talking to confused and unsure.

As Albert Einstein once said:

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.

A common trap people fall into is thinking that it is the people were are talking too’s fault for why they don’t understand, rather than placing the emphasis back on ourselves, as the one (s) presenting the concept or information.

Being able to deliver a compelling message to our athletes or employee comes down to your ability to make it understandable to the audience you are speaking or writing to. It is common for coaches to send their athletes off with a task and for them to return as a failure, in the their eyes. This is not because the employee or athlete wasn’t capable of doing it, but because they didn’t understand what was being asked or provided to them.

It is important that you, as a coach, are able to analyze a situation and determine whether the message they are presenting is actually being understood.  If you can’t explain it in less than 20% of the words you used, then it is probably too complex and you don’t understand your subject matter well enough. The ability of an athlete to understand what the coach message is, can have a major effect on the trust and support they will provide.

Richard Branson summed complexity up with the following:

“Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simpler.”

How do you check if your message is being understood and whether you understand your message well enough?