Day 68: What is Coaching?


."Gentlemen, This is a Football."

This is how iconic professional football coach Vince Lombardi is reported to have opened his coaching of the Green Bay Packers. As if a group of tough, professionally-paid football veterans didn't know what a football was. Lombardi went back to basics. You are not a champion at the end of the season by executing miraculous and unconventional plays, or by throwing up the proverbial prayer, but by blocking, tackling, and running or passing the ball forward at least 10 yards in 4 plays all the way to the opposing goal.

Our coaching program starts with the basics. We win the race of life with the basics.

Too often we feel like success will come when we follow some guru or join some celebrity movement. We're told that electing the right candidate for President will bring economic prosperity and national security. The truth is, Civilization is not built on gimmicks, celebrities, or fads. It's built on the basics, being practiced by everybody, everywhere.

(This was the thinking behind the creation of "common schools," or public schools: that everyone should know how to read and govern their lives with the Bible -- not just priests and princes.)

The first part of the SamuelAdamsChristianCoaching program is learning the basics, the "rules of the game," just like American children learned the basic rules 200 years ago.

The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.
George Washington, First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789

You need to know the rules of the game.

  • If you're on a professional football team, and the Coach tells you to run with the ball downfield as fast as you can, and you go the opposite direction, your team won't get points for a touchdown, the other team will get points, and you will probably get kicked off the team (if you were deliberately ignoring the Coach's instructions).
  • If you're on a baseball team and you start out running toward third base instead of first, you will be kicked off the team
  • If you're running a race and you're going in the wrong direction, you won't get a medal (if you ever cross the finish line).
  • If you're on a professional soccer team and you insist on using a baseball, basketball, or tennis ball, you'll probably get kicked off the team.

So the first question is,
    • Which Sport Are You Playing?
    • Which Race Are You Running?
    • Who Makes the Rules?
    • Who Officiates in this Game?

Tennis has a "line judge." America has "The Supreme Judge of the World."

As victims of educational malpractice, most of us do not enter adulthood knowing the rules of the game. Sure, we have a vague understanding of some of the rules, and we might achieve some success. But if we carry the ball only 9 yards in 4 plays, then the other team takes the ball and starts running.

Most modern "life coaches" believe "the client has all the answers within." If you're running down the field in the wrong direction, most modern coaches believe they must be "non-judgmental." As Ludwig von Mises (arguably the greatest economist in the 20th century) would put it, the economic coach won't tell you what you ought to do (morally speaking), but will only inform you of the pragmatic results of your actions: "If you engage in Policy X, you will experience Result Y." The modern economist offers no ethical judgment as to the morality or sinfulness of Policy X.

At SamuelAdamsChristianCoaching we believe God has told us that some things are right and other things are wrong. You have to know the rules to win the game. Your success in life depends on going in the right direction. The more people who go in the right direction, the more prosperous society will be.

Daily Training

The Bible says we must study the rules and practice them every day. Teaching others is a great way to learn these rules. We are always in training. Our goal is to become like Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:13). Our goal is to please God by being perfect (Matthew 5:48).

We never get a day off. Sorry about that. Every day is training day. Every day is game day. The goal of training is endurance, then victory,

The goal of this program is to develop a Biblical Worldview. All the options of life are viewed through this worldview. In order to develop this worldview, we prescribe a training course in which the athlete reads the five most important works in the history of Christian Civilization. First, the athlete learns God's Commandments by reading the Bible, and then learns how to apply those commandments to all of life life by studying four works which focus on theology, economics, government, and the future of human progress, peace, and dominion.

A great coach drills the team on the rules of the game, until they know the rules by heart. Then the coach pushes the athletes through repetitive drills until their bodies are in top shape and perform the required steps reflexively, without hesitation. Habitually. Spontaneously.

The SamuelAdamsChristianCoaching program helps you develop a Biblical Worldview, and then gives you the ability to easily and quickly apply that worldview to the facts, situations, relationships, opportunities and challenges that life brings you. That's how you win the race. Every day.


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