Chapter 5·The Coaching Gap
Curiosity
Judgment arrives first. Curiosity is a choice.
TWO KINDS OF CURIOSITY
Judgment arrives first.
Before you have the full story, the verdict has landed. It is part of the job. The danger is when it is all we have.
What it costs.
When judgment closes the door, it closes everything behind it: the question you did not ask, the player you stopped seeing.
THE PIANO
THE KEYS YOU OWN
Years mastering a section in the middle. The ones that built your career. Nobody is asking you to stop playing them.
THE FULL RANGE
Keys to the left you have never played, keys to the right that feel like someone else's instrument. Curiosity asks only that you know more exists.
THE NASHVILLE LESSON
Every expert passed on an eleven-year-old named Taylor Swift. Notice what their certainty was built on.
At every level
Youth
Autopilot closes possibilities we never notice closing. The question: what are you not seeing?
Elite & College
Dorrance, twenty championships in, still trades ideas with strangers. Players learn how to treat ideas by watching you.
Pro
Compete, give everything, come up short, and still choose curiosity over the verdict about yourself.
“Judgment is not wrong. But if it is all we have, we stop growing, and so does everyone around us.”
One thing to try
Catch one judgment this week. The moment the verdict lands, ask one question you don't know the answer to.
The Coaching Gap