The Three Words That Will Transform Your Coaching

Connection, Engagement, Inspiration.

Wayne Goldsmith

May 27, 2025

BY WAYNE GOLDSMITH

Three Key Concepts:

Most coaching failures stem from focusing on the wrong priorities
Three simple words can completely change how you approach every coaching interaction
When you get the foundation right, everything else becomes possible

IMAGE - THE AMAZING PETER BICK

I'm about to share three words that will fundamentally change how you coach. Three words that will transform your relationships with athletes, improve their performance, and rediscover why you fell in love with coaching in the first place.

These aren't complex theoretical concepts or the latest sports science breakthrough. They're simple, practical, and immediately applicable to any coaching situation.

The three words? Connection. Engagement. Inspiration.

But before you dismiss this as "soft skills" fluff, let me tell you about Sarah.

The Coach Who Changed Everything

Sarah was a swimming coach struggling with a group of teenage athletes who seemed increasingly disinterested in training. Performance was stagnating, attendance was dropping, and she was questioning whether she was cut out for coaching.

Then she attended one of my seminars where I talked about these three words. Six months later, she sent me a message that read: "My coaching career just got saved by three words."

What changed? Everything. And nothing.

She still ran the same pool sessions. She still used similar training sets. But her approach to every interaction had fundamentally shifted.

Word One: Connection

Sarah realized she'd been treating her athletes like athletic machines rather than human beings. She started arriving at practice fifteen minutes early, not to set up equipment, but to connect with each athlete individually.

"How was school today?"

"Tell me about your weekend."

"What's exciting in your life right now?"

These weren't coaching conversations. They were human conversations. And they changed everything.

"The transformation was immediate," Sarah told me. "When athletes feel seen and valued as people, they show up differently to everything else we do."

Connection isn't a coaching technique. It's a commitment to genuinely caring about the person standing in front of you.

Word Two: Engagement

Traditional coaching asks: "How can I get athletes to do what I want them to do?"

Engagement coaching asks: "How can I create experiences where athletes want to give more than I could ever ask for?"

Sarah stopped imposing training sessions and started designing experiences. She gave athletes choices within structure. She asked for their input on season goals. She created opportunities for them to problem-solve and take ownership.

Engagement means moving from sage-on-the-stage to guide-on-the-side. It means trusting that when people feel involved in creating something, they'll be more committed to achieving it.

"I realized I'd been trying to push them toward goals that were mine, not theirs," Sarah reflected. "Once I helped them discover their own motivations, everything became easier."

Word Three: Inspiration

Here's what most coaches get wrong about inspiration: they think it's about motivational speeches and championship videos.

Real inspiration is much simpler and much more powerful. It's about helping people see possibilities they couldn't see before. It's about believing in their potential more than they believe in it themselves.

Sarah stopped trying to motivate her athletes and started inspiring them by sharing her genuine excitement about their progress, their effort, their character development.

"I became their biggest believer," she said. "Not in their times or their technique, but in them as people. When someone believes in you that deeply, you start believing in yourself differently."

The Coaching Equation

Here's the equation that transformed Sarah's coaching:

Connection + Engagement = Inspiration

When you genuinely connect with athletes as people, and when you engage them as partners in their development, inspiration becomes inevitable.

Notice what's not in this equation: technical knowledge, training methodology, or performance metrics. Those things matter, but they're secondary to the foundation of human connection.

The Transformation

Six months after implementing these three words, Sarah's program had completely transformed:

Attendance went from 60% to 95%
Athletes started bringing friends to try the sport
Parents commented on their children's renewed enthusiasm
Performance improvements followed naturally

Most importantly, Sarah rediscovered her love for coaching.

"I used to dread some training sessions," she admitted. "Now I can't wait to see what's possible when great people come together with a shared purpose."

Your Three-Word Challenge

Tomorrow, focus on just one of these words in your coaching:

Connection: Arrive early and have one genuine conversation with an athlete about their life outside sport
Engagement: Ask your athletes what they want to work on and design your session around their input
Inspiration: Share specific, genuine observations about an athlete's character or effort

These three words aren't revolutionary because they're complex. They're revolutionary because they're simple truths we've forgotten in our obsession with sophisticated systems.

Connection. Engagement. Inspiration.

Three words. Infinite possibilities.

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