Coaching Up! Inspiring Peak Performance When It Matters Most

INSPIRE THE BEST IN THOSE YOU CARE ABOUT IN EVERY CONVERSATION

Coaching Up! reveals how to inspire the people who matter to you to achieve peak performance. Whether you apply it in your professional life, your personal life, or both, this book will offer you a powerful way to connect to the people you care about and move them forward toward attaining their own highest goals. Coaching Up! aligns the techniques used by winning sports coaches and other charismatic leaders and distills their essence into a simple, fundamental model that you can use to hearten and guide your colleagues, teammates, family members, and friends. Plus, this book also provides a wealth of memorable examples, anecdotes, and tips to enrich your toolkit of practical skills for inspiring others. How great how transformative would it be to master those skills for use in your daily life?

Coaching Up! opens a window into the core of how inspiration actually works. Using the Coaching Up Model, you can become a source of empowerment, enabling the people around you to reach higher, go further, and achieve more. Coaching Up! gives you the game plan and shows you how to run the plays.

"As a life–long entrepreneur and leader of Techstars, I′ve been fortunate to have a unique window into watching high–achieving leaders build powerful businesses from the ground up. Central to any startup′s success is the degree to which its leaders possess high levels of emotional intelligence and relationship–building skills. Coaching Up! is a must–read for startup founders and other business executives who recognize the extreme importance of building authentic connections throughout their organizations, and want to learn how best to do it."
DAVID COHEN, Serial Entrepreneur, Cofounder and Managing Partner of Techstars, Investor in hundreds of startups collectively valued at more than $70 billion, and Coauthor of Do More Faster

"As a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, sports enthusiast, and father, I found that Coaching Up! contained valuable lessons on leadership and mentorship for all parts of my life. I LOVED this book. Read it to learn how to be a great coach in sports, work, and life."
JEFFREY J. BUSSGANG, Flybridge Capital, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer, and Author of Mastering the VC Game

"Winning in life and in business involves the same skills as winning in basketball the skills to create, develop, and motivate strong teams. In Coaching Up! Jordan Fliegel has written an elegant and easy to read but also very powerful book that captures the core message our business executives, political leaders, teachers, and parents need to hear about how to coach up those you wish to see succeed. This book is a slam dunk."
BILL AULET, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, Former Professional Basketball Player and Coach, Successful Entrepreneur, Long–Time Youth Coach, and Author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup

Foreword Shane Battier xiii

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 How the Coaching Up Model Works 11

Chapter 2 Building an Authentic Connection 29

Chapter 3 Providing Genuine Support 59

Chapter 4 Offering Concise Direction 73

Chapter 5 Making It Work at Work 89

Chapter 6 Taking It Home to the Family 105

Chapter 7 Keeping It Real 129

A Final Word 141

Bibliography and Suggested Reading 149

Acknowledgments 153

About the Author 155

Index 159

JORDAN FLIEGEL, a former professional basketball player and longtime private coach, is also a successful entrepreneur, an investor in and advisor to technology startups, an author, a public speaker, a frequent guest columnist at Inc. magazine, and the founder of CoachUp, Inc., America′s leader in the sports coaching industry. Coachup connects athletes of all ages, in all types of sports from basketball and football to yoga and dance, with over 20,000 private coaches conducting one–on–one and small–group training sessions nationwide. CoachUp′s coaches share a single mission: to help all athletes reach the next level in sports and life. Among Jordan′s many personal accolades, he was named to Inc. magazine′s 30 under 30 list and the Boston Business Journal′s 40 under 40 list and was a Finalist for Ernst & Young′s New England Entrepreneur of the Year. Learn more about Jordan at JordanFliegel.com or follow him on Twitter @jordanfliegel.