The Locker Room Playbook

10In the Zone

For Everyone

Core Lessons

• Where you focus, you finish.
• Be a coffee bean.
• When you mess up, make your apology proportional to the mistake.
• No one is above the standard.

Chapter Summary

Coach Smitty and Coach Washington discuss the practical next steps to put the Six Pillars into action to help them solve the issue of racism in the Locker Room. Coach Smitty decides the first step is to apologize to Marcellus and the second step is to have a frank and open discussion with all the players. It is this locker room discussion that will decide Davey's future.

Deep Dive Teaching

Think about how a coffee bean affects boiling water. It turns it into coffee, right? You take a negative or difficult situation (the boiling water) and with the power of that little bean giving of its positive effort, change happens. It turns the bad situation into a good opportunity.

We want to be like the coffee bean in this metaphor: a positive presence giving of ourselves in service of beneficial change. No matter what your circumstances are or what you are going through right now, there is an opportunity to effect change—even if that change at first is only to your own attitude.

Just as a coffee bean improves the boiling water by turning it into coffee, you can change a difficult situation for the better. You just have to be willing to stay positive, serve others, and remain humble. Let's look at the three keys that will help us to be coffee beans: Positivity, Service, and Humility. ...