Easier to Coach from the Bleachers

Have you ever noticed how easy it seems to run a team from the comfort of your easy chair at home? While hanging out in the bleachers at my kids ball games, I notice how effortlessly parents "suggest" better ways to coach the team.

Not to long ago, I was on the other side of the field. As the coach, the pressures of the game, the expectations of the parents, the desires of the kids, your own desire to excel, all weigh heavily on you before, during, and even after the game. You have a vested interest in how the game goes. Although you cannot make it happen, you benefit from the kids making right decisions, and you get blamed for them making wrong ones. It really isn't all that bad at the 10 year old level, but it only amps up from here...

In correlation, have you ever noticed how easily it is to "live" someone else's life for them from a distance? I listen to people "counsel" their friends on dealing with boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, children, work, etc. and the interesting thing is they do not have a "dog in the fight". In other words, they are "counseling" from a recliner in their living room. Win, lose or draw, they neither benefit, nor are hindered by the other person's success or failure. Their input is little more than fans yelling at a coach in a ballgame.

What about you? Do you have people that have a vested interest in your success guiding you through the turns of life? Do you have a group of friends seeking to grow together, challenge one another, say the hard things through the thick and the thin? That kind of friendship is harder to develop, and those kinds of friends give more stable, more beneficial advice, because they are in it with you for the long haul.

Anyone can yell suggestions without risk - it takes true friends to stand alongside you and experience the consequences of their counsel.

What do you think? Do you have any experience with this?