“Make people around you better!” is a great mindset I have tried to emulate for decades.
I feel like that is one of the best mindsets to navigate life and teach foosball.
To clarify, I’m not talking about being a “grammar nazi” (unless they are a writer). I’m not talking about how you should totally rearrange your life. (Unless that’s what you are looking for.)
I’m talking about helping humans maximize themselves in areas such as energy-level, positivity, communication, foosball skills…etc.
I’m talking about helping beings with whatever skills, talents, and background they have been blessed or cursed with.
I’m talking about helping people be a little bit better than their former self.
1. Help people stay “loose.”
While some people need to tighten up their world perspective, it seems most people in our world of stress and anxiety, need to loosen up a bit.
2. Demonstrate your own excellence.
The way humans learn is from other humans.
Try to bring your best-self. Human excellence, in any skill, is copy-able by other humans. Give people your best. Push your own limits and share.
People love a good example of excellence because it helps them conceptualize a high level of awesome that they might not able to discover on their own.
Human minds love excellence (or even a higher level of goodness). If a person is paying attention to your excellence, it can help pull them up a level.
3. Don’t preach unless you can be preached to.
Communication is a two way street. Regardless of what is trying to be communicated to me, excellent advice or not, I try to learn something while also trying to communicate.
Many times the message spoken to you is for you.
Sometimes it is not.
Sometimes a person needs to just vocalize thoughts in their head just to hear it themselves.
Know when to listen. Know when to preach.
It makes the conversation more dynamic and educational for all parties.
4. Humor as strategy
This goes back to thought #1.
A well placed word/idea in a stressful moment is gold if it teaches and helps someone get into their zone of excellence.
I am from both a family of grave diggers and US Army infantry.
Death has been a part of my background probably more than most. As such, I recognize one of the paralysis’s of the human mind and non-excellence is centered around “death.”
Non-excellence can happen because of non-action (aka thought-paralysis).
It seems that both the grave digger community and the infantry community use humor to help combat this paralysis. Humor is part of the strategy to keep marching on.
Humor can help get a person beyond mind paralysis.
Existential-humor is a tricky art however, so I recommend using family-friendly humor in foosball.
5. Reaffirm the Goal
Why are you here? What are you trying to achieve?
How do we achieve it? What do you need to know?
Downside of Making People Better in Foosball
One of the problems with helping people get better at foosball is that they will probably start kicking your ass. Minor problem, but worth noting.
It is a small price to pay however. You demonstrate excellence. They learn. They kick your ass.
The next question is: what’s the next level for myself?
