While most of the world enjoyed an extra day off from work or saw the weekend as a necessary time to focus on their relationship with their significant other, thousands of volleyball players and coaches made their way to various sites in our nation to play, coach or recruit.  There are several very large club volleyball tournaments across the nation to take advantage of the extra day most kids have off from school.  My destination was Dayton, Ohio. 
    Dayton is a cool, crisp six hour drive from Big Rapids.  I took advantage of the time in the car by listening to a great book which I will add to my reading list.  The book, The Talent Code, investigates how talent is grown.  Although I'm not completely through it, I have heard enough to say that it is a must read for every teacher and coach.  Although it is a bit academic in nature, it captured me fully and made the trip lightening quick!  The wesite for the book can be found at www.thetalentcode.com.
    As I sat at the tournament playing sites watching the great level of volleyball in the 18's and 17's Open Divisions, I received some texts from a collegue who is a head coach in our conference.  The texts back in forth were all in great fun and had me laughing out loud like an insane person most of the time.  People there to watch the matches likely thought I was losing my mind from an overindulgence of volleyball spectating!  Later that day, at my second site, I ran into another friend.  This particular friend is a D-I volunteer assistant coach and club coach.  Before her match began, we sat and caught up on a variety of things as it had been a couple of months since seeing her at the convention.  Before her match, she had me watch her setter and give her some tips on how to solve a problem she had with her hands.  It didn't matter that I was a D-II coach, it mattered that she knew that I knew setting.  This all made me think of an entry I recently read on Volleytalk.  
    Before I go into that entry, let me explain what Volleytalk is for those non-volleyball coaches amoung us.  Volleytalk is a forum that covers everything in the volleyball world from job listings to, well, anything you can think of, really!  I don't spend a ton of time on Volleytalk and I must admit I have never posted.  I mostly have used it to keep up on job listings as I keep an eye out for the perfect next step to take.  Recently, I browsed the rest of the posts to catch up on recruiting news and other things going on in our sport.  It was during that browse session that I found a post related to a new coach's experience at the AVCA Convention back in December.
    This particular coach is a self-described youth coach who had never been to the convention.  This coach's post explained that being at the convention felt a little like high school in that the coaches there operated in a very clique-like manner.  He/she said that it felt like as soon as 'youth coach' was uttered in the introduction, coaches looking to 'move up' the ladder did everything but start to look for a fire alarm to pull to get away from the conversation in lew of finding a 'bigger' coach to talk to. There was a lot of back and forth on the forum after the initial post debating, rationalizing and joking about this idea.  I read some of it, but just scanned most of it.  I will say it reminded me of something that I feel I should share with as many people as I can.  In fact, it was the closest I ever came to posting on that forum.  Instead I saved the commentary for this venue.  
    If you have not heard of Wayne Dyer, please stop spending time reading my stuff and go directly to his website www.drwaynedyer.com.  He is an inspiration to so many people, including myself!!  He is worth every penny it costs for his books and every second spent reading them.  If you can get his stuff on audio book, do it.  He is an amazing public speaker!
    Okay so back to the story.  In one of audio books, Dr. Dyer tells a story that I have re-told to several of my own friends since hearing it.  It was on the day that Dr. Dyer made an appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  He had filmed the show early in the day and gotten on a flight back to his home in Hawaii (rough life, huh?!).  Dr. Dyer says that later that evening, as he walked along the beach, a woman came up to him and asked if it was indeed him that she just saw on the show.  He responded that indeed it was.  She was surprised and excited that he lived there and explained that she and her family were also moving there.  She asked him what the people were like.  Dr. Dyer responded by asking her to describe what the people were like where she was from.  She went on for a while about how unfriendly and rude the people were in her current city, saying it was a big city in the midwest and everyone was always in a hurry and that noone ever had time to help each other out.  Dr. Dyer listened to her and then simply told her that that was pretty much the type of people she would find in her new destination.  He goes on in the story saying that he later ran into another women who had seen him on the Tonight Show.  This woman also excitedly explained that she would soon be moving to this great place and asked him what the people were like.  Dr. Dyer again asked the woman to describe the people from her current hometown.  Her response was markedly different.  She told him how great everyone was, how she was from the midwest and although it was a big city, it felt like a small town because of how everyone took time to help each other out.  She went on to say that it was heartbreaking to leave people so friendly.  Dr. Dyer listened to her and then simply told her that that was pretty much the type of people she would find in her new destination.  The point is, I beleive, very clear.  People have a way of acting as mirrors to our own behavior and expectations.  Perhaps that youth coach just went into that convention with apprehension and expectations of 'big time' coaches being above them.  Who knows?  I will say that I have had a much different experience at the convention.  Perhaps it was because I expected it, but I have found some of the bigger names in our sport are some of the nicer people in our sport, too.
    Life is what you expect it to be.  If you act as if there is a theory of abundance and that there is indeed enough love, money, recognition and success for everyone, chances are you will see an abundance of all of those things.  Isn't that a better way to go through life than with the feeling or belief in a limited supply?  Whether you are in the world of collegiate coaching or trash collecting, your days will go better and your life more fulfilling when you expect good things and people to enter your life.