Every day you have people around you whom you could extract some learning that impacts upon your performance as a coach or a leader.

Every day I learn from top-class teachers and coaches. I challenge myself to ask lots of questions and make lots of visits to the different sporting and non-sporting environments where these coaches/teachers operate.

Yesterday, I listened to our Head of Music working with the boy’s choir before they performed in the Assembly. His use of language was so precise, so clear that the boys were hanging onto every word.

I asked two of the boys "what have you heard from your coach?" and I got 2 subtly different answers; one related the coaching points into his posture before singing his 3 line solo and the other talked about the need to control his nerves by centring his breathing prior to joining in with the chorus.

It was fascinating to hear how a coach can unlock independent thought, strategy and performance through their language patterns and precise delivery.

It got me thinking about how much more effective I could be as a communicator to my players ahead of performance. How I could use my voice and words to bring different things to different people.

Remember your favourite teacher at school?

What traits, strengths and attributes did she/he have that inspired you within their lessons?

Capture that and see how you can incorporate that into your delivery and your own coaching performance.

Do you have a Work colleague who copes with deadlines brilliantly; who is unfazed by the enormity of a situation; who always finds a way of finding a solution when others can on talk about the problem?

What is it that they have that allows them to perform like that under pressure?

Can we borrow those behaviours and make them our own?

Do you have a coaching colleague at your school, academy or club who is the 'pied piper', who has children flocking to their sessions with huge smiles on their faces; whose players go away and work on things between sessions and come back better for the experience?

What can you learn from the way they communicate and enthuse to capture the commitment of the players around them?

Learning doesn't have to happen through a book or a website. Learning opportunities - and the people from whom we can learn - surround us daily yet often we let them slip by.

Your challenge for this week is to find someone around you from whom you can learn. Watch and analyse their attributes and see what you can import into your own behaviours.