TCS Live - This has been on my bucket list for the past number of years, wanting to attend this amazing coaches conference. My wife fully encouraged me to sign up for this conference during the Black Friday sale and I did not argue so I gladly and eagerly signed up. As time grew closer to June 12th, my nerves started to grow with excited and fear. I tell my kids all the time that it is good to be nervous so I had to get them in check to make sure I was talking the talk!

I was asked by a couple of people what my biggest take away from the weekend was and I couldn’t really give a good answer as to what it was. I said the energy and the passion from all the coaches in the room, which was so evident walking through the doors at the Power Center on the beautiful University of Michigan campus. I said to someone else that is was bumping into old teammates or guys that I played and fought throughout my playing career. While both of those were absolutely incredible moments, they were not my biggest take away from these 3 amazing days.

Walking through the Detroit airport on my way home it did hit me. I was able to overcome some of my fears that when I thought about before the conference, made my heart beat quickly and was searching for excuses not to achieve the things I wanted to do.

• Going to the Ryan Blank workshop was nerve-racking for me. I think I stared at the computer screen for 5 minutes after leaving the registration page in an open tab for a few days contemplating signing up, before finally clicking the register button. I sat at a table with 4 other amazing coaches who were extremely welcoming and I was able to share an group highlight while also participating in group discussion. Not scary to say the least. Only growth happened there.
• Going up to Daniel Broberg and shaking his hand to thank him for sharing his knowledge with us coaches in his 7 part skating course on TCS which I have implemented many of what Daniel teaches in that course, in my skating sessions this summer. I thanked him for being a mentor to me, both in his teaching and for his clear passion of the game. Of course he was gracious and kind, taking time to speak with me.
• Being able to thank The Coaches Site Founder, Aaron Wilber, for having the vision of this site and conference, which has literally been life changing for me, not only in hockey, but in leadership and life. Stopping Aaron was not easy for me and I passed him more than once, finding the excuse that he would be too busy to talk, before actually gathering the nerves to do it. No surprise that he gave me my full attention.
• Meeting Jill Plandoski, another TCS mentor on skating, to thank her for sharing her work with us and teaching me about skating mechanics that I use at every skating session. Again, very nervous to stop her, but the next thing I knew after asking her about how to teach kick backs, she had her ipad out showing me different drills and how the skating translates to real game clips. Talk about leadership and humility.
• Then listening to the last talk of the day with Brad Larsen. Learning he is a man of Faith with resonates with me in a big way being a man of faith myself. Then gathering the courage to ask him a live question infront of the whole crowd on a live podcast. I missed catching the green cube, but was able to ask him a question which he thought about and gave me a great answer.

Overcome, was the word that I picked at the Ryan Blank workshop to use for this year. I want to overcome my fear of failure, put myself out there more, and if what I am trying does not work with my coaching, hockey business, or life, then I know it will not be the worst thing in the world if it doesn’t work out. Fear of failure, why do we fear something that happens to everyone, almost on a daily basis?

So, that is my take away from the past 3 days. Because my beautiful wife encouraged me to take time away from our family to attend this conference, I was able to grow to my trust my abilities. I am already looking forward to the next time I am able to attend something like this and be a more active participant and leader like so many coaches were to me this weekend.

Thank you to all the staff at The Coaches Site for putting these 3 days together for us all. Thank you to the presenters for the preparation you put in and your willingness to share your knowledge with all of us coaches. Most of all, thank you hockey, for being able to bring close to 500 people together. We have the best game in the world and these 3 days were proof of that.

David Simoes - DS3 Hockey Development