Coach Karl Subban

What inspired you to be the person you are today?

I wanted to play in the NBA. I had this dream, being a tall man, that I could hone my skills and jump onto that court. I would be the next Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

To achieve these goals, I started working as a coach at the local basketball clinics on Saturday mornings during my university years, and something changed. I fell in love working with these young children. It was such a natural thing for me to teach them how to play and to engage them in their practice.

By my second year at university, I had a revelation. I wanted to be a teacher. And that's why I still teach today. It’s challenging to be a teacher. It’s a very demanding environment. Some days, I didn't have in me what what I needed to give, but it didn't stop me because I love what I do. I always know I am needed.

Once I decided to become a teacher, the purposeful and focused way of developing myself changed from the wandering and curious approach I took to discovering my future on that basketball court.

Becoming the person you want to be is indeed a journey. It is often a meandering one, and one with unexpected twists and turns along the way both towards and away from your initial inspiration.

Like any journey that one may embark upon with a sense of purpose or desire, you need to pay attention to the signs around you before striking out in search of something. Only then can you create a map that describes the terrain, the interesting highlights and the dangerous territory, and a guide for how and where to proceed to arrive at your desired destination.

When it comes to parenting or teaching or coaching, or any goal in life, you're going to take a lot of shots, and your inspiration will change. And, purposefully selecting a way to travel can significantly impact the experience, just as a set of hiking boots versus a high-powered sports car can make for a much different trip.

How has your inspiration changed over time?

Is what you do now reflective of your inspiration, or your desperation?

What can you do to find a new source of inspiration?

Keeping ourselves in suspense is not the problem we might think it to be.

In the fast-moving game of hockey, playing on the gliding ice means decisions have to made in a fraction of a second. And when you’re trying to get past bigger and sometimes faster players, you may find yourself pushing too hard. Sometimes, pushing past another player to try to score a goal for your team may result in an injury, either yours or theirs.

In cases like those, when someone illegally blocks a play or hits too hard, they may incur a penalty. A player may have to sit out of play for two minutes, five minutes, or even face a suspension from a game.

But it’s not that simple. Watching from the sidelines, you’re likely to notice players or coaches taking issue with a ref’s call. You’re likely to see some hands in the air or hear some choice words, if you’re sitting close enough. Then, you’re likely to see the player look defeated, slumping onto the bench in the penalty box, sometimes with their head in their hands, or wiping the sweat from their brow.

As the time ticks closer to their release back onto the ice, however, most players will get antsy. They’ll move or pace in the box. They’ll look at their teammates. They’ll seek out a signal from their coach.

Finally, they’ll jump back onto the ice like nothing happened.

When we're talking about reaching our potential, we are always going to face barriers. But sometimes those barriers come from within. Our bosses, our peers, our friends and family may, at some point in each of our lives, alert us to something that we’ve done wrong. They may tell us that we’ve hurt their feelings, or made a mistake on an important document.

And, at those times, we may have to think hard about what we can do to do better by others, and by ourselves.

We will have to take a timeout.

But, in the penalty box, we can also take time to set the stage for positive change. It's important to recognize when we actually have to take a step back. In that box, we can build safe constraints for ourselves so that we have a chance to learn and grow from our mistakes. We can look back out onto the field of play and observe what might have happened. And then, like a hockey player, we can ready ourselves to do better next time.

How can you reflect on how your actions have an effect on others? Even if you didn’t mean to hurt someone, can you see where you might have stepped out of line?

When you feel that you need to take a step back to regroup, what do you do to make that step back safe and productive?

What can you do to actively support yourself through a timeout?

I don’t have a bucket list. Instead, I have a number of buckets that contain everything I want to contribute to this life of mine, and to the lives of others.

-- I have many more books I want to write. I have authored three, but somehow the number seven sticks in my head.
-- I want to help as many people as possible to reach their maximum potential. That number could be infinite.
-- I want to work on my cottage in Jamaica, which could involve endless decisions and projects as I make it the perfect place to eventually spend much more time.

Life is like a plane: it lands and it takes off over and over again. For the same reason, one single list of things to do doesn’t really capture all of the ups and downs we have to mitigate in our lives.

At some point, we may be soaring. We’ll want to expand our world as we see every destination clearly laid out below us. That’s the typical story that people imagine when they talk about bucket lists: getting to do everything exciting in life, and checking things off to show others what we’ve accomplished.

But another point in our lives, we’re going to be on the ground. Perhaps we’ll just be getting by. Perhaps our mental or physical health or peace of mind may be challenged. Our bucket may feel full if we have enough sleep, if we are safe and our families are doing okay, and if we have a good meal in front of us. Those things will feel like enough, and that’s a good thing.

When you think about building your bucket list, instead of making a list of everything you want to achieve with the money you have, like fancy trips and purchases, think about everything you want to achieve with the time you have.

What actually matters to you?

How can you make a difference to the people around you?

In the time that you have left, how can you reach your own potential?

How can you empty your bucket of gifts into the world?

I've learned how important it is for us all to support each other, more and more each day.

Lauren Rowles is a British parasport rower and former wheelchair athlete. She won gold at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio, and again at the games in Tokyo in 2021. At 13 years old, Rowles was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition, suddenly paralyzed from the waist down. She’s also a part of the LGBTQ+ community. Her childhood dream was to be an Olympic athlete, but navigating her perceived differences made her path to gold very unique. She saw Paralympians on television, but the coverage left her feeling bleak about her prospects.

“Sports is a strange place, because it reflects our roles in life,” Rowles has said. “In some places, it's not the most inclusive, and in others, it feels like the only place you belong,” she says.

That’s why, for Rowles, she is leveraging her own story to get more people with disabilities and more LGBTQ+ youth involved in sport.

“That’s my vision now,” Rowles has told her sponsors at Adidas. “It’s not a physical, tangible thing. I’m focused on winning, but I’m also focused on this wider thing of what gives me purpose, what fulfills me. In the end you hope that you can inspire someone to go down this sporting path and that they go on to do much greater things than you ever did.”

Rowles’ story has inspired me so much. Her work isn’t just about getting to gold, that potential win that most athletes crave. Instead, what gives her purpose is raising the roof for others, and making more room for people to enjoy the freedom of competing in a sport that they love.

Raising your roof and raising the roof for everyone else can be one and the same thing. Making that roof so high that everyone can be invited over, so that you can have a house party, should be a goal for all of us.

What can you do to raise someone else’s roof today?

DO YOU WANT TO GO FAR?

One of my favourite questions to young people during a school presentation is this: Do you want to go far in school, hockey and life?

No one looks around to see which hands are up. All hands go up quickly and voluntarily.

This same question works the same way when adults are in the room.

You can’t be distracted by distractions.

When you enter the DRIVE THRU at your favourite fast-food restaurant, you drive directly to the ORDER WINDOW.

If you are distracted, you might end up going the wrong way leaving you at risk.

You never want to enter where you see the DO NOT ENTER signage. You will not make it to your destination.

THINK IT!
DREAM IT!
WORK IT!
LIVE IT!
CELEBRATE IT!
DO IT OVER AGAIN!

The bar we set for children is the bar that they will eventually achieve.

Similarly, the bar we set for OURSELVES is the bar that WE will eventually achieve.

What’s true for little children is true for all of us. How do I know this? Decades of watching kids raise themselves up to our expectations as an educator, and decades of trying out the same tactics on my own kids, on the people I coach, and on myself.

A friend of mine called me, and, surprise, surprise! The topic of the call was hockey.

People reach out to me for a lot of reasons. As an educator, I get asked a lot of questions about teaching and raising children. I get calls about the curriculum and school policies. As a personal growth coach, I also get asked for feedback on how to navigate questions about the challenges we face in life.

But, more often than not, people think that I might be able to help them when it comes to issues that play out in the hockey arena. And that’s okay. I feel blessed to be a part of the sport, just as much as I feel blessed to be asked for help.

This friend of mine is also a parent, and a hockey parent at that. She was getting ready to speak to the coach of her child’s hockey team, and she was trying to figure out what to say.

The Journey to Niagara Falls - Karl Subban - Potential Growth Coaching Every day, we’re going to have challenging experiences. To raise our roof, we have to acknowledge our emotions.

For Black History Month, my theme at school was the word Focus.

I want all my students to focus on where they’re going, and what they want out of their life experience. Why? Because I read a great article by John Maxwell that pointed out that the word Focus could be broken down into a mnemonic acronym: Future, Ownership, Challenge, Understanding and Strength. I like acronyms like this, because I know that it can help students, both young and old, remember ideas that are otherwise sometimes a bit difficult to retain.

Focus, Focus - Karl Subban - Potential Growth Coaching Build your FOCUS: Future, Ownership, Challenge, Understanding and Strength. How are you going to raise your own bar today?

My brother has said the same thing to me numerous times.

“The best years of my life, Karl, the best times I’ve had in my life, were long ago. Those were the days when everyone still lived here. Those were the days my children were right here in my house. They’ve all moved away. Those were the good days.”

I always shake my head.

“I think the best years are still ahead of me,” I frequently respond to him. “My best day could even be today.”

What’s the difference between my brother’s point of view and my own?

Open Your Window to You - Karl Subban - Potential Growth Coaching Living in the past isn’t going to make you feel good at all. When we open a window, we all have a little bit of control over what comes next.