Coach Nick Saban is probably the greatest football coach who ever lived. (I am completely unbiased. Roll Tide.)
But “Coach Saban” and “happiness” may not be two things you naturally put together. In fact, some of his most famous moments involve delivering an epic ass-chewing or roasting the media.
Still, I’ve spent the last few months listening to a lot of his talks and speeches, and I’ve come to believe he has a pretty strong thesis on how you can be happier and, in doing so, bring happiness to others.
Let me introduce you to my high challenge, high support matrix. It’s not Coach Saban’s invention, but I think he’d agree with it.
First, I should clarify what I mean by “leader.” I’m not just talking about being the CEO of a company, a commander in the military, or the coach of a sports team. I’m talking about leadership in the sense that everyone is a leader. How do you influence and impact your friends, your family, your community?
I believe the best way to be a leader who helps others become their best (read: happiest) selves is to both challenge them and support them. That’s where Coach Saban comes in.
People have to know you care. That’s the high support side of things, sometimes called psychological safety, which is a technical term for trust, candor, and vulnerability.
Coach Saban teaches it this way:
If you want to be happy for an hour, eat a steak.
If you want to be happy for a day, play golf.
If you want to be happy for a week, go on a cruise.
If you want to be happy for a month, buy a new car.
If you want to be happy for a year, buy a new house.
If you want to be happy for life, ask yourself: Who is going to miss me if I don’t show up for them?
In other words, being there for people is the key to happiness. Put another way, your presence is one of the most important gifts you can offer anyone.
Coach Saban makes that point in another story, through the work of his foundation. He would often go into one of the local shelters and just sit with people: hear what they were going through, learn what they needed, and try to be a source of support. After one of the big storms down South, his foundation bought a few people brand-new pickup trucks. Years later, he recalls, when people reminisced about the foundation and its work, they never talked about the pickup trucks. They talked about the days he came in, sat with them, and listened.
So first, support people.
The second thing you’ve got to do is be willing to hold people accountable to the process that’s going to help them be more effective, grow, or be happier, whatever it may be.
Coach Saban says you have to challenge people for their benefit. Whenever he got a new player, he would ask: Why are you here? What do you want? What’s important to you? The player might say, “I want to be All-SEC, I want to graduate, and I want to get drafted.” And Coach would say, “Great. Here’s the process to do that.”
Now, if that player made a bad decision or didn’t put forth the effort, Coach would challenge the hell out of him. But he’d frame it like this: “You told me you wanted to be All-SEC and graduate on time. Is this helping or hurting you in getting what you want?” Again, it was always for the player’s benefit.
He tells the story of Rolando McClain, one of the first five-star recruits they ever had. McClain was walking home from the dorms one night and got into an altercation with some drunk fraternity guys who were calling him pretty offensive names. Coach Saban sat the young man down and told him, “You can’t do that.”
But the young man was so worked up that he was ready to go after Coach Saban himself. So Coach changed his approach. “Listen,” he said. “You’re going to be a first-round draft pick. You’re going to make $30 million. One simple assault felony conviction will drop you to the third round, and you’ll make $3 million. So maybe you were in the right, but was being right worth $27 million?”
The young man said, “You’ll never have another problem with me, Coach.”
So not only do you support people, you’re willing to challenge them, always for their benefit.
Let’s put this all together with a final message for you. If you want to be happier and help others be happier, be a leader and an influence in their lives in a high challenge, high support way.
And having listened to a few of his speeches, I believe Coach Saban would say it like this:
How do you pray? Do you pray to be blessed, or do you pray to be a blessing?
It’s so easy to focus on what I want. What am I going to accomplish? What do I want to achieve? But what you really need to focus on is being a blessing. Here’s why that matters: to be blessed, someone else (or random luck) has to bless you. But being a blessing is up to you: how you show up, the impact you have on others, and the ripple effect you create.
So focus on being a blessing by challenging and supporting others.
And Roll Tide.
Your happiness nerd,
Jackson K
