Life Lessons from the Winningest Coach in College Sports | Paul Assaiante
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2022
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s conversation is with Paul Assaiante, one of the most decorated coaches in college sports history.
For those unfamiliar, Paul is a legend – he is a two-time Olympic coach of the year, the “winningest coach in college sports history”, an inductee of the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame, and has won 17 NCAA championship titles at Trinity College where he is still the head coach of the Men’s Squash team today.
You might also recognize Paul’s name from his first appearance on Finding Mastery back in 2016 – that’s episode #47 if you want to check it out.
Paul has spent more than four decades coaching, motivating, and mentoring top athletes from around the world – and with how rapidly our culture is shifting, I was excited to have him back on to explore some of the changes he has observed over the last several years.
The wisdom Paul displays is abundant, and I hope you’ll find as much value in this conversation as I did. We discuss how to prepare our children to succeed in a competitive world, the importance of failure, what it really means to win, and so much more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So the answer is, when you're faced with something that makes you uneasy, go at it. |
| 0:07.0 | Go right at it. |
| 0:08.0 | What you're going to find more often than not is it's a toothless old lady. |
| 0:12.0 | You're going to find more often than not that the monster, the hairy thing you have in your mind is, you know, insurmountable crisis is really not what you think it is. |
| 0:24.0 | Go at it. |
| 0:25.0 | Okay, welcome back. |
| 0:35.0 | Or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. |
| 0:38.0 | I'm your host, Dr. Michael Jervé, and by trade and training, a high performance psychologist. |
| 0:43.0 | And today, oh boy, we're in for a good one today. |
| 0:47.0 | I am really excited to welcome Coach Paul Aciante, as our guest for this week's conversation. |
| 0:54.0 | And I don't use this word lightly. |
| 0:56.0 | Paul is a legend. |
| 0:58.0 | He's a two-time Olympic coach of the year. |
| 1:01.0 | He is the winningest coach in college sports history for the United States. |
| 1:06.0 | He was inducted into the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame. |
| 1:10.0 | And he has 117 NCAA championship titles at Trinity College, where he is still the head coach of the men's squash and tennis teams today. |
| 1:20.0 | So you might recognize Paul's name from his first appearance on Finding Mastery back in 2016. |
| 1:26.0 | Episode number 47. |
| 1:28.0 | How about that? |
| 1:29.0 | You want to check out that? |
| 1:30.0 | I highly encourage you guys to check it out. |
| 1:32.0 | So just to get us started on round two here, Paul, how are you? |
... |
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