The Power Of Little Hooks

A small moment can change an athlete more than a big speech ever will. We’re digging into the idea of “little hooks” the tiny wins, cues, and shared moments that get players latched onto learning and pulling themselves forward.

We start with a simple family story: an alphabet game where an eight-year-old learns a country for every letter. The real magic isn’t the trivia. It’s what happens after he feels competent. He starts lighting up when he hears new country names, asking questions, looking at maps, and chasing more knowledge on his own. That’s the coaching lesson: when someone knows one small thing well, their world quietly expands and curiosity does the heavy lifting.

From there, we translate it into sports coaching and coaching culture. We talk about why coaches often jump straight to systems and outcomes, and why confidence and enjoyment sit underneath everything. We share three takeaways you can use right away: create small wins early, create hooks that people remember and repeat, and coach enjoyment deliberately as a skill. Fun doesn’t lower standards. It fuels effort, belonging, and the courage to try.

If you want more athlete confidence, better engagement, and a stronger team environment, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a coach who needs it, leave a review, and tell us: what “little hook” can you create at your next session?

For all your rugby and sports gear needs Check out Silverfern here: https://silverfernsport.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=coaching-culture

Transcript

0:00

Welcome, team, to the midweek reflections. Today's reflection is the power of little hooks. Little hooks, the way you hook a fish when you're fishing. You put a little thing down there and it gets latched onto. And you what you pull up, well, that's a surprise. That's what you get at the other end. And that's what we're going to talk about today, because I had a lovely little story, which I'll tell you in a moment. And it's the power of these little stories, these little small things, which I think have real significance when coaching. And not all coaching begins with a massive speech or a massive master plan. Sometimes it begins with something which is a lot smaller, a little moment, perhaps, or a tiny act that helps someone to feel capable. And I've been thinking about this because my wife did something with one of one of our sons. And the more I watched it, the more I thought there's a there's a pretty deep lesson in here for all of us that coach. And I'll get to it in a minute. And when I was thinking about it, before we get to that story, we often chase the big breakthroughs, that kind of stuff.

Why Little Hooks Matter

0:58

The motivational talks and silver bullet-y type stuff. But I don't know if it always works like that. And I think people grow through, you know, different ways. And they grow their confidence through other ways than these big things. And I often find it's built through small experiences done really well. And that's the thing with learning. When someone feels competent about a small thing, their world just gets a little bit bigger. It quietly expands a little bit. And they start standing a little taller. They sort of lean into things and they they smile. And I guess once somebody feels capable, curiosity starts doing the rest, starts doing some of that heavy lifting. And that's when learning starts being something, you know, that you have to push onto them or drive into them, and it becomes something they want. So here's the story about where this is going from. Is my wife did this wonderful thing with one of us, and she taught them to name a country for every letter of the alphabet. I was, I didn't really get why she's doing it, but she just thought it'd be a cool thing, really. So A for America, B for Brazil, C for Canada, and oh and so on, right through to the end. It's pretty simple sort of exercise. But for an eight-year-old boy, it it was something a little bit more. Something interesting happened with this sort of repetition. And what happened is his memory started remembering these names. And when he knew them all off by heart, he became pretty confident. He was speeding through them. Now he can do it super fluently, and he's proud of it. And here's the bit I love now is that every time he hears a country mentioned now, he lights up. He starts asking, what does that start with? Where do where does that fit? Whereabouts in the world is that? When he sees the world map, he goes, Oh, I know that one. I know Brazil. I know ex where that is. And those letters that he learned with my wife have become little hooks now. Anytime he hears a country name or anything to do with the country

The Alphabet Countries Story

2:49

that he's heard, suddenly he's like invested. He smiles because he knows something. And because he knows something, he wants more. And now he's asking, you know, where the countries are. He's learning maps, he's connecting places, his geography is improving. Not because someone forced him to do this or forced him to care, but because of one small success opened this door, I guess, to curiosity. That one little exercise, which was fun with his mum, created enjoyment and enjoyment and created engagement. So this is the coaching parallel. And I reckon coaching works exactly the same way. We often, as coaches, jump straight to the systems, the tactics, things like performance and outcomes and all that stuff. But underneath all of that stuff sits something more fundamental, a confidence and an enjoyment. Now, if people feel capable and connected, they become open to learning. If they enjoy the environment, they lean in towards the challenge instead of away from it. And that's why this culture that I talk about, this podcast talks about this atmosphere, it matters. You know, things like the mateship, the banter, the friendly gesturing, you know, all these things is even sort of learning dark arts of the game. Now, enjoyment isn't the opposite to high standards. Just because you're having a laugh and having fun, it doesn't mean you're not working hard. I I reckon

Turning Small Success Into Coaching

4:20

it's actually the doorway to people wanting to do it. Because once they love an environment they and believe they belong inside it, you should see what happens. It's amazing. So I've been thinking about this since she's done this and and and the hooks that it's given to my son or our son. And I just wanted to sort of give you my three takeaways from those conversations and watching what had happened uh outside of rugby and see if we can bring it into sport. And so here's what I've come up with this idea that number one, create small wins as early as you can. So confidence, I don't reckon, appears just out of nowhere. You don't just get it. It's like it's like a skill too, right? And it usually grows from small little wins, small victories. And if you give people something achievable, then they can own it and go get it. And you think about a language or a routine or a skill, that that type of thing. So you can give them small wins in your sporting context. Do this one thing well. Do this one. Run, put this step in when you catch the ball on this play. Just do that one. Just make it super easy. Just do a big left foot step, as big as you can do it, and as long as you're happy with how big it was, I'm happy. You do that, well, this team's gonna be happy. Now, when they do it, you celebrate it done well, it builds that belief, which builds that momentum. Simple little small thing like that. We often we we we

Three Takeaways For Coaches

5:48

actually talk in our team about just hit the front jumper at the front. Just hit two all day. Just get there fast and go. Let's do that well all

Create Small Wins Early

5:55

day. And 80% of the time we do it really well. And that's a great stat, 80%, to win a line at 80% of the time. And the jumpers now feel confident now that and the lifters feel confident, the throw is confident, and now they're starting there. Some of the players are starting to say, Can we do this move? Yeah, probably can. Those hooks. So number two is we create those hooks that stay with your team. I guess the best sort of coaching leaves sort of something you remember and hooks. There could be patterns, they could be game, little challenges, shared shared things you say, little banter points. Often um in teams, you'll have all sorts of characters and they'll be saying all sorts of stuff. As a coach, if you can latch on to some of that stuff and and run with it and start having laugh, I I'll I'll even quote something which I thought was kind of amusing today. We we asked uh about rhinos and what's a group of rhinos called. As it turns out, it's called a crash of rhinos. And I thought it was called con context because all of a sudden we'd created a hook that that moves remembered more now because we did this little bit extra in in digging up the source of where what a group of rhinos is called, which is a crash. So it it becomes the if you ask yourself as a coach, what hooks am I creating that keep people curious, even

Build Hooks People Remember

7:14

when I'm not there? So they can then pass on and say to other people, Did you know? Or were you aware that this? Or sometimes if you do this, which I think is absolutely awesome. And number three, coach enjoyment, like it's deliberately as a skill. We always coach technique, we coach systems, but do we coach enjoyment? Now that seems funny to say to coach enjoyment, but coaches are just facilitators, really. So do we facilitate enjoyment? Because enjoyment is the fuel, right? It's not soft, it's it's not a you know a thing we just happen to have now and then. It's the fuel. It's the fuel of this vehicle of this game that we're playing. Are we facilitating that? Because when you coach enjoyment deliberately as a skill, people stay when they feel connected. So they they grow where they feel safe enough to try. And if you're having a good time, you're feeling pretty safe. So you've got to ask yourself, I reckon, are people simply learning in my environment or are they enjoying and loving being part of it? I reckon that's pretty cool.

Coach Enjoyment On Purpose

8:23

So I reckon there's a really nice um little philosophal thread here that not all coaching begins with this big grand speech or master plan, anything like that. Sometimes it just starts with helping someone feel competent in one small thing, and from there that their world just expands. And I reckon it's awesome. I've actually seen a lovely little graph when you keep growing the size of the circle you're operating in. It gets bigger and bigger. But you've got to nail the first circle first. Team, what a pleasure to just chew the fat and and and tell you my thoughts what I reckon about the the the quiet power of these small things, these the power of learning hooks. Have a think about those, and we'll see you next week on the Coaching Culture Podcast.