Book Club- Prep Steps™

Women’s Strength Book Club

Over the next few days, you should be receiving a copy of the following book, thanks to author for the donation of her work and the CSCCa for providing shipping.  Read the following post from Charity Butler, which explains her book and look for a new post on how we will go about sharing our knowledge gained from following this month long process.  

The opportunity to share with so many influential women is absolutely an honor!  You are an incredible group, and you embody true strength:  physical, mental and emotional. 

Now is the time to build on your strengths and empower each other, to create unimaginable synergy among yourselves.  The Medical Dictionary defines synergy as:

synergy  syn·er·gy (sĭn'ər-jē)
n.
 The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

You women are the agents and the forces that can propel true synergistic progress.  There are nearly 100 of you on the email list and many more who have yet to be invited.  Your combined effect is much greater together!

In an effort to make the Book Club both manageable and affordable, Exceed Sports and CSCCa joined forces to supply a Prep Steps™ book for each female member.  Each coach can participate in the Book Club at no cost.  In addition, it only takes 15 minutes a day of quiet, self-reflection to keep up with the material.  You can do this, and you will actually enjoy it! 

If you have not received a book and would like to participate in the Women’s Strength Book Club, please contact Megan Young at 919.308.3236.

Prep Steps™ is a 31 day guide to success for female student-athletes.  It is a tool created for girls who are in school and competing in a sport.  The goal of Prep Steps™ is preparing female athletes for school, sports and life.  (Learn more here:  http://exceed-sports.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=7&category_id=6&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=141.) Beth Byron of West Virginia University won a Prep Steps™ book at the 2012 CSCCa Convention, and she says, “I would love to see all of the female student-athletes at WVU work through their own personal copy of ‘Prep Steps’.”

In addition, with inspiration from Prep Steps™ Cori Dayton of Xavier University has started her own pilot program for sophomore female student-athletes.  She hopes this experimental group will develop into a full credit hour course in future years.  Cori shares, “We are excited and honored to launch this program for the Fall 2012 year, on the 40^th Anniversary of Title IX.  Like this significant law that expanded opportunities for female athletes, we are proud to continue offering our young female athletes opportunities for success.”

Xavier and other universities interested in providing copies of Prep Steps™ are making use of the Athletic Department’s Opportunity Fund to launch their Prep Steps™ programs.  Exceed Sports is also working to develop a group curriculum for Prep Steps™.  We are learning from these pilot efforts to create the final program.  Exciting days are ahead.

Just imagine the contributions and impact we could all have working together and learning from one another while taking the 31 day journey with Prep Steps™!  Although this book is designed for athletes, I have worked through Prep Steps™ myself several times.  It continues to challenge and encourage me.  I am confident it will do the same for all of you.  The book will also prompt you to connect with your athletes from a new, fresh perspective.  Commit 15 minutes each day for 31 days to complete the process.  I dare you!  In fact, think of it this way:

“A designed beauty of synergy is that it serves only to add, never subtract.”
—Barb Rententbach, Synergy (2009)

When it comes to synergy and collaboration, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, both as an individual and as a group.  Grow together.  Challenge each other.  Share ideas.  Become better for yourself and for your athletes.  Let Prep Steps™ be the inception of something incredible:  the synergistic effect of powerful, determined female coaches. 

Keep dreaming big and training others to do the same,

Charity Butler

Author Prep Steps™

charity@exceed-sports.com

www.exceed-sports.com

@CharityButler 

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