Coaches and captains spend a lot of time thinking about team culture. That invisible structure guides how people act and what they aim for. However, we don’t always think about creating an equivalent personal culture within ourselves and our immediate environment.

When we establish a personal culture, it allows us to infuse our daily life with our values. We can focus on excellence and safety in the ways that make sense to us. Without that deliberate effort, outside cultures can influence us more than we realize. We can end up adopting parts of hustle culture, living to work, or grinding when that wasn’t our intention.

The purpose of this article is to prime you to think about creating a culture of excellence for yourself, defined by your values and separate from external culture.

Below, I’ve outlined four strategies that can help, but they are mainly designed to stimulate your own thinking. Empower yourself to set your course. Don’t read this as a “should-do” list. Treat it as a “could-do” list. Let your own values inspire you. That’s the point.

Imagine an athlete, Tom, and two coaches: Coach A and Coach B.

Coach A believes in Tom’s talent, capabilities, and work ethic, and Tom can sense it. Coach A even occasionally tells him, “I believe in........

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