Dr. Brad Kayden, President, Founder, Jelly Bean Sports, Inc.
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By COACHPICKLES @COACHPICKLES

Dr. Brad Kayden, Founder

JELLY BEAN SPORTS

 

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SPORTS REIMAGINED

Published December 5th, 2019 by Dr. Brad Kayden

HOW IMPOSSIBLE IS DONE?


“It’s always impossible until its done.”

Nelson Mandela

Teaching kittens is the epitome of impossible. This has also been how it has been described to teach young children sports, impossible. And in light of the situations with our schools today, it has also been something teachers are not just saying but quitting the profession over. Many good teachers are leaving the teaching profession every year because they say it is impossible to do their jobs inside today’s rough school environments.

Great similarities exist between education and sports. The common thread is society. “We can’t fix our schools until we fix society.” It is a statement of desperation that is the product of the frustrations we have with educational system. The high cost of youth sports today, likewise, is stripping many youth of the opportunity to participate. “We can’t fix our youth sports until we fix society.”

The obstacles society places in front of students and athletes is what makes people say things are impossible. The truth of the matter is we can’t fix society. The good news inside this fact, is that we can fix schools and we can fix youth sports albeit sometimes only incrementally.

How do we fix youth sports?

Youth sports possesses a dysfunction all its own. It begins with its early learning sports development. There are over 5 million children under age 6 that participate in organized introductory sports programs annually. It offers the lowest barrier to entry and lowest cost. Yet, sports science does not recognize these athletes nor early learning sports development as part of the sports’ process.

Young children’s unsportsmanlike nature and stereotype of being uncoachable has left many untrained and uneducated coaches to say teaching young is like herding kittens. It has left the opportunity in early learning sports development suppressed, minimized and overshadowed by society’s gross misunderstanding of this area of sports.

Early learning practitioner, Dr. Brad Kayden, has published the first research on early learning sports development. It puts the introductory process into context and provides a framework for how it works and more importantly how it fits into the broader sports process. It is the start to how we fix youth sports.

Along with early learning sports development groups like Chicago-based Coach Pickles’ Jelly Bean Sports there are already initiatives in action. It is developing something sports has long been missing, a Sesame Street for sports. The early learning sports instruction, production and research company led by Dr. Kayden is reimagining sports through a child’s eyes. It is actively creating programs and media content that will serve as another way to revamp how we, as a society, look at youth sports.

How do we fix education?

Education struggles with a similar dilemma regarding early childhood development. It’s called the Kindergarten Gap. This is the time between a children’s birth and their entrance into kindergarten when parents need to be reading books to them to build reading comprehension. They also need to be helping them to build their math aptitudes. Successful schools have invested parents. These are found usually in the suburbs of metropolitan areas.

However, inside urban and rural schools, many “students are overwhelmingly poor, members of minority groups, or both. Their parents often are under-educated, under-employed, or unemployed; many are alone, exhausted, and uncertain about how they can contribute to their children's education. Unsuccessful schools exude an aura of resignation and defeat. Teachers are harried; students are disorganized and inattentive. Even the newest buildings feel dark and close -- and everyone appears afraid to smile.” The Kindergarten Gap is a dilemma something that teachers must then work hard to help children catch up. Some children enter kindergarten as many as three years behind and it will take three years of work to help them catch up.

As a result, youth sports lacks an absolute origin. It is the reason why generation after generation parents struggle to know the entry point in sport. The persisting unanswered question families with young children are left to ask, “How young is too young for sports?” and “How will I know when my child is ready for sports?”

The Youth Sports Gap is no different. The problem is few are either equipped or qualified to work with toddler and preschool-aged children. Non-competitive and working with a naturally unsportsmanlike and perceived uncoachable population of athletes, it is deemed more a phenomenon than process. Essentially, teaching of young kids sports is considered by many, impossible. Accordingly, the comparison, and where the kittens come in, has been made between teaching young children sports to being like herding kittens.

Stick with me because it will all lead you in the end to better understand how impossible is done.

How impossible is done begins with first understanding we cannot change society. Beyond that it requires key influencers like strong school principals, strong parents and more emotionally intelligent coaches.

  • School principals must demand the freedom and flexibility to hire and fire, to set curriculum and school policy and to be instrumental in their schools instructional leadership.

  • Parents must accept some of the leadership responsibilities in both the school and sports arenas. Too often over-reliant on systems they know are fragile and flawed, we can always be do better. Children’s academic and sports achievement demands it.

  • Children should be required to take more ownership over their educational and sports process and be held accountable to it.

Nelson Mandela said impossible is always impossible until it’s done.

In "Dispelling the Myth Revisited," the Education Trust, according to educationworld.com identified 4,500 high poverty and/or high minority public schools that are also among the top performing schools in their states. It said, “These are some of the poorest schools in their states. They are also the best.” How impossible is done in these school’s cases are by having good principals, strong parents and accountable students.

But education cannot do it alone, neither can parents nor children. They need help. They are aided by things like children’s educational programming like Sesame Street and other non-profit learning programs. These programs make it their mission to aid children’s learning by helping to reduce academic deficiencies that are naturally part of the educational equation. Some make, like Sesame Street, make it their mission to attack the Kindergarten Gap. It describes children’s deficiency in reading comprehension and math aptitude entering kindergarten. Teachers can spend up to the first three years of a child’s schooling helping them to be brought up to aptitude.

Many a parent, teacher and coach have likened their experience teaching young kids sports to being just like herding kittens. As I said, impossible. So then the question in this way exists, how is impossible done?

The bad news is that we can't, in fact, "fix" society. The good news is that apparently we can fix our schools.

How? We can do it simply by accepting our inability to change society, by facing the facts about the obstacles today's society places in our students' educational path, and by working to overcome those obstacles.

We can do it by looking at the characteristics of successful schools and emulating them.

Effective schools have strong principals who demand the freedom and flexibility to hire and fire, to set curriculum and school policy. Effective principals provide instructional leadership. They support teachers' efforts to excel through training and mentoring. They find ways to help parents support their children's academic achievement but demand that students take responsibility for their own education -- regardless of the level of their parents' involvement.

Effective schools employ teachers who support and mentor one another. Effective teachers concentrate on academic achievement. They recognize that all students need to master a set of basic reading, math, and English-language skills. They teach those skills first, and they consistently measure their students' performance through standards-based testing.

Effective schools have a clearly defined mission, supported by specific measurable goals. That mission and those goals are communicated to staff, parents, and students, and everyone is expected to make a commitment to promote them.

Effective schools expect students to excel and maintain a culture of excellence.

There are two types of schools, two types of teachers, two types of youth sports programs, two types of coaches. They are, as you might have already guessed, good and bad. The similarities between education and sports are great. And when it comes to early learning in sports development, there have even been similarities made between kittens and sports.

Yes, it is harder to teach today. It is harder still to teach in schools with a preponderance of poor or minority students. Kids have changed. Parents have changed. Society has changed. Educators, however, cannot throw up their hands in defeat because they are no longer greeted each morning by students who are ready and eager to learn. Schools have to change too. Some already have.

We can't "fix" society, but maybe -- just maybe -- we can improve society by fixing our schools.

Working with a young toddler or preschool-aged athlete is very different from an elementary-aged child. Debunking the myth that it is impossible to teach a young child sports has been a hard sell. Society’s competitive ways of thinking about youth sports are not welcoming early learning sports development. It’s non-competitive approach designed to accommodate the unsportsmanlike and perceivably uncoachable early learners is not, I guess you could say, widely popular.

As an early learning practitioner, I am part scientist, part teacher. In essence, I aim to learn as much as I teach. For generations teaching young children sports has represented the “rabbit hole” in sports. Sports science has mapped out how it thinks about the athletic talent development process. And just like most of the batteries in this Christmas’ toys, children are not included.

in the way of the sports process. Early learning sports development, a term I coined following education’s early learning development designation for children birth to age five.

. It is the very odds and the ends to that make up the introductory season of cats’ lives that most are referring to. Like kittens, young children can and often do look highly mechanical in their movements. They will dart in any direction, in an erratic fashion, usually at the most inopportune time.

represent the magical side of the species. Their playful, curious and disorientated ways when combined with their cuteness are mesmerizing.

What kittens can teach us about youth is great knowledge from the humblest of origins.

With that said, there might not be two more unlike things than a young child and sports. In 2006, I began this journey as an early learning sports practitioner. At the time, I was under the impression that the coach had to be in charge of a class, not young children. But not unlike interacting with kittens, I learned quickly that the introductory sports development process is very much a two way street. And, it is surprisingly different from the traditions of the youth sports I, as did most of us, grew up with.

This new territory offered exciting new horizons to explore but were not without downsides. Sports affective labeling of young children with the stereotypes of being uncoachable and unsportsmanlike hasn’t been easy to overcome. An Everest climb, support by the sports community for a niche non-competitive sports program focused exclusively on early learning sports development has been sporadic at best.

Young kids offer us adults a knowledge most of us have never considered.

is that it is less about me telling them how it is. A young child’s actions provide context to what they are thinking. They will more often tell me how it is. And like kittens, where their attention goes, the energy flows.

Contrary to the competitive ways we typically like to think about sports, early learning sports development has not been without its stereotypes. Young children are unsportsmanlike and not coachable. A flower does not aim to compete with the flower next to it, it just blooms. And so it is with young athletes of the introductory sports process. No different than flowers, young children don’t aim to compete with the one next to them, they just bloom.

How impossible is done coaching early learners to be athletes

has required new and different ways of thinking. It has been hard in the traditional sports sense to see past young kids naturally immature nature. It is what leads sport to stereotype them unsportsmanlike, label them unable to be coached and perpetuate the use of a sports process (i.e. sport science identifies the entry point being age 6 years) without them.

Early on, I knew how a young child’s mind worked. Yet, I had yet to be a parent and I had never owned kittens, and so how could that be?

if I’m on the right track and how universally appealing what I’m teaching is. I used to be offended when people compared coaching early learners in sports to herding kittens. This was until I realized the subtle nuances that inspire both breeds. How impossible done teaching young children sports is

I only first realized this during a children’s performance by the acclaimed Australian children’s group The Wiggles. They were live concert at Chicago’s Rosemont Theater and I, married but without children at the time attended with my wife. There, we saw 1500 preschool, kindergarten and early elementary school kids and their parents sitting in their seats engaged. As they sat on the edge of their seat awaiting what would happen next, I saw for the first time what it truly meant to teach kids in a live performance.

From that point forward, instead of spending my time trying to dictate what I wanted to get from young children, I was encouraged for them to show me what they would like to do.

The move established a different type of coaching relationship with young children. They, in my case, were actually given power, as a coach, inside the sports process. I, likewise, gravitated to being more a student as I studied their tendencies closely. This new coaching temperament was an important discovery. It reduced the friction common to the differences between how young children and adults think.

You can think of it like a flower. A flower doesn’t compete with the flower next to it. It just blooms. And so has been the case with Jelly Bean Sports. They say great knowledge often comes from the humblest of origins. What there is still to learn about how young children learn sports and how the early learning sports process connects to the broader sports process is transcending.

. Instead of the work I do with young children is largely minimized throughout sports. The process of teaching young children sports is often compared to the herding of kittens. A phenomenon

is how it has been treated. Let me be so emboldened as to say,

its own right to teach young children sports. My early expectations of people to value and appreciate advancement in this are were misjudgments on my part.

While others have seen it as a rabbit hole, seen it as changing from something they already have to the same thing with a different name.

How impossible is done is as much about perseverance as it is about educating others.

As for early learning sports development, it is an art to teach young children sports. At Jelly Bean Sports, we do it better than anyone but it is still . And like all art it reflects truth. As far as how to teach young children sports, it is the only truth I know, it is my church.

The reimagining of sports to better fit young children and the introductory process of sports has been the objective for over a decade.

As a scientist, when the world sees things one way as we do sports process, it leads to things in their original singular format. Typically, we use scientific theories to hypothesize and infer from past experiences new normals. Then there are the studies beyond the scope of theory derived from the brilliance of individuals that let their minds explore beyond the physically understood or cognitively comprehensible. They confront the abstract and provides a brilliance that requires proving well before their time that we are often not ready for. we get to such a point to where universal principles are established that give form to the formless and reason to chaos. our work represents the abstract. It will take a long time for what we do to be proven worthy in the minds eye of the and aspects of our world that we can see, hear and touch. the abstract . I find purpose connecting unlike things. In our case, the impossible is teaching young children sports. This is because there are no two more unlike things than sports and young children. It is the study of the unknown combining unlike things that is an art. To teach young children sports is an art. It, like all art, reflects truth. It is the only truth I know, it is my church.

What is being done is

Just how there is a form most do not see. Yet, they are inspired watching those of us that do.

this about a kitten. to know and be mindful of what young children gravitate to. Furthermore respectively, if I should intend to earn the attention of each and I don’t get it, then I don’t blame the kittens nor would it be prudent to blame the toddler or preschool-aged athlete. It is a natural order, after all, for both to be curious and for both to stray. Accordingly, they do not intentionally do so to let down my expectations of them. They do so because it is what we all do to create better context of the world around us.

The problem is that I know we are quick to blame young kids when they don’t meet our adult expectations in sports. The fact is, there may be no more two unlike things than young kids and sports. The experience parents, teachers and coaches have had teaching young children sports has left many to compare it to being like herding kittens. They say it is next to impossible. READ MORE How do you teach young children sports?

How is impossible done? Simply said, it is done by allowing ourselves to make of mistakes. Our society has made it an art form to teach children in ways that tell them mistakes are bad. This more practical way of thinking is, by design, flawed in its preparations of children for life. It forces to learn about the idea of probability but not always about the possibilities.

How the impossible is done is on the back of making mistakes. For young children, no experience should be called a mistake. They are learning, it is an exploration. Viewed from this lens, we can better begin to see the true potential of a child. A child learns more inside their own self-exploration than we could ever teach them. With that said, stay out of their way. Gentle guidance is all they need. It is too often that young children’s exploratory nature, that represents how impossible is done at every turn, is interfered with. Our impatience, possessive nature and more probable and practical ways of thinking leave no room for exploration leaving young children stifled and conditioned to be co-dependent.

Children’s greatest strength lies in their imagination. To become strong-willed and excel at thinking they must practice using their imagination. Their scenario building creates important self-talk that helps them manage through things we might never realize they feel are impossible. The greatest gift we can give society is to promote children’s imagination and to, we ourselves, reimagine something and make it better. It is here where the heart of progress lies.

Five Steps to How Impossible is Done

  1. Imagine Dragons (Imagine The POSSIBILITIES)

    Dragons don’t exist. However, someone somewhere at sometime had the idea to imagine them. And today they are as good as real. President John F. Kennedy led the charge to overcome the impossible odds of putting a man on the moon. The lesson here is even the impossibility of the unreal being made real can be overcome with enough effort.

    A French proverb says, “To believe a thing is impossible is to make it so.” This is one way of thinking but not how impossible is done. We must learn how to suspend our disbelief in the possibilities. This requires learning how to control our negative thoughts. “Worry” after all “is a misuse of imagination,” said Author Dan Zadra. Worry, fear, and negative thoughts all compromise and can kill our imaginative capabilities needed to make the impossible possible.

    Nevertheless how impossible is done is a progression. “So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” Actor Christopher Reeve wisely said.

  2. Walk the STEP-LESS staircase (Have Faith)

    Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King said, “Faith is taking the first step when you don’t see the whole staircase.” Faith often leads the way inside how impossible is done, even helping us to engage our imaginations. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, “I want to put a ding in the universe,” he was banking faith on that the ideas he had for tech innovation were possible.

    How impossible is done is a marathon not a sprint. This means we must exercise patience, a long tail approach to things that require us to be adaptable. “People think innovation is just having a good idea, but a lot of it is just moving quickly and trying a lot of things,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. What Zuckerberg is saying using the term quickly is a principle that is also true for elite warriors like the Navy Seals. Their mantra is fast is slow, slow is quick. In other words, great precision and execution often requires an enduring faith, patience and perseverance.

    To all the other dreamers out there, don't ever stop or let the world’s negativity disenchant you or your spirit. If you surround yourself with love and the right people, anything is possible, said Director Adam Green. However, it is important to understand that walking in faith is not doing so with your eyes closed. It requires a thick skin at times. Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos says it is imperative to be self-aware enough to be able to tolerate critics, lest we do anything new or interesting.

  3. Throw away the rule book (get uncomfortable)

    Acclaimed 20th century novelist George Bernard Shaw validates why we need to know, at the very least understand, how impossible is done. Shaw said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” It might be best said that how impossible is done requires more of an unreasonable man’s way of thinking.

    The unreasonable man thinks less from a place of order to a place of turbulence. Upon crossing this boundary you will experience what American Author Jeannette Walls describes as a place, “where no rules apply, or at least they haven't figured 'em out yet." At the point of impact when thinking about how impossible is done, you become a practitioner. You stop being a dreamer or strategist and begin the process of actually building your idea. It’s uncomfortable but completely rewarding because you own it.

enter Jelly Bean Sports. With its entertainment-based model it is changing how we introduce children to sports. It is revolutionizing sports process, early learner to elite and through its groundbreaking research that will eventually change the ways we think about sports.

The Sesame Street of sports, instead of conforming kids to fit sports, it is sports reimagined. It conforms sports to fit kids. It has been the remedy to coaching outcomes that look like

as a whole. Jelly Bean Sports to fill the void and show how impossible is done.

is the story of how Jelly Bean Sports Founder Dr. Brad Kayden saw a Sesame Street style of learning missing from sports. It reimagined. A way to, instead of conforming children to fit sports, conforming sports to fit children. And inside doing so Inside doing so, he has discovered the path to sports own

has To move from order into turbulence. It is awkward. Jeannette Walls describes it as a place, “where no rules apply, or at least they haven't figured 'em out yet." Scary, right? Yes, it can be. But turbulence is also a place where we can be free to think in different ways. It is where things get done. It is where highly structured things like sports become more easily reimagined. Crossing the boundary from order into turbulence there are many firsts to be discovered. It is like in the case of early learning sports development where we can learn how impossible is done. —>>READ MORE

But where do we begin?

It starts with faith.

Great minds agree, they never would have made the impact they did without the mistakes they made. The impact they would make was far down the list of what drove them at the outset. In most cases it, at the top, is undying faith in the belief of what was possible.

First Steps

The greatest minds of this and previous generations all agree on one thing, hard work and mistakes are necessary to determine progress. Without mistakes, the possibilities are largely impossible. “We would accomplish many things if we did not think of them as impossible,” said Hall of Fame Coach Vince Lombardi. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said,

The impossible is done is on the back of making mistakes, persevering and meanwhile challenging the status quo.

You might call this alternative thinking.

When Steve Jobs said, “I want to put a ding in the universe,” he was banking on the possibilities not the probabilities. But to be fair, we are a practical species. Prudent. We think in practical terms. It is just easier that way. Inside this thinking we find the structure necessary to coexist and prevail. Practical on so many levels is the normal we seek. What Shaw and others imply is the creation of new normals that are necessary for us to advance ourselves. This requires a more open way of thinking beyond practical that yes can be uncomfortable but does not have to be if we know what to expect.

Finding ourselves in states of turbulence has always been deemed as bad. This is because we are hardwired to believe mistakes are bad. Turbulence in our lives exist to help us establish the new normals we likely never would have found on our own. Entering a state of turbulence voluntarily seems to the reasonable man as ludicrous.

Turbulence offers us a place where we can be free to think in new and different ways. It is where things get built. The foundations of new ideas are developed here and are tested and are proven. In ordinary ways little would get done because the rules of the reasonable man would not allow it. But acceptance that there are no rules or that the freshest ideas have yet to have any rules established, we can begin to accept new normals. Or, as we like to say reimagine things that need reimagining, like sports.

not the turbulence, amazing outcomes are . It is where highly structured things like sports become more easily reimagined. Crossing the boundary from order into turbulence there are many firsts to be discovered. It is like in the case of early learning sports development where we can learn how impossible is done.Beyond order, there is turbulence. It is a place of disorder, discomfort and uncomfortable dialogue.

Ripe with chaos and filled with uncertainty, the turbulence of our lives is a barometer that is not all bad. It, in fact, can help us to conquer fear and to deal with, at times, the seemingly impossible.

A haven for mavericks, dreamers, inventors and innovators, the turbulent times are where starting anew is less an inconvenience and more an everyday blessing. Capable of new discovery, increased dialogue, adventure and for a select few, something they gracefully call a God send.

Regardless of the order in your life, there is always going to be turbulence lurking from just around the corner. No matter how much we try to avoid it, turbulence is everywhere. And like everything else, there is turbulence inside sports.

Generally speaking, it is inside turbulence where we find can the undefined. And it will be, in many cases, the undefined that will teach us about how impossible is done.

But what does it all mean? How could we ever know with certainty we are on the right track towards progress without basic tenets to follow. Herein lies the beauty of how impossible. If you want to seriously impact change it requires toggling in your thinking between what might be deemed irrational and unreasonable and the rational and reasonable. Living holistically in one realm or another is not befitting of the best results.

Mistakes teach us more in the long run because they help us learn how to adapt our ideas and concepts, how to overcome and mostly they teach us how to keep going.

How impossible is done is more a mentality than a destination. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

in this way is by learning about how impossible is done. In our highly practical world based more on probabilities than possibilities, it can open new doorways in our own thinking we never explored before. ing how to process things beyond our everyday ways of thinking can help us to achieve new heights in growth and our understanding of how the world works. One way of doing so is discovering how impossible is done.

Ever thought about how to affect major change? Or struggle with deeper, more personal matters like figuring out how to conquer your fears or overcome self-limiting beliefs. How impossible is done thinks outside the box. It is a place (i.e. belief system) where the rules in most case don’t apply and in fact have yet to even be established. It offers us tremendous freedom to think in terms of the possibilities and make an impact.

In doing so, you don’t expect to have to accept tales of the unlikely, no more than you would see value in accepting the unreasonable. It is illogical.

So when someone walks up to you and says they can walk on air or hold up the clouds or square a circle, your first practical instinct is to discount that person. The highly unlikely and impractical are irrational and unreasonable. It would be imprudent and illogical to carry on speaking to them.

However, as


The Birth of Early Learning Sports Development

The crazy part about how impossible is done is that inside our reasonable minds, we are thinking that the unreasonable man either has found separate ways of thinking means he is somehow living by a different set of rules. However, when we move from order into turbulence But then there is how the other side. It lives by a different set of rules. It includes the dreamers, inventors and innovators. In the case of Jelly Bean Sports, the three converged to reimagine sports for young children, age five and younger.

For generations the idea of teaching young children sports had been described in the same chaotic terms as herding kittens. Two unlike They see, instead, a Sesame Street for sports. An educational process that goes against the grain. Instead of conforming young children to fit sports, it conforms sports to fit young children. A remarkably noble endeavor that generations of parents, teachers and coaches have missed. there will always and forever exist in and around us less reasonable minds. It is they that value as Shaw says, “trying to adapt the world to themselves. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable minds found within man.”

in. It is worth learning about if not for any other reason than you might be pleasantly surprised at how accessible achieving the impossible really is. Moreover, you may be even more surprised at how effective some have actually become at repeating the “squaring of a circle.”

Achieving the impossible means you are going to fail much more than you succeed. It’s part of the natural order of how great ideas are made real. Part of that failure includes the isolation we will feel from our loved ones. They will understand your passion but not always your vision. Your idea, in their minds, will be as understood as walking on air, holding up clouds or awaiting pigs to fly. They are not against you, they are just not with going to be able to be totally with you as you suffer inside getting to your proof of concept. Some people can’t handle this separation, but for those who can, it is how impossible is done.

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.”

Marcus Aurelius

For often it is this gap in the public’s perception of a problem that inspires the greatness in thinking to overcome even the highest challenge of doing the impossible.

Great minds have become inspired in the most unusual of places. They have made new discovery inside the uncomfortable turbulence of the impossible. Vince Lombardi said, “We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”

Impossible relies on separate ways of thinking from the ordinary life we fight hard to structure and feel comfortable within.

What’s the significance, if after all its impossible, why bother? And this is how we talk to ourselves. Self-limiting beliefs hold us back perceiving things to be impossible that actually are possible. So what if you stopped listening to your negative self-talk? It requires moving from order into turbulence.

My doctoral dissertation study of early learning sports development was one such test of how impossible is done.

With several years of teaching young children 5-years and younger sports already under my belt, I expected in this day and age of Google for there to be some documentation on the early learning sports development process. A full review of the scientific literature drew a goose egg, nothing, nada. There was nothing to be found in sports science about the process behind the growing downward trend towards early learning sports development.

Rule #1 How Impossible is Done - Don’t see the problem, see the solution

After much reflection and consideration to the contrary, what was once seen as the obstacle of writing scientific paper without sufficient resource would eventually become what might aptly be called “The Challenge” inside how impossible is done.

When faced with extreme adversity, we must ask ourselves who we are inside it. In the case of early learning sports development, I had to change my thinking of being a newly-minted researcher to a pioneer.

What is still incredible to this day is that sports have been around long before I had been born. Young children have played sports long before I was born. Yet li

overcoming around my topic to write about early learning sports developmentNatural Order of Sport, revealed inconsistencies, incomplete processes that exist as little more than phenomenon unless complemented by what is missing. For sport, regardless of sport, age, stage or it has long missed absolute beginning in its developmental processes.

includes such a turbulent area. There is one turbulent area of sports in inside early learning sports development. It is Where the Wild Things Roam, it is where the most unsportsmanlike of the unsportsmanlike are found.

Our instruction, production and researchwe have found a way to teach children sports in the ways they learn best. teach pre-K, kindergarten and early elementary aged-learners how to navigate sports. It, as you will learn, is driven by one general philosophy, Sports Made Simple, Learning Made Fun.

A new weight loss initiative, divorce, beginning a new job, relocation or starting a new business, they are all types of metaphorical boundaries that we might face. They represent for some of us, the impossible. How impossible is done comes with a lot of unknowns. It can involve situations that are filled with much uncertainty and that can make thinking about the impossible a scary proposition.

But, they are also situations ripe with new opportunity for our own self-discovery and some much needed change. Simply crossing the threshold of these boundaries (i.e. execution) represents the minimum initial commitment needed. Inside doing so a new way of thinking is initiated.

Once a new way of thinking is born, we are more apt to begin accepting our own new lease on life. The corresponding treasures to be mapped and truths to be mined are simply part of the process.

It is the terrifying and exhilarating effects of how impossible is done that is what makes it so special.

In our case, how impossible is done has revolved, from the beginning, around how our small Chicago-based start-up would take on the $74 billion traditional sports establishment. It has been inside our reimagining sports that we’ve made new discoveries in the areas of instruction production and research.

READ MORE —> How unsportsmanlike children have helped to lead us inside our instruction and the Jelly Bean Way.

How impossible is done - Be passionateThrough the Eyes of A Child

At the underbelly of how impossible is done there lies treasures to be mapped and truths to be mined. It’s fitting that a man with boyhood dreams to play sports, a love for coaching and a natural talent for staged performances would grow up to create the next Sesame Street, but for sports.

The only son of a single-mother until the age of five, Dr. Brad Kayden would never know his biological father.

His formative years were spent doing what most young children do, playing. He loved sports and grew up watching them on television. His mother worked long hours in the medical field. When they were home together, she would let him watch educational children’s television like Sesame Street.

If Brad wasn’t watching Sesame Street, he was self-teaching himself sports by, you guessed it, watching sports on television.


The absence of a father-figure in Brad’s formative years turned out to actually be a positive in the way of sports.

With a lot of time to freely think without adult-distraction, Brad’s first sports experiences, mainly watched on television, allowed him to build a deep understanding of sports at an early age . Left inside the process to his own devices, Brad built a deep and personal relationship with sports.

He emulated the players movements for hours by running through the house playing inside his head that which watched inside every new play. Brandishing rug burned knees worn down by the green shag carpeting of grandma’s apartment where he and his Mom lived, Brad flourished during his fatherless early years self-teaching himself about play sports..

By the age of five year-old, he had built a large sports vocabulary. As he grew older, the sports imagery of his mind took the place of the television. Soup cans became footballs and displays defenders as he’d run through the aisles of grocery stores playing out sports scenarios hoping for someone to notice his skills.

Brad’s story is a testament of the resounding resilience resourceful mind of a child opens up infinite possibilities. In Brad’s case, he used the ingenuity behind Sesame Street to teach himself sports. At a time when his mind was a sponge thirsty for knowledge, he was able to use the television program like a tool. It taught him the most important lesson of his life, keep sports simple and make learning fun.

Fast-Forward to 2006

After a successful high school sports career, Brad plays in college, goes to the military, sees the world, graduates from college and gets his Masters Degree from the University of Oklahoma in Human Relations.


He would key in on words like better connect with how the early learning sports development process for little kids is supposed to work.

Brad was an active kid with an active mind. Curious, he pined to learn and know what he was passionate about. At an early age this was sports. The funny thing about life is, as the Chinese call it, the yin and yang, how opposites attract.

Here was a young boy without a father. He didn’t know the difference between having one parent or two. overcoming his obstacle to learn the vocabulary and nuance of sports without adult intervention. His watching of Sesame Street taught him how learning was done. He applied the same concepts of learning letters and numbers to learning the words being said by the announcers as he watch football on Sundays.


around to teach him sports, Fast-forward to 2006, after graduating with his Masters Degree in Human Relations from the University of Oklahoma-Norman, he gets a job as a Dean of Instruction at an online university.



Raised by a single-mother until he was five years-old, Brad lived in the inner city. He remembers spending a lot of time inside as a young child. Without a yard to play in, he remembers the rug burns he’d get sliding and tumbling across his grandmother’s apartment’s green shag carpeting where he and his mother also lived.

Every Saturday and Sunday he was glued to the television. He watched and played out, in his mind kick-off to gun, every snap of the football games he watched. He’d emulate everything the player with the football did for 60 minutes. As his mother speaks of these times, it was what he loved to do and it was as adorable as you could imagine.

Brad, like many young boys’, love of sports continued growing. Neither his Mom nor his grandmother were athletes and so nobody could ever explain the meaning of the term “touchdown” or “field goal” “holding” to him. His ongoing curiosity made him listen harder to what the announcers were saying. He began to cue in on the timing of these few words. Watching week after week he began cognitively connecting things together as five year-old. Things the score changing everytime they said touchdown he noticed, and that a guy kicked the football as another held it happened when they said field goal and the guy in black and white was always shown when they said the word holding. The vocabulary and other nuances of sports intrigued him from a young age.

This way of being self-taught seeded in him the importance of not being able to just copy and emulate sports but to learn how to understand sports on a deeper level like its vocabulary.

When Brad grew up, he explored other sports like baseball and basketball.


He’d go on to play sports in college


he say the teams doing. When he grew up he’d play baseballrunning around with a football in his hand across his grandma’s shag carpeting do, well…something different, something more than his parents and his friends parents ended up . In his first go round of college he played sports for a couple of years and then that era of life ended. He lost his passion for organized sports dealing with the politics he found himself doing side hustles or Growing up in a small middle-class southeastern Wisconsin community five miles off Lake Michigan, grew up found a way to do that through entrepreneurship.

Son to a single-mother until he was five, Brad has always been a momma’s boy. He never knew his father, his name, who he was or anything about him until more recently.

It, in and of itself, is the outer space of sports. It lies beyond traditions, structure and sports’ rigid rules. Typically non-compeititve, it is a space in sports where the “wild things” or the youngest of athletes and their unsportsmanlike nature roam. But it is It is also where the greatest opportunity for sports own evolution lies. And it is where sports are currently being reimagined. (Read More)


I want to put a ding in the universe
— Steve Jobs

Different. improbable, unlikely, uncommon, abnormal, inordinate, atypical, odd and mysterious…how impossible is done includes many terms to overcome that imply failure.

For us, it was the term “unsportsmanlike.”

Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple had many big ideas around technology that many couldn’t conceive beforehand and would have deemed impossible. His ideas were so big that he didn't believed they could be contained on earth, saying, “I want to put a ding in the universe.” He was passionate about what he believed in and didn’t see limitations but endless opportunities. But this didn’t mean he didn’t have hurdles to overcome.

The term unsportsmanlike had long been the kiss of death in sports. However in terms of early learners, it is an unavoidable reality. Nonetheless a stereotype that dispassionately saw as a problem, and more passionately saw as more just a natural order in sports.

When something is seen as negative, there is little new or good that can emerge. Negative thinking stunts growth by handicapping our thinking. It impedes evolution, something we realized was the case even for massive as a $74 billion sports industry. Sports own lack of knowledge about its own roots (i.e. early learning sports development process) became for us, how impossible is done.

How impossible is done - Be Mentored

Three years into the concept of Jelly Bean Sports. Our characters had been designed, a new sports language developed, we were contracting with Chicagoland park districts doing live local early learning sports instruction.

My dissertation study on early learning sports development, the first of its kind in sports science had begun and we were receiving solid regional recognition participating in larger Kids and Family Expos around Chicagoland.

I began describing us as an instruction, production and research company. The only problem was, I knew little about production.

In August 2009, after reading Guy Kawasaki’s Entrepreneurial guide book, the Art of the Start, I reached out to a University of Montana Entertainment Management professor. Per the book’s suggestion, it recommended I start with academia (i.e. lowest hanging fruit) to make in-roads to business mentors and investors.

By September 2009, my wife and I were already on a plane to Missoula, Montana. Jelly Bean Sports had literally overnight been put at a table and onto the radar of a former Paramount Studios executive, Academy Award-winning producer and Nashville talent agent, along with my professor point of contact. They were well-respected, noted names from Hollywood that had taken a meeting to meet us. It was the coolest thing.

What we did not know but learned was that Montana is a popular destination for many from Hollywood-types to escape to and make their second home.

Over the next year, what the group did was mentor me and inside doing so vetted our concept. Possibly the biggest contribution was helping to identify what the “magic” inside Jelly Bean Sports is.

How Impossible is done - Be Authentic

The mentoring relationship with true producers helped to establish early on the magic of Jelly Bean Sports was, it taught the value of being authentic. How would Jelly Bean Sports be different?

There is a long version to this opportunity quickly fast-forwarded our thinking. suddenly the opportunity to

What many have failed to realize is that unsportsmanlike within an early learning sports development program is not a problem. It is a natural order. And accepting this fact has helped us transcend traditional sports treasures and truths and opens new doorways to reimagine sports.

Becoming the next big thing, a Sesame Street for sports in our case, carries with it a lot of responsibility. For us, it meant I would need to educate people about the ways we differed from traditional sports. Our new entertainment approach (i.e. new sports language, props, animation) to introducing young children to sports, by and large, looked great on paper. But as I quickly found out, many saw Jelly Bean Sports more as less a novelty and more as a counterculture to the more traditional sports establishment. There will be a time when only you can see the value in your idea. It will be up to you to change this and inform others as to why they should think differently or as in our case letting our work speak for itself and show people how to reimagine sports.

The fact is not everybody is going to like your idea. Anytime we go against the grain of the status quo it should be expected that there will be the opposing viewpoints. Conforming sports to fit young children flies in the face of sports tradition that has long accepted that we must conform young children to fit sports.

Regardless of your idea, if you’re going to do the impossible, you’re going to need help. It is your job to make neutral thinkers around your idea promoters and detractors neutrals. Face them head on. This practice can begin with your friends and family. Through the use of social media, you then can begin to influence complete strangers. However keep in mind, evangelizing your idea is an incredibly long grind that requires an everyday wake up to the wee early parts of the morning dedication. It requires self-awareness, passion and authenticity. Being genuine about your mission is the strength people will look to derive from you.

How impossible is done - Be realistic

Dale Carnegie once said, “Most of the impossible things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” As enduring as it sounds, how impossible is done is actually quite inspiring. It is a testament of our human drive and determination.

Most of the impossible things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
— Dale Carnegie

Albeit a crucible on the spirit, it is the unknown treasures mapped and truths mined that are often the greatest personal motivators behind how impossible has gotten done. I knew our idea to be the next Sesame Street but for sports is a good one. Telling people what Jelly Bean Sports aimed to be often flew in direct contrast to what it was. As an instruction, production and research company, we for a long time only reflected being an instruction and research company. And most only know us as an instruction company. This didn't stop me from just need proof of concept and these treasures and truths reflect that. They represent how impossible is done. Done being the optimal word. You must fall in love with the process because it is more often a longer grind than you initially would probably accept. Outcomes are not measured in an instance, days, weeks or months the way we’d like, but rather in years. It is just what the process requires. Decades of testing, experimentation and life experience are how impossible is done, impossible made possible and how overnight success really happens.

How impossible is done - Be possible

A mosaic of thoughts, decisions, indecision, uncertainty and much blind faith. The chicken soup for the soul inside how impossible is done is the growth inside the lessons we learn from failure. It is a long, hard grind that is less about us and more about the people we aim to serve with our idea.

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, ‘I’m possible’!
— Audrey Hepburn

Impermanence is how we must rationalize and deal with failures. It is the jagged little pill we must learn to swallow over and over. Failure is not designed not to crush our spirit, but merely align our thinking to find the better way next time. As Audrey Hepburn said, “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, ‘I’m possible’!

In the end, how impossible is done is a process led by our own self-awareness. It selectively breeds the most self-determined and weeds out the rest. It is a process of starting, discovery, analyze, innovating and repeating. How impossible is done is ironically inexplicably self-explanatory.

Along the way you must, as social media maven Gary Vaynerchuck suggests, not care what anybody thinks, but care what everybody thinks.

Change is a natural order. The slow speed of change or target disproportionately weighted and focused in one area without consideration of all others is a strong predictor of evolutionary stagnation.

In 2006, such a stagnation in sports was taking shape.

It began after the governing bodies of sport had adopted an idea that competition, instead of practice, training and development, would lead the way in youth sports. Athletic talent development overnight became a trial by fire. The belief was that the best of the best would rise out of such a system and America’s athletes and world standing would be stronger than ever.

Such an elite sports “professionalized” model has given rise to a travel sports culture that has left costs of youth sports to skyrocket. Increased competition has ballooned youth sports from a $5 to a $15 billion dollar industry in a period of a decade. And this does not even account for a thriving hospitality (i.e. travel, hotel) industry that has also grown exponentially around this new trend in sports.

and many disenchanted with the process and the outcomes. gave rise to a hospitality industry that catered to families embedded in the idea that more competition meant better opportunity to be discovered and earn the coveted collegiate athletic scholarship or professional contract. increased competition would balloon youth sports from a 5 billion to $15 billion dollar a year industry. As big change goes, it quickly take us from order to turbulence. Scary, it is the unknown that leads us to think how impossible is done.

In the case of teaching children sports, it was not a new concept. Even teaching children in the ways they learned best was not a new concept. But teaching children sports in the ways they learned best, this was a new concept. The discovery of “places” as novelist Jeannette Walls describes, “where no rules apply, or at least they haven't figured 'em out yet." More scary, but who do you think makes the rules.

Ludicrous, how impossible is done is in spite of what everybody else thinks. But they must “love,” as kindness Gary Vaynerchuk says, “everyone.” One must be a person willing to risk everything, overcome failure and eventually conquer how impossible is done.

But what does it take to conquer that often scare us most. the Such is the case with early learning sports’ development. It is the turbulence of sports, a phenomenon that before recently has been literally undefined. It, in and of itself, is the outer space of sports. It lies beyond traditions, structure and sports’ rigid rules. Typically non-compeititve, it is a space in sports where the “wild things” or the youngest of athletes and their unsportsmanlike nature roam. But it is It is also where the greatest opportunity for sports own evolution lies. And it is where sports are currently being reimagined.

It is never too late and nothing is impossible. This is how, at least, the thinking has to go if the impossible is to be done. Basically in order to achieve the impossible, you must think differently. It begins by controlling our negative thoughts that ultimately are what usually make impossible a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Step 1: Be Fearless

Finding the ambition is not how impossible is done. It’s all about execution. Yes, ambition is a part of the equation but fearlessness is critical. Too many people, fearful of what others might think, stop short of executing. They don’t want to disappoint their parents. They don’t want to get negative comments on social media. So they stop short. They settle for doing less. And they, as a result, achieve less then they desired and in the end fail to learn how impossible is done.

Fearlessness is like a muscle you can grow. It, likewise, requires exercising thinking that considers your prior accomplishments that you’ve already achieved.

Sometimes how impossible is done requires breaking molds, changing the status quo and changing traditions. This requires the courage to go against the grain.

Jelly Bean Sports has broken the mold sports tradition has previously set forth for youth sports coaches and youth sports instruction. For too long we have been conforming children to fit sports instead of conforming sports to fit children. The Jelly Bean Way is effectively doing the latter. Reverse-engineering the traditional sports processes has leveled the playing field, especially for very young children.

Sports has long touted the need to put children first, but failed in its execution. Daring to go as far as to identify early learning sports development as separate from youth sports, Jelly Bean Sports represents a new frontier in sports. It’s entertainment model reimagines sports much like Sesame Street did for education. This has led to some pretty remarkable discoveries that impact the evolution of sports, young children’s place in sports, how they learn best and through research is able to go as far to say early learners pound for pound better athletes than elite athletes.

Step 2: Think Big

Many examples of those that have done the impossible exist- Martin Luther King Jr.,

what others might think of their idea to do the impossible.

If the impossible is to be done, you must begin early and you must begin often thinking about yourself as a pioneer. What this means is that you don’t see the idea of changing the world as a noble cause as some might, but rather you see it one way, as absolutely necessary. Otherwise why subject yourself to the suffering it will take to make it real?

Without fail someone or quite possibly your whole family will view your idea as incredible, but secretly and when times get tough outwardly express how crazy and/or completely irrational and unreasonable you are to undertake such an idea.

Nobody will get your idea until you, aptly, bring it to life. You see pioneering the idea of how impossible is done is, in effect, another way of saying you are putting yourself out there. You are saying to the world I’m all-in! Further, you are saying with that nobody is going to stop me. From the time you announce your idea to the world, it becomes your job to lead and never look back.

But let’s be honest, the early stages of pioneering any new idea is incredibly scary. This is especially true if you’re going go it alone. Faced with uncertainty, great leaders realize early that they will do one thing often and they will do it well, and that is fail. Pioneers, inherently, go to places in life and this world where there is not path and they leave a trail. They don’t always know if what they are doing is right, but what they do learn over time is that there is no better way to understand how something is supposed to work then to fail and fail again until the idea they are so passionate about has been tried, tested and eventually is ready.

Find the gap in the market - Focus exclusively ( like a laser ) on it

Pioneering Jelly Bean Sports began in 2006. It is when the idea of early learning sports development was in its infancy, but rather in its conception phase. In the beginning, I didn’t know what young children needed from sports. I relied upon Google help me find others that would show me how to work with early learners and how sports development was supposed to work for them.

The problem was Google was a bust. I returned nobody from sports, sports science, physical education or early childhood development that could provide any perspective on the matter. Deflated, I was unaccepting, at first, by the fact that there was nobody out there who had explored this early learning sports development concept I myself was interested in exploring. After my extensive online search, I was literally breathless. I had discovered gap in something I lived since a kid, sports. It was the opportunity of a lifetime with the biggest frontier imaginable at my disposal, the Internet. I set my sights on filling the internet with everything I could about early learning sports development.

But I quickly stalled by a dilemma. Who was I? What did I know about early learners? I was not a preschool teacher. Who would believe a random guy knew what was best for young children in sports. Fortunately at the time, I was getting ready to begin writing my doctoral dissertation. What better opportunity to exploit this gap in sports then to write about it as part of my research. And that’s what I did, I focused exclusively, like a laser, on the gap until I became an expert on the topic of early learning sports development. I have not stopped focusing on how we can make the introductory sports process better for families with young children.

Step 2: Dare to Be Different

Sports Reimagined - A Entertainment model

Don’t hold it against them, they are your loved ones. They only want what’s best for you not realizing you’ve never been so happy thinking about your new idea. They pine for the old you back. How they think about your idea will, by association, make you, as the individual with the idea feel sometimes like your crazy, irrational and unreasonable. Love it or hate it, this is how impossible is done. Our ideas too often go unsupported by those we’d most expect to be supporting us. And so while you will feel alone…early and often it is all part of how impossible is done. about early learning sports development and so nothing translated in the way of articles on Google. Early learning sports development was an anomaly, a phenomenon, a new frontier of sports yet to be seriously explored.

I am often ask how I came up with the name Jelly Bean Sports. It’s a cool name befitting of what we do and at the outset of how impossible is done, naming your idea and giving it an identity is, arguably, the most important step in the pioneering process. I had just come out of working directly for the park districts as an employee. They would not give me the tools or the resources I asked for to bring my early learning sports development vision to life. My situation led to my idea being turned into a new early learning sports instruction, production and research company. It was the first of its kind. We would pioneer early learning sports development programs for children 18 months to 5-years old using an entertainment model much the same way Sesame Street did for education. But my grand vision needed a name, one that would stand the test of time, one that could compete with other children’s entertainment brands yet also be synonymous with the things that would reflect young children and their natural cuteness…small, sweet, colorful personalities and sporty… when Jelly Bean Sports came to me, I couldn’t stop saying it. I knew we had a winner.

As a pioneer, you learn everything takes twice as long as you hope or expect it to. It helped, in my situation, to have a great name. It didn’t come overnight. When it did, however, it brought my vision to life, vividly. This initial process of getting your name figured out will start you down the path towards a deeper belief in your mission. Your conviction to come up with a name will excite others and start the process of proving to others what you believe needs changing matters. They will begin to listen more deeply where before they would not.

Pioneering an idea comes with a few other rude realities besides lacking enough support. The other big problem pioneers must face is that often our ideas are much bigger then our pocketbooks. Out the gate, this means it can be difficult to execute everything you want as fast as you want it. But instead of getting frustrated, just remember how impossible has been discussed up until now. You are a pioneer and as such, where there is a will, there is a way. Get use to in the beginning without what you need. It keeps you hungry and the ideas marinading. Things like our company’s logo, website, domain name, e-mail can cause $1000’s. Producing them are critical steps that you should take time to think hard about. You want to get them right the first time and not have to spend extra money to change them because you acted in haste.

Step 1: Be a pioneer

The problem with everyone else, relative to your idea, is they are As the first pioneer of early learning sports development, my idea for Jelly Bean Sports was just such a noble endeavor.

has thought about early learning sports development differently than anybody else provides a simple framework to how impossible is done.

Without further ado let’s explore the Jelly Bean Way of how impossible is done?

There are a few basic tenets to remember before starting to achieve the impossible like teaching very young children sports.

but so much of what we’ve endured is about how impossible is done that I think the synonymous nature will offer you some pearls of wisdom to consider.

Let’s face it, at some point you will be required to decide to do the impossible- like run a marathon, shed those pounds, or forgive a loved one that hurt you badly. Chances are it will be much more impossible than any of these things, God forbid, but hopefully not.

There are essentially three rules for how impossible is done:

  1. A heartfelt challenge

  2. Scientific evidence the problems real and manageable

  3. Faith you can do what you say you can

A heartfelt challenge

Whether mandated or by choice, when you are confronted by the impossible, it is going to leave you at the boundaries of your comfort zones. It is a place where the conflict not always bad. of both order and turbulence will reside within both your thinking and your actions what will feel like simultaneously. It’s a place where new realities take shape. "It's (also) a place” as novelist Jeannette Walls describes, “where no rules apply, or at least they haven't (been) figured out yet."

Such is the case with early learning sports’ development. It is not the competitive youth sports you most want to think about it being. No, this is the one that is more often compared to herding kittens. It is the non-competitive sports programming that exists as a precursor to the organized competitive youth sports we are more accustomed to thinking about. By design, it introduces children 5 years and under to sports and based upon its non-competitive nature has existed as more a phenomenon than an integrated part of sports’ process.

In thinking about how impossible is done, one only needs to consider the immature nature of children and how difficult it can be to teach them to understand why early learning sports development offers a perfect example of “impossible.” It is definitely a boundary that takes us outside of our comfort zones. It is where order and turbulence are married, it is how they coexist and that is how they corrupt one another and that is the prelude to how impossible is done. our long-standing views on sports. It is as extraordinary and revolutionary as it seems. It is the reimagining of sports. But for many it will be how impossible is done.

Any new change, at first will invariably feel uncomfortable. How impossible is done requires confronting the same nerve-wrecking jostling, plane shaking, bumpy ride that we come to expect from turbulence in our air travel. In the case of early learning sports development it is that same out-of-control turbulence that scares us but also requires the faith everything will be ok.

Developing the backbone to first confront the impossible is required before balancing the order and turbulence within it is possible. Since most of us don’t know what it takes to create that balance, essentially, how to get comfortable being uncomfortable, the vast majority of you reading this would be left with bowing out. But let’s face it, if doing the impossible were easy everyone would be doing it.

American writer, Dale Carnegie once said, “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope."

What if the next time you were confronted by the impossible, you were inspired to keep on trying when there seemed to be no hope instead of quitting. I want that for you too, especially when it comes to doing the impossible teaching your early learners sports.

How a noble endeavor, however difficult for most people to imagine. There is usually good reason to think in terms of the impossible and while they vary, the reasons we don’t are fairly universal. From one person to the next, we are largely creatures of habit. For most of us, we feel like our lives are just fine just the way they are. The great majority of the world feels better playing the odds that are more in their favor more than against. It’s human nature. Good is good enough, and great well, it would be nice, but the sacrifice is usually more than most people are willing to make.

Nevertheless, there will come a time in your life when you are confronted by an “impossible” challenge, one that you can’t avoid. Wouldn’t it be nice to to have a basic plan, at least a framework to refer to? Jelly Bean Sports is a David verses Goliath story of how one such how impossible is done framework was built.

It is important to touch upon at the outset that the mindset everyone who attempts the impossible needs is relatively the same, almost universal if you will. So let’s get into it.

early on decide early on that early learning sports development is impossible and settle for letting others try to manage it for us. The problem is, they don’t know what they are doing either. Too many are faking it to make it. You can watch them flounder at dealing in this outer spaces of sports where the “wild things” within our youngest athletes unsportsmanlike nature roam. It has been what has made arly learning sports development more a phenomenon in sports than a process easily understood.

The challenge has been how do we integrate this turbulence into the ordered structured and rigid rules behind sports tradition?

Considering early learning sports development is, in and of itself, like the outer space of sports. It lies beyond traditions, structure and sports’ rigid rules. Typically non-compeititve, it is where the “wild things” or the youngest of athletes and their unsportsmanlike nature roam. But it is It is also where the greatest opportunity for sports own evolution lies. And it is where sports are currently being reimagined.


When you are David in a David versus Goliath journey, many believe the feeling of being isolated and daunted by the overwhelming odds stacked against you would seem, normal. But in fact just the opposite is true. As the impossible is realized to actually be “possible,” the Davids of the world find great faith within themselves. It is here where the strength of a believer’s sense in achieving the impossible emerges.

And, like teaching children as young as 18 months old sports, the believer in doing the impossible must be equipped with more than blind faith. It starts with science but also with thinking beyond science that says there are treasures to be mapped and truths to be mined. It is here where a new path is established, and becomes the first physical evidence that a believer in achieving the impossible exists.

It is these steps that are exactly how the idea of an early learning sports development concept like Jelly Bean Sports emerged. It, in and of itself, is the symbol of change, a new path, a testament of belief in young children, their spirit, resolve and untapped sports potential. It is all part of the pathway of early learning sports development that is the first physical evidence of how achieving the impossible of reimagining sports exists. Beyond a pathway, it is also symbolic of sport’s own evolution. We are opening of doors to better tomorrow that accommodates the ways young children learn best and improves our own basic understandings of how sport process and sports success really works.

David vs. Goliath

The biblical story of David was one of an Israelite shepherd boy with great faith going up against a formidable enemy, Goliath, who sought to destroy Israel. Today, Jelly Bean Sports (i.e. David), exists, likewise, in the shadows of another Goliath, the broader organized competitive sports establishment. Drowning out the light on early learning sports development are the competitive philosophies and nuances of the NBA, NFL, MLB, MLS, NCAA and today’s highly organized youth sports. They all put a large gap between themselves and non-competitive early learning sports development. And it this gap where the boundary lies; and it is the boundary where we already know turbulence lies. Jelly Bean Sports represents the otherwise missing order.

Learn more how early learning in sports represents sports’ “outer” space (link). There is still much to learn and explore in sports.


FODDER
Their unsportsmanlike nature neither cares about sports’ traditions nor will allow their . As a result, sports reimagining has been necessary. An addition to the natural order or moreover a recognition of the earliest phases of sports development is established. It is where new traditions, structures and rules are being figured out and pioneered by Jelly Bean Sports. the early learning sports development process not have long been thought to be near impossible. Young children’s unsportsmanlike nature has prevented most from seeing their place in the earliest days of sports’ process. Accordingly, the decision to wait, let them mature to the age of six and then teach them sports has become a prevailing trend. Unfortunately, it creates a five- year gap in children’s athletic talent development birth to age five. Essentially, the impossible has failed to be imagined and when it has it is less in the ways children need. in this case, from being possible. is Our minds have no choice but to be stretched. Join us as and learn how “impossible” is done by exploring the reimagining of sports.