Jamion Christian on Love, Connection, and Competition

Jamion Christian joins us on this week’s episode of the podcast. Jamion is the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at George Washington University.  He coached last year at Siena and then the year before that he was at Mount St. Mary’s. At the age of 29, he was a Division 1 Men’s Head Basketball Coach. From an early age, Jamion was looked at as somebody who could lead men, and this also was the case when he was a 3-year captain at Mount St. Mary’s. He is somebody who has always been curious and is always learning. Today he will share the knowledge that he has learned in what makes a great team, what makes people perform at their best, and how he can lead those people to achieve whatever it is that they want to achieve.

In this episode, they discuss when he got introduced to the psychology of basketball (5:00), what led him to basketball (8:10), the conversations he has with his brother (10:10), what has led to him and his brother’s early coaching opportunities (12:30), his and his brother’s dreams at 14 and 18 (14:05), what it was like loving practice (16:00), what makes a great leader (17:40), how you build love and awareness in a team (19:00), how he makes players aware of their emotions but not let it hijack them (21:30), how he motivates his players (27:40), the thing holding him back from being his best basketball self (29:30), what gets in the way of him being at his best (36:20), his mindset as a coach (38:20), how he thinks about filling out a staff (40:10), what he looks for in players (42:30), how he cultivates culture/systems on his teams (49:30), how he cultivates connectedness on his team (52:40), the necessary parts of the fabric for a team (57:40), what he does to celebrate learning (59:00), what he is excited about for the next 10 years from a team perspective (1:00:30), and if he wasn’t coaching, what he’d be doing (1:02:30)

Thank you to Jamion for coming on the podcast. You can find Jamion on twitter @JamionChristian and Instagram @jamion_christian.

Lastly, if you liked this episode and/or any others, please support us at Patreon or follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

-Brian