Americas Coach

In Full Out Coach Monica Aldama shares how she built one of the most successful and beloved cheerleading programs in America. Her uncompromising brand of discipline and consistency goes far beyond the mat - showing how the principles of building a winning team apply to personal goals, the corporate world, parenting and all aspects of life. 

She used to make the same mistakes we've all made with men - until she realized that the winning formula to attracting the right guy lay in skills she already had. As a successful saleswoman, Jess has practiced the techniques in promoting a product, finding the right approach, making the pitch, and closing deal after deal. Once she started to apply these same techniques to the dating scene, her love life made a complete 180, and she found herself with more interested men than she knew what to do with.

Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest sports moment of the 20th century. Their "Miracle on Ice" has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown triumph. It is a chronicle of everyday heroes who just wanted to play hockey happily ever after.

Based on true accounts born into slavery, allowed to grow up with her owners' daughter, Molly was taught to read and write. After emancipation, Mary found it difficult to remain close to her childhood friend and struggled with many jobs throughout her life. At 60 years old, Mary became the first Black woman mail carrier and became known as "Stagecoach" Mary. Even though she frequented saloons, smoked cigars, and fought like a man, she was loved by the town of Cascade and given more privileges than a White woman. 

What would one call taking teens with no evident running talent and putting them through breakneck training combined with mantras from rock n' roll, techniques from Kenya, and philosophy from Australia, and turning them into champions? Is it revolutionary? Or just plain crazy? Bill Aris has heard both, but one thing is indisputable. Everything Aris does with his runners - male and female - is new and extraordinary, and he has created a new American running dynasty. 

Since 1992, I have worked with teens, youth, and families in different capacities, and I couldn’t ask for a better career. Imagine, if you will, the satisfaction that comes from helping a young adult get on a path to success. You may have gotten a sense of what I do if you watch MTV’s reality series “MADE” regularly. I was on an episode in late 2005. As the life coach on the show, I helped an 18-year-old high school senior find out what she was most passionate about so she could decide on a college major and career. She moved me as much I moved her. From teaching and coaching to speaking and mentoring, I have had the honor of reaching nearly four million youths and educators from all over North America and student leaders representing more than 48 different countries. It has been just awesome and rewarding, meaningful and fulfilling. I love teens and how they keep it real. Within a heartbeat they’ll read you and without hesitation tell you what they think and what they want and expect that success will be greeting them within a few years. While the dream to be successful is there, one major obstacle must be overcome. Somebody has to teach them the essential principles for achieving success or how to define what success or purpose means to them as productive members of a community within our society. Your Life Matters, this isn’t just what I do. This is who I am!

By the time the United States came into existence, wagons were a tried-and-true method of transportation. Driven by oxen, horses, or mules, wagons and stagecoaches allowed people to traverse long distances much faster than walking. Although this form of travel remained relatively slow and perilous, the journey was often considered worth the risk.