Lake City’s Greg Berge thought his experiences could help others. 25 million views later, he was right

For Greg Berge, it all started on March 23, 2022.

That’s when the Lake City High School boys basketball coach and principal was sitting poolside at his parents' place in Florida. That day he made a commitment to himself: Every day he was going to take 20 minutes to write about coaching, leadership, culture and teams.

He had started attending and speaking at sports leadership summits around Minnesota in the previous few years and he had received plenty of positive feedback.

But that March day he was ready to take the next step in the process — one that involved a passion of writing to help share his personal experiences and lessons learned over 20 years of being a coach and school administrator.

He vowed to give it a year to see where it took him.

More than 26 million views and two books later, it has taken him further than he could have ever imagined.

“Just so unexpected,” Berge said. “Since that last week in March, I've committed to writing a couple threads a week and that's what's really taken off. I had one thread that garnered quite a bit of attention back then. And I'm like, 'wow, I didn't really expect that…' Now, honestly, I probably have three to five tweets a week that are getting over 100,000 views.”

Just 10 months ago, Berge’s Twitter account had around 500 followers. He’s now up to more than 12,000.

His followers include the likes of new Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans, former NBA standout and current TNT analyst Greg Anthony, as well as multiple NCAA Division I coaches from across all sports. All follow Berge for his tips and advice on how to be as effective of a leader in sports as they can be. Some of Berge’s most popular twitter threads include the top 10 things great assistant coaches do, the eight traits of "glue" players and the top 10 traits of the best coaches. Those threads all have thousands and thousands of likes.

“I'm really just trying to have a positive influence or impact on as many people as I can on this really important topic of approaching leadership culture in teams,” Berge said. “I just feel like I've learned a lot. I've experienced a lot. I read a lot. I've got a whole lot in my mind to share. And this was an opportunity to share it. And obviously it affirms that what I'm sharing resonates with people, and I'm just, I'm going to keep doing it. I don't know where it's going to take me. It might be a great one, once I'm done coaching and being a principal, it might be a great transition to do more in a different realm.”

With the basketball season and another semester of school in full swing, this is a busy time for Berge, but he always carves out 20 minutes in the morning to write.

He found he loves it, discovering, too, he had a lot to say on the topic.

Once his words started to take off, he started to write more and more people started to read. Soon, he was getting direct messages from well-known Division I coaches and athletes, from NFL chaplains and others in professional sports.

“It really is kind of baffling to see where it has taken me and to me, it speaks to the importance of writing every day,” Berge said, "and the impact that can have not only on others, but on me. I mean, it clears your mind. It clears the thoughts you have on the topic that you're writing about. And so it's provided me with a lot of clarity as well."

His weekly newsletter called Coaching, Leadership, Culture and Teams: 1 Thought, 2 Quotes and 3 Tweets from Others, now has more than 2,600 subscribers.

Topics include "Why isn’t my kid playing?" and "How do the best players respond to mistakes?". One can subscribe via Berge's website.

He didn’t stop at the newsletter though.

He decided to self-published two books over the summer titled Culture wins: 50 ways to build a winning culture and Coaching Gold: Winning insight and winning wisdom for coaches. 

Both have sold hundreds of copies — many, many more than he thought.

“I really wrote the books for myself and hope that a few coaches might get some value out of it,” Berge said. “But it's just opened up a lot of doors and a lot of opportunities for sure. What I love about it is I've always had this kind of entrepreneurial drive to me my whole life and when I was a kid, I did. And so I'm in this profession of being a principal and a coach that I absolutely love. Now I get to write about it.”

He hopes to have two or three more books written by the end of this upcoming summer. By then, who knows what his following will be. Remarkably, he has gained more than 2,000 followers in the past 30 days alone. Regardless, he’s going to keep on writing.

“The writing piece is kind of the next step and that's taken off beyond what I would have ever expected,” Berge said. “So when someone says you write for a year, it can have a big impact or change. I agree with it. I've been consistent though. And I've got so much stuff in the hopper down the road, because I'm constantly thinking about it that I am not worried at all about not having anything to write about.”