From Average to All Star
with Sharlee Lyons
The Corvus Effect / Episode 12
Released: February 10, 2025
Overview
Sharlee Lyons was a tall, uncoordinated freshman her dad nicknamed ‘Olive Oil’ before she set an audacious goal to play Division I volleyball and made it happen. She turned the principles that got her there — goal-setting, mindset, the relentless drive that makes the extra gear engage when it counts — into a leadership development practice and a best-selling book, Average to All Star. This conversation is about why average is the actual thief of all-star (because average is comfortable), and why the gap closes only when you build from authenticity instead of from someone else’s expectations.
About Sharlee Lyons
Sharlee Lyons is a master consultant, Gallup-certified Strengths coach, ICF-accredited coach, and best-selling author of Average to All Star. She helps emerging leaders start strong and go further faster by discovering what they actually want — distinct from what everyone around them expects — and what their authentic strengths actually are.
Listen to the Full Episode
Key Takeaways
1. Average is the thief of all-star
The average American is overweight, in debt, doesn’t invest in professional development, and spends hours a day on screens — and yet that’s the gravity most lives default toward, because average is comfortable. The gap between average and all-star isn’t talent; it’s the willingness to leave the comfort that’s been quietly holding you in place. Sharlee’s son calls the extra gear that engages when it matters your ‘clutch trait’ — and you can’t develop one without first naming the average you’re trying to escape.
2. Authenticity is the foundation, not a soft virtue
Sharlee saw it constantly in higher ed — students articulating career aspirations from their parents’ mouths, not their own. It took asking ‘what do YOU want?’ five times to get past the conditioning. Start with two core values that fit in your pocket like pebbles, understand your CliftonStrengths, and let a mentor speak the strengths back to you — that combination is the foundation everything else gets built on.
3. Four stages of parenting (and why friendship comes last)
Discipline (0–6, keeping them alive), training (5–12, this is how it’s done), coaching (12–18, asking questions before giving opinions), friendship (18+). Most parents try to skip ahead to friendship and end up failing the earlier stages — kids don’t need a friend, they need a parent who loves them enough to give constructive feedback. When Sharlee’s daughter drops the baton in the one race out of a hundred she misses, the first question isn’t judgment — it’s ‘how did you feel about that?’