This fall will mark my 11th year in the industry. And like most people, I have figured out how to do certain things really well and some things not so well. My hopes with sharing some of these losses, I will be able to help someone along the way!
This is one that I reflect on the most. If you have ever heard of this Dunning-Kruger phenomenon, I was anchored right at the top of mount stupid.
As my old man used to tell me: "if you are the smartest guy in the room, find another room". And he was right. I had all of the answers and very few questions.
To remedy this, I held myself to a standard that I carry with me to this day. I have to continue my education on a daily basis. Whether that is through lectures, conventions or observational work, I have put myself firmly in the forever a student role.
Now...there are days where I do not feel like I know anything. It is funny how that works...
For years, I thought if i wrote the best programs on the planet, that would be enough to help our clients change for the better.
Fast forward to now, programming is a small piece to the coaching puzzle.
Getting the best out of people is more than reps and sets. It comes down to your effectiveness as a coach. A program is a piece of paper or an electronic file from your computer. It cannot see what is inside someone waiting to be revealed. More specifically, it cannot see potential and then attempt to maximize it.
At the end of the day, people will remember you for the coach you are not the programs that you wrote them.
The world is full of gurus that promise to make your coaching better, athletes faster and adults lose weight at a rapid pace. Fortunately for me, I am naturally a skeptical individual. But...sometimes, I would see something that another coach was doing on social media or in person and think to myself: "I like that...let's throw that in". Little did I know that there is a time and place for everything.
To combat needless informational overload, I learn from trial and error. We are a practiced based facility and all of our programs and modalities have come through testing and re-testing. And for this very reason, we can mitigate the orthopedic cost of making mistakes. Most of my "mistakes" came in the form of sore backs and knees.
You cannot take what other people do for a particular person and them immediately apply it to your situation. Know the why behind every one of your decisions and analyze from there. Over time, you have a well formulated process.
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