I had a few thoughts I wanted to talk about as we end 2011….these are more or less ideas and questions I wanted to pose to everyone as we wrap up what was hopefully an amazing 2011 for you, your families, and your training.
What did we choose to focus on this year? The positive or the negative?
Hey, first off I am guilty of spending too much time on the $hitty stuff that we see in the fitness and conditioning world. I remember a video that was posted a couple of months ago of a Crosssfit affiliate gym doing a continental clean and the uproar that this caused. This video reached million view status as the video was facebooked, emailed, and tweeted all over the world. My friend Marc Coronel posted something that really made me think long an hard about this trend (of spreading heinous video). He said that he wished more people would focus on the GREAT THINGS that are happening in our field and spend less time and energy on the crap that is and will ALWAYS be out there. How true is this? I was talking to Josh Henkin about this and said to him that we often try to hit a couple of thousand YouTube views with GREAT training videos and this car crash gets millions?! Sure its much like the video “Friday” where people just want to mock it and marvel at it’s awfulness but nevertheless, we are spending time that we could be watching vids from people like Josh Henkin and TRX who provide what I consider some of the best education available in this industry.
What have YOU done to help others this year?
I’m not talking about helping people get fit, lose weight, feel better about themselves….all of these are amazing and you should be very proud. As trainers and coaches we have an amazing power, we have the ability to lead, encourage, and motivate others everyday. You may not realize it but you are often a hero in your client’s and gym member’s eyes.
I firmly believe in “paying things forward”…I also believe that when people see US doing awesome things in our community etc. we have awesome power to motivate them to do the same. Here at coachdos.com we have taken a page from Mike Seril who owns and runs an amazing gym in Whittier, CA. Mike has taken this power and created community programs providing physical education to youngsters, led food drives, held charity workouts, and generated raffles with proceeds going directly to helping his community. We have held pub crawls to benefit animal shelters and toy drive workouts that not only raised thousands of dollars in toys for the Boys & Girls club but also provided an amazing workout for community members.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12fYrc8Xi38[/youtube]
The bottom line is that it’s EASY to make a difference and you know what? IT’S FUN!
Lastly, do we have our priorities in order?
Ok, I know that everyone is different and that something that makes one person happy may not have that same effect on someone else. I do, however, believe that there is a bigger picture to what we do everyday. I talk about this in my “Building better Athletes” lecture that I gave this year. I ask people what do they think my job as a college strength and conditioning coach is…and then I tell them what I REALLY do. I talk about looking at the “bigger picture”. Sure I want to get my athletes bigger, stronger, faster…heck, my job is to build better athletes right? Sure, but it’s also to help change lives. To build work ethic and patterns of behavior that will last their entire lifetime. I want every one of my athletes to become monsters in the weightroom and in their sport but I also want them to graduate from college, get a great job, have an awesome family and continue to thrive with all the values and work ethic that I helped to instill in them. For THEM to be successful and to pass these behaviors onto others simply by example. Getting kids stronger and faster or helping a client lose weight is relatively easy when compared to the “bigger picture”.
Well, I just wanted to lay down some thoughts I had floating around in my head the past few weeks and to say thanks to all the people in this industry who have made a difference in my life and have helped me professionally. This video was created by one of my very best friends Frank Addelia and I think it targets my priorities…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yedGFMhOxU[/youtube]
Wishing everyone an amazing Holiday Season and I hope that 2012 is even better than you could ever hope for! DO WORK!
