Gym Owner In Search Of A Big Break
How often are you actually in the right place at the right time? How often does someone with a massive network, funding, and expertise randomly bump into you and offer you the exact thing that have been looking for?
Let us play some hypotheticals for a minute and roughly estimate that it takes 1,000 random interactions to meet someone that has the ability to offer you the best job, with the best salary, the best benefits, and the most flexible schedule. Hypothetically, it could take you upwards of five years to meet and have a meaningful interaction with these thousand people. In itself, meeting this many people is incredibly tiresome and a full time job filled with its own challenges. Now, hypothetically, you are able to meet this person, and for today’s lesson, you do it in half the time that it normally takes. The 500th person you have met in the past year just happens to have exactly what you are looking for to make your life perfect. Are you capable of delivering the product that that person is looking for? Are you capable of meeting the demands of the opportunity that is about to be presented to you?
I own a gym, but my work is connecting with people. My job is fitness, but my passion is coaching. I often think about how incredible it would be to be the center of knowledge around the world. To be the thought leader for coaches and athletes alike who have collectively decided that my opinion matters so much that it could be considered fact. I think about this a lot. I believe that what we do at San Diego Athletics is of a quality, that one day, could create this reality.
I also sometimes veer off the tracks. It is a human characteristic, I think. Sometimes I look at Greg Glassman, Michael Boyle, Mark Twight, Dan John and other thought leaders around the world and wonder what the big launching pad in their career was. Maybe they met their special person on their 200th interaction, maybe their 400th. Maybe, most importantly, they never met that special person at all. Maybe everyday of their lives they treated every individual as if they were that one special person. Maybe they worked so hard, researched so much, and wanted it so bad that it took them 40+ years to develop something that was actually worthy of listening too. Maybe they came across multiple people in their lives that presented these opportunities. Maybe, just maybe, in their first 700 interactions, they met one person of influence. From 700 to 800 they met three people of influence and from 800 to 1000 they were now meeting 20+ people of significant influence out of every 100 people they meet.
One thing I am positive about is that there is no way to affect two people without changing the life of the first. You work tirelessly, studying, coaching, training, and understanding how things work so you can change one person’s life. From there you move to two, and three, and 300. As you create your life’s work, you will meet people of influence, and when you do, you better be ready to affect that person in the exact same manner that you affected person number one.
When I think about the most important aspect of coaching, it isn’t, “Does this person play in the NFL?” To me, the most important part about coaching has little to do with back squats, CrossFit, Bodybuilding,Yoga, Pilates, or anything else you want to do. I want you to walk into San Diego Athletics knowing that for one hour in your day, you are the most important person in my life, and leave a better person than when you walked in. I do not really believe in catching breaks and getting lucky. I believe in developing a product based on understanding people, their goals, and the lives they live when they are not exercising. To me, coaching is about the least important person in the room, the coach, orchestrating an experience that has the ability to change people’s lives. If you are sitting around waiting to catch a break, you will be unprepared when it arrives, and more importantly, you are missing that you have already caught the biggest break of your life – just look around.
