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If you’re listening to this episode, you’re lying to yourself… But you’re not the only one.
Turns out most of us aren’t honest about the REAL reason we do what we do. Why? Because being honest requires admitting we have selfish desires and that we haven’t put ourselves in positions to experience failure. Neither are inherently pleasant but both are required if we want to get out of our own way and make real progress.
Today’s episode will be a wake up call for many of you. I won’t lie- it’s a hard hitter. But if you’re able to listen and dig deeper internally, I promise you’ll come away a better coach and leader.
We’ll cover:
- The REAL questions you need to be asking yourself
- Why it’s human (and necessary) to be selfish about certain things
- Ways to identify what you’re lying to yourself and others about
- The difference between experience and exposure and how to train the former
At the end of the day- who you want to be does NOT matter if you haven’t figured out who you are.
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On today’s episode you heard Brett talk extensively about The Apprenticeship. With a full slate of workshops already scheduled for 2022, your excuses for not coming to one are dwindling…
Let’s put it this way- what TRUE leader wouldn’t take the opportunity to get better at communication and the interpersonal side of coaching?
Check out artofcoaching.com/apprenticeship for a list of upcoming events!
TRANSCRIPT
Brett Bartholomew 0:11
Hey, what’s going on, I want to give you guys a heads up. This is a an episode where I’m pretty, I got pretty passionate, there is going to be some language here. And again, I’m going to tell you this again over and over. This is an unscripted podcast. This is a podcast that is about the messy realities of leadership. This was a podcast that was created for the Underdogs. And the people who are sick of traditional leadership stuff that was hyper scripted hyper positive, never would cut to the core of real issues we face in life. So therefore, sometimes raw emotions and raw words come out, we never do it to try to be edgy, but we want people to come as they are. And I would appreciate you given me grace enough to do that as well. There, are parts of myself that, you know, some of you are gonna like some of you that aren’t. But my point is to get you to think not to get you all to like me, my point is to get us to question things that we typically taken for granted not to make you feel comfortable. That said, I do respect you, of course. So I always want to let you know both now and in the future, be aware of who you’re listening to our podcasts around because there may be language at times.
That said, this topic is something that needed to be talked about because we just see it again and again in coaching and leadership in life. It’s about getting out of your own way, getting out of your comfort zone, and most importantly, being ruthless and stripping away your own insecurities. There’s a lot of insecure coaches guys. There’s a lot of insecure strength coaches, there’s a lot of insecure regular coaches in any field right to coaches to guide to lead to orchestrate what have you. And it’s amazing. We have so many people trying to change the lives of others when they can’t get out of their own way because they don’t really know who they are, because they surround themselves with so much confirmation bias and cliched leadership quotes and mantras that they can’t even be honest about why they’re in it for what they’re in it for. It’s wild to me. Quick shout out to our sponsors. You following my man Well, Compton here no free shout outs Versaclimber thank you so much guys for jumping on board and being so loyal over the years. You know, I love you Saga fitness, you can check them out at saga.fitness. And of course my friends at Momentous especially Krista Santo couldn’t be more appreciative for your support. burgeoning relationships also always want to thank the folks at Yeti for betting on us and being this massive corporation that never treated us like we’re the mom and pop shop that we are right even though our team is small. Our vision is huge. And we are relentless. And so I’m so thankful for a company like Yeti that sells durable transportable goods that help people no matter where they’re at in life, because that’s what we want our work to do. Communication and influence tactics and understanding more about power dynamics will help you no matter where you are at in life. So all I ask is that you guys listening support them, check them out at artofcoaching.com/partners support us, right? Like we give a percentage of all proceeds every year to the Leukemia Lymphoma Foundation, Alzheimer’s Association.
We have online courses. My book conscious coaching is on Amazon if you want my courses artofcoaching.com/courses. We have live events all over the world. Everything has payment plans, payment options, we’ve tried to meet everybody where they’re at who we can’t help as people that know the price of everything and the value of nothing. I understand we’re all on a budget. I understand we all have limited time. But I also know and I think you guys do too, that if you really value something, you find a way to get it, you find a way to obtain it. So all I ask is that you check these things out, give them a chance. And if it’s not for you, maybe share it with a friend or two that you think might appreciate it. Because again, we’re a mom and pop.
Alright, let’s get into this episode. I get pretty fired up and joined. Let us know your thoughts. We want to hear your emails. We want to hear your reactions. You can hit us up at info like information info@artofcoaching.com info@artofcoaching.com We welcome all comments. But of course if something is you’re gonna go on some racist or expletive laden tirade, we’re blocking out Don’t even try it. We’re not giving you that attention. But all feedback good, bad critical everything as well. Alright, let’s get into it.
Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast, a show aimed at getting to the core of what it takes to change attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in the weight room, boardroom classroom and everywhere in between. I’m your host, Brett Bartholomew. I’m a performance coach, keynote speaker and the author of the book conscious coaching. But most importantly, I’m a lifelong student interested in all aspects of human behavior and communication. I want to thank you for joining me and now let’s dive into today’s episode.
All right, you guys are in for it today because you get a Quick rant. Now this will be moderately quick. And some of you can perceive this as shots fired. And maybe it is because we talked about how our work at art of coaching is for everybody. And so certainly the things I talked about in this podcast episode could be for everybody. But this one is also targeted specifically at an audience that I love. But an audience that frustrates me part of my origins, but part of my I would say frustrations as well. And that is those of you in the strength and conditioning and performance industry. Now, every industry has got similar problems, none of your industries, none of what you do, or profession, if you want to call it that are special in general, right? We have human problems more than we have profession based problems, although everybody thinks that their own problems are unique and what have you. But this one, let me just start it this way. If you remember the movie, The Matrix, and if you’re not a movie person, don’t tune out doesn’t matter. Some of you will get the reference regardless. And if not, I’ll explain it. So in the movie, The Matrix, there’s this part where Neo the main character was going to see this Oracle and the idea as you can imagine, from the name, right, the Oracle knew things that were about to happen. She was clairvoyant. And Neil walks in and Oracle says, Hey, I’d ask you to sit down, but you’re not going to anyway. And don’t worry about the vase. Neo says what vase. He then knocks over a vase with his elbow, it falls down and it shatters. The Oracle smiles and goes that vase. Neo says I’m sorry, Oracle said, I don’t. I said, don’t worry about it. I’ll get one of my kids to fix it. Neo asked her quizzically, how did you know? Oracle says, Ah, what’s really going to bake your noodle later on? Is Would you still have broken it? If I hadn’t said anything? You’re cuter than I thought. And I can see why she likes you. Neo then says who? Oracle then replies not too bright, though, speaking to the obvious truth that one of the other main characters has shown numerous times that she likes or has a connection with Neo
Now, what does this mean? Well, what we’re talking about is lack of awareness, a lack of self awareness, a lack of situational awareness, a lack of an understanding of one’s identity, and questions that we often ask when that occurs. And what we see. And what I’ve seen a long time for a long time is coaches, strength coaches, have been going through an identity crisis. Now let’s talk about why. First, you guys got to understand a simple concept. There is a noun a word, it’s a favorite of mine, and that is aporia. A P O R I A. And aporia essentially means an irresolvable internal contradiction, or a logical disjunction. There’s a word for you in a text, argument or theory. It’s an expression of doubt in rhetoric, and this is used in speeches. This has been used in songs a famous example of Bob Dylan, how many Men right? He’s asking questions, we see politicians that ask questions, Are we better off now than we were four years ago. And the point is to serve doubt, distort, is to create because when we live in a world where attention is now a commodity, one of the ways you can get people’s attention is for them to think to make them think again. And now there are books written on this topic. But it’s nothing new, right? People have identity crisis all the time. We all do we wonder, what should I be like in this stage of my life? What constitutes a great coach, a great leader? Am I doing a good enough job as a father or significant other? We all have these questions that we ask ourselves at night. But the problem is, is most coaches aren’t honest about the questions they ask themselves.
Now, not that long ago on on Instagram, I’d put out something and I said, Hey, what do you want to be known as? And we had some coaches that said, and, and they mean, well, I’m not saying these coaches are dishonest, just follow the the entirety of the episode. Some people would say, Well, I want to be known as a servant, or I want to be known as helpful, or I want to be known as somebody that made an impact. And I want to be known as fill in the blank. Well, what I then would follow that up with is, well, why do you want to be known about as that? And then you’ll get well, you know, I just want to make the most of my abilities. And I want to feel like, you know, I made it easier for somebody else. And they answered the question, but they also didn’t answer it. So then what I’d ask is okay, but what, inherently selfish need Are you trying to fill, and that would stumped some of them. They’d be like, Well, I don’t know what you mean by selfish. I’m a coach, because I’m selfless. I’m not trying to be selfish. And I would say, Yeah, but you still need to have a self. As I’ve said, millions of times, including in our online courses, you have to put your own oxygen mask on if you want to help other people on the plane, get their mask on, right, we have to fill our bucket if we’re going to help others. And what I’m trying to get people to understand and ask themselves is guys at the end of the day, we all have selfish desires. This goes back to just basic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We need food, we need water, we need shelter, what have you. Well, many strength coaches go around their entire career saying, well, it’s not about the money. It’s, you know, I’m the first and last out from It’s about this for me, it’s about that yet, then a whole host of I’m trying to get jobs at large Division One schools, or top premiership leagues, or in the NFL or in whatever. And these, you know, in many ways that parts of my career were my dream as well. No different than any profession, right? You want to get to the quote unquote, top of your field.
But it’s interesting, like why not just say that and admit that. Part of that is you want to test yourself at the highest level? Because really the question you’re asking yourself a lot of times when you go to bed at night, is Am I good enough? Am I good enough? Could I be doing more? All these kinds of things. And coaches often also don’t recognize that they spent a lot of their lives looking for social validation. That’s the primary struggle in most coaches and leaders and people’s lives. They want to be seen. They want to be seen, they want to be heard. Also, like people hate feeling left behind. People hate uncertainty. I mean that one is not even debatable, and this is why a lot of times aporia as a rhetorical tool works well. Because you start making people second guess things. You make them think about themselves in different ways. And all of a sudden, like crap, now I’m down some rabbit hole. And I’ve really got to think about these things.
And we see this in popular culture as well. Christopher Nolan in his film, The Dark Knight, there’s a great YouTube creator that documented this and name escapes me right now. But he talks about if you just look at Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, okay, Batman Begins is essentially exploiting or talking about how one can lose control. Due to circumstances loss, Bruce Wayne loses his parents fear that the main antagonist and that or at least one of them, has kind of this fear toxin. And the most carnal fear that people have it kind of brings this thing to light in the form of illusions and it makes them lose their mind. Well, the Dark Knight sorry, and that was Batman Begins if I misspoke. The Dark Knight is about what it’s like to be manipulated or controlled. You have Heath Ledger’s Joker, probably one of the best characters created again, whether you like fiction, nonfiction movies, or what have you. It’s not about the Joker, it’s about what the Joker represents. You have this character that represents chaos. That’s what Christopher Nolan would say, hey, the Joker is an absolute, he doesn’t really learn anything throughout the film. It’s all about chaos. If you remember that, he always says Do I look like a guy who has a plan. I’m like a dog chasing a car. But he has a plan all the time. You see that? In the beginning, there’s this very ornate and detailed bank robbery heist, you see it again, when they attack this armored convoy. You see it at the end, when he rigs certain ships with explosives, and utilizes a real time form of game theory. One of the ships has a bunch of prisoners, the other ship has just normal folks, tourists. Now the prisoners aren’t normal folks. But you know what I mean, non prisoners. And he basically says, Hey, you both have a detonator. And if one of you doesn’t blow up the other ship by this time, now I’m going to detonate them both. Well, that is social decision making under uncertainty. He’s trying to bet that, hey, if I pit people against each other, and I create enough uncertainty, people will eat each other alive, they’ll go to their base elements, and he thinks that their base element is to do the wrong thing. And you know, we won’t get into the rest of that. But the point is, is he creates uncertainty the entire time. He’s the one manipulating and controlling people through asking them questions. He doesn’t believe Batman is really a good person. So he starts kind of spinning this narrative. You’re not who you think you are, you’re not like them, so on and so forth. And then of course, The Dark Knight Rises is about how to reclaim control. And that’s why you see, you know, Tom Hardy’s character takes over the city, what have you.
So why do I talk about this? Well, because when I say strength coaches talk, it’s not about the money. It’s not about this. I don’t do this. I don’t do that. Really, what I’m saying is the majority of them are liars. No, no, the majority of you are liars. And I love you. But you’re lying to yourself. And I’ve been there, there were times where I thought a lot of these things too. I was anti building a brand. I was anti doing this. But I was also Anti A lot of that because I didn’t understand it well enough, because I didn’t understand more of the context. I didn’t understand myself well enough. In certain circumstances, I hadn’t been through certain things in life. And so when you think like, oh, the Joker saying, I don’t have a plan You see, throughout that movie, that entire movie is about him having a plan and spinning and manipulating things. These coaches who say they’re not about one thing are always about that thing. Again, they want to be seen as I’m one of the best in this field. I’m one of the strongest or I’m in it for the right reasons, and I have the respect of others. And if people were just more honest about them selves and their selfish desires, generally, they’d be more effective at getting out of their own way. And I’m going to refer to some notes here real quick. So if you’re watching this on YouTube or another channel, you’re gonna see me looking down. But when you look at a big part of like, for me my selfish desire, of course, I’d like to be known as somebody that moves leadership around Looking forward, and I’m not shy about that, I could sit here and tell you, Hey, I don’t really care if anybody knows my name as long as the ball keeps moving. But that would be a lie. Because if somebody took my work and plagiarized it, and we’ve had people that have done that, or somebody rips off our stuff, and then you know, people are like, Oh, my God, this stuff is great. And somebody else is taking credit, that would bug me. So therefore, you know, I couldn’t sit here and be like, Well, I don’t care if anybody knows my name. Of course I do. I work my ass off and spend a lot of money and time away from my family, to create things that help people you know, I want to be a part of people’s lives. And I want to be a significant part of people’s lives. Because I like helping, why do I like helping to fill this gaping hole that I had, because when I needed help, in some of the darkest moments of my life, nobody was really there. Nobody could pull me out of my hospitalization. If you haven’t heard that episode, go back, you can listen to it. I don’t remember what number it is, but we’ll put it in the show notes. But nobody could help me get out of that hospital. Ultimately, when I realized that the nurses and the doctors were kind of going to utilize this one size fits all approach, you know, my parents, you know, they weren’t really going to be able to get inside my head, they thought they were helping me by putting me in this hospital, they didn’t know this hospital is going to be such a toxic place. It was ultimately me that had to get out of that, just like many of you need to get out of your own way.
And so I was faced with aporia uncertainty and identity crisis, you know, at that point in my life, because I could sit in there and be like, Oh, well, you know, I’m in here, because my parents put me in here. And these doctors don’t know what they’re talking about. And, and I was I was angry for a long time. But then at the end of the day, I just say, Well, I’m in here, I’m in somewhat control of what I need to do to get out of here. I’m gonna figure it out. Now, ironically, I had to lie. And I had to manipulate to get out of there. Because a lot of these nurses and psychiatrists, they just wanted everybody to kind of say the same thing, because it would reaffirm their treatment plan. Oh, hey, I’m scared of this. And I’m having problems with that. And that would be progress to them. Because as I detail in my book and other podcasts, when I did tell them the truth, hey, a lot of my issues are, you know, I’m just, I’m angry, I feel lost. And, you know, I looked at diet and exercise, because those were things that I could control and what have you, because that didn’t fit their narrative of what they were used to seeing and what they were comfortable with treating, you know, they just kind of say, well, no, you’re not being honest, you’re gonna stay in here longer. So eventually, I learned to tell them what they wanted to hear. So I could make quote, unquote, progress in their own eyes.
Now, some of you are gonna say, that’s lying. That’s fine. That’s fine. Because you know what I’m gonna say. And I’m saying this from a place of tough love and respect, but also trying to wake you up. Many of you aren’t the good guy or gal, I’m gonna use guys and inclusive term, you’re not the good guy you think you are. You’re not the hero you think you are. You’re just not. I mean, it put it this way, you know, if you don’t learn how to manipulate for good, because what is manipulate me? And I’d encourage you guys to just stop for a moment, stop and like literally put me on pause after you hear this question. But go ahead and look up manipulate that in the Oxford language, right? It’ll there’ll be two definitions as there are with many words, but we also know that words aren’t just defined by dictionary. They’re defined by people, because words mean one thing in a dictionary, and then we have meanings for them ourselves based on our own experiences. That’s the nature of perception. But number one, if you look at the Oxford dictionary has to handle or control a tool mechanism, what have you in a skillful manner, can handle or control a tool, typically in a skillful manner. So synonyms for manipulate the very first definition is operate, handle, work, control, use employ utilize, right
now, the second definition is to control or influence a person or a situation cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously. And that could be exploit, control influence maneuver. But that’s weird. Because even if I were to say, Hey, guys, obviously, the top definition is nothing negative. Therefore, you should not look at the term manipulate as a negative thing. You’d be like, Well, what about number two that looks like it’s negative, is it is influencing a negative thing because we know that leadership is an influence based process. There’s countless definitions that can show you empirically that shows that you cannot lead if you cannot influence the attitudes of other people, you have to influence outcomes of your life on a daily basis. Right? That’s the whole concept of that colloquial story that we hear oftentimes
good Lord, this guy’s like mow his lawn 30 times and we’re not even gonna edit it out. So you hear the hum of the lawnmower, I swear to God, this guy like Moses lawn all the time
But anyway, we hear this kind of coaching parable, and I think people have written about it in leadership books or what have you. There’s even been some people that have talked about it as if it’s their idea. I think the original author, it’s unattributed, but the idea is that you know, are you a coffee bean, a carrot or an egg? And that I’m not gonna get again into the whole thing, but essentially, this girl comes up to grandmother or mother and says, hey, you know, I’m dealing with some things in life and it makes me want to give up and I’m just struggling and it feels like it’s not worth it, every little bit of progress I make, it’s like three steps back. And so the mom or the grandmother, whoever it is, I’m gonna go with grandma, because I love grandma’s, she starts boiling three pots of water. And she puts the egg in one, the carrots, and another and the coffee beans and a third, lets them all go for about 20 minutes. At the end of that, right pulls out the carrot and says, you know, feel this, what do you notice? And the granddaughters like, well, you know, it’s soft, it’s soft, after it’s been boiled in what have you? And the grandmother is like, Well, yeah, you know, like, this is something where you know, it was put in an adverse circumstances was put in hot water, right? You get the metaphor, and it kind of softened, it weakened it, it weakened its base structure. And then it was like, Well, what about the egg? Now, this is tricky, because some of you might be like, well, the egg, you know, this one, I hardens the shell. So that’s got to be good, right? It calluses us when though you peel that shell away, and it’s soft, and then you got this yoke that Yeah, it’s hard, but it crumbles easily. And that represents that, hey, sometimes hard things are adversity as is represented by this boiling water. Sometimes that makes people hard. That makes them kind of like cold and closed off or what have you. And when you’re cold and you’re closed off, you’ll crumble under pressure, because you’re not exploring the full range of who you are.
And then it gets to the coffee beans. Well, obviously, it’s turned into coffee. Now they boiled so the granddaughter SIP said, I don’t know, maybe the grandma puts it in a cup. And she’s like, wow, that tastes great. And she’s like, exactly, the coffee beans changed the environment around it, it changed the water. That’s what you need to do. When you’re putting hot water, you need to change the environment around you will guess what changing the environment around you, through your own essence and your flavor and robustness, just like the coffee is influencing it, you’ve influenced the environment around you. So even if you were to argue that this second definition of manipulate, which contains the word influence is bad, that doesn’t hold up. Because then you can look at the influence definition, you can look at leadership. So you know, I have to be completing these arguments. Partly because of why this episode is getting created. strength coaches just want to argue and wrap themselves in their own. Now edit, there’s going to be not a real edit, I’m letting you guys know there’s going to be language here. And I’m sorry, there’s no substitute for it. So if your kids are in the car earmuffs, three second warning 123, they wrap themselves in this blanket of bullshit. They don’t want to believe many strength coaches don’t want to believe that just like everybody else on planet Earth, at their core, they have selfish desires, and that sometimes those selfish desires steer their actions. Now they may say, Well, I know I have selfish desires, but I keep them at bay. Because I’m a real leader, you’re full of shit. Again, you use an exemplification method of saying appealing to moral virtue. I’m doing this for the right reasons. I’m not in this for the money. I’m just want to help the kids I know you want to be good at what you do. And you define being good at what you do as helping other people. And as you help other people that makes you feel good about yourself, because you to have some kind of hole in you, where you want to be seen and recognized and validated and what have you. And instead of arguing about that, instead of making that seem like it’s right or wrong, because again, we know from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s not right or wrong. It just is. And then that leads to how do we create buy in the question I get time and time again, there’s a difficult person in my life. What do I do? How do I change them? How do I do this? Guess what they’re asking how to influence a situation or manipulate. And then we talk all the time about well to be socially agile and built by and you need to know yourself, understand the other person, what makes them tick, you need to understand context. Context dictates how you act in certain situations. And then you also need to understand right power dynamics. And oh, yeah, I get that. I get that. Okay, you get that cool, like, Well, how do you get that if you don’t know yourself? How do you get that if you don’t know yourself, and you don’t know yourself really well, because most people are not kind of putting themselves in situations. And those situations can be real life chaos. It can be organized chaos, which is like what our apprenticeship communication workshop is. It’s why we use role playing. We put people in an unfamiliar environments, because you know who you want to be. Literally who you guys want to be does not matter. If you want to be like, oh, I want to be the servant. I want to be aspirational. I want to be inspirational going back to that early question, right? What do you want to be? What do you want to be known as, oh, I want to be known as this. Who you want to be does not matter much. If you first do not know who you are.
I’ll say that again and look in the eye whether you’re watching us or not, who you want to be or how you want to be thought of does not matter much. If you actually don’t know Know who you are? Duh right? Well, how can you know who you are? If you’ve never been at the bottom? If you’ve never dealt with extreme levels of doubt, if you’ve never had some aspect of your life turned upside down, if you’ve never been embarrassed if you’ve never failed, if you’ve never strayed, like if you’ve never turned your own stuff inside out and said, Why am I the way that I am? Which was really like the first part of my book conscious coaching and then we made it another part of the course bought in, but people don’t want to do that chapter because they just want to know why is everybody else the way they are? And then they don’t look at themselves. No, no, Brett, let me get to the archetypes. No, no, Brett, let me get to the drives. No, no, Brett, let me get to the influence tactics. But you don’t know who you are. Can you you’re still giving bullshit answers for everything that you do. You are you have to ask yourself why? What is the base core selfish desire, my son is almost two. There is no childlike innocence. It may look like innocence. Much like many of you wear a mask that looks like Oh, moral virtue. But at the core guys, a toddler is a selfish thing. And he wants his bubbles. No, he wants to do this. You take him to bed, he cries he doesn’t want to go to bed. He wants to flip the light switch on and on. Okay, but he Time for bed, cry again. That’s why we have to do sleep training. That’s why we have to do all these things. The other day, we took snacks out of this thing, put it into a plate for him. So it was easier. He cried made us put the snacks back in he did it. You know kids are selfish. They have selfish needs because we’re selfish as organisms, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And that’s why the top of that is self actualization, right? And if you don’t know what Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is, like, look that up, it’s worth, it’s worth a quick review. I think I have a whole podcast on it. But we’ve done almost like 200 and is sensitive and so it’s tricky.
But if you look at it, there are at the base of this pyramid, there are physiological needs. We all obviously need air, water, shelter, sleep, clothing, whatever. There are safety needs, personal security, employment resources, what have you. There’s them love and belonging. I need friendships intimacy, family, a sense of community, excuse me, esteem. That’s respect, self esteem, social belonging, recognition, what have you. And then there’s self actualization, the desire to become all that somebody can be. But that’s the tip of the pyramid. If you’re not honest about those more base needs, you’re not getting to the tip of the pyramid, and most of you aren’t. I’ll give you another example. Right. So because coaches love to not put themselves in unfamiliar circumstances, most people resent that they cannot address their flaws in a way that’s convenient or easy for them. And that’s why we love, oh, I gotta have this tool, or I need to know exactly how many sets or reps or I got to know exactly what I need to do this. They avoid putting themselves in positions of uncertainty or not having control. And thus, don’t ever have to deal with the kind of pressure that really reveals character. The greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, but no, no, I need the best tools, I need prescriptions, I need you to tell me the best program. What’s the best way to do speed work? What’s the best way to do agility work, tell me the best way, the best way, the best way, you’re robbing yourself of developing a skill. Because skill is acquired through experimentation and direct exposure, there is a difference between experience and exposure. You have to have a combination of both exposures. I’ve seen something I’ve kind of learned it I’ve I’ve taken in information experiences direct implementation of it. So follow this. We ran a workshop recently, a communication workshop, oh my god, right, not a sexy term. And somebody said, Oh, my God, we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned about different aspects of human nature. We’ve learned why people resist change. We’ve learned about different drives how, what this makes somebody tick, and that and that. Do you guys have like a sheet of paper that has all this on it? And of course we do to a degree. But what I had said is yeah, you know, we do but here’s the thing, and I’ve said this a million times too, but I’ve learned in today’s society, I’ve got to repeat myself at least three times. So it’s not enough that this is like in an online course and said in my presentations, I gotta say it again and again and again. It’s got to live in infamy. I can give you guys, I can give you everything I know. I can put it on a podcast, I can put it in courses, I can put it on social media, that doesn’t make you better at it. You’re getting exposure to information you’re not getting experience utilizing it. And that’s the reality. And so we have people that love my book conscious coaching and for that I’m grateful but for you to get better at building buy in for you to be able to apply what you learn in anything whether it’s my book or anything out you got to interact with it. And so that’s why we ended up creating the apprenticeship communication workshop because chaos reveals clarity. Conflict reveals and strengthens character and this can happen through organized chaos which is represented in the form about improv and role playing and what have you, because that allows you to put yourself in kind of social overload based situations, you have to be overloaded to get better.
And so we have this once I got into this field coaching, and now teaching and leadership and what have you and consulting, because one size fits all approaches nearly killed me. Yet, do you see the irony? People come to me or my workshops? or what have you? And sometimes, so ask for one size fits all pieces of paper? No different than the mom or dad that would say, Could you write my 13 year old program? Well, I’ve never met their 13 year old, they’re asking her on Instagram, or somebody else being like, Hey, Coach, I want to get faster. What exactly should I do? I don’t know this person, all I can do is give them general principles. But let’s imagine I did give them everything that they needed, boom, the good Lord, or whatever you believe in gave me that I sent it to them, they still gotta run. They still gotta run. You guys will say, Hey, What books should I read? Or to what end? Hey, what intern? Should I take? I don’t know. How are you going to? Like, let’s say tell you the perfect internship. I don’t know you, but boom, you should take this one. Well, how are you going to perform it that one? So when people say how do I build by and how do I do this? How do I do that, but they don’t want to put themselves in situations, like role playing, or like being evaluated by peers, where they can learn that it’s not about a magical tactic that I can give them to influence somebody else. It’s them, you submitting to be influenced by others, stripping away your ego, failing in a purposeful way, engaging in adversarial simulation, that will help you actually deal with your own stuff, and become more aware of your own biases, and your own limitations and refining your own approach that then allows you to go and use those tools with success. And you will not get them just through living life. Because you only like are exposed to certain circumstances in life and sometimes not quickly enough. That’s why people learn through experience, because they think about that if you have the opportunity to rehearse and refine for life. You’re more well equipped. We see police officers do this. That’s not perfect. That’s why there’s more training and updates to training. We see people in the military do this. We see surgeons do this, what if the power goes out? Coaches, on the other hand, don’t practice anything? Especially strength coaches. Oh, well, I left all while I’m on the floor all the time. That ain’t practicing any more than telling an athlete Hey, yeah, I guess to get better at your own sport. Just play your sport, don’t practice. Athletes do role playing. Hey, guys, it’s fourth and one, one minute, 39 seconds on the clock. You’ve got to orchestrate this downfield drive in a two minute drill and you’re backed up in your own endzone. We do this all the time. But coaches right again, and I go to it, I put out a thing on LinkedIn at one point in time. I’ve just like my message to half of you almost all of you is don’t claim to be a lifelong learner. If you’re not going to put yourself in a position to face your own flaws, change your approach or seek critical feedback, aka practice coaching, not practice teaching drills, not practice internal and external cues, not practice doing exercises or working out yourself. Practice coaching, building buy in dealing with conflict, persuading, influencing the things that we teach. And I’m not even gonna hide the fact that I’m trying to sell it to you because I’m trying to sell it to you because I’m trying to help you. That’s another thing coaches are full of shit about oh, I’m not a salesman, you absolutely are a salesman, or a saleswoman or a salesperson. My point is, is you’re trying to get people to see the benefits of doing something. And you’re providing that to them.
It’s just guys I’m so off. I’m so tired of hearing coaches proselytize as to how people or things can improve while simultaneously avoiding putting their own egos on the line in unfamiliar settings or circumstances. Let me whine about everything else. I think it’s going on 10 years now. I’ve seen this one group on Facebook, that like every day, oh, we need a licensure in this field. If we have a license in this field, we’d have less slap ease. We’d have less people on the sidelines which medium polos and this and no you wouldn’t. You know why? Because there are plenty of professions that undergo licensure. And guess what they’re still quacks. They’re still idiots. Right? People in the medical field, wide variety of them have to have a license still still idiots. They’re lawyers, but one of my best friends went to law school did this. It has to pass the bar has to do this. Right? We have people that have licensed psychiatrists licensed psychologists. So quack, still quack. So I’m sorry, no title, no designation, no certification, nothing is going to make you better or solve all your problems. Nobody is coming to save you. You need to do the work yourself. And you do the work yourself by getting down and getting rid of your own ego and exposing yourself to critical feedback and people who will question you and challenge you and maybe teach you a new approach not give you a new piece of paper not giving you a new certification, not feed you the drugs that you want. Because it’s pretty easy. Hey, young coaches, listen to this or old coaches doesn’t matter. You want to make a killing in this field. Every coach just wants better equipment, fancier exercises, more letters behind their name, create some kind of certification, get some flashy stuff and sell them the drug that they want.
We’d rather do the opposite. We understand that we’re selling something communication, interpersonal skills, conflict resolution power dynamics, that most of you listening already think that you’re good at. You already think that you’re good at it? Or if you don’t, right, and you’re like, well, they like what I’d say is this most coaches would hate is communication important? Yeah. How do you rank yourself as a communicator? Let’s say zero to 10, about an eight or five, whatever. Great, how’d you come up with that score? I asked this as part of my doctoral semi structured interviews, how do you come up with that score? Have you ever participated in some kind of objective evaluation? Through yourself and peers and other groups? No. Oh, and then they usually like damn, I never really realized that one coach said, I think I’m a better than average communicator, because people do what I asked them to do. Holy crap, is that scary. So like, that’s the thing. And that also goes into something I’d put on Instagram for a while guys, like some of you are, you’re gonna put something out into the world that you really believe in, and it’s not gonna go viral, quick, you’re gonna be ahead of the curve, where maybe you’re even wrong about some stuff or whatever. But you’ve just got to stick to your guns, because the reality is, you might have a great idea. And people are just insecure about change. And yeah, like, I know, there’s many ideas that I have that are trash, there’s many times in my life, I’m wrong. But the difference is, I’m not running from when I’m wrong. I teach these workshops all the time, I put my views out there all the time, if I was worried about being wrong, I wouldn’t have a brand, I wouldn’t put skin in the game, I wouldn’t be the man in the arena. I just sit and criticize everybody else. Because then I don’t have to be wrong, I can just, you know, tell them why they’re wrong. But like, I do believe in that there will never be a time in human history, where interpersonal skills are not important. Right? I guarantee you become a worst communicator, and nearly everything in your life is gonna go bad for you. And you become worse by not practicing it because it’s a skill.
So, you know, there’s so many things that I could say about this, but a lot of it is redundant, because I talk about it in our course valued, many of you feel stuck or conflicted or some of you and then the irony is, some of you the people that need to work on these things have most whether it’s communication, whether it’s something you create, if you’re kind of past this naive phase, and what have you, right, they’re the ones that aren’t going to do it. Most of you listening, right that agree with me, you’re like, okay, yeah, I do need to do this, you know, whether you need to save up the money or do that, or whatever. But people will also find inconvenient excuses for that. And that’s going to be the next podcast I do is, you know how we use convenient excuses to safeguard ourselves and also knowing your audience and knowing how to get them to change in certain circumstances. But it all starts with you. It all starts with you guys being willing to strip away that ego. Again, you need to have some kind of identity crisis, you need to put if you want to improve, you need to put yourself in scary situations unfamiliar territory, you do not need to go to the same conference in clinic and everything else that you do every year. But let’s be honest, how have you do that? Because really, you just want to see the same people because you kind of want to network, you want to show your face. That too is a selfish desire. You’ll say it’s I want to see friends. But even if you want to see friends, that’s a selfish desire. Because you want social belonging, you’re a unity drive, right? If you’re like, Okay, well, maybe you just want to create job connections, because you’re always trying to angle up the ladder, great. I mean, that’s a part of communication. It’s a goal. It is a strategic, goal oriented exercise. We all do things with an agenda. I just asked you guys at the end of this of being more honest about your agenda, you want to be known as somebody that’s inspirational, you want to be known somebody that’s a game changer, or a servant to this use whatever adjective you want. Get to the core of why you want to be known as that. It’s either you want to be validated at some level, because you need to feel like at the end of the day, you did enough that you were good enough that you gave all you could what have you you want to be validated at some level you want to belong, you want to achieve, you want to overcome like there’s a base simple one word reason, actually why you want to be that thing. And then you have to ask yourself, Okay, am I really exposing myself in the way that I need to
hear it art of coaching, we normalize failure? We don’t want no at all. Somebody asked us the other day. And this is what I’ll talk about in the next podcast. Hey, who comes to your workshops? I say people in every profession because we open it up to everybody. A better question is who doesn’t come? That’s a better question. And I’ll read off literally what I had said to somebody the other day, because we were working on some stuff to kind of put some ads out there on the internet. And we had somebody wanted to host an apprenticeship and we’re kind of talking. They’re like, well, who’s most of your attendees that will help me who I reached out to and I said, Hey, most of our attendees are people who are past the naive part of their career. They’ve done the usual certifications. They’ve gone to conferences, the mega conferences, whatever, and they left unhappy because they were kind of sold a lot of theory, not a lot of application, or because people said this one too. would change everything and guess what it didn’t. I said in other words, usually the people that don’t come are younger coaches who are still in the super early stages of their career. And think that sets and reps are everything. Usually who does not come are coaches. And sorry, a lot of them are in the collegiate environment. I love my time in the collegiate environment, but there’s a lot of insecurity in the field, let alone in that part of it. But it’s also older coaches or coaches that are in certain silos that want everything to be in House want everything to be on their time, or they just kind of feel like they, say they are a lifelong learner, but only if it’s on their terms. So control freaks, insecure control freaks usually don’t come imagine that they don’t want to engage in improv. And what is improv guys, it’s decision making under uncertainty with available resources. It’s saying, I’ve got to make something out of nothing here. And that’s why half the coaches want, like I said, the best facilities and the best tools, they systematically want to remove uncertainty from their lives. So they want to have as many options as possible, they’ll say, it’s for their clients, or they’ll say it’s for their athletes or whatever like that there’s a reason facilities are a recruiting tool. There’s a reason that universities spent hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrading their facilities, because they want people to come back because it’s a bright, shiny thing. And coaches aren’t absolved for that.
I said, on the other hand, people that do typically come, oh, well, let me finish this, the ones that don’t come tend to feel insecure, too insecure to do anything other than go to places that give them more drills, or whatever, as opposed to actually what will help them change their approach. Because I think we can agree in any field I can give you anything you want. But if you don’t leverage it, right, right, that’s, that’s just I don’t know how to wield a tool, I can give a graphic designer, the best computer and this and all that if they don’t know basic principles of design, not going to work. If they don’t know human nature, and what they gravitate to imagery wise is not going to work, I can give you a 10,000 square foot facility, with all the equipment in the world, all the tech in the world, if you don’t know how to coach, sorry, I can give you the best program in the world, if you’re not going to do it with intensity and focus, not gonna get any adaptation sorry. That’s why buy in is important. The people that do tend to come out of the strength and conditioning field, because like I said, we’ve had more than 30 different professions represented. Our coaches and trainers who typically own their own business, physical therapists, as well are regular attendees, people that have kind of been through the ringer in their life, or what have you, anybody that understands, because they’ve experienced it the firsthand impact of poor communication, because it either impacted their business, it impacted their job, chances are their relationship with somebody at work or whatever. People that understand there’s an actual cost to that to being a poor communicator. Right? That again, people that are part of teams or high paying organizations and strength conditioning, don’t always understand because they’re safe guarded by salary, security, and what have you. In essence, the majority of people that come to our workshops and want to learn deeper interpersonal skills, influence tactics, and what have you, right, that is, like we see a correlation, the more complex the leadership role are, the more the person has had a taste of failure in their life, they’ve overcome that identity crisis, or maybe they’re seeking it out, because they realize, again, chaos reveals character, the people that have been in the real world longer, the more likely they are to attend.
And so I mean, like, that’s, the gist of it. You don’t see a lot of naive people at our workshops, because they’re still thinking that it’s about something flashy and shiny, and what have you. And it’s tricky. It’s tricky, because you can’t really market to those people because like buy in, true buy in doesn’t happen on your time. Just like there were athletes that didn’t you know, they didn’t agree with something, or maybe we couldn’t connect and what have you. Three years later, they’d reach out and be like, Damn, man, I think back I was stubborn, I was wrong, you were right about that. Sometimes people just need their time, because they won’t change until they have to. But guys, I don’t want that to be you. You need to understand that even if I charge five grand for something, even if I charge five grand for something or somebody else charge five grand for something or what have you. You need to not just look at that as a costs. You have to think of what could that prevent me from learning that could cost me even more than that. You have some people that will not spend $1,500 or whatever on a communication workshop. And then they’ll go below an interview and don’t realize that they came across as a douche. And that job could have paid them 100k 150k 500k Whatever, maybe just even 30k. But because they came across as a know at all. So that’s like penny wise dollar foolish. That was like when I tried to pursue a trademark one time for this side project that I was doing, right. I don’t remember what it was called. But I spent like $4,500 on a trademark attorney that gave me worthless advice, worthless advice. They went through the trademark process. They didn’t read this email that I had laid out in terms of understanding the services and what were so they filled out the kind of the form wrong and they put it through the trademark office. So I had basically Given somebody $4,500, and there I was with no trademark, I would have gladly paid a coach 10 grand or somebody else to 10 grand and tell me how to go after a trademark, better how to build my business more intelligently how to build a brand more intelligently. Because in the UB like, why would you pay twice that? You know why? Because I wouldn’t have wasted the 4500. And I would have got it add value on top of that, because then I had to go create another name for it. And then I did submit another claim. That was another 4500. And yeah, I get that. That’s 9000. Guys, I think that if I have to make that argument, you’re missing the point.
Why not pay in advance or invest in something in advance, that could save you from being cost something significant later on. But that’s neither here nor there. We’ll talk about that in the future. So anyway, get rid of your own BS. I don’t know what to tell you. You know, generally, the landscapes, landscapes, changing strength coaches, I’m sorry, I said this back in 2017, we’re valued. You periodized your athletes programs, you better start periodized in your career, you better start periodized your self awareness. You can’t be self aware, you can’t go by and you can’t make change. You can’t be the leader you want to be. If you’re constantly just like not in tune with what you’re really about. And you’re not willing to be stripped raw, and you don’t get to come to me to do it. Life will do it for you. pride cometh before I fall. We have a lot of fun. I’m grateful for people like Ali Kirshner and all of you guys that come. These things are, you know, I think it’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life. Because I can fail teaching it, we can talk about hard subjects. We’ve had coaches talk about everything from struggles with addiction, to struggles in their marriage, to struggles with colleagues or whatever we can roleplay it, we can see that situation happened 10 different ways. So even if that’s not how it happened at that point in their life, they’re more prepared for it, how it might happen in their life. They’re preparing themselves for an uncertain future, because guess what the future is uncertain. Get with it.
Appreciate you guys. Thanks for the rant. I know my voice kind of sound like a chainsaw the whole time. My tonality was stern, because I mean what I say and I say what I mean, I want you guys to be successful. I know this is tough love. If you’re interested in this stuff, check us out artofcoaching.com. We have online courses. We have live events, we’re not some mega corporation where Mom and Pop. If you’re not in the strengthing conditioning field, we’ve done this stuff for lawyers and doctors and sales reps and what have you. If you deal with people in any situation whatsoever. Our work is for you. We are discreet, we are tactical, and we are obsessive about giving you a great experience. Will, we always do that. No, because some of you just might not perceive it that way. And you know what, we might drop the ball sometimes too. But I promise you it will never be due to a lack of effort. Thank you guys so much talk to you soon share with a friend or 20.
Hey, if you’re still here, and I appreciate you taking a moment to just stand for the encore a little bit. Even if you’re in a part of the world where you can’t go to one of our workshops at artofcoaching.com/apprenticeship. I just kindly ask that you share it with a friend or two. Again, we’ve done this in boardrooms, we’ve done this in ballrooms. We’ve done this in garages. We’ve done this in parking lots. We’ve worked with organizations such as Wells Fargo, we’ve worked with organizations in the United States military, the Canadian Special Forces, we’ve done this with organizations like Facebook and Microsoft, we’ve done this for everybody, even if you’re just you know, somebody that has a small gym, and I don’t know, quarter lane, whatever, we go anywhere, as long as we have people that are engaged and want to cut through the BS of leadership and get better and have difficult conversations we will come to you and also come to us. Check out where we’re at. You can go to attend an event just by going to artofcoaching.com hit attend a live apprenticeship, it’ll take you right to everywhere we’re going to be or if you don’t see your location represented, just hit host an apprenticeship and a member of our team will get back to you as soon as you fill that out. Thank you again for listening to us and supporting
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