E38 | Michael Boyle: Chasing The Right Situation - Art Of Coaching™

Posted October 21, 2019

TRANSCRIPT

Brett Bartholomew 00:01

Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of The Art of coaching podcast. Some quick points before we start this episode, and it is a really good one. Originally, Coach Boyle and I had hopped on an earlier recording, and we had all kinds of technical difficulties. We were gonna release that and join it with this episode. But after recording this episode, we really found that we had covered everything that we had done in our previous attempt. So you’ll hear us reference the first part of the interview a couple of times in this episode, but we actually decided to omitted, we actually decided to keep this one a standalone episode, because of the quality of the content and the information, guys, I promise. You have not heard Coach Boyle like this before. There’s podcasts a big reason I started it is for it to be unfiltered, unedited, hard hitting, especially amongst topics that we really tend to sweep under the rug, and he did not disappoint. Now, the other part of this, I had taken questions on Instagram that you guys were interested in, or you wanted me to ask him, and there were some great ones and 90% of them had to do with advice. What would you do? How would you do it? And there were not only questions you wanted to ask him but me. If you are listening to this episode, I encourage you to first go back to my previous podcast episodes on advice for overcoming obstacles in your career. There is a standalone episode on that. There is also a 54 page free download at artofcoaching.com and BrettBartholomew.net that is all about things that I wish I would have known earlier in my career. So guys, in short, I’ve now answered this question in so many different formats and functions and here this is really more about Coach Boyles take I give some snippets as well. But you’re gonna get a lot more out of this episode and you hear him say the same thing. If you go back and review the resources on those things that we have put out prior that’s why we do it. Please don’t be lazy. Go back and review those things. If you want those tips. Otherwise guys strapped in. You’re gonna love this here is Me and Coach Boyle diving into all things coaching, talk to you soon.

Brett Bartholomew 02:17

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

Brett Bartholomew 02:52

Welcome back to The Art of coaching episode. Now, if you guys have been following along for a while, especially on my social media, you know that Coach Boyle and I tried jumping on a call earlier this year, and almost everything that could have gone wrong went wrong with with the internet and the connection. So this is actually part two of our discussion. And we’re gonna skip the formalities and get right into it. Because Coach Boyle was gracious enough to hop on again, Coach, I do want to welcome you back for at least for part two, it’s good to have you.

Mike Boyle 03:20

It’s great to be back. It’s always good to talk to you. I get to spend an hour talking to you, and we get to record it and other people get to listen. So that’s pretty good.

Brett Bartholomew 03:27

Yeah. Likewise, like, like I’ve said before, I have so much respect for you and so much fun talking to you. Because you just, you don’t deal with the bullshit, you have an informed opinion on things you’re not afraid to stick to your guns. And also, I think you just, you kind of embrace the wackiness, right, that is the trolls and and everybody getting a little bit crazy and too heated about this stuff. And and you just think bigger picture, right? We’re gonna jump right in. One of the things Coach Boyle that I get asked a lot. And I think this is a great question as somebody like you is, let’s imagine you are starting your career today. Right? You’re not Coach Boyle, as you are right now. Right? You’re, you’re 19 to 23 years old, you want to get into strength and conditioning and and you recognize that the landscape has changed a little bit. How would you navigate everything you’ve done, given today’s climate? You know, when would you have opened the facility again? Would you have gone a different route? What do you think you would have done?

Mike Boyle 04:19

Well, you know, it’s interesting, I don’t, I always think when you open the facility, it’s kind of like the Joe or I’m in 20 year window thing. You’re gonna spend the first 19 years thinking what the heck did I do? And then suddenly in year 20, you guys, wow, this was a really good idea. Because I think we talked about this a little bit last time. You ended up having a really mature business that you can, in many cases, you know, I can sell my business, I can walk away from my business, I’ve developed an asset. So yeah, I think knowing what I know now I would do it again. If you asked me that 10 years ago, I might have said to you man, I would have stayed at BU I would have stayed in college drank so are you, I would have taken one of these pro jobs that I could have had. But in some ways I look at this and think everything comes out right in the end. And for me, everything has really come out right in the end. So I don’t know how much I would have done differently. The one thing and this and I’ve said this to people, and this is going to really tweak some people are offended some people, the one thing I would probably be, I’ve been careful about, like when I started and this is what people can’t believe I was a powerlifter, like I was your typical I was the person who trolls me, in a lot of ways in terms of I was the conventional, bilateral, you know, if you’re not squatting near a policy, that was me, at whatever, you know, 1920 21 years old. And I think now I look at it. And I’ve told a couple of kids this when they’ve talked to me about positions or asking me to recommend him for positions. I look at people I think like if you’re a bodybuilder, or your power lifter, or your what I call, you know, the Tupperware guy, you know, he’s worried about what his body fat is. I consider all those to be negatives. Now, when I’m looking at people to hire, I’m more skeptical of those type of people, because I feel like that’s the Oh, it’s all about me guy.

Mike Boyle 06:12

Yeah. And so, yeah, so you know, it means that I think that’s one of the things that, you know, I look at, kind of where we’ve gone or where like Exos, or some of the bigger companies have gone in terms of hiring people that look like athletes. We have way too many jacked up meatheads still running around in our field. And I just finished an article that I haven’t put out for wider distribution, but I put it out on my strength coach.com site called training athletes 18 years. And, you know, I talked about what happens when you train the same guy for 18 years. And you have to evolve with the guy. And a lot of times, people who train themselves for 18 years, there’s no evolution, right? Because Because you’re you’re not well, maybe you are good or maybe things are changing, but you could be one of those guys who was just born with sort of perfect joints and never has a problem. And they’re the guys are always like, oh, you know, I squat my I’m still squatting and I’m 50 I care. You know, how many professional games have you played? I mean, at games seasons have you endured? You know, how many 100 and whatever 60 Gal baseball game seasons have you played? You don’t tell me about your life as a lifter and then think that that relates in some way to a professional athlete because they are as apples and oranges as it could possibly be. So I guess that’s the kind of stuff and you know, what do I was talking to somebody today? What do we say experiences wasted on the young right? The thing that I have that everybody else doesn’t have is I have I guess 38 years in and 38 years at the collegiate professional Olympic like I started at the top in the sense of there was because there was no bottom so I got right into college. So I was at a major college I was at you know, like I was telling people? I got to be you Rick Pitino was the basketball coach at BU, Brett Brown and 76 is, you know, Coach was our point guard. Right? You know, Jack Parker was the hockey coach who became the winningest coach in NCAA history in one sport at one school. You know, we had just come off the ADEA Olympics. You know, I know you watch the movie miracle, I know the guys, you miracle to have them coach with us, you know, Mike Eruzione and Dave, still coach with us at BU. So, I mean, I was like ground floor totally by accident. And I’ve never really felt I went down later in my career, you know, now, like, my my best group right now is a middle school group, 14 year old boys, but and one girl. So I think all that stuff, I guess to some degree alters your view.

Brett Bartholomew 08:51

Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. And that touches on, you know, I had opened this up before this call, I had open this up to other people and say, Hey, like, you know, what do you want to ask him? And you touch on a number of questions. I mean, because some people said, Hey, what are some things he’s done to stay in the field as long as he has? What are his thoughts on internships, you know, raising the standards of the industry. And so just to recap for the listeners, what you said, and I think to point something out for you, coach, well, it’s not just that you have 38 years, you have varied experience, right? You mentioned at the team level, college level, pro level, private sector, and that was something I know helped me like getting involved in an API early, but then I wanted team setting experience. So then I went to Nebraska and then was a GA and ran a bunch of teams there. And I think that coaches I’ve said this before, on the podcast, coaches too often involve themselves in the athlete equivalent of early specialization in their careers, like, like you said, coaches just go for one job or one setting or one sport, and they kind of isolate themselves there, and then they wonder why they have trouble maneuvering in their career. You know, but that being said, like, you know, what, what are your thoughts too about like, just do you think now, you know, for the average intern or person trying to get into the field, do you think they can follow the same path meaning like in the past, it was all get certified, you know, get get your degree, get experience and everything will turn out well or do you think there’s more political elements? You know, and other messy kind of realities that lead to getting a job and being able to have longevity?

Mike Boyle 10:16

No, I think the process is the same. I’ll be honest, I think part of the problem is kids pick the wrong internships. Kids pick internships based on T shirts. Interesting. They go to, they take a bad internship at a good school, where they don’t learn anything. And so I’ll give you a classic example. I had four positions where people called me either in the National Hockey League or the American Hockey League this summer, asking for coaches. And I really couldn’t fill those Coatesville spots. So it wasn’t a question. Because it was literally who you know, somebody that I knew called me and said, Hey, I need a strength coach. That’s it, you know, I don’t have somebody right now. Because, you know, their kids, maybe their kids who are like I look at it think real simple. If you’re interested in hockey, why would you not come to why would you not be begging to do an internship at Mike Boyle strength and conditioning? Knowing that we’ve got I don’t know what 5678 guys who are NHL head guys right now. And you know, I’ve got probably 10 or 12 former players, who are, you know, player development directors. I’ve got guys that are general managers. I’ve got one guy that’s president of a team to actually have my former clients of prey on cameo he’s president of the Bruins, Brendan Shanahan is president of the Maple Leafs, and so, but we’ll get

Brett Bartholomew 11:29

those people because you feel like there’s a good team setting over the private sector. Is that what you mean, right?

Mike Boyle 11:33

Exactly. People? Yeah, they’re all private, y’all. We have got to go coach kids. Yeah, y’all spend all day coach high school kids that won’t get to work with pros. And you’re like, it’s not about you. It’s about who you work with during your internship, in terms of the athletes. It’s about who you work with during your internship in terms of who’s making the calls, who’s writing the recommendations? Because that’s like you said, that’s the political reality of this thing. Those are the people you know, you look at you go to AI, or you work with Chris Doyle, you don’t have trouble finding a job. He’s got to fit the tree like I have now of guys everywhere in college football. Yeah, no, I think what happens is, people don’t, they don’t think it through in the beginning. And then the rest gets really, really difficult. Whereas for me, I’ll give you a classic example. When I was 18 years old, I was actually studying athletic training. And I thought, I needed to get athletic training experience. And I thought, well, how will I get athletic training experience in the summer. And I remember, there used to be an ad in The Boston Globe, it was called offense defense football camp. And it advertised itself as the only contact football camp in the country. Full Contact all week. I got on the phone, I found offensive defense football camp, and they actually said, we already have enough athletic trainers, we don’t need you. I said, What if I came to work for free. And the guy said, we still don’t need you. And he said, but if he came and worked as a counselor, you know and stayed in the dorms at night, then we’d let you be an athletic trainer during the day. I was like Cami and I went there for the next four years. And got tons of you know, Battlefield experience, full contact football. With high school kids, kids getting hurt. I mean, a lot of kids getting hurt, evaluating kids looking at kids. But you need to know where the experience is. And I don’t think that that’s political. I don’t think that’s got anything to do with Instagram or Twitter. It’s, it’s doing your homework, doing your research and realizing, okay, where if I want to be in place x and the part of it is people don’t know where they want to be at the end, whenever anybody has this conversation, we one of the things I always do, and sorry, I’m rambling but I would say read goals by Brian Tracy. Then sit down, write your goals. Tell me where you see yourself in five years. Tell me where you see yourself in 10 years. Tell me what your your being dream goal is. If you say my big dream goal is, you know, I want to be the strength coach yell for the New England Patriots to the Atlanta Falcons, though, whatever it is, okay. Then let’s start the process of going on that journey. And kids don’t do that. Yeah, they they just, you know, they, they jump like and I look at sometimes I think, you know, like I said people should be banging the door die look at and but people don’t know, I’ll give you a perfect example. Devin McConnell just took a job with New Jersey. And when Devin came in, he was a player at Pittsburgh and he called me up it’d be used this guy, come watch your workout. I didn’t know why. But I was again, come on to workout. And I’m watching him. He’s taking notes and I’m like, Well, what do you do? What’s your deal? He said, Well, I’m the I’m the goalie at Fitchburg State. But I’m also the de facto strength coach because we don’t have a strength coach. And I’m interested in strength and conditioning. So I’m going to design a program for our team. So I think that comes to be you and watch you with your guys. And then that would help me now I thought, That’s pretty darn smart kid for someone who’s a whatever a junior in college At that point, first thing I thought about was, hey, you need a summer job. Here’s a kid, I want this kid around. I want them around the next couple of years. Yeah. And and then, you know, he wanted to get into the college sector, brand new micellar was at Stanford is like, I need an assistant. I said, I got the perfect guy for you. I said, I’m gonna tell you right now, he’s an ex hockey goalie. You don’t have a hockey team. I said, he’s got a bachelor’s degree, he doesn’t have a master’s degree. He doesn’t have a ton of experience. You’re gonna love him. Right? And Brandon, Brandon took a chance and hired Devin out at Stanford and Devon did, I think women’s basketball and women’s volleyball. And then a good hockey job opened up out here, I helped them get a hockey job at UMass Lowell. And he came back out here and he had a job that he wanted. But it’s about positioning yourself in the right places. And not I get so mad like that with all this. You know, we should be paying interns, those Twitter threads about you know, unpaid internships, you know, are installed, blah, blah, blah. Like I look when I try to temper my response on Twitter, because I want to be like, You guys are morons.

Brett Bartholomew 16:10

How do you temper your response, though? That’s not like you?

Mike Boyle 16:13

Well, I mean, because even when I do, like, my tepid response still doesn’t always produce the best result. But I will, because I, you know, I don’t want to create this horrible social media persona. But I’m like, You don’t understand? Why is someone gonna pay you to do something that you’re totally unqualified to? Do?

Brett Bartholomew 16:33

I think that there’s a mystery.

Mike Boyle 16:36

You want my experience? And then you want me to pay you to give it to you?

Brett Bartholomew 16:40

Yeah, I mean, that’s. And Tim, Karen and I did a whole episode on this right, the flaw with free advice that it’s like this apprenticeship mode. There’s a simple misunderstanding, right? Like people, people think like, and this is kind of something that we’ve seen in the team setting, people think like, Oh, I’m just going to show up. So they’re, I’m entitled to your advice. And it’s like, no, that’s not really how that works. If you actually look at like, look at the classic model of apprenticeship, right? If somebody wanted to be a blacksmith, they didn’t get paid. They went there to learn from a master craftsman, you know, and this is I share your views on this. And I just have to put this in here because somebody else kind of, you know, they’re like, hey, what, you know, what do you guys agree on what don’t you agree on? And then somebody said, What would you tell your 20 year old self, which I think you did a great job like one, know yourself, I’m just going to touch briefly on some points you mentioned so I can recap for the audience. Most people don’t know themselves. And I even saw that in my book people skipped by the first chapter, which was literally modeled after Sun Tzu’s Art of War, right? Know yourself, know thy enemy. I put know yourself understand, like the ugly realities of your own biases, perception. And everybody just went to the archetypes because that’s fundamental attribution error. People want to blame. No, no, it wasn’t me. It was it was this it was this internship. It was like, No, you pick the wrong thing. And you didn’t do your due diligence. I remember when I had my GA Mike, somebody was like, you know, you’re gonna go to Southern Illinois, Carbondale and I’m like, where, and it ended up being a blessing because I got to run the programming and coaching for eight sports down there. And a buddy of mine went to a way bigger school SEC school massive you I mean, it would be like seeing Harvard on your resume. And he didn’t get to do shit. He didn’t get to do anything. And, you know, so you’re right. Small Schools and, and private institutions allow you to do a lot. You want to do your homework. This one is where I almost lose my temper, Mike, like, even on this topic, like, you know, people ask me all the time, so I can only imagine how much you get it. Hey, what advice would you give, I put a 54 page ebook up that is literally downloadable for free on my page. Almost nobody does that. And then they reach out for advice. And I’m like, Well, hey, have you read that? Like, it’ll, it’ll help us with our discussion? And they’re like, No, I was kind of just hoping you could tell me. And so like, most people don’t do their homework, you’re spot on. Don’t isolate diversify. i It drives me nuts. When people think like, Hey, how can I get a college job? I’m like, Well, how do you know that? That’s what you want. And I do think one thing has changed. I gotta politely disagree with you on this. I do think that thankfully, the dividing lines between team and private sector are starting to erode. And I think that’s necessary, like, you know, for our field to evolve like I don’t, I don’t go to a dentist and hear him say I’m a wisdom tooth guy. I don’t do incisors. But like we kind of divide and like you can’t like and young coaches will still do that they act like one is better or worse, doing both go get experience and both. And then like you said, build a diverse, diverse network. If if if Devin hadn’t gone and done that, and shown you know that he was willing to work and do all this, you’re not likely to recommend him. Now people go to conferences, and they think it’s just like, Oh, if I dress nice and pass out a business card, I’m going to get the job I want no, if you do good work, and you shut your mouth and are respectful and be patient, then then you may get that right. Like did I encapsulate some of those things? And

Mike Boyle 19:49

yeah, you’re absolutely right. I mean, that’s what my whole thing is that people like getting people like, oh, yeah, I’d love to meet you. I’d like to talk to you blah, blah, blah, you know, and then can you help me get a job and I’m like, Love. No. Like, I really like, I recommend people that I’ve seen work that I believe can do the job. I do not recommend people that I’ve met. Even not, you know, because my recommendation could be oh, I’ve met him, I had lunch with him thought he was very nice. Okay. And my problem even worse, I’ll be honest, I had this, I got this one the other day with somebody. But I have kids who come here for six months, eight months, nine months, and then this guy’s case a year, and then go back to me immediately. And then when I look at their social media, and I think, Okay, I can’t recommend this guy. Because he didn’t learn anything. He was immersed in this philosophy. Whereas when I look at math, we’re like I said, a guy like, like Devin is my classic example of this in the sense that Devin learned, I mean, he learned our system, but he understands the system. He embraced what we do and why we do it. And then you get some people who come and think, Well, I want to get that on my resume. But trust me, I’m a friggin meathead bilateral squat guy, you know, and we get back to training. I’m going straight website, you don’t need and you’re like, Okay, if that’s if you don’t really want to learn don’t come, right, because that’s not. And then if you leave, and that becomes you, again, you have that choice. Obviously, you can be whoever you want, and you can, you can adhere to whatever philosophy you want. But you have to realize that all those things come with a cost. Yep. And that when people are looking at you, and that’s the sort of the, you know, the double edged sword of social media, I can still remember, I saw this guy’s posts, and I thought, my God, the poor guy wasted a year of his life. I don’t know why he was here. Because he didn’t learn a thing.

Brett Bartholomew 21:52

Well, and oh, go ahead.

Mike Boyle 21:55

No, I said, so. So I guess I you know, that part is frustrating, too. But I think, like I said, the biggest thing is just the people that you said, you know, can you tell me the answer? I have people go, Okay, come and observe. They come for now. And you’re like, okay, I’m good. I’m leaving.

Brett Bartholomew 22:10

Yeah. And then they walk away. And they’re like, Oh, I saw this boils. It’s like, No, you didn’t understand the context of any of that. You didn’t understand any.

Mike Boyle 22:17

Right, and you need to be a really long time to understand what we’re doing. It’s like, you can walk in Sunday for an hour and look around and be like, Okay, I get it. Yeah. Okay.

Brett Bartholomew 22:28

Well, and I think that like, as a field, we got to do a better job. And this is what I mean, like, We waste so much information, debating about different you know, different things and dividing lines. And really, as a as a field at some point, we’ve got to step up on a unified front and kind of yell at future generations, or even people that are in it right now. Like just say, hey, like, quit being so fucking lazy. You know, I apologize for the language. But like, the reality is this to go along with what you’re saying is we’ve created this consumer based society. And so people will hear this podcast Mike when it releases, right, which is going to feature your advice and my thoughts. People will maybe watch a YouTube video of yours, though I’ve done something else. And then they’ll still ask the same questions, because they’re not really listening. It’s like Steve Martin said in his book, people ask him for advice all the time on being a stand up comic. And he goes, I realize, they keep asking, because I’m not giving the advice that they want. I tell them that there’s a lot of struggle involved, and that it’s just going to take time, and you’ve got to hone your craft. What they keep wanting me to say is, we’ll just get this agent. And this is how you get this agent. And this is how you do this. He goes. So I just realized eventually I quit giving people my advice, because I realized they almost never want to digest it. And I even see it on this next the next question. I got three people ask some variation of this, Mike and feel free to out you know, if you want to

Mike Boyle 23:46

let me I want to stop you for one second and go back because it’s really funny. So I mentioned coach Parker, do you now coach Parker, the winningest coach in one sport, in at one school in the history of the NCAA, something like 896 games all the same school, we’ve never had another job. And one of the things you say much like Steve Martin, you say my people don’t call for advice. They call for agreement. He’s like, take less phone calls. Yep. You know, and I found that with people I look and think, Okay, if you want me to agree, like, don’t call me and then tell me that I really want to do back squats. Okay, go really do back squats. I’m gonna tell you that we don’t do them anymore. And you know, if you start asking me questions, I’m still going to tell you that we don’t do it anymore. And I’m not going to change my mind. Based on your you want to argue with me? Great. Go ahead. I’m definitely not changing my philosophy based on your argument or your discussion. So you’re wasting your time trying you know, like, like, don’t try to convince me to change because trust me, I’m not changing, particularly on that particular topic. You know, and so, it is it’s, it’s difficult. One of the things I don’t want to do though, is I don’t want to get that He just added to that common negative guy, know and realize that I’m not gonna, you know, I’m not gonna bother you, I’m not gonna give advice. And that’s why I still like, I go back to square one with people over and over again. But what I do I’m much like you in terms of I say, you know, have you read new functional training for sports? Have you read advanced in functional brain? Do you understand? Even in the simplest sense, why I think the way that I do and again, you’re right, it’s amazing the number of people who are like, No, right, but can you? Can you give me the Cliff Notes version of the book, and I’m like, no extra, you know, it’s about 500 pages between the two of them, it’s really hard to give you the clips, the cliffnotes view of my life’s work. You know, in the last whatever, 30 some odd years of experience is not all that easy to provide for somebody.

Brett Bartholomew 23:46

Yeah, no. And I think I think that’s the right thing to do. Because again, it goes back to the classic apprenticeship model, the classic apprenticeship like, people had to do some level of work before that blacksmith or that craftsman would take them in. And so I’m the same like I, you know, I grumble about it a bit. But like, my point is, is anybody that’s really serious about being an apprentice or, or doing their job at a high level, is not going to mind one or two trip wires, as simple as hey, read a free book, listen to previous episodes, and like, tell me Give me an example of like, the base level knowledge. Because what I found Mike is then some people try to outsmart that they’re like, Hey, Coach, I heard your podcast, you know, and I’ve read your book and whatever. And they almost kind of just say that, so then I’m more likely to ask them because then I’ll ask them great. In regards to your question, what are three things you took from the podcast or the book? So I know where you kind of really want to dive deeper into? And they’re like, and I’m like, Oh, well, you didn’t read it closely enough. And it’s just it goes back to respecting people’s time, right? Like with, what would you tell your 20 year old self the same thing? My parents told my five year old self, be respectful, you know, be respectful and at least put effort into some things? Is there anything else you want to touch on to that before we move to the next question?

Mike Boyle 26:59

Well, with that I tell people all the time, is you know, I have my stress coach.com site where I discuss this stuff every day. And what I say to people is, you know, I’ll give you one free question. But the truth of the matter is after that, if you’re not willing to pay $15 a month to ask me anything that you want, right? Then you really don’t want it. Yeah. People say, oh, you know, I don’t really have the money that I’m like, you don’t have $15 a month, then there’s 50 cents a day. Right? I mean, to be able to contribute to your time, I’ll answer any question you want. Pretty much any time of the day or night for 50 cents a day. Yeah. And then you see people like, oh, yeah, you know, yeah, I’m thinking about joining, joined up, but then I let my membership lapse. And I’m like, Well, the truth of the matter is, you’re really not interested in what we have to say then because we’re seeing it every day.

Brett Bartholomew 27:54

Like, it sounds like you’re choking a pen in there. No, you’re right.

Mike Boyle 27:59

You’re like funny, I just moved a bag out of five. I was like, it’s so funny that the little noises that that was literally me wrinkling a piece of paper,

Brett Bartholomew 28:07

knock that shit off. Like, no, you’re spot on. I mean, like, and I think part of it is we have an unhealthy relationship with money and almost kind of capitalist capitalistic type things in this culture. Because I experienced the same thing. Somebody will ask something. I’m like, hey, well, this isn’t an online course. Like, it’s 10 hours of video, you get all the content, it’s completely self paced. And they’re like, I can’t afford it. And I’m like, bro, if there’s a payment plan, it’s $3 a day. Like, yeah, and you said it, right? Like, our field looks at that as like, oh, well, I gotta pay you’re too good. And it’s like, no, we and, and I keep I almost annoy myself. Because we’ve got to come back to this a lot on the podcast, we’ve mentioned a lot of episodes, but I find that people have to be exposed to things at least three times until they really hear them. What people don’t get is if you’re not willing to like, there is an inherent flaw with free advice beyond a certain point, you know, like, like, people put a lot of work into resources for a reason. And I can’t imagine ever being like, hey, I want to learn more deeply about something. But I refuse to invest in it in any way whatsoever. And I don’t think it’s a generational thing. I think this is something you need to s&c. I do think s&c has really weird relationships with money. And they’re inherently kind of distrusting and for whatever reason, but you know, that content like if I can’t take something, if I pay for your site, Mike $15 a month, and I can’t like generate four times the value off of that in terms of something that I learned or whatever, like that’s a sign and that was a question to somebody goes, what are some things that help you understand you’re in the right field or whatever, I think your willingness to invest in in in proving yourself and sticking it out and getting creative and, and solving problems and trying to to lead by example. Like that’s how you know you’re cut out for this field. Like if you want to be spoon fed shit. Get out right now. You wouldn’t do that to your athletes. Are we going to spoon feed our athletes? What are your thoughts on that?

Mike Boyle 29:56

Yeah, no, I I mean, I 100% agree. It’s amazing. Even with two people. And that was my last year’s keynote talk, it performed better. One of the things that talked about just was reading, you’re reading 10 pages a day. And it’s amazing how many people don’t even like 10 pages a day. It’s not a lot of reading. But when you realize, you know, there’s people who really and again, but it’s, it is very typical. And again, it is not a millennial thing, it is not a generational thing, it is not a strength conditioning thing. It’s just people don’t really want to do the work, I had this conversation with my wife and my sister in law, one of the things that I said is that I am a firm believer that everything in life is our bell curve. And that there’s 20% of people are better at one end, who are always going to be fine. There are 20% of people at the other end, who are never going to be fine. And there are 60% of people in the middle. So I’m on one side of the curve, some on the other. And some people you’re trying to drive them up to the peak of that curve. Other people, you’re trying to drive them down the backside of the curve into that top 20%. And you’ve got to kind of you just have to acknowledge that and realize that there’s a reason some people are successful, and some people aren’t, and it’s not, you know, people love to attribute it to the lock or family or money or whatever. I have not seen that to be the case at all. But I have seen work ethic and drive and desire and those things. The good thing about it, that’s the great thing about coaching is you don’t have to have talent. I jokingly say to people all the time, my athletic career was was abruptly ended by lack of size and lack of ability. I lack the size to be a good athlete, and that lack the innate athletic ability to be a good athlete. But that doesn’t hold you back in coaching. When I got the coaching. No one cared how good I was at baseball, or football, or basketball. And no one can are taller wasn’t how much I weighed. They only cared if I could help them. And people like you know, jokingly, I was always like, now I’m a little more I guess normal in the strength and conditioning world. But when I started mean, it was unusual for a guy to be you know, 510 180 and be a strengthing edition coach and to kind of wear glasses and to be bald and didn’t have any of the stuff that you were supposed to have to be able to succeed at this. And I never thought one moment thought, Oh, this is going to make a difference. You know, I should shave my head or I should try to get bigger or I should get some tattoos or I should cut the sleeves off my shirt or whatnot. I never none of those things ever entered into my mind. What didn’t fit into my mind was I could keep really investigating how to get good at this.

Brett Bartholomew 32:40

Yeah, well I’m looking at as an example look at people like you know, the billionaires of the world today. You’re not seeing them the vast majority of them in Italian suits and fitting a certain model like many of them are wearing just hoodies and and that’s not I’m not saying you should dress sloppy or whatever. And then, but like, you know, you’re not seeing that you’re seeing this stuff toned down jobs wearing a turtleneck and Mark Zuckerberg whether you want to use him as an example or not or you know, like these people don’t go out it like Elon Musk doesn’t go out of his way to wear a quarter million dollar watch. You know, every time he appears on some whatever. But strength coaches are very obsessed with their appearance. They are they do get very, and that leads kind of the next question Mike and so you can put your put what you want to say into this. Somebody asked about how we raise the industry standards and outside perception. And I think this fits in nicely, like because I know when I when I go speak like in about a month I’m going to speak for Wells Fargo and I had a chance to speak for a corporation a while ago and they looked at me and they’re like, you’re not what we expected. And I was like What do you mean? And they basically said, Well, we expected a juiced up meathead and I’m like, oh like you’re thinking like what you see on TV you know the guy ripping somebody back from the sideline or the guy you know doing whatever like you’re thinking antics like no that’s not believe it or not, that’s not everybody in our field. Like we’re professionals too. Can you kind of sound off on how you think we need to raise like the outside improve outside perception and kind of raise those standards and wake up a little bit yes, that’s why this podcast was created. This podcast has pulled no punches.

Mike Boyle 34:12

Well, this has been an I’ve been you know, in the Twitterverse I’ve been pulling no punches lately about that. I mean, one we have to stop acting like absolute morons. I mean, it is our profession gets more embarrassing every week. It does. I mean, it’s more embarrassing every week. You know, we got guys dancing on the sidelines. We got guys cutting sleeves off their polos. You know we get guys running the gun show before the game on the sidelines. I mean, we are a bunch of idiots caricatures in everybody’s mind. And I always look at this I think God you know with Jake Parker our album meal or our Miller or you know Mike boy sick or rusty jones and then these guys that I grew up with respecting embarrass themselves on the sidelines like these people They’ll do. And the answer is an absolute unequivocal. No, those guys were the definition of professional one. You’ve probably never heard about him on a game, I can guarantee you, in spite of the number of Super Bowl rings and Super Bowl games, those guys have been involved in that they’re not even recognizable, right? They’re not out in front of the team leading the freakin dance moves. You know, ripping the sleeves off this shirt to me. It is. So it’s depressing, that are going backwards.

Brett Bartholomew 35:28

Mike, what do you do if I had to play devil’s advocate? What do you do and say that people would say, Well, hey, my coach demands that they’re making me do that. Or I do have a good friend. And he makes a good point here. I have a good friend. His name’s Jim. And Jim says I don’t think we should be vilifying energy. And I don’t think we should be either. But to be clear, I don’t think you’re talking about vilifying the energy. It’s more like how they’re doing but what would you say if it had sport coaches? like listen, Mike, and not you today? Because you have a lot of power and leverage and and things like that. But let’s say you’re you’re 24 Somebody’s throwing $350,000 out to you. And they’re like, I want these boys hyped. I want that sideline juiced. What are you doing?

Mike Boyle 36:05

I think you can do that without making the ask yourself. Talk about it. Like I was, I was a football coach. You know, I’m out there, you know, whatever. You don’t throw on the floor. I’m here ready guy after he makes a great play. I have no problem with genuine enthusiasm. I have problem with a stupid ass clown show. You know, being organized and run by a stupid ass clown, who’s getting paid to be the strength coach? Yeah, that’s the difference. They felt that to me. In all honesty, I don’t think it’s any different. It no matter what field I was working in, if someone said to me, Mike, I want you to violate your principles. Or you won’t keep your job, you know what I’d say to you, that’s unfortunate. I don’t think I can keep my job. If I’ve been in that situation before, and it wasn’t hyping guys up on the sideline, necessarily. But it was coaches asking me to do things that I didn’t believe in. And my response was sorry, I’m not going to do that. If that means that we need to part ways I understand that, you know, if you need to get somebody who will do that job in that way, then you can feel free to find somebody to do that. And I’ll either resign or you can find me depending on how we want this to go. I’ve had that conversation with coaches a couple of times in my career. Because, you know, so what do we got? You know, it’s like, what’s the old line? Everybody’s a prostitute. It’s just a matter what the price is. Right? That’s, you know, is that what we’re saying? So, you know, if someone says, Hey, I want you to be an idiot, hype, man, and make a fool of yourself on national TV. Because I think that’s gonna be really cool. For my football team. You’re just gonna be like, Yeah, whatever. Well, I think I’m your resident sellout.

Brett Bartholomew 37:40

Yeah. And I think this feeds into a bigger issue too, because I’ve been in that position too, as well, in terms of, you know, I was offered a job in pro sport after I left LA and they said, a stipulation is there’s no more book, like they literally wanted me to take it off. Amazon not talked about and I said, Well, why and they go, we want to coach not a brand. And I was like, screw that. I told my wife I’m like, Screw that, like, no amount of quote, unquote, affiliation, or credibility that comes along with a job like this is worth doing. Like, like you said, it’s not, that is not my value. And that as a matter of fact, is what made me double down on on starting my own business, because I was like, I don’t like how our field tries to force people into boxes. I think it’s bullshit. I think it’s just like what people used to do with programming back in the stone age’s. They fit it into this kind of just isolative kind of way of doing it. It’s like, No, we got to train laterally, we got to train rotation. Well, sometimes you got to think laterally in your career. And some people I think, sometimes come up with excuses, Mike, that really the they fight really hard to keep it because I do try to take devil’s advocate, like a coach is probably listening to you and be like, well, easy for you to say, Mike, you got all this money, I gotta pay bills and loans. If somebody pays me $350,000, I’ll do a backflip if I want to. And it’s like, okay, well, like, then that’s you, but you ask what is going to change your perception of the field. And in totality, we’ve got to make sure that like we’re presenting ourselves as professional.

Brett Bartholomew 38:58

There’s a lot to digest in this episode. So far, I think you guys would agree. And one of the things that makes this podcast unique, hopefully, is the fact that I encourage you guys to stop periodically, make sure you’re hitting pause, take notes, or find five different ways you can apply something that somebody’s told you in this podcast. So during this break, I also want to take a moment to recognize our sponsor, as always momentous, momentous is a big reason why I’m able to give you guys a lot of the free content that I try to give you whether it’s on this podcast, whether it’s in different articles I share or anything else, and we try to make sure that we highlight not just who they are and what they do, but also what they have because I know you guys are busy. You don’t always have the time to be able to look these things up, especially if you’re driving. So we’re going to talk about three main products and momentous offers just real quick. One, is there a standard way and this is what’s called absolute zero. Now it’s grass fed whey isolate includes pro hydrolyzed enzymes to help digestion. It’s one of the things that right in the morning, it’s it’s what I’m going to tend to take ache, then they have ArtFire. And this is meant to be the recovery after strength or intense workouts. This is also grass fed whey isolate a little bit of rice molto, dextran, D ribose, creatine monohydrate, and includes l glutamine. And then also the pro hydrolase enzyme blend, which again, if you’re somebody that typically has trouble digesting whey, or any kind of issue with dairy in general, this really makes this a non event. I know this because my wife and my father have both had issues digesting some form of dairy or whey in the past. And both are able to use this without any issue, as are many of my athletes, the majority of which forget to eat breakfast, the half the time. And this is something that we work on constantly just getting them to eat real food. But I always make sure that I have some sample facts, packs of momentous with me, so that I can get something in their system, whether it’s that in a banana or anything else before we train. And then finally is redshift. Now, redshift is really about recovery after endurance workouts. And we’ll do separate profiles on this in future episodes. This is grass fed whey isolate, rice, maltodextrin, D, ribose, potassium citrate, and also the enzyme blend. Now the point here is, no matter what you’re looking for, no matter what your goals are, it’s just a matter of finding which combination of these and the timing of these is going to work best for you. But remember, they are all NSF for sport approved, they’re all informed choice approved, guys. It’s the only company I’ve ever gotten behind, you know, publicly in this way, because it’s the only one that I’ve ever been able to put my full weight of endorsement behind. You know, I, I’m not a big product guy. I’m not a big supplement guy, I try to just encourage like, Hey, are you are you eating? Are you hydrating? Are you sleeping, but even with my schedule, and as much as I travel, I realize that we all do need support of some kind. I think momentus does an excellent job of that, and an ethical, high quality way. So if you meet any of their team, make sure to thank them, make sure to at least learn more about them. And now we’re going to get back to the episode.

Mike Boyle 42:02

And that’s the difference, you have to ask, Hey, if that’s if that’s the way you are, and that’s the way you’re gonna conduct your life. So my life I don’t, I’m not worried about it, it’s not gonna affect me, it’s not gonna affect my income. But I guess would look at that and think that’s the reality of the situation. And I can tell you, I had a, I had an NHL GM one time, offer me a job. And, you know, we’re talking. And he said, Well, we know what, what would what would entice you to take the job, I said, the thing that would entice you to take job would be your support, you’ve got to be willing, right? I said, You got to be willing to go to the mat with these guys. And, and get them to do what I need them to do. I said, ultimately, I’m not going to write any contracts, ultimately, I’m not going to sign the players. I said, if you’re going to support, you know, if you’re gonna hire me, and then support what I do, I’d be really interested in this job. And his response was, in his mind, really honest, he said, No, I’m like, your job is to sell the players on working out, you’ve got to be able to get the players to do that. And I said, Well, that’s probably not the right job for me then said, If you don’t believe it’s important enough, that you’re going to put your energy behind it, then I know, I’m going to come and waste my energy. Because ultimately, I’m not going to have any, any authority and any backing in this particular situation. So I turn that job down. And, and I turned a bunch down, you know, you know, during the course of that time, because I was really lucky. You know, when I was at BU, you know, the guys I get like said, I keep going back to Jack Parker, but I gotta work for a guy like Jack Parker, there’s a reason you want almost nine out of games. And it was because he supported what we did. You know, when I went into him and said, Hey, this is what needs to be done, this guy needs to be spoken to these are the things you know, people, you know, you can look at that, like, you know, whatever beltech The Patriot way, you know, I am I have views about some of that stuff. But the reality is, is a reason that works. And it works because when the person at the top is committed to working, it’s going to work. When the person at the top is not committed to it working, it’s not going to work, and we’re not at the top. And you got to know that and that’s why sometimes, you know, I always think you don’t, I had a guy one time years ago, guy named biller Bannock, who was a coach at Wake Forest, who told me he said you don’t chase jobs, you chase situations.

Brett Bartholomew 44:18

Right? Yeah, that’s perfect. Yeah. And you know, and he said, Go ahead.

Mike Boyle 44:22

Yeah, you know, he said, he said, You need to be in the right situation. He said it that way. He said, I got a great situation at Wake Forest is that I can be someplace else making more money. But it’s not about money. It’s about situations. It’s about, you know, it’s about your family and about how your life’s gonna be conducted and about you. There’s a lot of things a lot of other variables that are more important than money. It’s not I mean, the good thing. Think about our field now, right? Like, I love Chris Doyle. Okay, Chris. I coached Chris as a player. I was his college strength coach. I was at his wedding are coached his wife, right? Chris is the highest paid guy in our field. Yeah, if you think about Chris Wright, one school for 20 years, become the highest, the highest paid guy in our field, by being great at one place, raised his kids in Iowa, enjoyed his life wasn’t all over the place, you’ll never see Chris Doyle again. Now Chris is 50, whatever you want to 52 I guess you won’t see Chris making an ask themselves on the side and stuff on the sidelines dancing around like the cloud. And he’s the highest paid guy in the field. Now, people like you can’t do that anymore. Like, why can’t you do that anymore? Well, stop you from doing that.

Brett Bartholomew 45:38

Here’s what stops him. No, because really what what coaches have to have is not only a clear cut idea on their values, but they have to have they have to create option value for themselves. They have to have the love, they have to create the luxury of being able to say no, and this is where I think the insecurity the field, rears its ugly head again, coaches are scared to bet on themselves. They are like because they’re scarce resources. And like you said, they chase the t shirt. I wrote an article about this three years ago, it’s called cannibalizing our own coaches would rather kind of compete and undercut each other and sacrifice our values just to get a job, because they’re so scared, like, oh, I can’t find it any other way. And I do think it helps a coach to be a little bit onto Listen, coaches are inherently I’ve talked about this on the podcast before. You’re inherently an entrepreneur, because entrepreneurs solve problems and athletes come to us with a variety of problems as do anybody else. And even though it’s not a money situation, you’re solving a problem yet coaches think entrepreneurialism is evil. Listen, you have to create I tell people like periodized your career now. So that if for jobs are offered to you, and three of them are a joke, you can say no, like you think Chris Doyle doesn’t have option value if he if he had to leave Iowa, right? Hypothetically, Chris knows he could find another job. And that allows him to create leverage and thus stability. I just don’t think coaches want to like take the risk. They don’t want to take the risk of saying no, because there might not be another job or Oh, I might, you know, I got told that coach, I got told if you leave the team setting, Brett, you will never get back in. And I think that’s I think that’s bullshit. We may disagree on that. I think that’s bullshit. I’ve had opportunities to get back in it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t in the future. It just means it’s got to my wife and I agreed. It’s got to be the right opportunity. Like you gotta have option value.

Mike Boyle 47:23

Right? And it’s definitely not bullshit I get back in a team setting. I was. Well, when was 2000. What year is this is 97 years ago, I got back into team setting. I was 52 years old. And I had a great job offered to me by the Boston Red Sox. I hadn’t been in a team setting. Well, I guess I kind of still was I was at BU I was still doing college hockey. But I certainly wasn’t in the pro sports world. But I don’t think that that’s true at all. And yeah, I think people love, people love to make excuses about why things are a certain way. Instead of having the competence to look and think, Wait a second, I’m going to be okay. If it’s I always think you know, because again, I went and worked. I sold my business here in 2003, I think, went to California worked for HP, with Mark for a year, realized they didn’t like it. My wife wanted to move back. I moved back I had no job. Literally no job. I had no source of income. Like I’m moving back to Boston, I gotta figure out how to cobble together some money here. I mean, I live I was well, well designed 2004 And I keep trying to do math at about 545 years old. And I started doing personal training. I’d never trained anybody one on one of my life. But I was like I got a lot of people want me to train them. So I started calling those people up and saying, hey, guess what? I’m back in Boston, I need to make some money. If you’re still interested in training, let me know you and then I went back and bu offered me a part time job and I went took a job at UMass Boston teaching a strength and conditioning course. And and that was really probably I cranked up my writing a little bit I wrote for teenagers. And you know, I did because because they were paying me. And I wrote a whole bunch of articles during that time. And I wrote them on on their own because I needed the money. Yeah, and it was a lot easier to write, you know, write an article a week, when you are getting paid to write an article a week. And to be I just think that people I don’t know, I guess people need to be, I think more honest, more realistic with themselves. Because I don’t think a lot of cases people are think we make an incident. This is not unique strength and conditioning. But people love excuses. They love for it to be somebody else’s fault. They love to be a victim. They love to have somebody to blame. And the reality of the situation is I feel like I’ve been good at this for a long time. And as a result, I’ve never lacked for opportunity. There’s always been another opportunity that was out there and my feeling is there just aren’t enough good people Not there aren’t enough opportunities. I struggle more finding really good coaches to present with opportunities than I do. finding opportunities. That’s what Mark? Does. That’s been my experience.

Brett Bartholomew 50:12

Yeah, that’s what Mark for second would say. He would say there’s not you know, any and he didn’t mean this to sound, this will sound worse on the podcast in the context in which he meant it. But somebody else, you know, why aren’t you opening all these facilities? And yeah, this was way early on before they had, you know, he was like, there’s just not enough good people. There’s not enough people that are internally driven, you know, and, and want to spend the extra time to do the I see that now with art of coaching, you know, I have no shortage of people that want to help me come, oh, can I help you train your athletes and this and that, and I’m like, Hey, how about, you know, I’m doing some work for my doctorate I need, I need kind of a research assistant, you want to do that. It’s all coaching related, you’re going to learn just like, just like general work in the weight room can make, you know, great game, like can help you improve on the field, you know, that you’re not going to coach a pro athlete right now. But you want to help me with this other stuff? Oh, well, I don’t know. I’m just kind of in town for a day. Okay. Well, see you later. You know, like,

Mike Boyle 51:04

right. No, exactly. I mean, that’s the difference. I mean, I think that there’s there’s just the people that really want something, get it, I’ll get bangbros perfect example. Right. Ben’s done really, really well. And now he’s in totally in the private sector. But he’s got a great client list. But he walked in one day, and say, I want to do an internship. And I was kind of like, well, I don’t know, you know, and start talking to him. He’s like, Well, you know, I went to Columbia, and you know, I live in the area and you know, do whatever, take okay. I think we can make that workout. And then he showed up, and he worked hard. And people liked him. And, and, you know, he went like, he was a whatever, I think he was a finance major at Columbia, obviously, extremely bright to be a finance major at Columbia, but really had no experience in the field except for his own training. But kind of understood the process, embrace what we did, you know, we’ve had, we’ve had lots of those people. The good thing is we’ve had lots of success stories like that. But the bad thing is, I think we could have more, if more people would, you know, would just show up and not be so worried again, I was thinking about this the other day, I was up at Springfield College, my brother and I got an alumni award, last Monday night, or this Monday night, and I thought, my God, I came here 40 years ago, to go to school. And you know, I went and I took, basically, I quit my job at BU to be a volunteer strength coach. 38 years ago, I was unpaid. Until I was almost 30 years old. Yeah. I mean, I didn’t have you know, I didn’t have health insurance. And people are always like, you know, they want health insurance. They want a 401 K, they want a car they want I’m like I didn’t even literally like I didn’t have a full time position at school didn’t acknowledge that I was there for the first four or five years. But I was meeting like, the people that I was meeting, it was amazing. Like I said, I worked with three NBA head coaches during that time period. I worked with guys that went on, I had players after that they went on to become their NHL head coaches, I had the amount of the contacts, the experiences that I had, during this, you know, whatever, like you said, I was almost like an apprentice with no master. You know, I went and just said, Hey, I’m just gonna go here and and figure it out. And that worked. And now other people don’t he can’t do that anymore. I’m like, I think you can one. I

Brett Bartholomew 53:34

don’t think there’s a lot of people. Go ahead.

Mike Boyle 53:38

No, I think I think that if you were persistent, you would not get turned away. And if you were persistent and consistent. People would notice you. You know, whether that was working for me working for, you know, at Exos, whatever, no matter where you were. If you were good, and you worked hard, and you studied, people would notice. But if you’re in the wrong place, no one’s going to notice if you’re in the wrong place, like you’ve got to be in the right place. And I think that the abuse the right place, right time. Yeah. But a lot of times you get to pick the place.

Brett Bartholomew 54:15

Yeah, and I think that’s where I see people misunderstand what you’re saying. I’ve seen people kind of get on you and be like, oh, like, you know, they go at your heart about this pain thing. And it’s like, Guys, Mike is not saying that he thinks people should come be unceremonious grunts with no return and investment put their way whatsoever. He’s just saying that they need to be more selective about where they go. And if they are, they’ll get so much value in return, that the finance thing is going to be a little bit easier to swallow. Like I was fine. I did two unpaid internships and it sucked but I was fine with it because they were good internships. It was good and like I get that that’s hard. I did. I saw plasmon and and then you say that Mike and then people were like, Oh, well, we shouldn’t have to do that I told somebody wants to take out a loan to finance my book. And somebody goes, well, I don’t see that as a solution telling people to take out loans I go, you’re missing the point. The point is, is sometimes you have got to assess your risk, right? And you’ve got to understand like, what can I do that is uncommon, that could give me leverage for the future. Nobody is saying, hey, it’s right. them not to be paid screw them, they should live on happy. It’s just saying, be selective. And you know what, you’ll get great value out of it. That even like, it’s just so it’s I think people want to run it’s like you said, it’s confirmation bias. People get an idea in their head with how they feel about something. And if you don’t overtly say you agree in totality, they make up almost what your response was. They don’t even really listen to it.

Mike Boyle 55:49

Yeah, no, I would agree. That’s, that’s exactly because they said they have their opinion. I love to look at these college kids. I always think like, Okay, how something just so you know, you’re destined to fail. You have got a guy on Twitter who’s playing two years old, who’s bitching about not getting paid for your internship? I’m pretty much gonna guarantee you that this isn’t gonna work out for you you’re gonna end up doing something else. Why? Because Because if that’s the way you start, it’s not gonna get better do you I mean, if you if you start like that as a complainer, as a whiner. Yeah, and life as a complainer. And as a whiner. Yeah, unless there’s some big epiphany that occurred somewhere along the way, which, again, I don’t, I don’t think that’s going to happen. So I tell people at all time, you know, if this is how you feel, then you should look at fields that have a much more directed path. Where you know, like, all you know, you’re gonna get, you know, right off the bat, you’re gonna have a health insurance plan, and you’re gonna have benefits, and you’re gonna do all the things that you think are important. Make sure that’s all in line. If you’re not willing to bet on yourself, then then this probably in all honesty, this probably isn’t the field for you. Because think about med school. In the beginning, in the beginning, you gotta gamble.

Brett Bartholomew 57:12

And think about Mike think about med school, people that go to med school people that go to law school, I love my roommate in grad school. He’s a lawyer, he’s still paying off debts. And so when I tell people like, yeah, you can pick and choose, yeah, it sucks that we have to do some unpaid things, and this and that, whatever. And, and I think at certain points in your career, you gotta fight back on that, like, for example, if, if something you know, I, I do work for a nonprofit, I sit on the board and six times a year all speak for, you know, events and conferences for way below my rate. But I had somebody asked me to go out and give basically seven talks, a variety of practicals and talks for $500 that you know, what, I reserve the right like, I do complain about that a little bit, because I’m like, that’s, that’s just kind of ridiculous. This place has the budget, right? Like they had, they definitely like, but that’s me complaining 13 years after that, about somebody kind of reaching out with what I think it’s disrespectful or tone deaf requests. But, you know, I talked to my friend who’s a lawyer, and he’s 35 works for Warren Buffett’s company. And he’s like, Listen, man, I’m still in debt. And he’s like, he pays attention to our field because he just thinks it’s a fascinating field. He goes, I saw this argument between people on on unpaid internships, he goes, I would gladly have done a six to one month paid on paid internship, or six months, sorry, to one year to not have to pay the debt that I’m doing. And then somebody’s like, well, you know, he’s a lawyer he’s making this doesn’t matter. It’s still all relative, that debt sucks.

Mike Boyle 58:36

Right. And that’s, my thing is that it’s always, you know, there’s always the excusable. He’s, like, I look at the networks that I’m, you know, I’m the guy walked up school, you know, to help build a school both ways. You know, at this stage in my life, you know, I’ve become that kind of guy, because I spent, I think, seven years as a relatively, you know, pretty much unpaid and I guess, I was probably getting a couple 1000 bucks a year, you know, coaches started getting out, we’ll give you $500 to run, you know, preseason, or whatever it was. But I spent a long time as a bartender. That was how I made my living and bartenders, don’t get benefits and bartenders don’t get 401 k’s and bartenders don’t care. I have a lot of money. You know, I mean, I got a lot of cash hanging around in my pocket kind of thing. But, but I guess I guess the difference is, I never thought I never perceived the negative. I never looked at a newspaper. My dad was a teacher, I probably should have perceived the negative. Never did like I never thought Oh, I’m getting screwed. I can remember thinking oh my god, I get to go to BU and coach every afternoon. And then when I’m done, I have to leave and go to work. But I never thought, oh my god, I’m volunteering all this time. I’m not getting paid like that. never entered my mind. It was more of the wow, I can’t believe I get to do this kind of approach. So it was I just think it’s really different. And that’s, as I say I think we live in just in a much more entitled time where people are way more worried about what I would consider I get some people say you can’t you consider your health insurance and retirement plans and all that stuff, the minutiae, but yeah, I do. Consider it the minutiae relative to finding something that you really want to do for the rest of your life. Yeah, that I would look at some of the other sort of ancillary benefits as the minutia. And in, you know, I’ve been able to go to work with the exception of the time I was a bartender, in shorts and a T shirt for the last whatever, 38 years,

Brett Bartholomew 1:00:37

yeah, you’re gonna, you’re gonna be set for that. I mean, listen, you’re going to incur some kind of metaphorical debt, no matter what job you take, every every job has its shit. And you got to pick your battles and choose the right path for you. I’ve taken a lot of your time. But there is another question I want to get to, and I want to get your take on. And again, it’s one this is salty me coming out. It’s when I’ve given my take on in my book on a previous podcast on a YouTube video and in my course, but people, obviously I’m not doing a good enough job explaining it or, you know, there’s something else and I think maybe people just want your opinion. But Mike, I got a lot of questions, people that wanted to ask you is like, and I’ll frame up the case study, right? Like a guy, a kid is training, he’s getting good results. He’s enjoying himself. But the parents eventually take them out or the kid quits coming, because they sign him up for more clinics or like just parents want to, you know, put in their opinion, basically, the question is always some version of how do I deal with parents that aren’t bought in parents that aren’t consistent? Parents that parents, parents, parents, and, you know, people just want to know, like, how do you get a parent or an athlete or anybody to be compliant? Trust the process, stick it out, not be a pain in the ass? How do you approach those things? Mike?

Mike Boyle 1:01:56

Well, I think it goes back to the same bell curve idea that we talked about, I mean, one, you have to realize that, you know, it’s like being a Sport Coach, you’re going to have wins and loss, everybody’s not going to be happy, everybody’s not going to do it. Exactly the way you want it to be done, you’re going to lose clients, they’re gonna go train with somebody else. That’s reality. So one, I would say, to some degree, you got to get over it, you’ve got to realize that it’s not always gonna be perfect, and things won’t, you know, again, it won’t always be fair. So get used to that particular aspect of it, and you’ll be much better off. But the other part is, I mean, you’ve got to be constantly working on this, you’ve got to be constantly working on parents. Because parents are the customers, kids aren’t the customers. Really, when you release, you know, when you’re talking about our business, the kid shows up and does the training, the parent pays the bill. So I look at it and think, in reality, the customer, the person you’re transacting with, is a parent. So you’ve got to be aware of that. And you can’t ignore the parent. But you also, like I said, you got to realize there’s got to be 20% going to be on one end of the scale, you can’t help.

Brett Bartholomew 1:03:10

So you don’t think, do you feel like these people have to get better at quote unquote, in regardless of the term, convincing them selling them? Like when you say they’ve got to work on the parent? Oh, yeah. Talk to me about,

Mike Boyle 1:03:22

you’ve got to get better. Yeah, you’ve got to get better at selling them, you have to get better. I mean, I always said, I, you know, I have so many elevator speeches for people in terms of the I have light answers to every question about, well, my kid is gonna do well. You know, I’m constantly like, if you see my Twitter feed, I’m constantly fighting, the early specialization thing. I’m constantly fighting parents about, you know, my kids gonna run across country, I’m constantly fighting the, you know, I’m gonna hook up with our kid on this team, like, it never ends in this world. And some days, I mean, again, I think it’s like everything, you’re gonna feel like you’re beating head against the wall. It’s that when you go go work in college, you’d have fight against coaches all the time, who don’t really believe in what you do, who don’t support what you do. I was had a conversation with parents the other day, about their daughter’s college program, and I study called strength and conditioning comes down to basically compliance and cooperation. You know, can you get the kids to come and do what you want them to do? And can you get the coaches to support what you’re going to do? That’s the essence of college strength and conditioning. If you have give, you don’t have coaching, cooperation, you cannot get compliant, you will be frustrated, you will not like your job, you will not have success. And so, the knees are the reality. It’s the same thing with parents, if you got kids who, you know, they can’t rely on parents all the time in terms of, you know, one of the things like I have my son and his friends that I trained, and I was taught, we don’t want to miss days. I don’t want Miss workouts. They gotta be here. Their way they’re gonna get better is by showing up. And I’m constantly beating that drum but I think you just have to realize that that to your job, that’s not going to get it. Yeah. Do you think if you’re in the private sector and you think your job is coaching, you’re sadly mistaken.

Brett Bartholomew 1:05:08

What do you say to people that are like, I don’t think we should have to sell? I don’t think that something’s good. What I mean, what, what’s your response to that?

Mike Boyle 1:05:16

I mean, again, like, that would be like guilt being like, Okay, we’re going over a car business, we just got put a bunch of cars on the side of the street and sit there hope that some people show up and buy some cars, you’re like, that’s probably not gonna be very successful. I don’t know, I don’t know any business, where there isn’t going to be some type of selling involved. And again, my business will sell very hard trust me, you know, our results. And good thing is our results sell themselves.

Brett Bartholomew 1:05:42

Why don’t coaches? Why don’t I hate that term? So much? You think?

Mike Boyle 1:05:48

I think because you talked about it in the beginning. It’s integral to what we do. You know, I mean, it’s like, we don’t do that, you know, I don’t sell I’m not a salesman, like, yeah, you are, you’re always selling, you know, go work in pro sports, you’re always selling, constantly selling, that make guys understand, because you’ve got again, now your guy, your client is yes, the team, but it’s really the guy, and the guy has a choice. And the better the guy is, the more choices he has. And as a result, you have to be really good at convincing that guy to do what you want him to do. That’s the reality of the situation, the easiest place to work is college, in a lot of ways, because you can really run it in a very authoritarian manner, in that doesn’t happen very often in professional sports

Brett Bartholomew 1:06:34

with coaches, like the privates?

Mike Boyle 1:06:38

I think so yeah. I mean, the easiest of pro college or the private sector, I would say college is easiest. But I wouldn’t say there any of them are easy. Sure. But But as they said, you know, in the private sector, you’re, you’re struggling to get kids there, you realize that you’re competing against, you’re competing in a private sector against a lot of entrepreneurs, who are trying to tell people that you’re wrong. And so you’ve got this, a lot of these situations that I apologize, I’m someone’s peeping into my phone, you’re gonna hear a few beeps. I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t want to if I decline it, I’m afraid I might decline. I hope they don’t hang up on you. But I’m okay. But I think you have to accept the fact that there’s going to be some selling involved. And that you’ve got to you, you have to parents, our parents are part of the equation, I don’t like it. But it’s reality. And a lot of times, I found that I have a lot of friends, you know, because again, I’ve got a 14 year old son who’s a pretty good athlete, and I have a lot of parents, friends, who are just misinformed. And it’s a matter of have been willing to have a conversation with them and tell them that, wow, we are what you think are perceived to be true, really isn’t true. And that this is the reality. And again, when you get somebody, let’s just say baseball, you know, when you get somebody who’s being told that their kid should quit everything else and just play baseball when he’s 12. And this guy, you know, maybe he’s a former college player, or whatever he is, or he’s got something on his resume that makes people think he knows what he’s talking about. And they go through that process. Their assumption, I think everyone’s assumption is that everyone’s telling them the truth. And the reality is, that’s not very true. There are a lot of people who are telling you, what they want you to hear, based on how that affects them economically. And you have to be able to acknowledge that and you have to be able to have intelligent conversations and have resources to be able to say, Oh, wait, you know, if you look at this, this clearly isn’t true. This isn’t the way that it’s supposed to work. And I think there’s a lot of people trying to do that now. You know, around long term athletic development in the US, which is good, but eat, we’re fighting our own governing bodies. Please, people like us, soccer are basically encouraging kids to give up everything but soccer, even though they say they’re not, they are. And so in some ways, it’s really tough because we’re fighting against authority, or perceived authority, or, you know, those and then we’re always fighting again, you know, we’re fighting coaches, like we’re fighting parents or coaches who say, Oh, if your son doesn’t do this, I’ll cut oil fall behind, or you won’t make the team. And it’s really hard in the past, I always say the same things. And now, I gotta get off. I gotta go back inside I supposed to be back in. But people they, I mean, like, that’s the bottom line. People lie, but in for their own benefit. And there are a lot of parents out there who don’t know the difference, and aren’t able to sift through and we have to help them do that. If you don’t want to help them do that. You’re not You’re in there again. You’re in the wrong field if you don’t want to help them do that.

Brett Bartholomew 1:09:54

Yeah, just I mean, just like a hammer right can be used to bludgeon people or build houses for the homeless. I think people think selling is a bad thing. It’s not it’s how you wield these things, I think you hit the point on the head, which is why I think in the next three to five years, that’s where the field is going to continue to go more into human behavior and social science thing because they’re the barriers we run against. Mike, I know you got to bounce, I appreciate you going unfiltered you making the time again, it’s always a pleasure, we’ll have to do a part three through 20. Have a great rest of the day. If there’s anything else, go ahead and launch into it. Otherwise, I’ll let you go.

Mike Boyle 1:10:25

Nope, I’m gonna go on. Suppose I got a group of supposed to talk to 11 o’clock. And I’m going in there right now to do it. Thank you very much. It’s always a pleasure. Likewise, take care, bye.

Brett Bartholomew 1:10:39

Hey, real quick before you go, if you enjoyed this episode with myself in Coach Boyle, I would encourage you to check out my online course value. Now I know Wait, wait, wait, like, this is the thing, guys. A lot of times on these podcasts and everything I get asked questions, and we try to answer them in as much depth as possible. But there’s certain mediums that are just better to discuss things. So if you’re interested at all, in regards to how to navigate your career in strength and conditioning, whether you’re a veteran coach, whether you’re a younger coach, whether you’re struggling with burnout, whether you’re struggling with finances, anything like that, myself and four other coaches, people that have worked in the pro side in the collegiate side, people that have worked in all dimensions and put together a really thorough resource, it’s 10 hours, professionally produced, it’s self paced, you own everything, videos, audio, downloads, notes, all that it’s called a valued, and it is reopening again soon. If you’re listening to this after December 2018. It’s already open, just go to art of coaching.com. Check out the courses and look up valued I promise. There’s nothing like this in strength and conditioning. And you do not have to be a strength coach to value from this. If you’re in a field where you just learn that resumes aren’t enough where you felt stuck in your position that you’ve been in a long time or you need to learn more about financial management and contracts and kind of the stuff that not many of us are taught in school. This resource is it we’ve had financial advisors contribute, we got actual legal advice from somebody who has been an attorney for a long time, things that you guys need to look out for in your career. Nobody has created a blueprint for navigating the messy nuances of our field before and it’s now here valued art of coaching.com Check it out because otherwise guys, if you DM me or anything, and you’re like, Hey, can you just give me your best tips? I’m gonna say no, because I can’t do that in a DM I can’t do that 240 character tweet. I can’t do that in an Instagram post. This is the course with my best advice. Please check it out. Listen to what Coach Boyle said. Don’t be lazy. Invest create an edge. This is it. Thanks again guys. And be sure to leave a rating for the podcast. I appreciate all of you

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Matija Jureša October 23, 2019
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Great episode! Thnx coach

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