Few are willing to do the endless, authentic work required to actually create & sustain it, though.
“You can’t fake culture.
You can’t buy it, either.
You have to build it.
Brick x Brick, every day.
It takes immense work.
But the fulfillment associated with building & being apart of something growth oriented & bigger than you makes the work worth it beyond measure.”
-Ray Zingler on X
Culture, culture, culture.
It’s a huge buzz word that many people like to throw around because it sounds good.
But the ironic thing about culture is that those who like to talk about it all the time in preseason meetings or end of season banquets typically talk about it so much, because they like the mere idea of culture and not actually building culture.
And the reason many fail to build real culture is because it’s hard.
You can’t fake it.
You can’t even buy it.
You must build it.
And building things is hard.
It takes time.
Time that in today’s instant gratification seeking age, most people are unwilling to allocate towards culture development.
But if you are interested in building culture, you start with yourself.
You start by holding yourself to an unreasonably high standard and sticking to it consistently.
Why?
Because to build and more importantly share anything growth oriented with others, you must live the code yourself. This is another problem with culture talkers. They’ll spout about it, but they aint about it. And then they wonder why they get pseudo-buy in from the people they are trying to lead (dictate).
But once you’ve built the discipline within yourself that is required to be able to truly lead others, you can start running the endless race that is culture development.
You can, with conviction, put your foot in the ground, and begin sharing your ideas and solidifying your identity.
You can put something out there that (the right) people will actually want to get behind.
You can bring your vision to life, if you will.
What makes great cultures so great is that they aren’t forced.
They are truly authentic.
And you can feel authenticity in the same way you can see through the bullshit of someone who is not authentic.
When I look at great cultures, and I can humbly say the culture we’ve (certainly not I) created at our gym is one of them, I deeply appreciate them because I know how much authentic work actually goes into making them special.
The work is endless, but if you’re willing to put fourth the time and effort required to build culture, it’s some of the most fulfilling work you’ll ever do.
