If you learn to view behavior objectively, it’s very easy to tell, even from an untrained eye.
“Is your kid’s coach after internet clout or Long Term Athletic Development?
If bro spends more time getting a cameraman out to the training area & editing videos than he does investing (100’s of) thousands of dollars in equipment & continuing education, he’s probably after the former.”
-Ray Zingler on X
There are LEVELS to this game.
Training athletes is awesome.
It’s one of the most rewarding aspects of my professional endeavors, however I will tell you what I tell all my mentees & folks I consult across the globe.
The “training athletes” part is the dessert.
It’s when you get to “put your jersey on” as Coach.
But think of being a professional coach in the context of a professional athlete.
Let’s use football for example.
They play a single 3-hour game on Sundays, 17 weeks a year.
A whomping 51 hours of competition in a calendar year.
Or said differently, significantly less than 3 full days of a 365-day, year.
However, said athletes spend the ENTIRE year preparing for those 51 hours.
From training, to nutrition, to treatment, to skill work, to film study, most Pro athletes spend more time in ONE week preparing to compete than they do competing in the entire calendar year.
If that doesn’t seem dramatic enough, remember that Usain Bolt trained for 4 years (1,460 days) to run 9 seconds.
Do the math on that prep to compete ratio.
This is how it works in professional coaching, too.
Of course, the training is fun, but what you see on my social media pages, which is self-recorded from an iPhone is a snapshot.
It’s less than 1% of the gig.
Most of the time is spent, reading, studying, practicing, applying, meetings, writing programming, mentoring, consulting industry leaders, networking with equipment manufacturers, investing significant funds in space and equipment, and most importantly communicating with our community & putting out fires so that we can continue to overdeliver.
That’s the 99%.
So next time you’re out at the local field or the park and see a “trainer” prescribing random drills on a surface he didn’t invest in, with a random assortment of CHEAP equipment you can get at the box store with his cameraman in tow..
Take a step back.
Ask yourself, “Does this seem like a person who is making regular, strategic investments in his business? Is he taking calculated risks? Spending significant time growing in his craft?
Or is he going the cheap route, playing into my perceptions, and trying to win the internet?
99 out of 100 times, it’s the ladder.
