It wasn’t long ago when I was sitting at breakfast with a friend who is a leader in high-performance sport. Overlooking the pacific ocean, and enjoying an early morning coffee, we were talking about the impacts of an organization’s culture on creating the right high-performance team.
We’ve worked together in various ways and have known each other for over 20 years. He has a very public platform and is a world leader in his field.
As I started sharing some of the challenges of bringing together professionals from diverse cultures around the world, he stopped me.
“Dude, when are you going to write a book?”
I gave him some lame answers. I wasn’t sure where to start. I was working on other things. I wanted to share too many things. Maybe this stuff really wasn’t that helpful?
They were all true. And there isn’t any grand reason why I needed to write a book.
But they were lame because I knew I wanted to, and it was part of a larger issue.
Then he really drove it home. Top people in the profession knew of me, he said. My reputation was good…but always vague. They didn’t really know what I was doing. Or much about me personally.
I didn’t have the impact I should.
Why Not Before?
I’ve had a platform to educate over the past few decades. In the beginning, it was our first facility staff. That grew into four centers and a growing team to teach. More conversations and perspectives.
Then I began consulting for Velocity Sports Performance on the corporate side, and it grew to coaches, therapists, and businesses across the country.
Then with our elite sports work, it was high-performance teams, consulting and speaking internationally.
Yes, I occasionally presented at national conferences but didn’t put much effort into getting myself on stage.
I was satisfied with this.
I was more interested in how it drove our business forward. It was internal to Velocity, not external. That’s where I was impacting our profession through our coaching tree.
Self-Promotion Is Bad
Growing up in a middle-class family in the Midwest, I was also brought up with humility as a value. I learned to do the job right, and the recognition would follow.
My mother spent my childhood volunteering through the community and schools. She had a significant impact, although never paid and never self-promoting.
Although her time was cut short by cancer, today she has parks and a public school named after her because of what she accomplished.
Bragging and self-promotion were negative traits.
So, I’ve been content to do the work, get the results, and help athletes and organizations along the way. It’s part of being in the field of human performance. We support the performers. The athletes. We aren’t out front in the spotlight.
Personal gain from being in the spotlight doesn’t get me that excited. Being recognized in my field is undoubtedly nice, but it hadn’t been enough to drive me.
I’ve always been ok with people I respect in this field to know about me and respect me. Having a platform was never an interest.
A Muddy Platform
I’ve also struggled to embrace more public discourse because of the platforms we use.
Put me up to speak on stage, and I’ll be happy to lay bare all kinds of ideas and questions I have. Sharing success and failures is easy.
Sit down at the bar with me, and we can talk for hours. Some of the best conversations I’ve ever had are with people who I may disagree with or who have radically different ideas. But let us sit and talk over food, drinks or cigars, and I love it.
However, put me on social media and, I’ll burn out pretty quick. It’s too disconnected for me and also impersonal. The lack of human communication methods of facial expression, tone, and body language makes it hard for me to connect.
The platform can be easily high jacked by people that aren’t there to engage genuinely. I always think of the maxim; Don’t wrestle with a pig, you’ll both get dirty, and the pig likes it.
Why Now?
I love coaching. Today as both a high-performance director and business leader, I spend most of that coaching effort on my staff.
That’s where I get joy out of sharing information, experiences, and exploring ideas.
Having an organization to lead, I get to work on educating our staff members. We are continually striving to improve, and this leads to great internal and external conversations. With our own people, our consultants, and our clients.
Still, a regular comment keeps coming up. I keep getting told I should share more.
And I should.
I appreciate the challenges in our profession, and I need to be in public conversations. I want to be there so I can contribute. I want to have more of these conversations.
Now More Than Ever
I also have a responsibility. In life, one of my favorite quotes is, “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
The professional correlate would be; “all it takes for bad practices and misinformation to thrive is for knowledgeable professionals to stay quiet.”
I’ve been guilty of this. I’ve been more worried about my company and our teams instead of the profession as a whole.
Today there’s more conflicting information than ever. It can overwhelm any of us at times. Add to that the rapid pace of dissemination and drive for instant answers and success.
Social media. Seminars. Certifications. Online courses. And on and on and on.
The platform for bad practices and misinformation is massive. So we need knowledgeable voices to cut through.
I Don’t Have The Answers
This doesn’t mean I’m getting out there now because I have all the answers. I’m not interested in being the arbiter of right and wrong. Good or bad.
What I want are better conversations. What I want to bring to these conversations are better questions and added perspectives.
Questions are where I really think we need work. Far too many conversations run on shared assumptions and acceptance of dogma. Questionable motivations drive others.
Asking useful questions is a skill we all need to reinforce. These aren’t questions driven to discredit or cut down ideas but aimed to cut through the confusion and learn.
I wasn’t very good at that, and it’s taken me years and professional necessity to improve. You see, I’m very comfortable with challenging ideas. I love to debate. I find it intellectually stimulating and don’t take it personally.
As a younger professional, I didn’t realize that not everyone was comfortable that way. So, my questions and strong opinions often offended or hindered conversations. They felt to some more like arguments than conversations and exploration.
Good questions can lead us to new innovations and ideas that move human performance forward.
That’s a selfish motivation as well. There are questions I have, and I want to increase the number of people asking them so I can learn faster. I want to help open source more of them and learn from it.
Impact
We have a fantastic opportunity as professionals in the world of performance to have a positive impact.
Clearly, we can help the individuals we work with, whether it’s an Olympian, a young athlete, or a business professional.
That impact grows from individuals to organizations and teams. We impact communities by making individuals better and through communities change our nation and the world.
I don’t think it is an exaggeration that by having an impact on individuals, we can change the world.
Looking Forward
So I’ll start with sharing thoughts in small chunks. Some may be trends that come up in our field, but most will probably just be offshoots of real conversations I’m having with coaches.
That’s when I find I’m engaged to share those ideas and questions. I hope to take them and share them on this and other platforms so more can benefit and contribute.
That’s my goal. Better conversations. More exploration of ideas. More positive impact.
