“The more I know, the less I understand”
– Lao Tzu.
I had a client who was part of my 7am group session and quit.
I explained to him that the way I do things is that I prefer getting people strong from the inside out. Meaning, that I will break him down before building him up, meaning I will focus on dropping his size and weight while making his muscle more dense and making him much stronger even though he may appear to lose size initially. I also explained that size and strength don’t always work together the way he thinks. Having worked in the fitness industry for years, I understood what it would take for him to reach his objectives. I also knew it would not be an overnight process, which I also communicated.
Unfortunately, we had a clear difference in approach; He wanted to become bigger and stronger when he joined the group. His training background was mostly comprised of pushing heavy weights. His ideology was simple, ‘If I push bigger weights, I will get bigger and stronger’. This is what he knew…
The problem with his progress was the body fat he carried prevented himself or anyone else from seeing any muscular gains, if he obtained them anyway.
We started training with Kettlebells and body-weight training, with a little bit of boxing thrown in for good measure. This was way out of his comfort zone. He struggled through the sessions for roughly two months and felt he was getting smaller (which I explained was part of the process initially). Soon after he felt his “Guns” were shrinking he quickly went back to weight training never to return again.
After reflecting on this experience, I’ve seen some things one can learn from it. The first lesson I see here is that there is sometimes a difference between Knowledge and Understanding. Knowledge is seeing a key go into a car ignition, turn, and experiencing the car come to life. Understanding is comprehending all the processes that happen from when the key is turned that cause the car to come to life.
What happens in the fitness industry is that people see others doing things that seemingly work, like turning of a key to turn their body on for muscle building. They try to do the same as these people without knowing that the reason their engine isn’t coming to life is because there is no battery or fuel in their vehicle. Their ‘knowledge’ tells them that if they just keep turning the key enough times their engines will eventually respond and turn on too…
The second lesson I learned is that humility is vital to ones success. Nobody knows everything. Just because you may know where you want to go doesn’t mean you know how to get there.
“You don’t ask for help because you are weak, you ask for help to keep you strong”-Les Brown.
Success in anything is almost never a one man show. Have the humility to ask for help and have the humility to sacrifice your preconceived ideas for more befitting alternatives that will boost you further than your pride can.
Before one can lead, one must first learn….
Just thought i’d share