The 5 Pillars of Success - Part 2
...and people complaining about the toilet paper
This is another contribution from the one and only Dan John. Remember: It’s written as a coach to other other coaches and trainers. If you have a coach or trainer, you should be making sure they are applying the principles below. If you do not have one, but are trying to make progress…you are your own coach or trainer so this applied directly to you.
For this one, we did something different. We changed “your clients” to “you” and “coaching” to “personal results” throughout the article. Read Part One Here.
There is a short line in Think Like a Freak that made me suddenly realize why I am generally happy. Now, the journey to happiness as a coach is, to quote the boys from Liverpool, “a long and winding road.”
But, this line set me free:
Knowing what to measure simplifies life.
As I sit at my desk with my dog occasionally looking up at me when he isn’t snoring, I have a vague sense of this hard-to-find quality called “happy.”
Like most people, I have achieved goals, traveled to many places and generally had a life worth living. As a coach, this has not always been true.
The issue?
It’s sometimes hard to know what to measure.
Let’s look at how I make my living:
Strength coach·
Track and field coach
Fitness consultant (occasional fitness or personal trainer)
Author
How do I know I am doing better as a strength coach? Hmmm. Let me break it down: My people get stronger because they lift more weight!
If load goes up, I did it—strength coaching—right.
Don’t roll your eyes yet, I’m just starting.
Track and field coach? Easy. If the athletes throw farther, jump higher or farther or run fast, we are doing it right.
Personal trainer/fitness consultant/fitness trainer? In my assessment, I give you one measurement: waistline. If your client’s waistline goes down, you almost universally got it right.
Measuring “author” makes a more difficult calculation.
If you go online and trust the “star” reviews, good luck, my friend, in appraising if a book is good or bad. I have seen people give one-star reviews because their electronic device doesn’t work right. Great television shows get reviewed poorly all the time because “I bought the season, but only got one episode.” (The, uh, season…um…just started. They will come out every week…one at a time.) I’ve seen classic works destroyed by teenage reviewers because: “I was made to read this book and I didn’t want to.” I saw this in a Ulysses review and The Sword in the Stone.
Really? You hate The Sword in the Stone?
For authors, actors and artists of all kinds, here you go: Measure your success by income. For authors, it’s royalties. Mickey Rooney and Burt Reynolds may not be your go-to favorite thespians, but they dominated screen revenue for decades. As the kids say, “haters gonna hate,” but no matter what you do, in the court of public opinion, some people are going to love your work and others are going to hate it.
In full candor, the late Archbishop George Niederauer once said I was, and I quote, “a diva.” His point, and it did hurt, was I tended to only notice the poor or bad evaluations.
When he said this, I tossed my fur boa over my shoulder and stormed out. That’s a joke, although many people I know can imagine me doing it.
At one point, I ran a yearly event with up to 1,000 people. I hate evaluations; almost always, they have no value.
“The bathrooms were too cold.”
“The bathrooms were too hot.”
“There was too much food.”
These are actual evaluations from one year. The third one was funny, as we offered a buffet, so “too much food” reflects one’s (over)use of the serving spoons.
People actually complained about the toilet paper too. Honestly, one can only do so much.
Which leads us back to my life as an author.
I focus on the royalties. Sometimes, I think, “This is my best work ever,” but the book doesn’t sell. Now, it might be true: This poor selling book does a great job explaining some key principle in lifting or coaching, but it only applies to the 10 people on the planet who care about that key principle…including me, and I get free copies.
But, if the royalties allow me to lend my yacht to the pilot of my private jet, I know I did something right.
By knowing what to measure, I know my general direction is either going the right way or the wrong way. When things in all areas of my life are going the right way, I tend to be happy.
Oh, I’m sure there is a self-help book that will tell me I should be happy no matter what, but I seem to be happier warm, full, hydrated and surrounded by people I love and who love me.
In my coaching career, I also discovered it is often hard to measure things. American football, one of the true loves of my life, is a great example: You can really play well, improve across the board in all qualities and still get pounded by the opponents. We might have a team filled with future lawyers, doctors and Nobel Prize winners, but we still lost.
And, an undefeated season can also be a horrible experience to endure.
That’s tough to explain. I have coached some amazing athletes, but I couldn’t turn my back on them. Sometimes, you win the genetic lottery and you are flat-out better. As a coach, you might have a lot of wins and trophies, but you might be miserable.
“Measuring measurements” is a delicate balance. Statistics are often fraught with issues, as British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said (according to Mark Twain): “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Years ago, I endured a horrific season of coaching high school football. Frankly, the mix of the personalities of the football staff was bad and we had far too many dads coaching their boys. This is always an issue in the best of times, but in this case, we also had very little talent.
It was that year—and we all have them—when everything just kept going wrong. As we finished our season (we lost every game in our region), one of the coaches mentioned this:
“We have the best pass defense in the region.”
What?
“Yeah, look,” and he produced some numbers. It was true, nobody threw the ball much on us. But, wait…there might be “the rest of the story.”
We were behind in games so fast and by such large margins, the opposition never had to throw the ball. His measurement, “the best pass defense,” needed the rest of the story.
I use Jean Fournier and Damian Farrow’s book, 7 Things We Don’t Know!, as part of my work for St. Mary’s University. I constantly strive to remind my students not to just take measurements, but to study them closely.
My favorite part of the book involves free throw shooting for basketball. There was a study that found that Division One basketball players hit six or seven free throws in a row…ALL THE TIME!
But, they shoot 69% of free throws in games.
Hmmm?
The follow-up was simple. The researcher, Kozar, looked at the just the first two free throws in these practice tests. Not shockingly, the basketball players hit 69% of their first two shots in practice.
You don’t shoot 10 free throws in a row in a game. You might shoot one or two. That’s it.
In personal training, people use the weight scale (notoriously worthless at calculating lean body mass) or dress sizes (this is a fascinating discussion to bring up around wedding and prom season) or, more recently, use photoshopped pictures.
These measurements are, on their best days, worthless.
When trying to figure out what makes an American football team or a rugby team win is really difficult. You have 11 or 15 players on a side. You have a massive field. You have dozens of things happening at once…ALL the time!
If my discus thrower throws 10 feet farther, we are right. If your rugby team loses in a close one…well, good luck finding what really cost the victory.
As we say in American football about the film session after a game:
You never look as good or as bad as you thought.
Oddly, after a loss, it is often hard to see where the game was lost on the field. The opportunities to win were…ah, just right there! Watching film after a loss just breaks the heart: We say “coulda/woulda/shoulda” throughout the film session.
Some stats give some clarity. Turnovers in most sports are usually a key, but some turnovers, like tossing the ball deep at the end of a half, don’t mean much. There is a term, MOBP—Missed Opportunity to Make a Big Play—that can really unpack a loss. Literally, you will hear in the film room, “Right there! Right there!”
But, again, that’s coulda/woulda/shoulda thinking.
As we’ve discussed throughout this book, the lessons I learned teaching economics made me a better coach. The lessons I learned pulling together my personal financial security made me a better coach. Coaching and participating in track and field, the ultimate numbers game (along with competitive swimming), made me a better coach.
If you can measure it, you can improve it.
Live to Learn. Give to Earn.
Dan John has spent a lifetime of living, learning and giving. If you found this useful or interesting, pass it (or any of Dan’s work) along to someone else that might benefit.
Commandment One.
PS. This publication is a for-fun project, applying Guardian Academy Principles to fitness and sharing some of the best, no-nonsense fitness insights. It appears that we may be expanding. Expect Dan John’s continued contribution and an introduction to the one and only Dr. Lynn Wagner (we call her Doc Wagz) soon.
More From Dan John:
For books, you can see his bookstore here and his Amazon books here.
For socials and more content, Dan’s Instagram and Youtube are updated consistently.
Dan’s favorite Guardian Academy principles are Raising The Floor and What Is Enough? Both are also discussed in Bumpers.