This past Friday I had the privilege of attending a day long seminar by one of the heavyweights in the Fitness/Strength and Conditioning fields , Dan John...The man is a legendary name and has been in the field before there ever was a field. It was an amazing experience to listen to him talk about his mission , his life and the thing that struck me the most was first and most important to me; he was very, very funny....if your funny I'm going to listen to you. For the first three hours or so he talked about 'Reasonableness'[ apparently the title of the new book he's writing]his life, how it was important to always 'mine' your life and see if its all where it should be.. I am paraphrasing him I am sure, but he said a few times that the exercise stuff was small compared to the bigger picture...that if your life wasn't balanced with family, friends, good literature etc. something was missing.. 'What are your givens?' 'What is your WHY?' Listen to me, any Strength and Conditioning Coach that quotes Nietzche, Socrates, and Frankl is going to get my attention... 'Do you have a list of your ten favourite books? Your ten favourite movies? it matters.He said again and again 'This is the important stuff'...Later in the afternoon we got into exercise, programming and movements , but that first part of the morning really resonated with me. I thought about it a lot and realized I liked him because I agreed with him.Your always going to pay attention to someone whose likes and passions run in synch with your own.But why does this stuff matter to a Strength and Conditioning Coach????
Here's a shot of of one my bookcases in the living room of my Apartment:
on that shelf you'll find the usual suspects 'The Iliad','The Divine Comedy' Histories of Greek and Roman Civilization, the Histories of the Aztecs,Mayans,and Incas, Essays of Michel De Montaigne,Complete Works of Shakespeare,Complete works of Dickens,Volumes of the most famous works by Balzac,Voltaire,Flaubert, and more..below that are my artbooks some of which I've had since I was a boy.'Art Treasures of the Vatican' a lot on modern Mexican painting, Volumes on Renaissance Painting,Fra Angelico,Fra Filippo Lippi, Titian Veronese..... Complete Paintings of National Gallery of Art in Washington way too many books on Salvador Dali and Jasper Johns, and on and on..here's the second bookcase:
Second bookcase contains 'Utopia' by Thomas More,Plutarchs essays, 'On Man and the Universe' by Aristotle,Outline of History by HG Wells, and below that more on Mexican and South American Modern painting, complete works of Da Vinci and Michelangelo etc.I've read all of them , a lot of them more than once.Oh yeah I have scads of strength and conditioning books , but I keep those in the study aka the bedroom where I can work if I need to be away from my Peruvian in laws while they are watching 'Novelas'
SO WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH YOU BEING A TRAINER/COACH/INSTRUCTOR?????
I have to have those things around me.I need them like I need oxygen.After listening to Dan John I thought about my current crop of clients.. I'm one of the busier Trainers in the main Facility I train at...who do I train?Pretty diverse a Nuclear Physicist, a professor of Latin at a Private School. Self made businessman. Police officers..Border Guards..but all my clients have one thing in common. They read too. Guess what else, I have never asked a single client to ever train with me.Not once. Never. But I have discussed literature and art with them .. and yes in a Gym. Guess what else? Almost all of them are repeat long term clients. And I have never asked anyone for repeat business. Do you see where I'm going with this????I'm not trying to impress anyone. I love literature, music art etc. and I LISTEN to people who like the same. after a Training session I'll ask my clients how their week was, what did they read?What did they see, what did they listen to? And then I shut up and let them tell me as they are standing there dripping in sweat.
So here is the big takeaway for all of you aspiring Trainers- when you go into the Gym tomorrow and you are [hopefully] greeting members, ask them in the course of conversation what they have read or if they have ever heard of a certain favourite book of yours...Try it.Don't fake it,Try it. And don't thank me , thank Dan John
