“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

This weekend, I was in the car coming home from a long weekend and Freakonomics Radio came on via our local NPR station. The radio show followed a few main characters and professional athletes through a few major turning points in life. The main theme throughout was defining and refining that we are more than just geared to do something, we have an operating system for the things we are best at. As humans we’re complex computers that combine not only emotion but tactics, skills, and processes. In my line of work as a coach and through personal work and research I have shared that I believe that we are geared to do something with impact. This radio show took me through a process I had been feeling myself recently - helping me define that coaching and working with people through my mission and vision was in fact my ‘Why’.

Seeking FUlfillment

The average person will go through a process of graduating High School, finding a college or university program, study to get their first job, and over time move up a few rungs. This middle ground has many people feeling stuck - in the middle of life. The middle is comfortable, it doesn’t challenge you much outside of your skillset, but it doesn’t offer as much fulfillment.

We must seek out new challenges to Grow

I sought out fulfillment in my everyday work, and I’ve found that I needed to better understand my personal WHY to move forward. It was only in the last 6 months that I gained clarity on my personal mission, vision, and why. It wasn’t clear to me as to why this work mattered to me, why I continued to seek better understanding, and to why I challenged myself to push athletes physically, emotionally, and personally towards the best version of themselves; to who they wanted to be.

In the car, Domonique Foxworth hit me with words that will stick with me for a long time. Domonique retired from professional Basketball unwilling to slide into a world where he was happy with his former self. He finished his career in basketball and turned to business school to drive himself forward. He wanted to keep competing and didn’t want to lose his ‘Why’. He had spent so much of his life myopically focused on achieving bigger and bigger results in football. Once he entered school he was surprised to find how much of his personality and skills allowed him to benefit from his situation. He was able to gain ground with new skills outside of shooting a better free throw.

“The operating system that you used to get here may not be the operating system that you need going forward.”  - Domonique Foxworth

Operating System

It was then that I realized that my personal work to define mission, vision, and why weren’t going to be a short term pay off. I wasn’t going to automatically do more or make me money tomorrow. However, it will help me build a better business and ultimately a better version of myself. I found that for me, I do my best work when I am challenging myself to grow as well as surrounding myself with others who are looking to grow. My work on the outside is easily defined as running coach. However, internally I am always looking to work with and challenge my clients.

My work goes beyond the fulfillment and achievement of the finish line. Athletes determine the worth of a coach based on the outcomes they help them produce, the personal record, a faster run split, or a successful nutrition or hydration plan. I see that my work goes beyond just writing focused and targeted workouts - I want my athletes to not only work their cardiovascular system but also their mind and soul. This is the work I do to help people become the best version of themselves.

It’s the work I do for Tina to not only push her towards her goals at an UltraBeast but also challenge her to grow personally, professionally, and physically. It’s the work I do for Joe to help him drop the need for comparison and drive towards the best version of Joe, the runner and father who can reinvent himself no matter the age. It’s the work I do for my youth, to give them the life skills to take life head on and see small failures as opportunities, and to keep going despite a setback.

I didn’t get blindsided with this one day and it all became clear. It took time to sit down, to think, to process, and refine more of what I was feeling. It’s an innate human trait to move towards doing more of the things that make you feel good and make you feel loved, desired, and respected. As I have grown as a coach, I have grown as human. I was very lucky to find someone like Nora Abell who has helped me refine more of my purpose and bring color to the Mission, Vision, and Why in my life.

We don’t get updates

Foxworth is quoted as saying ‘they don’t just like release updates for humans. So modifying my operating system is a slower, more challenging process’. No one will sit you down and say - it’s time for a change, you’ll need to reflect inwards to move forward. I hope you know you’ll have to confront all those big scary things in life if you want to achieve the goals you set for yourself. We have to decide this for ourselves if we want to have a better marriage, a better business, a happier and healthier version of ourselves. No one will do it for you.

What I will share is a few golden nuggets on the boiled down ideas of what I had to do to move myself, my business, and my community forward.

Application

When we think about that middle aged person with a ‘good enough’ lifestyle. The requirements needed to get to the next level don’t just lie in getting a promotion or moving to another job. It requires personal development to become the person that they envision being. This is true for the middle manager who want to be CEO, the kid who wants to run in college, and for the athlete who has a big scary goal. You will not move forward in life if you do not find ways to challenge who you, as you are today. Who you are today and who you want to be tomorrow are a product of the community you surround yourself with, and the work you choose to do on yourself. So I ask - what do you want to be?

• Do you have the skills of the person you want to be or role you want?

  • How do get them? Write them down, break down the pieces.

  • Who has these skills now? Make time with them, understand how they operate and how they got to where they are.

  • Make a timeline and understand what your milestones are.

• Do you operate the way you expect the person in your role would operate?

  • What skills do you need to acquire to be the best version?

  • Find a community of like minded people who operate this way. Immerse yourself and learn.

  • Challenge yourself to take the steps towards becoming that person. What do they look like? Go back to Question 1.