Earlier this week I put up Part 1 of this series, so check it out if you haven’t. I’ll wait here until you’ve read it.  <checks email, pay bills, twiddles thumbs> You good now? Okay, let’s dive right into part 2.

#13. The Basics should always be the primary focus

Steve Nash was one of the best NBA players to ever shoot free throws, making 90.4% of his shots over the course of his 19 seasons. He missed only 332 shots in his entire career. He was pretty good, to say the least, at this very basic part of the game.

However, as good as he was, he still saw the value in regularly practicing and delivering a consistent routine that would result in continued success. He could have easily said he was too good for practice, and watch his stats drift into the mid eighties and maybe even lower, and still be considered an amazing shooter, but continuing up into his final practice spending time focusing on honing this skill made him the best at it he could be.

You might be good at the basics, but you could likely stand to continue working on mastering them. You’re likely never so advanced that they aren’t worth spending some time working on them, and every activity or sport has their fundamental elements that require most of your time and focus.

#14. All Information can be found easily now, and usually for free

Up until probably about 20 years ago, if you wanted to know or learn anything, you would have to pay for it. You would need to buy a book, a magazine, a newspaper, attend a class, or take a dedicated course of study. This usually meant the information you were getting had at least had a single filter point to make it somewhat reputable. In terms of learning a skill or craft, you would have to apprentice under a guide or master to learn directly from them, and progress through levels of understanding until you were deemed ready to be a master to another student.

And then along came the internet. Suddenly, information was free, and disseminated by people who may or may not know what they’re talking about. Now instead of paying people who held the information you were looking for, you were paying people who had managed to collect and produce the information in a way that was either pleasing or easier to understand.

This had both a good and bad result. The good is now people are more informed about the world around them and how things work than ever before. The bad is that you can’t necessarily trust the information you’re getting from some sources, so there’s a lot of noise to sort through on any topic. You can still learn for free, but at your own risk, and with the hope that what you learn is actually accurate and at a stage that you’re ready to learn. Be wary of the trainer who sees a cool Youtube video and wants all their trainers doing that exercise the next morning.

#15. To become a better communicator/public speaker, study stand up comics

I started teaching workshops and seminars in my club about 11 years ago, and since then I’ve stood in front of roughly 250 rooms of people, and have probably had around 10,000 people hear me speak. These aren’t Tony Robbins numbers by any stretch, but still, it’s something.

I’m comfortable in front of a room now, but it wasn’t always the case. I’m typically more of an introvert, but I’ve had to work on building a presence during a presentation. One element that has helped a lot is watching a lot of stand up comedians do their thing. They truly are the best examples of outstanding public speakers when it’s done well. They have to engage the entire room, keep them emotionally invested, and leave them hanging on their every word, usually without PowerPoint or props. Well, unless your name is Carrot Top, and have you seen him lately??

They usually have to work on their word selection, tempo, inflection, facial expressions, hand positioning, other nervous ticks, and then actually be funny. It’s likely one of the toughest professions going, especially since public speaking is usually ranked higher than death in terms of people’s fears.

 

#16. Be quick to compliment, and slow to criticize

In the book “How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships,” the author talks about the value of finding unique things to compliment someone on, and how they can have an immediate effect on how that person perceives not only themselves, but you as well.

There are enough people in the world looking to tell others what they’re doing wrong, and not nearly enough people willing to tell them what they’re doing well. I always try to point out a few elements of progress clients are making, especially if they aren’t able to see it themselves. Once in a while a client will come in with absolutely nothing good to say about themselves, so I start in with a hurricane of awesomeness and let them know everything that’s going awesome in their lives, smashing them upside the head with so much positivity that they can barely stand me or my stupid face anymore.

But you know what? At least now they know about the good stuff.

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#17. Don’t complain about your work

If you haven’t seen it, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” should be on your Netflix queue this weekend. It’s an awesome documentary about a sushi chef who has spent the better part of the last 70 years perfecting the art of putting cut fish on rice.

The quote in the image above is one of his opening lines in the film, and it resonated hard with me. Regardless of the job, there was once a time where you were excited to get to do it. You looked forward to the new challenge, the opportunity, and the experience. It’s up to you whether you’re still excited about the job or not, and whether you want to enjoy it or not. All you have to do is choose, but if by some chance the job doesn’t meet your requirements, find a new one that you can enjoy. The ability to earn money in exchange for your time, skill and energy shouldn’t be anything other than a compliment.

Your workouts are no different. There’s no other element of health maintenance or hygiene that people get as worked up over enjoying as a workout. You don’t have to get psyched up to brush your teeth, do you? Do you need to be “in the mood” to shower? God I hope not. Just do the work.

#18. Every time Rocky IV, Talladega Nights, or Army of Darkness are on tv, I’m watching it.

Regardless of whether it just started or there’s only 20 minutes left, it’s going down. Don’t call me, email me, or even talk at me and expect much of a response until they’re over.

#19.Worldviews affect peoples’ opinions

No one ever thinks they’re wrong, and they will always use the information they have available to them to form their opinions. In the book Originals, Adam Grant lays out how an individuals experiences precede their opinions and, in many situations, their decisions. As an example, in his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins points out that the single biggest determinant of one’s faith was simply what country they lived in when they were born.

If someone has had a specific set of experiences it’s going to form their world view about a topic and make it the basis of their opinion. If a powerlifter has only ever worked with barbells, they’re likely going to turn their nose up at bodyweight or kettlebell training, even though it’s something that would likely humble them quickly, and likely be very beneficial for their health and also their performance.

 

Just remember that the next time you want to tell someone they’re wrong on the internet. They probably think the same thing of you because your worldview doesn’t match up to theirs, so you have to approach it with a degree of empathy and understanding versus just trying to flame them out.

#20. There’s one simple formula to online success

It usually involves one of the following: Sex, humour, or puppies/kitties, and combinations of the three have to be approached very carefully or you’ll get a suspicious van parked across your street with “NOT THE FBI” lettered on the side. I’m not too terribly sexy, and I’m allergic to cats, so I have to overcompensate with humour. That’s why I write.

#21. Review leads to better understanding

When I was in university, I had a professor who in our exercise physiology class said the information was going to be a lot, and very complex, so reviewing the work would be massively important. It was more important to understand the concepts than the details, so his suggestion was for us to re-write each chapter that we studied in a short synopsis of what was inside. Sort of our own cliff notes version.

This did two major things. First, you had to pay more attention than mindlessly skimming the work. Second, you had to put it in your own words to understand what was going on. This is a skill I’ve used since then and it’s proven invaluable.

When I cue a client for a certain exercise, their own understanding of what I’m talking about becomes more important than anything. Nick Winkelman has done a ton of research into this with the differences in internal and external cues, and they work very well with the clients I tend to work with. In one example, a client who worked in community planning was an “all or nothing” person by her account and would always overwork and shift out of position for some of the more subtle movements that didn’t require a lot of intensity, but more mindful thought of just getting the muscle to do what it had to do. I used the analogy of coming in under budget, where you could spend a lot of money and work really hard, or spend enough and get the job done. She got that, and dropped the intensity to “coming in on budget” levels.

#22. The Kardashians are famous because they know how to game the system

Let’s be honest, I’m not sure any of them have any discernible skills that would make them successful in the world if they weren’t on television, but they do know how to stay in front of people, and get people talking. The fact that they have the social media and other media presence shows they understand their audience incredibly well, and are able to deliver in a meaningful way that keeps their bank accounts full and their faces everywhere.

There’s a lesson to this. You can either complain about the fact that they’re talentless and everywhere, or learn why they’re able to do that so you can replicate it. If you’re in the boat of saying you’re a superstar but no one knows who you are, put up or shut up. Figure out how ethical marketing can work for you, and start trying to change the lives of those who didn’t know you existed otherwise.

#23. Just don’t buy Sketchers, shakes, wraps, or whateverthehell a waist trainer is.

Seriously. Stop it.

#24. There isn’t one “best way” to do anything

I was at a conference in Oslo Norway recently with a bunch of heavy hitters in the realm of exercise, nutrition, hypertrophy, and what ever it is that I do, and an overlying theme to a lot of the presentations is that there isn’t a single magical strategy that will get you all of your results. Take different diets for example. You could do no carb, low carb, all carb, photosynthesis, whatever you want to do, as long as it follows a couple of basic rules. Rule #1: It’s something you can actually do and not hate your own face while doing it. #2: You’re in either a caloric deficit for weight loss or a mild surplus for gaining muscle. #3: You eat enough protein in either situation to sustain lean muscle tissue.

For success as a trainer, there’s no one pathway that will work best for everyone, and in some situations, you’ll have a complete anomaly that finds success on their own terms.

The point is, the yellow brick road leading to Oz is just the commonly held answer. It’s not the only way, but seems to make the most sense to most people. If you have a different plan or different set of circumstances that makes the yellow brick road not the best option,