Make Yourself Coachable

Are you coachable?

Are you coachable as an athlete? As a student of fitness?

Are you coachable as a human being?

What does that even mean, and how can you make yourself coachable?

Dan John described the types of clients we should expect to mee–

Wait a second! Did you hear?!

I spent 3 days with Mr. Dan John this weekend. THREE DAYS. With THE Dan John. [*Insert swooning as demonstrated by fanning my face and batting my eyelashes.]

He was every bit as amazing as I was worried he might be.

Here are the bare bones of a very robust story, which I’m sure will gradually spill out for the next…oh, rest of my life…

• Spent Friday through Sunday at a Russian Kettlebell Challenge Instructor Certification) in Denver, CO. You can now call me Aly Di, RKC.
• Met up with other members of the “Pat Flynn Community” for the intensive 3-day training. (Cheers, Sat Sangat, Charlotte, & Erika!) Also, happy to have made the acquaintance of Wayne and Steve, two previously-unfamiliar-to-me community members. So cool!
• Learned a great deal about hardstyle kettlebell technique & cueing, but–more importantly–about coaching.

I’ve determined that coaching is about 75% intrapersonal and 110% interpersonal. It might only be about 15% technique. I’ll leave the math to you.

• Will be spending the foreseeable future digesting all of the material, formally & informally, presented this past weekend. You’ll see the excrement on Facebook, Instagram, and here.
• Will henceforth be regularly citing Dan John every time I speak and write.

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And with that as our backdrop, would you indulge me as I attempt to make useful to you the Spectrum of Coachability? As I began to say at the beginning of this post, The Spectrum of Coachability–and more importantly, How to Make Yourself More Coachable–is a concept based on some remarks Coach Dan John made during the weekend.

The crux of it is this: Of the people who approach a coach with fitness goals, there are a few distinct categories. And one huge determining factor.

Type 1. The over-trained and under-conditioned. These folks know lots but aren’t acting on it much.

Type 2. The over-conditioned and under-trained. These folks are in “great shape” but don’t train intelligently.

Type 3. The de-trained. These folks once had glory days, but now are have-beens. They live in the land of “used to” and “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

This brings us to Type 4, which is, as Dan says, “the bulk of America.” These poor folks are “dazed and confused,” nearly immobilized by the incongruency of information they come across. One day they read that “squats are dangerous”; the next, they hear that “squats are the only way to tone the glutes.” Nuts are “nutrient-rich powerhouses” according to one source and “the enemy of fat loss” according to another. Type 4s are so overwhelmed with misinformation, hype, & dogma that they never get going down any path at all.

Now, the unicorns of the client world are the Type 5s. I’ve heard alluring tails about these fine folks, but I’m just not quite convinced they are out there. Type 5s, as you may have guessed, are untrained and mastery-seeking. They have never dieted, never exercised, and don’t presume to know much about either.

I don’t see it quite as black & white as this. I see this more as a Spectrum of Coachability.

Where do you place yourself?

If you’re somewhere in the realm of Types 1-3, we can work with that. Identify your ratios. Know what’s holding you back from being your best. That’s the first step. Secondly, we’ve got to work on “mastery-seeking.” More on that below!

If you see yourself as a Type 4, I get it. There’s a staggering amount of absolute BS floating around out there–from the mouths of friends, from the mouths of “experts,” from “credible news sources,” and from bogus, intentionally-misleading headlines. I challenge you to narrow your scope.

Make Yourself Coachable by Committing to Your Coach

I truly believe the best thing you can do is pick a coach, trust the coach, and invest in the process.  I obviously think that coach should be Pat Flynn. He sifts through all the crap, uses his resources including an abundance of personal and professional experience, and brings you top-notch, actionable content covering fitness, nutrition, and better-ness. By all means, I hope you’ve subscribed to his email list and are an active member in his community on Facebook. Drink his Kool-Aid. It’s a good, honest drink.

HOWEVER, know that you simply cannot drink everyone else’s Kool-Aid simultaneously. You’ll drown in it. If Joe Shmoe or Sexi Lexi is your fitness source, so be it. Politely excuse yourself from the distraction that Pat and I will bring to you life. (Did I just encourage unsubscribing? Pat, am I allowed to do that?) It’s NOT that I want you to leave, of course. It’s just that…ya know, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. For you. For you ultimate betterment.

Alas, if you see yourself as a Type 5, really?! I mean… if so, GREAT! You’re in the right spot to make hugely beneficial life changes!

As elusive as they are, I actually DO believe in the existence of Type 5s. For many here in this community, though, it’s too late to be a Fiver. We’ve already tried and failed and tried and succeeded with diet & exercise.

So how can we all be more like a Type 5, regardless of our current “trained” status? How can we be more coachable?

What’s the variable we can control here?

The trait that can make all the difference in the world in regards to your success is “mastery-seeking.”

I challenge you to drop any other identities right this moment. Like I said, under-/over-trained, under-/over-conditioned, detrained, or even “dazed and confused”–it doesn’t matter. Become mastery-seeking, and the rest will fall into place.

Make yourself coachable: adopt the approach of mastery-seeking.

Obviously, as it pertains to fitness, this is gold.

But how can it change other aspects of your life, too? In what realms are you under-/over-trained, under-/over-conditioned, detrained, or even “dazed and confused” when what you need is to be, above all else, is mastery-seeking?

I think this is pretty powerful in family relationships, work and business situations, and during day-to-day encounters.

What if you always considered yourself a student?

What could you accomplish if you allowed yourself to be coached?

 

5-Minute SWEATY

30s plank up-downs (from push-up plank position down to forearm plank, up and down)

30s plank mountain climbers

30s forearm plank outside knee mountain climbers (R knee to R tricep, alternating with L knee to L tricep)

30s glute bridges w/ L leg raised

30s glute bridges w/ R leg raised

REPEAT for a 2nd round!

P.S. Other ways to get inundated with Pat Flynn is by following him on his YouTube channel and joining in one of his challenges, like 5-Day Kettlebell Fat Furnace. His podcasts are pretty cool, too. I’m a bit partial to the one he did recently with Dan John.