I've got a baby screaming in my left ear to the soundtrack of Eminem.
Ahh, yes. It must be the glorious atmosphere of the West Midlands Railway.
I'm just on my way back home from my last anatomy mentoring session of the year and, to distract myself, I'm going to tell you all about the one trait I see in new clients that never ends well.
"Why do I need to know this, Sam?"
Because you're considering coaching with me. You want your love handles to piss off. You want your arms to fill out a size large t-shirt. You want to be able to pick up heavy boxes at work with your pinky finger like they're feathers. But you have no idea if you're ready. Well, I'm here to tell you, that's perfect. Because it's the confident ones that scare me.
Confident Call Attendees (or CCA’s, as I’ve affectionately nicknamed them) scare the living shit out of me.
"What do you mean by CCA’s, Sam?"
I mean the ones who say things like...
“I’ve cropped my face out of my physique photos so they’re ready to be used for a transformation post at some point.” - A client that didn’t make it past month three and lost no weight.
And I also mean CCA’s who say things like…
“I have no problem with tracking my calories, I’ve done it before.” - Tracked two days total over 4 weeks and never made it past month one of coaching.
Now, before you jump down my throat, I’m not making fun of these people. Far from it. By the end of this post, I want you to understand you gain more from not knowing than from knowing. But you have to be honest with me.
Just hear me out.
When I approached my mentor and told him about all the nerdy anatomy things I wanted to learn about, here’s a list of stuff I didn’t pretend to know:
• Every single origin and insertion for the muscles of the arms
• Every single ligament in the elbow
• How to train certain actions at the wrist, such as radial deviation
This has meant the sessions we’ve had together have been at the appropriate level for me and my needs. I’ve been able to follow along and progress at a steady rate.
Need to know the origin and insertions of the Flexor Carpi Radialis? I got you.
Need to know how to train radial deviation and stop your wrists from feeling funky? Let me show you.
Couldn't do that 3 months ago. So I told my mentor that and now I can.
Just like those who start coaching with me and aren’t afraid to admit, “I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing when it comes to building bigger arms and tracking my calories."
Online coaching with me is completely individual. Meaning, I don’t follow a script. I interact with you based on what you say and how you act. If you tell me you know how to calorie track, I’m not going to waste your time by explaining how to set up MyFitnessPal. You’ve used it before, right?
If you tell me you’re experienced in dieting and feeling hungry, I’m going to diet you down slightly more aggressively than I would someone who has never done it before. You can handle that, right?
Essentially, you lie, you shoot yourself in the foot.
I don’t invite a gardener around to my house, spend 10 minutes telling him I know all about hedge cutting, then wonder why I’m now left holding the hedge cutter (I just paid someone to do this exact job because, in reality, apparently I don’t know anything about hedges).
The people you see on my social media and website didn’t just follow my plan, they were honest about the things they didn’t know.
"Not knowing everything is not a curse; rather, it is a bold opportunity to understand". - Joel B. Randall.
Even better than that, the more I learn with my mentor, the more I realise I still have to learn.
And you'll feel the same when you work with me. The more you progress towards your goal, the more you'll realise you want to keep working on and learning. You can talk to me more about coaching on a free call here.
So I guess it’s back on the train for me again soon. Hopefully, they’ll be less screaming and Eminem next time, though.
Tell me about all the things you want to work towards with your health and fitness here.
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