Are you capable of changing your health and fitness?

Let's Say Hello

[00:03:15.390] – Coach Allan

Hello, Ras.

[00:03:16.450] – Coach Rachel

Hey, Allan. How are you today?

[00:03:18.060] – Coach Allan

I'm doing well, I'm doing well. Staying busy. We're heading into busy season at Lula's. So that always comes with a good influx of guests coming in and guests going out. Like, we had three check ins today, so it's like this bring me in a whole new kindergarten class. Idiosyncrasies and things that those new guests like and do it. But yeah, and it was interesting. We had an event this weekend. When I say an event, it's kind of one of those things when you want to tell a story, it's a story about running a bed and breakfast.

[00:03:50.700] – Coach Allan

Well, there's this one girl that she stayed with us a couple of times. She'll come into town and she's usually only in for one night and then she well, another thing that this girl does that Tammy doesn't really like, I don't care, but she'll go pick up a guy and then she'll bring him up to a room and that's been kind of her thing. And I think she comes to Bocas so she can do just that and not, you know, whatever. It's her life, not my life. So again, you do you, I do me. That's my philosophy in life and everything.

[00:04:17.170] – Coach Allan

But apparently this guy got really drunk and was walking around the hall naked, and they're making a ton of noise. And it was bad enough that it was Chinese New Year here, and it's pretty much celebrated pretty big because there's a pretty large Chinese community within Panama and particularly within Bocas. So it's a holiday, and all you got to do is give Panamanians a reason to have a party and boom, it's off. So there was a party going on that night, saturday night, and that was going on. And then so that went on till about midnight, and they finished at midnight. I was like, I was kind of excited because, you know, I went to sleep. But I do wake up every once in a while throughout the night.

[00:04:54.200] – Coach Allan

I woke up and it was after midnight. I'm like, oh, they're not doing it? That's great because sometimes they'll go to 04:00 am and then you can hear them out there throwing up.

[00:05:02.530] – Coach Rachel

Gosh!

[00:05:03.400] – Coach Allan

You do you, I'll do me. That's. Again, not judging, but that's just normal. They stopped their party early, but apparently the guests upstairs and they were in the back, so I didn't really hear them much, but apparently they're making quite a bit of racket and all that.

[00:05:17.770] – Coach Allan

And again, then Tammy didn't sleep because the party and then, of course, all the racket and she hears everything. I don't hear anything if you come in my room and as soon as you wake me up, yeah, I'm going to kill you. But until then, I won't even know you're in there. But she heard it all. She was awake the whole night, so she was already kind of grumpy when she woke up because she needs her sleep too. And she woke up and started looking at the video and saw the video. This guy was walking down the hall naked, leaning against someone's door and all that. And then, so Tammy is livid.

[00:05:49.720] – Coach Allan

And I'm like, just go in the room. Just go in the room. Stay away. I'll manage the morning. Because you're going to take someone's head off.

[00:05:57.170] – Coach Rachel

Yeah.

[00:05:57.700] – Coach Allan

he'd already done it a couple of times to me. And I'm like, well, I'm used to it. I don't need my head. But anyway, she saw like now. So here this girl comes downstairs and she's probably 29 years old, you know, not young, not old. She's like right in kind of that age where you should know better, but it's her.

[00:06:12.230] – Coach Allan

And so I just pulled her aside and I said, look, last night I said, that's just not going to work here. And I went through the whole process. We have single women that will stay here. And I said, that would not make them feel safe. So we have families that are here. And I said, that definitely doesn't go with a family atmosphere we want to create here. And I said, our guests. You disturbed our guests. And I'm like, so that's just not going to work here.

[00:06:35.780] – Coach Allan

So she respected it. That was a mistake. And this thing happened. And that she's no longer welcome at Lula's. I think she's the second person, maybe. No, she's the third person I think we've had to ban in a year and a month. But it is what it is. Some people are out, they're not at home. The way they are going to act is different because it's not around people that they care about what they think. And so, yeah, it's kind of interesting but those are the stories. It's like you tell the story, so at some point down the line, yeah, it's going to be a book.

[00:07:05.960] – Coach Allan

All the crazy things that happen when you're running a bed and breakfast is naked guy in the hallway, the smoker who says he's not smoking but you literally see smoke coming out his window. All those kind of things.

[00:07:18.490] – Coach Rachel

Oh my gosh, what an adventure. Always an adventure.

[00:07:22.180] – Coach Allan

How has your week been?

[00:07:23.430] – Coach Rachel

Good. We were really busy this weekend. We are replacing the sink vanity in one of our bathrooms. And, you know, with a home project, nothing goes right.

[00:07:35.650] – Coach Allan

How many trips to Home Depot?

[00:07:37.830] – Coach Rachel

Several. Too many trips. They know me there. But we're getting it done. And it's something Mike and I can be pretty proud of. Once it's all finished, there's still this touch up and what not needs to get done. But we're really happy we were able to accomplish this. This is not in our wheelhouse of things to do, so it was a pretty proud accomplishment. And as I was mentioning to you earlier, I'm hauling salt, softener bags, 40 pound bags of salt up and down the stairs. We have a water cooler, so I've got those big five gallon jugs of water I'm hauling around the house. And I just took a second this weekend to realize how strong I feel right now, just being able to do these creative tasks, these heavy lifting. I'm just so proud of myself for being strong enough to be able to do these things. And your fit for task program that you've talked about in the past, it just was ringing in my head all weekend long, and I'm just so happy for it.

[00:08:31.300] – Coach Allan

Yeah, well, good for you. I'm glad you had it because there's a pride that comes in being independent, because you easily could have just said, hey, Mike, do you mind taking the water? Yes. And Mike would have done it. He's a cool guy and he's strong and he's fit and he's capable, but you were strong and fit and capable and just said, no, my water, too. I'm going to move it and do it. It's not that you have to move five gallon jugs of water at home, but all the time, all the time they do. We order probably about ten of those a week, so I'm carrying them around all the time and luggage. But again, it's just where I want to be. It's what I want to do. And it's that thing of I'm going to still want to do these things and be able to do these things 10, 15, 20 years from now, so I'm not dependent on other people to help me get things done. They bring the water, we put it on the porch, and if I weren't capable, it would sit out there, and if I couldn't find someone to help me, then it's going to sit out there overnight and someone's probably going to steal it.

[00:09:33.560] – Coach Allan

Oh, gosh. Rather than struggle with any pick them up and carry them and do it. And so it's one of the things I'm glad to hear that you were able to do that, and the pride and the strength and just the knowing that you're capable and you didn't injure yourself, and it was just done. And you didn't wake up the next morning saying, oh, my God, what did I do?

[00:09:55.090] – Coach Rachel

Yeah, right.

[00:09:57.790] – Coach Allan

Well, you may move in a way that you hadn't before, but at the same time, that's a good feeling because you know you're getting yourself stronger to be able to do that again, better next time.

[00:10:07.300] – Coach Rachel

Yeah. I'm so proud.

[00:10:09.490] – Coach Allan

You should be.

[00:10:10.420] – Coach Rachel

Thanks.

[00:10:10.760] – Coach Allan

Well, now the question is, Rachel, are you capable of changing your health and fitness?

[00:10:15.900] – Coach Rachel

Oh, you know it!

[00:10:17.000] – Coach Allan

All right, let's have that conversation.

Episode – Are You Capable of Changing Your Health and Fitness?

I want to tell you a little story. There was a kid, a fifth grader named Michael Pigford. He was the son of a military man living on a military base at Fort Meade, Maryland. He was a natural athlete, big and strong, even at that young of an age, and he was pretty darn good at karate, too. Now, Michael wanted to join the football team, and his friend, who lived in the same apartment building, decided he wanted to play, too.

His friend was around the same age, but he was much smaller and not nearly as strong an athletic as Michael. But he showed up at every practice, and whenever there was a drill, he and Michael did the drill together. Now, Michael was this gifted athlete, as I said, strong and big, and he made the team. His friend did not. The coach went over to the friend's family's house and explained to the parent that he just wasn't big enough, strong enough, fast enough, or skilled enough to be on the team.

Now, Michael went on to have a great football season, winning several of the awards because he was by far the best player on the team. His friend watched from the stands, and in the meantime, his friend joined the school band and found out he actually had a little bit of a talent for playing the trombone, although it wasn't his first love.

So we roll around to the next season. What do you think Michael's friend did? He really wanted to play football, but he was still smaller than the other kids, and he hadn't had practices or games to learn any of the skills. What would you do? Would you say or think, I just need to do this band thing because that's what I'm good at? Would you think or say, I'm just not genetically gifted as an athlete?

Now, let's talk about your health and fitness. Have you struggled to do certain things staying away from junk food, sleeping well, running yoga, or doing a fitness class where everyone else just seems to be a lot better than you? Or maybe you're so intimidated by health and fitness that you don't even try? I mean, there's that free weight section back there with all the guys in it, and you don't even want to walk back there.

Are you listening to an inner voice that's telling you you aren't enough? That coach who's telling the parents that the kid overheard, he wasn't enough, he wasn't big enough, he wasn't strong enough, he wasn't fast enough, he just wasn't good enough. Is your internal dialogue telling you that? If that's what you're hearing from your internal dialogue, you probably have what's called a fixed mindset. So what is a fixed mindset? A fixed mindset is the belief that while you may be good at some things, you suck at others. Having a fixed mindset can show up in many different ways. Seeing challenges is a problem to be avoided. Believing that you're either good at something or not. Valuing talent instead of effort, giving up in the face of obstacles, viewing critical feedback is something to ignore. Actually, it bothers you. It offends you when someone gives you feedback. So here's the rub if you have a fixed mindset about the things that you're trying to do for health and fitness, your chances of making it happen are very, very low. What you need is a growth mindset. So you may be asking, what is a growth mindset?

A growth mindset is the belief that anything, a capacity, an ability, a personality trait can be improved with sustained effort. Having a growth mindset helps you do a lot of things, including focus on the process, over the results, focus on the behaviors over the outcomes. You respond productively to feedback and actually enjoy it. That may be not enjoy it, but you want that feedback. You keep persevering when things are hard, when you have setbacks, and you learn from your failures and mistakes, maybe even eventually enjoy them. And you look at things realistically as a constant work in process. So in general, a growth mindset is going to help you deal with ups and downs of life. As you move towards your health and fitness goals, I think you can kind of see the difference. A fixed mindset is going to tell you, well, I'm not good at running, I'm not good at yoga, so I'm not going to do that. Someone tells you if you did this and you did that, you would do better. And you see that as a slight versus an opportunity. With a growth mindset, you like that feedback. That feedback is helpful.

If you fail at something, you just know that you haven't learned what you need to know or haven't developed what you need to have to be good at, what you want to be good at. So there are two different ways of looking at a problem and health and fitness can be a big problem that we're trying to overcome. And there's going to be a lot of ups and downs during this period of time. So I want to take you through a little exercise. This is probably going to require you to get a pen and a paper and maybe a highlighter, a highlighter if you have it. But this is going to take a little bit of time. So this is probably going to be a stop and start type of episode. If you draw driving, you can listen through. But I would say come back to this part because this is where you're actually going to figure out a little bit of this. Okay? So what I want you to do is get that paper and I want you to write in this journal and I want this to be free flow. So not something you're stopping and thinking about, not something you're editing.

Just write down what comes to your mind. And then at this point as you go through this, there's going to be three things I kind of want you to do. Okay? First, I want you to write down several things related to your health and fitness that you're not good at and why you're not good at that thing. Okay? So for me, one example is I'm not really good at yoga, and I'm not really good at yoga because I just really haven't emphasized mobility and flexibility in my training over the years. And so I'm not as mobile and I'm not as flexible as I should be. So that's my reason why. But I'm not good at it, and I know why I'm not good at it, but I want you to think about it in your own terms. Why are you not good at something that, you know, from a health and fitness perspective is important for you? Second, now I want you to write down several things related to health and fitness that you are good at and why you're good at that thing. Similarly, just there's going to be things you're good at and things you're not good at.

Okay? Now set that list down, and with a pen or the highlighter, I want you to underline or highlight the statements that are fact based. Okay? So if you wrote anything that's not a fact, I want you to skip it. But if it's a fact, like, my joints hurt or this happens or that happens, if it's a fact, I want you to highlight it or underline it. Okay, so take a few minutes. You might want to pause this episode here so you can take the time to go through each three of those steps. Okay, so you're going to list things that you're not good at and why you're not good at them. You're going to list things you're good at and why you're good at them. And then with the pin or highlighter, I want you to go back to that list and see how many things that came out of that free flow are true and how many are false. Okay, so highlight the things that are true or underline the things that are true. All right, so if you took that ten minutes to pause this. Good. Welcome back. Okay, now the statements that you made that are not fact based, so some of those statements are probably not highlighted or underlined.

They are self limiting beliefs, and that is a part of a fixed mindset. So these are typically opinions. They're typically exaggerated, sometimes grossly exaggerated. And what you'll probably find is some of those may have words like never, always, and can't, and those will stick out to you. Also look for the ones that point to flaws about who you are and what you lack, for example, genetics or willpower. So you may say, I struggle to not eat sweets because I'm lazy and I don't have any willpower. I struggle to do my workouts in the evening because I'd rather sit on the couch and watch Netflix. Now, wanting to sit on the couch and watch Netflix is probably the truth. It's probably a fact. But I think you can kind of see that's not really something that's true true. If you really want to do this thing. So I want you to kind of map out this process and think about the statements that you just freeflow wrote. How much of that is identifying a fixed mindset? How much of that is a self limiting belief? That's not actually true. So now you've started the process of doing the fixed mindset piece and the growth mindset.

Some of this list might actually have been growth mindset, where you're talking about, I have a rocking program, and I struggle to go as far as I want to, but I'm working on it there. Hear the difference, okay? Until you know your enemy in this health and fitness journey, you're not going to be able to defeat it. So when I talk about being capable of hitting your health and fitness goals, this is where the rubber hits the road, okay? As you look at the statements that aren't highlighted or underlined, if the state I want you to think about it in these terms. So there's like, three levels here, because these are all very important to how you can do this next step, okay? So if the statement is completely false, what I want you to do is take a moment, and I want you to write down an affirmation with the truth. Okay? So I'll give you an example. You may say, for example, I'm not disciplined. Okay? If you're disciplined in some aspects of your life, but maybe not this, that's a completely false statement. You are disciplined in certain aspects of your life.

So another way to write this as an affirmation is, I am disciplined in all aspects of my life that I make a priority. Okay? So that affirmation now is something I want you to keep with you. You wrote down that you are not disciplined, which was not true, because there are parts of your life that you care about that you are disciplined. If your child needs to take a bath every night, you're bathing your child. If you need to pick up your spouse from work every afternoon, you're picking up your spouse. So those things happen. There is some discipline in there. You just need to apply it here. This needs to be important to you. This needs to be a priority, as we talked about before. So that's the point is you need to show discipline in all aspects of your life that you make a priority. Now, when you're writing an affirmation, it's important to write it in the present tense. This is not I will be. This is I am disciplined in all aspects of my life. Okay? Now, some of the statements that you wrote might be partially true, okay? Remember when we did those never and always we may say, I always make excuses to skip my workouts.

Okay? Now, do you always skip your workouts? Do you always make excuses to skip your workouts? And the answer is no. I do some of my workouts, but I do make excuses for the workouts that I don't do. So I would rewrite that as a statement. Often look for excuses to not work out. But I know if I remind myself why I have to do it, I will. Okay, this takes your fixed mindset limiting belief statement of, I always make excuses to a, I often do this, but I know if I do this thing, I'll get better at this. If I remind myself why I have to do this, I will do this. I will get better. So see how you can take a partial statement and now turn it into a growth mindset statement. Okay, so that's a series of those. Now, the final set is this statement is really something you do struggle with. So this is actually you haven't made any progress, and now there's a statement, and here you are. But, you know, it's probably true, but it's just really a struggle. It's not something you can't do. So maybe there's some of even these true statements that you made that are things you're not good at.

You've made these statements and you could still look at them now and say, whoa, that's still kind of very limiting. It's true, but I know I can still do something. So if you said, when I'm trying to unwind from a stressful day, I need a couple of glasses of wine, and in your heart of hearts, you might know that that's true at some level, but you know it's not serving you, and you know that you can get past this. So you could say it's partially true, but at this point in time, from a life experience perspective, that's where you find yourself those stressful days. So instead of writing, I need a couple glasses of wine, I would write, I haven't been able to break my stressful wine day habit yet, but I'm working on it. Okay, even though we know this is a bigger challenge than we're maybe able to do right now, we can put forward a more positive, a more growth mindset approach to that statement. So you should be able to go through all of the things that you think you're not good at and look at it and say, is it completely false?

And if it is, you need to write an affirmation that you're past it. If it's partially true, then you have to do the thing that's necessary for you to make it false. And that means you're going to start working right? So you have to remind yourself why you're doing this, and that can help you maybe push past this thing that you're not good at. Partially true. And then the final bit is, yeah, there's some things that you might really struggle with, and they're on that list. And you look at them and you're like, okay, this is true. This is a real struggle, but I'm not in this just to let things happen in my life. I want this to happen. Am I capable of making it happen. Yes. And so because I'm capable of making it happen, I can acknowledge that it's been a challenge. I can acknowledge I haven't been able to overcome this yet, but I can put in my head the statement yet, but I'm working on it. Okay. And that's a very, very powerful growth mindset statement that you need in your head. Okay. So we've covered a lot today, and if you're really interested in learning more about all of this, this is really based on some work by a psychologist at Stanford.

Her name is Dr. Carol dwick. She's done some really great work. It's worth looking at some of her YouTube stuff. She's got some books out there, and she's keynote spoke everywhere. She's like the growth mindset person. She also talks a lot about resiliency and those types of things. But just to kind of summarize what we're talking about here, when I talk about being capable, I just have to be open and honest with you. If you have a fixed mindset, you're going to struggle. This is going to be a lifelong struggle until you can get yourself to a growth mindset, because changing from who we are to something else is growth. And if your mind doesn't go there and I know you've heard me say this many, many times, if your mind doesn't go there, nothing else will. So you've got to start putting together developing a growth mindset. And this is not an easy thing, but this is something you do need to get done if you want the change to happen. So things that are happening, like failure, you think of the word failure. That's an opportunity to learn. You need to show patience and perseverance.

When there's a setback. A setback is an opportunity. It's not a failure if you quit. Yeah. Then you go back to start and game over. But that's not what we're doing here, right? So work on building that. Understand that anything worth having is worth working for. So if you want this bad enough, you're going to have to work for it. And it's not just the physical parts of watching what you eat and moving more and doing those things. This is a mindset game. But I can tell you, if you do this mindset work, it will pay more dividends than anything else you can do, because it's going to keep you in the game and it's going to help you be successful.

Post Show/Recap

[00:26:37.070] – Coach Allan

Welcome back, Ras.

[00:26:38.440] – Coach Rachel

Hey, Alan. Capable is such a strong word, just like we talked about a minute ago. It's just we are absolutely more capable of doing things than we can even imagine.

[00:26:50.470] – Coach Allan

Yeah. And the unfortunate thing is this is anyone listening to this, anyone who's been there, done that, tried anything, you might have struggled first time, the second time, 100 times, but if it was important to you, you got it done. And I know everyone has a story of someone who. Told them, you're not enough. You're not good enough. You're not capable. You'll never be good at this. And what happens then? Is that programming? Because we let it become programming. We're like, oh, that person told me I couldn't, and they told me I couldn't right after I didn't. And therefore, they have more evidence of me being terrible at this, or not good enough, whatever the adjective or word you want to use to talk about it. But it's basically you've been told you're somebody, and you start to accept that as reality. And aside, was it from the Ford cars? His quote, and I'm going to butcher it. But if you think you can't, you're right. If you think you can, you're right. And that's really where this goes to, is where your brain takes you, you go, and where your brain tells you you can't go, you don't go.

[00:28:06.810] – Coach Rachel

Right? Yeah. You know, I shared the story a few times recently, actually, with a couple of my running friends. I was a gym flunky, PE class flunky. If I could have hid behind the Bleachers for gym class, I would have done that. Every sport that I tried, I would quit just because I had no talent. I couldn't get anywhere, wasn't picked for the team. After a while, it wears on you, and it's strange, but I just had no interest in anything athletic. And then look at me now, running ultra marathons and lifting heavy things and staying as active as I am in this life, at this part of my life. But it took a while to overcome that mindset. In fact, the other story I share a lot with my friends is when I first moved to Florida and met one of my really amazing running friends down there, we did a lot of five KS together, which is a huge feat for a lot of people. Absolutely. And then she said, well, let's do a ten K, and I thought she was crazy. And then we did a ten K. Then she said, well, let's do a half marathon.

[00:29:09.050] – Coach Rachel

I thought she was totally crazy. There's no way I could run for 13 miles. But we did. And same thing for the full marathon. I thought she was totally bonkers, even suggests we could do a marathon, but we trained for it and we did it. And it was probably that haunting of my PE flunky days. I can't.

[00:29:27.330] – Coach Allan

But you know, in your heart of hearts, you pull out that yearbook, you're going to see an overweight guy wearing those polyester blue shorts. You know, it may be, oh, my God, I let that guy live in my head.

[00:29:44.970] – Coach Rachel

That's it.

[00:29:45.740] – Coach Allan

That's just it.

[00:29:46.720] – Coach Rachel

Those thoughts get stuck in your head, and it takes a while to overcome that. But now I have such a strong mindset, and absolutely, the growth mindset is wholeheartedly strong in my brain that I feel like, well, now I can attempt anything if I so choose that's the difference is that I need to want it and then put the priority behind it to get it done.

[00:30:09.190] – Coach Allan

I'll openly admit I still have my hang ups. I still have places where I struggle with a closed mindset. One example is when I was younger, my endurance level was off the charts. It hadn't been a priority. And so from an endurance perspective, I can walk forever. I could literally walk forever. But when it comes to doing something that's going to put me into like a level three or level four cardiozone, so that I'm at that point where I wouldn't be able to comfortably have a conversation. So now I'm labored breathing while I'm moving. When I get to that point, I burn out pretty quickly. What that means though, is for me, because I've never been comfortable floating. I'm going to say not comfortable, but I've actually never floated. I see. And so when I get in the water, there's a natural feeling that I'm sinking and that if I'm not moving, I'm sinking. And so when I swim, I have to swim. And that puts me at that level four. And I can only do it so long, so far. And I can practice it, I can train for it, and I can do better with that.

[00:31:20.760] – Coach Allan

But it's just the other aspects of feeling comfortable, floating, stopping, moving, and actually just be in the water, which I know I should be capable of, but it doesn't just naturally seem to happen when I get in the water. I just start going down. There's been a couple of situations where I was in water and struggling to get to this point because I was running out of juice. My energy systems were not giving me what I needed to keep moving, and I would stop moving and I would sink. And then it's like, okay, I have to keep moving or I'm going to stay down here under the water and not come back up. And so it's good fear there, and there's a lot of things going on in my head, but I'm aware of that. I'm aware of okay, that's an area where I do struggle, but I'll say it in this way. I just really haven't gotten to a point where I'm comfortable in the water yet. Okay? And that's the key. This is not that you just say, well, yeah, I'm actually good at this, even though someone told me I wasn't. And I'm actually good at this when someone else told me I wasn't, or I thought I wasn't good at this, but I actually am.

[00:32:29.310] – Coach Allan

This is when you've find yourself at that hard point. It's where you've maybe you said, okay, I'm going to cut back on my carbohydrates and I'm going to do this. And then here you are on a Sunday night with a Haagen-Das bucket in your lap watching a movie. And you're like, this is hard. And it is.

[00:32:47.590] – Coach Rachel

It is.

[00:32:48.770] – Coach Allan

So it's not that it's hard. You just have to get to the point where you're comfortable trying and pushing through and doing hard things and realizing one slip does not make the battle. You have to keep fighting. And so you get to those points and that's what it is. And where the real value of all this will come in is when it's the really hard things. And you just keep your head positive in that. I may not have done it yet, but I will. I haven't done this yet. I haven't solved this yet. I am struggling to lift this weight, but I will. I've struggled to lose weight, but I will. And I know I'm on the right path. I just have to persevere.

[00:33:31.210] – Coach Rachel

Yeah, that's a perfect mindset.

[00:33:33.210] – Coach Allan

Capable, capable, capable.

[00:33:35.000] – Coach Rachel

You got to remember, and you are.

[00:33:36.900] – Coach Allan

That's what's important. Yeah. So my Google assistant heard me say that word, and here's the definition, if you wanted to know, because Google's got on here having the ability, fitness or quality necessary to do or achieve a specific thing. So, again, thank you, Google. It's just one of those concepts where we struggle with hard things. And particularly if at one point we were told we couldn't, and particularly if we couldn't and we were told we couldn't, then it's reinforced. But I told the story about a really good football player and his friend who was not a good football player. Well, I was that friend. He didn't figure that story out. Gee, we're going to figure this out, of course. But I was Michael's friend and Michael was the athlete. He was the karate dude. He was the athlete. He was £25 heavier than me. He was just a big dude, a strong dude and everything. He was a natural athlete, football player, all of it. And I was not. But by the time I was in high school, I was that athlete. I wasn't physically that big. I wasn't physically. So from an athletic perspective, I was never naturally athletic.

[00:34:49.850] – Coach Allan

All of it was that I wanted it bad enough and I just didn't listen. I was not really good at listening. And so when the coach said I wasn't good enough, in my head, it's like, well, yet it was like, no, I will play football. And the thing that bugged me more than anything else was that we went through all this pre season stuff. I was the guy who was paying attention to all the videos. I was the guy who literally, when we would get out there and do drills, I knew every position on the football field because it was like my best chance of making it is to be good or at least know what to do everywhere. So the coaches never had to tell me how to play a position. They just had to say, Alan, go play that position. Now, was I good at it? Absolutely not. I was literally less than £100. Playing on the 110 pound team. Michael had to try to cut weight before the season started because he was too heavy. He weighed over £115, so he had to lose a little bit of weight right before the season just to make the team.

[00:35:51.040] – Coach Allan

And then he bloomed up to two to 120. So, like, literally, yeah. This guy's £25 heavier than me or more, but he was my best friend, and so when it was carrying someone up the hill carrying Michael up the hill. When it carries them up the hill, it's Michael carrying me up the hill. And I was just a sandbag to that guy. But that's the whole point. You're going to have some natural talents, and you should enjoy them, use them, be motivated by them. But then if there's something you're struggling with, don't use that as an excuse to say, no, I just not good at that. I can't eat that way. I can't do that thing. My knees hurt when I run, so therefore I can't be a runner. Okay, well, maybe there's some things you could do to make the running less painful, less damaging. It could be shoes, it could be a running form, it could be different things. But you're capable. You just have to find the way. And maybe that's just it. Maybe your knees are just they're just completely freaking shot. But what else can you do? You can walk.

[00:36:51.250] – Coach Allan

You can walk. Okay. I can walk. I can walk forever, okay? That's my thing. I don't need to run from one side of the island to the next. I can walk. There.

[00:36:59.410] – Coach Rachel

Sure.

[00:36:59.800] – Coach Allan

No one's chasing me. Okay, well, now I just had to be big and strong enough so that they are chasing me. I can kick their butt. They're no longer chasing me. So chase me, yeah, please. But, you know, it's just that whole thing of saying, yeah, I'm going to have some skills, I'm going to have some capabilities, and then I'm going to have some things I'm not as good at or not good at yet. And you just have to go at it and say, okay, what do I need to do to be able to do the things that I want to do? And I work in coach online, if you didn't know that. And what does that mean? It means that I have to know the technology behind the things that I do. Now, I could hire all of that out, but then what's happened is I'm dependent on the guy who built my website. I'm dependent on the guy who's running my checkout stuff on my software. I'm dependent on the guy who writes and puts the quizzes together for me, and I'm dependent on those people because I don't know how to do it myself.

[00:37:49.510] – Coach Allan

And I'm like, well, okay, this is hard. It's a new software. I've never used it. It's not working like anything else I've done before. I got to figure it out, because this is mine and this is important to me. And as I was talking about a couple of weeks ago, this is a priority.

[00:38:06.260] – Coach Rachel

There you go, that word.

[00:38:08.620] – Coach Allan

That's that word again. So if it's a priority, even if it's the hardest thing you've ever done in your life, you're going to get it done right. And if you're struggling, you just haven't figured it out yet.

[00:38:20.350] – Coach Rachel

And the struggle is not the problem. It's uncomfortable. It's not easy to figure out a new task. It's not easy to try a new task. But once you get there, it all will make sense. It all becomes easier as you go. It's something that you got to try. Practice makes perfect, as they say.

[00:38:36.970] – Coach Allan

And those are wins or things that they can never take away from you.

[00:38:39.940] – Coach Rachel

Exactly.

[00:38:41.350] – Coach Allan

In addition to Naked Guy and having to have that conversation, I started working on another quiz because I've had a couple of ideas and concepts coming up, and I'm like, I'm going to do another quiz. So I started working on this new quiz, and the software is a little non intuitive. There's some things that are intuitive about it, and then there's other things like, why is that image there? It's not there. And then I look at the page and it's there. I'm like, where is it? I don't know where it is. And so I'm trying to figure all that out. And I asked for help when I needed it, I reached out and I told their help desk, I'm like, I'm trying to do this one thing, and it's not working the way I thought it would. So I did this little thing and I thought that might fix it because it made sense that it would fix it. And they're kind of like, well, no, you actually have to do it this way. And then there was just a different path that I had not thought of. It was not that I was dumb.

[00:39:34.700] – Coach Allan

I'm instead of saying, oh, I don't know how to do this, I'll just hire it out. Because I could literally go on there and say, do you know someone who could build this for me? I don't want to do it. And they would do it. I think they charged like $500, but they would have done what I did. That literally just took me about an hour and a half before I walked in here to do this recording. Once I understood how to back it out and do it, I was like, oh, now I can do everything I want to do. And other than, like I said, an image being where it's just not there, I deleted that image. It's not there. It should be gone. It's not gone. What do I do? And it's like, well, okay, don't worry about it. Just take your time, try a few things, figure it out, get past this with a little coaching, because I had to ask the guy a big question, and then once he answered the big question, a lot of things just fell in place. So when I talk about capable, I'm not saying you don't ask for help.

[00:40:24.540] – Coach Rachel

Oh, sure.

[00:40:25.370] – Coach Allan

I'm just saying you've got to get out of your own way and realize that and realize you got to do the work, but you can, and you're capable of doing these things, and you just have to keep persevering and pushing. And I did make the team the next year.

[00:40:41.550] – Coach Rachel

Good.

[00:40:42.020] – Coach Allan

It wasn't very good. I didn't get a lot of playing time. But in practice, the coaches realized I knew every position on the field. I could be anywhere they wanted me to be for squib team, because I, quite frankly, knew every play, I knew every position, I knew where every player was supposed to be at every single second of every play. And I carried that all the way into high school. And when you can do that in high school and you know where everybody is supposed to be, you're a coach on the field.

[00:41:10.780] – Coach Rachel

Oh, neat.

[00:41:11.420] – Coach Allan

And you're able to basically get in there and be a leader at a very young age, because you just know what everybody is supposed to do. So you're in practice, and it's like, no, look, think about this and do that. And it's like, I get it. You're on the other side of the field. For me, you're the tackle, and I'm the guard. And I'm like but I'm second string right now because we're practicing you at defense. So let me give you a couple of tricks of the trade. This is why I'm able to block you, okay? And do this. And so was I ever coached on defense? No. But every time the coach was coaching defense, I was listening. And every time that something was happening, I was figuring it out. And so the coach knew it could put me in, in fact, in one football game, because we didn't have enough players to play both our varsity and junior varsity, some of us varsity players could play junior varsity positions as long as we were not in that position as a varsity player, okay? So that meant I was the punter for the junior varsity team.

[00:42:11.120] – Coach Rachel

Wow.

[00:42:11.630] – Coach Allan

And I was third string punter for the varsity team. So it's like, okay, I'll just punt for the junior varsity, and I'll let the games. Sometimes I ran the flags, but a lot of times, I'll just be their punter. And we're sitting there one day, and we're in a game, and the quarterback gets hurt.

[00:42:24.470] – Coach Rachel

Oh, no.

[00:42:25.180] – Coach Allan

Coach looks on the sidelines. Misner, come on out here. So here I am in a football game about to play quarterback. Well, I was an offensive lineman, not a quarterback. But he knew I knew the place. He said, you know, crossback left, cross pick right. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? You're supposed to do. I'm like, yes, you turn the opposite direction, hand the ball. They're going through the tackle gap. Okay? And he's like, first one, I just want you to run up the middle. Just get comfortable taking a snap. Just run it up the middle. And I did that.

[00:42:52.340] – Coach Rachel

Cool.

[00:42:52.970] – Coach Allan

And then I did the crossbuck left and the crossback right, and both of those plays got nowhere. And then I was back there punting again. But the whole point being is if you told me beforehand you're not good at a quarterback being a quarterback, I'd be like, well, right, I'm not even on the depth chart. But that day, he needed me, and I did it.

And was I good at it? No. But one of the things that taught me again, it was just one of those things of, oh, I realized when I was back there taking the snap for the punts and taking the snap for the football was, I have to think a lot faster in this position than I did as an offensive lineman. An offensive lineman. I had like my very first task was like, what's next? That's all I had to think about as an offensive lineman. But a quarterback had to actually think about three or four different things at the same time. He had to catch a ball that's being snapped back at him or under center, take the snap. He had to be aware of what was happening, one of them with the linebackers and the linemen, to make sure, again, no one's coming that gap, he can get the ball cleanly and get out of there.

[00:43:52.350] – Coach Allan

He had to know where his wide receivers were going to be at a given point in time, where his running backs would be at a given point in time. And he had to also not trip, gosh a lot. It is, but again, was I good at it then? No, but I kept practicing again when it was instead of me lining up as an offensive lineman against this first team defense, hey, can I play a little bit of quarterback? This will be fun. And I was the quarterback. Good luck to getting tackled. And so, yeah, it's just fun. But I made things fun. If it was hard, I just made it fun until I learned it. And that's, again, there's a lot of different ways to look at this, but you got to get to the first one of I'm just not good at it yet. I got to figure out a way to get it done, make it fun, make it a challenge, get help if you need it. There's just so many different ways that I could have taken this episode, and we have a little bit now, but as I was going through it, I'm like, first thing is, you have to believe yes.

[00:44:47.120] – Coach Allan

And then you just got to figure out the rest.

[00:44:49.600] – Coach Rachel

That's right. And it always works out somehow it does.

[00:44:52.860] – Coach Allan

Yeah.

[00:44:53.600] – Coach Rachel

I went from a gym flunkey to an ultra marathon or so. Crazy things can happen.

[00:44:58.530] – Coach Allan

Yeah. Yeah. And and heaven forbid, if they chased you with that ball after probably about the first three or 4 miles, they're going to stop.

[00:45:06.260] – Coach Rachel

Yes. You can't hold me on that field. Allen. Kind of a longer yeah.

[00:45:11.890] – Coach Allan

Most of them are not most of them are not going to catch you after you get those first three or 4 miles done. Because yeah. She's going to run 50 miles just to get away from us. I don't even understand. She does not want to get hit by this little red ball.

[00:45:24.010] – Coach Rachel

That's right.

[00:45:28.070] – Coach Allan

I don't think they played that sport anymore, but I don't know. I don't think so. I think it was deemed one of those it's too mean to play sports in school. But I don't know. If your parent if your parent and your kid plays dodgeball at school, let me know. But if you're a kid and it's like, yeah, that's ball. Barrett. Who would allow a sport like that? Who knows? It was fun. Even when you were not the best player out there, it was fun. And such as life. But all right, so talk again next week.

[00:45:58.000] – Coach Rachel

You bet. Take care.

[00:45:59.380] – Coach Allan

I'll talk to you then.

Music by Dave Gerhart

Patreons

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