I’ve always thought, “there are two kinds of people,” insert two opposing viewpoints, lifestyles, value systems, etc. I always thought that was funny because these “two kinds of people” applied to literally everything, so if you combined all those individual instances of left vs right you would end up with an infinite number of combinations which is why everyone you meet is so unique.
But today I have another variation of this. People fall into one of two camps: 1) those that need to be told what they WANT to hear and 2) those that want to be told what they NEED to hear. Clever, I know….before you go any further sign-up for a class at LiftBridge CrossFit. It’s my blog and I do what I want.
So let’s dive in and apply it to the fitness world.
I’ve been involved with CrossFit for over a decade and have been an affiliate owner for 7 of those years. I have quite literally coached hundreds, if not thousands of people at this point. I have seen the greatest successes and the greatest failures in that cohort. The greatest successes, to me, are those people that have changed their perspective on life and how it should be lived. No BS CrossFit does that, no other fitness program in the world does that…now I’ll admit that it doesn’t change everyone’s life, but for those that “get it” there is no going back to their old ways. To be fair I have seen more people give up before they get there…that is what I refer to as failure. Failure occurs when you stop trying, not when things don’t go your way or when you don’t get the result you want. Those are tests, but they are certainly not failures.
Ok, I get it, what does this have to do with my clever little need / want idiom. Well the reality of it is, for those that have succeeded inside the walls of LiftBridge CrossFit, I personally have never once played a significant role in their success. I think I’m a pretty good fitness coach, but in all honesty, all those that have changed their lives, exceeded their dreams and goals, they did it themselves. My role has been, and will always be, to create the opportunity for others to succeed. Everyone must choose for themselves that they want to change; they need to be okay with the inevitable failures that will come along the way and have the discipline and fortitude to keep moving forward. The second part of that is, most people will never make this choice. I think it’s because people are too insecure to accept the fact that they might not be able to accomplish their goal and if that happens others will think less of them. Would that fact be admitted in a crowd? No. But in your mind, you know it’s there. How do I know? Because I’m a person too and I have those same thoughts. So the reality is, you have not bettered yourself because of only one reason: You. You choose not to take the path.
Now it’s very likely that your defense mechanisms are going off and you are muttering why it’s not possible to make a big change. “My life is so busy.” “I have kids, you don’t get it.” “I’m too old.” “Before I can start that, I need to get ______ in order first.” I came up with those, because that’s what I’ve told myself. Remember, this applies to me, just the same as it applies to you. So why the aggressive tone? Because you NEED to hear this.
It’s uncomfortable hearing what NEEDs to be said. That never changes. But the cool thing is, it’s only uncomfortable in the short-term. In the long run those tough conversations make the biggest impacts and often alter the course of your life.
Now, let’s examine the opposite language:
I’ve been involved with CrossFit for over a decade and have been an affiliate owner for 7 of those years. I have quite literally coached hundreds, if not thousands of people at this point. I have seen greater successes than you could ever imagine.
After years of refining training methods we know exactly how to make you into exactly what you want to be. We have members who have lost in excess of 100 pounds, we have members who have increased their powerlifts by more than 2x. We have given parents the ability to play with their children again, we have given seniors their independence back. We can do this for you, we’ve proven our methods.
The best part of all of this is that we can provide this service to you with little more effort than just showing up to a 1 hour class 3 times a week. No need to change your diet. No previous experience required. We have built our business around teaching the most beginner athletes the fundamentals and progressing them over time to ensure they continue to improve. We are exactly what you’ve been looking for.
Sounds comforting right? Makes you feel good? All the things you WANT to hear, but it contains only half-truths….and maybe if something is half-true it’s really not true at all. Have those things occurred? Yep. Is that basically how we operate our business? Yep. But the reality is, each one of those items is an individual story of someone who made the choice noted above. “WE” didn’t do it, “THEY” did. We simply created the opportunity.
So you have to ask yourself, do you need to be told what you WANT to hear? Or do you want to be told what you NEED to hear?
As consumers, we have all been trained to desire the former. Take my money and solve my problems. So the next time someone tells you what you want to hear or what they can do for you, especially in the fitness industry, proceed with caution.
If you are looking for unabashed honesty and want to put yourself in an environment that gives you the choice to pursue success, check us out.