The stick and what it's really about

I've been thinking about fear this week.

Not the fear our clients feel. The fear we feel.

Specifically: the fear of being too nice.

I've watched coaches, gym owners, PTs, turn up to sessions ready to beast their clients.

Not because beasting works.

Because they're frightened.

Frightened that if they ease off, if they pull the session back, if they put an arm around someone's shoulder when they turn up having a rough day, the client is going to think they're not getting their money's worth.

And I get it. I really do. Because I've been there.

The client is paying for results.

And results, in the fitness industry mythology, mean hard work. Mean sweat. Mean suffering, sometimes.

And I remember being a younger coach and thinking: I have to earn this. I have to show them something. I have to justify the session.

Except. Here's the thing.

How do we get results for people who don't come back?

I've probably done thousands of intro conversations over the last 15 to 20 years.

And a lot of people will say it, almost apologetically, like they're confessing something: "I need the stick, not the carrot."

Like they know themselves to be somehow broken. Like they need someone to be cruel to them to make them move.

And I always think: do you though?

Usain Bolt didn't need the stick.

I very much doubt his coach met him at the track every morning with a finger in his face and a threat in his voice.

What he had was periodised intensity. He had trust. He had someone who knew when to push and when to pull and when to just sit with him.

Tina and Bob turning up on a Tuesday morning ain’t Usain Bolt.

They're not training for a world record. They're training to feel better in their bodies, to stay strong, to keep up with their grandchildren, and not to feel old before their time.

And sometimes Tina turns up, and something's wrong. You can see it before she says a word.

The plan says moderate-hard today. The plan says this is a working session.

And I will never, ever push someone through that when they've turned up like that. I drop it back.

I put an arm around their shoulder. I make it a good session for a different reason.

Because that is what brings them back.

That is the result.

Not the session they had. The session they'll have next week, and the week after, and the year after, because they trust you enough to keep turning up.

The coaches who are mean to their clients, who confuse beasting with professionalism, who think care looks like softness, they're not tough.

They're frightened. Frightened of being misread. Frightened of seeming easy.

Frightened of the intimacy of actually caring for someone.

I'm not frightened of that anymore.

Caring for your clients is not the soft option. It is the whole job.

Paul

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