Control What You Control
Do me a favor. Think about the best person in your given field. See them do their work. Notice how it seems like it’s easy, like it’s second nature for them to do this task. When you watch them, you think to yourself, “I’ll never be able to do that.” What you did was measure them, through your personal lenses and your ability to do the same task.
It may be someone in your office who can stand up and speak to the board of directors without even shedding a drop of sweat. It may be an athlete who does their task without hesitation. It might be an actor or a musician that you idolize.
How did they get so good at what they do? How do they make it look so easy? The short answer to your question is that they own their task. They understood what made their position special and then they were able to capture it.
I would marvel at Scotty Thurman, guard on the 1994 University of Arkansas basketball National Champions, ability to hit baskets without touching the rim from several feet away from the bucket. It was easy for him to catch, load, and launch this amazing high arching shot. I couldn’t do this. I measured my ability against his. He was truly special.
Another athlete that I was amazed by was our punter with the Seattle Seahawks, Jon Ryan. This kid would walk out on the field, after warming up, and would nonchalantly punt a ball 50-yards in the air. It was easy, he stepped, dropped the ball and BOOM the ball would explode off his foot. I couldn’t punt a ball more than 20 or 25 yards … with a roll. Jon could do it in practice and more importantly in games, with his heels inches off the back line of the endzone and a rush coming at him. I measured my ability against his, and I ended up way behind.
A few years ago my son, Alex, and I would sit and watch a football game on TV. I would talk about formations and tendencies. He asked how I knew all of this since I was “just a strength coach.” I would tell him that I didn’t just sit in the weight room. When position meetings were going on I would ask the coach who controlled the meeting if I could sit in the back. I would take copious notes and after the meetings I would ask questions (remember I got where I got because I wasn’t afraid to ask the “dumb” question.)
These meetings were valuable in two ways for me: First, from these meetings I learned the nomenclature and the terminology that each position coach used for their given area. I then could incorporate this into my training of the athletes. The player didn’t need to learn two terms for the same movement. My term and the position coach’s term. I had to do the work and learn the coach’s terms which made my drills “specific” to each athlete.
Second, I understood the nuisances of the game better which made me a better coach. What I didn’t know in the beginning, I soon learned and became, at least on a conversation level, competent to understand when athletes or coaches were talking about the game.
So, how do you expand your understanding of the “impossible”?
