Just Do It

It’s a wonderful thing there hasn’t been any time to write these little blog posts until about 11:30 or midnight, because it means my days have been jam packed; each day has been better than the last. We got there early, and I got to coach the same collegiate athletes I coached yesterday. They are some damn cool kids. Rugby, professional hockey, the list goes on. After that, we got a pretty strong and quick lift in, can’t wait to see how my Olympic lifting jives with all of this functional stuff. After that the really fun activities happened. I was just sitting around with two of my housemates and another intern, and Casey, a full-time coach at MBSC, approached us and asked if we’d be interested in helping with his football group at 4. Now it was 2:40, and we were all spent, but we said yes anyway. It was the best decision of the day. These kids are apparently the best football players in the state of Massachusetts and some of the best in New England. All I have to say is great athletes are fun to coach. After that, while we were cleaning up, some of the coaches asked the four of us who stayed to coach if we wanted to grab dinner. Of course, we jumped on it. We talked for two and a half hours about everything from bachelor parties to strength and conditioning philosophies. It was a damn good way to end our first official week.

            The interesting thing was, though, if we had just been so-so on the idea of practicing ladders or staying late to help another group, none of this would have ever happened. The key to this great day was jumping on opportunities. I mean head-first, deep-end, can-only-kinda-sort-of-swim jump in. We asked about ten other interns, including some who live in the house, if they liked to stay, and they declined. There is nothing wrong with that, but they missed out on a great opportunity to learn, teach, and have fun. There are so many people in the world, especially in the strength and conditioning community, who want to teach you all they know, and sometimes all it takes is staying around and making yourself known to them. While this day is certainly exceptional in what rewards I have reaped from saying yes to all of my opportunities, I truly believe that we are our own biggest enemies when it comes to success. Saying yes is one of the easiest things you will ever do.