It’s the amateurs who are throwing the shiny red balls at you in an effort to camouflage knowledge gaps.
“The experienced coach has the knowledge & confidence to implement simple.
It’s the amateur who is buried in Imposter Syndrome who implements complexity in an effort to camouflage lack of knowledge & insecurity.”
-Ray Zingler on X
I don’t have all the answers.
But that’s exactly why I work at what I do every single day of my life.
I read, study, practice, troubleshoot, & write daily, not to try to become the smartest in the room, but to become a little bit better than I was yesterday.
I also try my best to learn from and about quality resources through the experiences of others.
And while I undoubtedly stay on the “cutting edge” of what’s going on in my field and feel like there are many great young resources and nearly unquantifiable amounts of high-quality tech gadgets out there that can help us improve athletic performance, I pay far more attention to the “seasoned” guys in the industry.
He’s been doing this for 15 years? 25? 50!?
A lot of people want to write these guys off as “old heads” who haven’t “gotten with the times” but I can tell you with 100% certainty, you don’t last multiple decades in the field of human performance if you’re not good at what you do.
It was funny, recently a younger aspiring coach asked me about a specific training method that he was implementing.
It was in-depth, had all the bells and whistles, the whole 9.
While I was excited for his pursuit of performance and his willingness to get in the weeds, I had to share with him that “he had too much going on”.
And he didn’t like that very much because he was assuming I was “too simple minded”, which comparing my programming style to his.. the argument could be made.
But here’s the thing. The exact same complex training model he was trying to “reinvent” was the same thing I was trying to do 23,578 hours ago, back when I was in his shoes.
So I get it.
But as you evolve in the field of human performance, it can “look” to an outsider that you’ve devolved, but really what these “old heads” (I’m starting to raise my hand, lol) are doing, are simply cutting out the fluff based on time in the game and real world experience.
Pro’s are confident in simplicity.
It’s the bro’s who are always trying to wow you because they don’t know, yet.
Most don’t last to figure it out, either.
