The key is to focus not on what you do, but what you can give them beyond what you do.
“I was talking with one of my athletes recently about ‘life stuff’ and she said:
‘Ray, these conversations with you are my favorite thing ever.’
And it was a great reminder that as coaches it is not about our title or what we do, but what we can give them beyond ‘what we do’.
-Ray Zingler on X
People ask me all the time how I don’t get burned out on this stuff.
I work at it every single day, and to be honest I haven’t had an off day since May 25, 2009.
Which is the day I officially started Zingler Strength.
And I can tell you with transparency, 7 or 8 years in of 350+ days a year, coaching on the weight room floor was starting to wear on me.
I hopped on a phone call with a mentor, because I was getting cooked and he asked me, “Why are you doing this?”
And I started with the surface level stuff, “because it was a discipline thing”, “it’s what I have to do”, “it’s the cost of being an entrepreneur”, blah blah blah.
And he stopped me in the middle of my bullshit and asked, “no, WHY are you doing this? Are you doing it because of the deadlifts? The dynamic effort method? Vertical jump heights? 10-yard sprint times?”
And I replied, “that’s part of it, but I most certainly don’t think that’s why I am doing it.”
And he said to me, “Of course that’s not why you’re doing it. You’re doing to impact the lives of others. The squats and all that other stuff are merely the vehicle you’re using to reach people.”
When I got off the phone with him, I did a bit of soul searching because I knew I needed to recalibrate.
And once I got my shit together and started refocusing my efforts not so much on “the training” but on the people, that burnout started to dissipate. Fast.
I still took a lot of pride in the training (I still do) but instead of making the training “the main thing” I shifted my focus back onto what I could give PEOPLE, “beyond training.”
Because I can promise you this, if you’re in the training industry in any capacity and your sole focus is on “the training” it’s not a matter of if, but when you will burn out. I was Superman too, until I wasn’t.
But if you refocus your energy on pouring into people, you will gain access to well of fulfillment that will never run dry.
It’s not about what you’ve got. It’s what they get.
