An Example: A person regarded in terms of their character/moral compass to be looked to and the likelihood of it happening.
A Warning: A person that indicates a possible or impending danger, problem, or other unpleasant situation.
We may be both.
We’re conscious of being virtuous examples, and I’d venture to say we ultimately desire to be. Inevitably a piece of our human condition. With much effort going into this lane, let’s still reserve energy to serve as warnings…carefully though.
If we’ve been teaching and coaching this long, we’ve experienced a great deal. If we’ve soaked up our surroundings, hopefully we’ve etched the good into our memories-remember the joys and assessed the trials.
We write workouts, teach, evolve, build, design, listen, comfort, inspire, coach, and lead. Those are all only a few of our privileges. We all have our inspired “why” that guides each seemingly minuscule decision. All of these moving parts possibly based on our experiences in our field, or life.
In our weight rooms, we’re chronologically older than most of our audience and certainly have experienced more in our arena. It’s not anyone’s fault for being ignorant, they’re younger. We have jobs that come with outstanding responsibilities, because our crowd doesn’t even know what knowledge they’re missing.
We strive to be great examples, to practice what we teach. Then there are the times we need to serve as warnings.
We’ve trained longer, we’ve had injuries, we’ve fought, we’ve questioned our modalities, we’ve had confusing times, stationary training…no progress under the bar.
“We’ve been there done that”
With all of our past and future experiences, we may have the right to be warnings to others.
This though, the warning, is an extremely delicate teaching opportunity.
Two considerations here:
1. The point we’re making, it may not come from a place of anger, but of a sincere place of care and concern with only one goal; to serve.
2. It must be accompanied with sustainable-radical-empathy. Be consistent in our message, be thorough, and genuinely seek to understand. It’ll behoove us to immediately put ourselves in the other person’s shoes when we’re dealing with a tough conversation or situation. Remember where we were 20 years ago.
We’ve all done this before. We’ve answered a question with, “Because I said so.” Maybe we meant to say, in a caring tone, “because I’ve done it that way, I’ve trained that way, I’ve gone down that path and it will not work, and this is why…”
Let’s be virtuous examples, and never shy away from carefully being the warning.
In Strength,
Adam Stoyanoff MS, CSCS
Director of Strength and Conditioning
Grand Rapids West Catholic High School