Author Archives: Coach Panda

Feed your brain with nutritious thoughts.  In the same way you feed your stomach with nutritious foods, you should feed your brain with good, wholesome thoughts.  Little reminders of beauty, such as a lovely picture or a sweet song, or motivating phrases written on your bathroom mirror will help you maintain a positive outlook throughout the day.

A picture of my son on my phone’s lock screen cheers me up and reminds me to be the best version of myself for him.  Listening to a motivational audiobook while I drive helps get me excited for work.  Even just remembering to smile during a workout can make all the difference.  All these triggers help me stay focused and positive.

The most important time to feed your brain is right when you wake up. Start your day with something positive. Try to set your favorite song as your alarm.   Put a picture or vision board next to your bed so it’s the first thing you see when you wake up.  Before you jump out of bed, close your eyes and take a moment to be grateful for someone or something.  Think of two or three things that you will do that will make the day a total success. It’s like tuning your instrument before you go on stage.  Make sure your brain is focused on the good things in your life and your goals.

The next best time to feed your brain is right before you go to sleep.  Create a ritual at night that allows you to reflect on the best parts of your day and reminds you of the great things you will do when you wake up.  Your brain uses your sleep time to assimilate and make sense of things and solve problems.  So if you plant a good seed right before bed, it’ll grow overnight.

Your brain is going to get hungry and tired throughout the day as well so take a moment every day to quiet down, take a few breaths and give yourself a positive self-talk.  Just remind yourself that you are doing your best and trying your hardest.

I was listening to Benjamin Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, talk about a realization he had: the conductor is the only member of the orchestra that doesn’t make a sound.  When Zander had this realization, it changed the way he viewed his job and his demeanor.  Conductors have traditionally had a totalitarian rule over the orchestra and have used the podium to exert power and influence.  Zander realized that his job was to find the best way to get the musicians to express the music as beautifully as possible.  Instead of bending the orchestra to his will, he builds rapport with the musicians and finds ways to elicit their passion for the music.

Upon hearing this story it was immediately obvious how this applies to coaching.  My job as a coach is not to just yell and “no rep” people. My job is to bring out the best of my athletes and ignite their passion to do the work and be their best.  Everyone goes to a gym for a reason. Obviously to get fit, but there’s more than that.  They want to be a part of the community.  They want to be recognized for their efforts.  They want to express themselves physically.  The coach’s job is to facilitate their passions and give them the space to express themselves.

We should strive to be a facilitator of other people’s passions: give people permission to be their best selves. Our job is to help facilitate that relationship between the athlete and themselves, their body, the gym, the program and the community. How to do that is the real trick.  If we reframe our purpose we show up differently, we act differently.  There is a world of possibilities available to us and our clients if we show up as the coach that draws out the greatness in people as opposed to the coach that just yells.

“I have a definition of success. For me, it’s very simple. It’s not about wealth and fame and power. It’s about how many shining eyes I have around me.” ―Benjamin Zander

You can’t see your destination when you’re driving at night, all you can see is what’s directly in front of you in the beam of your lights.  If you apply this metaphor to how you approach big projects, you can accomplish much more than you realize.

I heard Jocko Willink tell a story of how many Navy Seals survived Hell Week.  The ones that thought about making it to the end of the week couldn’t last and they quit.  The candidates that had success set their gaze to the next achievable objective: the next meal.  Every few hours they were given a short break for food, if they could just make it to their next meal, then they could get a respite and gain momentum to carry them through to the end.

As I contemplate doing the CrossFit Games Open Workout 16.1, I am going in with the same mindset.  I will only look as far as my headlights can cast their beam. One small achievable objective after another.  Twenty-five feet of lunges takes me eight steps.  That’s not hard.  Eight burpees is not that bad.  Another set of lunges is something I can do.  Eight pull-ups is do-able.  It’s easy to look at the clock and get discouraged but if I just keep my focus on the small set at hand, I’ll get through it.  You will too.  Just imagine you’re driving at night.

I don’t want you to be an underachiever.  And you won’t be if you decide to do the bare minimum.  What I am advocating is a choice to take action: the least amount that you can and then build momentum.  What you are going to do is create a habit of action that leads to motivation that leads to success.

When I wake up, I’m tired and sore and my muscles and joints ache.  It’s what I call, “getting old.”  When I go to the gym, I read the workout on the board and I am often terrified inside.  When it comes time to cook, I am often tempted to go to seamless and just have food delivered.  How do I overcome the inertia? I take action in the right direction, but I start with the least amount of action.  It takes some guts to jump into the deep end of a freezing cold pool, it’s not impossible, but it often takes some convincing.  It takes next to no convincing to dip your toe in the cold water. 

Motivation follows action.  Act first.  Having a small warmup routine gets me moving and gets me in action.  Once I’m in action and moving, I then get motivated to start doing more.  It’s like dipping your toe in the water.  It’s cold but you quickly acclimate.  Then you feel refreshed and put both feet in.  Then you start to go deeper and eventually, you’re in the pool swimming.

Here is a list of things I do to overcome the inertia:

• Grab a theraband and I start doing some shoulder warmups.
• Use a Yoga Tune Up therapy ball and roll out the bottom of my feet.
• Do an easy yoga pose like child’s pose.
• Close your eyes and take the longest slowest breath you can (inhale and exhale).
• Open the fridge and find some protein you want to eat.

Once I take a small step in the right direction the next steps often follow and before I know it I have made some progress.  Just take small steps in the right direction.  Take a goal and subdivide it until you find the smallest step you can take.  If you want to start meditating, the smallest step is to close your eyes and take one deep breath.  More will follow.  If you want a pull-up the smallest step you can take is to warm up your shoulders, once they are warm, you will be motivated to do more exercises. The bare minimum of a journey of a thousand miles is a single step.  Start there.