To Have Done It

“The reward for a thing done well, is to have done it”, says Emerson. Count me as in full agreement. 

From opportunity or by design, the rewards of a job well done, a hand well played or a sustained and focused response should be enough. Yet somehow we have come to expect a payout, a type of entitlement as compensation. We even have a name for it in training circles, calling the reward after hard effort an entitlement beer. I deserve this, we say. 

And you do. But.

A healthier and more constructive attitude might be to appreciate the magnificence of the moment instead of playing for the payout. I have said this a hundred times, and most likely will a hundred more, if (a BIG if) you have done EVERYTHING right in practice, in training and in preparation, all you can do is go out and play the game. 

You trust the natural system. You realize that luck is born by design and that the luckier you get has a direct connection to the harder you work. It is like the student accepting the fact that the more they study, the better they prep, the more focus they put into the zen of dancing with their books, the more inquisitive they remain and the deeper they dig, the better the outcome will be. Be that either in grades or the the increase in the depth of their knowledge. The important point being that it is the path towards enlightenment that holds the keys, not the illuminating moment of lucid clarity when that path has ended. The journey not the destination, the game not the score, how one keeps one foot in front of the other and all eyes on deck in the present magical moment. 

Again I must mention the plight of the athlete not quite so blessed with extraordinary DNA, but with the attitude and gumption of a chip-on-the-shoulder survivor. I will take that fighter on my team in a heartbeat if given the choice, over the bigger, stronger, faster, but distracted, athlete. 

Same way I like my teams. I have always favored the underdog. Give me a group of misfits, delinquents, red headed step children and hooligans, vice those so naturally gifted that they play passionless and ambivalently. Why?

Because you can teach the former to practice hard, to learn, to respect and to fight for the sole reason to not disappoint those teammates who offer the same pledge back at them. Try doing that with a unit of prima donnas more interested in the bottom line return on their investments. 

For a few weeks now I have been promoting the idea that in any given classroom, specifically I juxtapose this to our indoor cycling, out of the 100% in attendance, if the advertised goal is maximum performance, for our purposes this means peak wattage during a high-intensity sprint, that 50% of the class will over-achieve, leaving the same ratio to the under-achievers. 

In conversation yesterday with another coach, a well-respected and successful track coach, I relayed the outline of my hypothesis. Almost immediately he countered with the data that he has found from a similar protocol with his high school mid-distance runners. His results varied dramatically, and although I used my 50/50 split rhetorically, he had a much more accurate and precise number.

Less than 10% overachieve, or hit max, he says. 

I wonder if the 90% have read any Ralph Waldo Emerson I immediately consider.