?It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. ?The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,?because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; ?who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly??
– Theodore Roosevelt
This quote was sent to me today by a member, and it really spoke to me. ?It got me thinking about what we do everyday. ?What we do for a living and what you guys do every day at the gym.
In my line of work, I am paid for results. ?If people aren’t getting fit they leave. ?If people aren’t enjoying their coaching they leave. ?If people don’t enjoy the community they leave. ?The list goes on and on. ?With the results driven society comes great responsibility. ?Most people go to work every day punch in their time clock and leave. ?You have deadlines to turn in paperwork. ?You have projects to do etc.
In our line of work we literally have lives depending on us. ?Or a least that’s how we view it. ?Within the past 12 months I’ve been to two funerals of people that I coached. ?Both of them came to us to help them. ?I tried, but I failed. ?It wasn’t all my fault, they were gravely ill. ?I did my best to help out with their quality of life while they were still here, but I still bear some of that burden.
I even take it one step further. ?I view every person walking into our door as a potential life to positively change. ?With that in mind, I spend countless hours working on the gym and what we do. ?This past weekend I spent 8 hours working on the lifting template that we just started. ?Why do I tell you that? ?Just to show how much we care. ?When I write a lifting template, I have to write it with the expectation that everyone following it will get results over the next 12 weeks. ?We want you to get results. ?If you don’t, then we have failed. ?We create, dare to strive and work hard, and sometimes we fall short, but the greatest reward is seeing someone get results! ?We put in all this effort and when someone gets results we know it was all worth it. ?We have an emotional vested interest in each person at the gym, and we care deeply about everyone here. ?That’s why we are sad to see people go. ?Sometimes we take it as failure, but we try to be thankful that we had the chance to positively affect them, and we pray that we continue to get those opportunities in the future.
Sometimes we come up short, sometimes we dare to fail greatly, but when we do anything we do it with passion and care, and that’s what keeps us going forward.
