Episode 4 - Rachel Faulkner: From Engineer to Coaching Excellence

Welcome to Sorst, the Coaching Excellence podcast powered by the PFCA and Junior Network. Join the wise, the wonderful Craig Massey, often co-hosted with James Robinson as we speak to some of our most respected peers. We hear their stories, we uncover their knowledge, their wisdom and be inspired by how we can show up every day as a new mastery in Coaching Excellence. Join us for the episode, let's go. Hello Rach. Max. See this bit is always awkward isn't it because we've just had a chat and then we press record and then I have to say hello again. Well here we are. Thanks for doing this. Rach is Culture March on. One of, I'll be honest, one of my favourite cultures, not just at March on, in general. I think similar to, well both chats really, chat and gaffer. Rach and I tend to connect really well. I think we share a curiosity, we share a background. I don't know if Rach senses it but I see a lot of me as a coach in Rach. God help you. And so I think that's the thing. Anyway, as usual, no structure to the chat. We're just going to have a chin wag, like we always do. You will pick up on Rachel's curiosity and her very special mind very quickly as we unpack what sits behind the scenes for Rach. So let's start from the beginning of coaching for you. Talk to us about what you were before. What was life like previously? So I guess it's not a career that I ever thought I would go into. It was prior to being a coach, I went to uni, I did a mechanical engineering degree and I pretty much did that because I was good at maths, I was good at physics and it was just the dumb thing. So I went into that. I've always been fairly sporty so kind of just had that morbid hobby. I graduated uni during COVID so getting a job in that field became quite hard. I did get a job in like a finance type role. I didn't particularly enjoy very much. I sat at a desk for most of the day and a real fluke. I was just looking through LinkedIn one day and I found there was an advert for a sales position at a gym equipment design company. So I sent them an email and I said, "I'm not a salesperson, but I have got an engineering degree. Do you need a designer?" So I ended up, I was working with them for about a year and within that time part of my job was to sometimes go out and speak to coaches, speak to gym owners, see what they kind of wanted from their gym and every time I came away from those meetings I just thought, "Well, I'd rather do what you do," which was really cool and frustrating because I'd then go away and design a gym that they were going to coach in and it was going to be really fun. At that point were you making designs in your mind as to how you might get there or was there just a bit of envy around what they were doing? Yeah, I think at that point I didn't necessarily think that I would then go into coaching. I just always thought I would come away and I thought that'd be a really cool space to train in, maybe from that point of view more so and then it was during a time where I kind of discovered March on. I was aware of the PFCA and I did start to think I was like, "Oh, I set a desk all day. I love my training. I was really into CrossFit at the time. That was like my absolute life outside of work." I thought, "Well, maybe I get a coaching qualification and I just do it on the side, a bit of fun and something to kind of scratch that itch." Then I just realized I preferred my evening job to my day job so then I'm all in with that and here I am. That's what you saw Australia, right? Yes. So I think there was probably about three or four months where I was trying to do a nine to five and then there were six to nine coaching and it was really hard because I started to realize I did prefer coaching to my engineering role and I knew that I had to go all in with it but I think it was more like an identity thing to everyone that knew me at home. I was rich, I'd gone to uni, I'd done an engineering degree and that's all I'd kind of ever thought I would do and I think it was a bit of a fear factor of changing that and almost feeling not that I failed with engineering but just that I changed. So I thought if I just took this big old change, almost started from scratch, go to Australia, no one would have even known that I'd done a career that wasn't coaching. So that's what I did. I went out there, traveled for about six weeks, found somewhere that I liked, found a place to live and I found a job. So it was in your head then that the idea or the desire to just make a fresh start with no judgments around. It's interesting, isn't it? What were the judgments, if any, after the fact? I think there was, I don't think, I never had anyone, no one ever confirmed my fear of being judged to be honest. I was really, I'm so fortunate I've got such a supportive family, my friends are great but I think it's like whether it was a school I went to or going then to uni, there's always this, I don't know, from as long as I can remember, it's just like your career will look like this. You'll go into engineering, you do a couple of years at this level and then we'll put you through your charter ship and then you'll be this level and then you've got a really clear path laid out for you and it's almost that feeling of well, I did all those steps and I've never, I've decided not to go there so have you wasted all those steps before and I think it was the fear that it was probably more of a me thing than anyone else. For those who were listening and not watching, I'm not in my head because that's what I found was that all those judgments and opinions and things that I thought I would have to face when I changed careers were actually just built up in my own head and actually what I found was the opposite, everybody was really, really supportive and as well, I don't know if you experienced this, so many people said this makes sense, this is more you than what you were doing, even my boss at the time said that. So it's funny isn't it how we build that open and build that pressure for ourselves. A bit of a gift in the cursor because I think you take that into your own know, I can see that, that professionalism, that desire to want to find your path and find your way in this thing. So there's probably some benefits in that but yeah, in that scenario, the reason I'm just laboring on that a little bit is because I know there'll be many people listening to this podcast who have either been through that, going through that or are about to go through that, that career change coach that we speak to and it's pretty scary, it's scary and so listening to you then I think will fill them with a little bit of confidence, I hope, knowing where Rach is now, knowing what Rach is doing, knowing what Rach's life looks like which we'll unpack a little bit further shortly, but a positive move, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. It was really funny that I remember this day, it was like I was driving back from work and anyone that's from the Midlands, anyone that knows Nanitun, knows it's not particularly the nicest place in the world and I was driving home, I was driving to the streets of Nanitun and it's lovely, it's fine and I just thought this feels like Grand Hog Day and it's like every day kind of felt the same and all I wanted to do was either go and train or go and do my coaching job after work and I was like you can't spend eight hours a day looking forward to your evening and I just think that's the most important part of all of it, well one of the most important parts of all this for me is that I don't clock watch, I don't dread going to work, not that I hated my job before actually, that's a bit I didn't dread it, it didn't light me up. So what I do now just brings me so much more joy. Yeah, good and I would say you're in the right place. So what you described there, even in the career pathway, we know as well within the work there's a lot of order, there's a lot of logic, there's a lot of systemised stuff, even if it wasn't full engineering that you went into, that's what you learn at university, even university is that way inclined especially when you when you're studying to be an engineer. So coaching is a lot different. How are you finding the difference? Because does your mind still operate in that way, the orderly logical systemised way? Yes and I think, I was thinking about this actually recently, I used to get really frustrated because in more like engineering and science you can kind of, if you don't know something, you either ask someone who you think knows more than you, you read a book or you will find out the answer between those two and it will be fairly black and white. Whereas when there's something that I don't know or I'm confused about, I either ask you and you ask me a question after I've asked you a question or you speak to another coach and you get a different answer or it just, it required me to become more, it required me to be more inquisitive and more, I don't know, more open-minded, I think is probably the word and it's just more subjective than the field I was in before which was very black and white, objective, right and wrong. So that's just taken from getting used to but, and I still don't think I'm there, like I get frustrated when I don't know things or I can't find the answer or when I think I've got my head around something and then it suddenly changes and we change the way we do things or some questions there, it's challenging because then you almost go down the rabbit hole and everything you thought you know then are kind of unravels and then you're back to square one but that's kind of the point and that's what I've found that I actually do enjoy now. So in the sense that it's frustrating it's also interesting and it's probably why I won't get bored of this job. No, yeah I'm with you and if you're in it for the right reasons for me it's impossible to do so because the learning never stops, right and the answers are never found. There are some truths that were uncovered along the way but they're all context dependent and so that's why you know from your experience and my prayer experience is a shift and I think you've got to let go of that way of thinking like I'm in search of the answer whereas it's not it's not it's not I'm in search of the answer or I'm in search of the thing to solve this problem it's I'm in search of what I think to be the right challenge now but that could change we know that could change tomorrow it could it will definitely change for the next person and so on and so forth so that then becomes the challenge right where you have to be like you use the word inquisitive we also talk in the PFCA don't we about being agile so is that something that you've had to let go of the lack of agility if you like or the fixedness that that came with in the certainty that came with engineering. Yeah I think so in a way I think it does it got I I think there is still order and you need to have your principles and I guess we talk about those and for me that's that's like the order in there the things that are somewhat fixed like they're the the big rocks that you kind of build everything around but yeah I'm definitely more more comfortable with the answer of like it depends yeah and it's almost like every single different person you have in front of you it depends it's like you might have an idea of what a squat should look like but it really depends on the person and that I guess that's kind of how I marry the order and maybe the agility I don't know share um share the last question you asked me. About my squat yeah so I um I video nearly everything that I do in the gym and it's more so because I just want to unpick the way that I move in like a really methodical way. Yes exactly um so I you know noticed in my squats last week that I have been coming like just lifting my heels up just that little bit um so I just sent you the video and I thought what are your thoughts on this um yes that was where that's where I got to. What was your intention behind that why did you ask me? I guess I asked you because I wanted to know if there was anything glaringly obvious that you were saying that you could see that I couldn't like for me I couldn't really I couldn't really work it out other than the fact that like maybe I just wasn't thinking or because like I know that I haven't I know that when it's lighter my heels stayed on the floor um and I know when it got heavier my heels came up a bit so I guess I was just trying to pick that apart. Yeah yeah um well we kind of got to we had a bit of we had a bit of a back and forth but where we can't we we explored a few bits and bobs it turned out that Rachel dead lifted before she'd squatted so maybe there was a chance that the posterior chain to kind of phrase it was was was somewhat fatigued and so she was airing on the side of of the anterior by shifting the load forward but then you went on to say well this tends to happen despite that um and so then we went down the very generalized way of looking at well perhaps just the skill isn't isn't quite there yet as in it can't uphold this level of intensity it's okay when the intensity is lower and so maybe there's just some more work to do on the skill um and it's as simple as that and I know that when I when we when we reached that conclusion you already knew that. Yeah but what was what was what was the thing that was stopping you seeing that as as a potential as a potential thing to consider? I don't I think sometimes maybe my more engineering brain or left brain just wants like logic I wanted you to say oh well it looks like you haven't got very good hip internal rotation overall like do you want me I almost wanted some like proper anatomy yeah like nerdy stuff to come out of it um that I could like go down a little rabbit hole and read about and work out why my score was wrong but actually it was something a little less black and white. Well yeah and I'm so glad you said that and I actually didn't know you were gonna say that but I'm so glad you did and thanks for being honest because it might have been those things but then we're just listing symptoms and that's what I think that's what the industry does and it perhaps brainwashes coaches into thinking that these things are more important than they actually are so there is a big section of the industry that that gets off on going into the ins and outs of a katsas around anatomy and physiology around each joint and and all the rest of it and sort of listing all that stuff out and listing what they see but as we teach in the in the in the PFCA in CBT it's not just assess don't guess it's also only assess that which you know what to do with and so it's all right me saying well you haven't got internal rotation there and you haven't got internal rotation and whatever whatever it might be but you're not thinking about that whilst you're moving so we just come back to first principles it's like okay well no matter what's happening how do we how do we upgrade the movement and it's well let's reduce the intensity let's increase the time on detention let's practice it more and then gradually ramp it back up again and when it gets to movement starts breaking down it's like okay cool let's go back again refine it again and so on and so forth and we keep nudging up in in that way and all right there are plenty of people the argument could be well there are plenty of people who can't do that and they have really you know they have real problems with mobility they have problems with pain and and what have you that's fine but that's more of a therapeutic realm than a training realm and I think that's where where cultures get lost is that they think that we have to bring in those more detailed anatomical thoughts into every realm of coaching and it's just not the case it's like well let's just practice it some more and it's fine the one that always blows people mind hey let's be patient but I want to add more load now well yeah well we can but your squats breaking down as a result so let's practice it some more let's go back and do the reps and I know that I can talk to that because of my experience I guess and therefore my confidence in being down the rabbit hole of all that stuff but thanks for thanks for sharing your honest thoughts there as to what what you thought that might be because those those things all do exist but then it's our job then to figure out well how much do they matter and how are we going to impact them how are we going to upgrade these things that's that's the key like what's what are we going to do what are we going to do rather than what are we going to chat about um okay anyway that was a bit that was a bit of a tangent I just wanted to get into you asking the questions they come semi-regularly like every now and again you'll you'll you'll ask me a question and I love that I invite I invite that I enjoy our back and forth you've not been doing this for very long right how long three years yeah I was working this out I think it'll be three years in September so cool so yeah coming up on coming up on three years you're already you're already asking questions seeing things relating to members clients in a way that a coach would many years your senior what mindset do you take into this thing to to be able to do that and I know you're not thinking I want to be better than anybody else I know not you're not thinking I want to accelerate my learning but this thing comes very naturally to you and I'm just wondering what the mindset that sits behind the whole thing is I think a lot of it comes from I always try and listen more than I talk and I think that's with most of my interactions with the members whether that's even just like coaching on the floor like I try not I try even more now to say to like say less after like conversations with you and gents and just to like let people talk to me I like I ask people a lot like how they feel and just really try and listen and and understand and relate to that person in front of me I think this is funny I think I this might be a bit of a rabbit hole but so so my first um so I did an engineering job during my placement year and I worked in a food factory and I was a essentially like a reliability efficiency engineer um and this factory been there for like 30 years I was this 18 year old girl coming in or 19 whatever um with like old boys in their 60s that have been on the tools for years and I suddenly was given the responsibility to try and like make everything as efficient as it could be um so I would you know have to look at data work out what was breaking down the most often just silly things about whatever it might have been um and I quickly learned that you had to understand the person you were speaking to um to kind of get to the best result which would ultimately be them helping me adjust the machine to and then try it like the next week so I kind of learned the hard way that you can't just go down to the the shop floor and say we're changing this because I think so yeah you kind of you know I would go I would make sure I had all my reasoning um I would work out who it was I would need to go and speak to and kind of what um how to get them in you know have how to get them on site you know yeah um find out what they want to chat about what it might be like it was really funny I was probably one of five women out of probably about 200 people in the company at the time so it was difficult sometimes to relate to those people but you you find like I think I just found a way um so I think that whole year was just a massive learning curve of really trying to understand the people in front of you if you're there could be completely different background they see the world in a completely different way um but it's like working out what makes them tick and what yeah how to get the best out of them and I think that that was just a massive um learning curve for me and you take that into my I can take that into my coaching and know that you know some some of our members are just there to have an hour of fun and play and an hour away from the kids and you listen to them and you and you can hear how busy their lives are and I don't know what that feels like and I like I don't try and I don't try and pretend to know what that feels like because a 27 um single woman with no children um but I try and understand and listen and then give them the coaching that I think that they need yeah so guess that's where it all comes from I think I was I was gonna ask you I was gonna ask you the question this question but I'll just tell you because it I know you'll be humble in the answer um there will there'll be a fraction of structural engineer students who go into a setting a mechanical engineer students who go into a setting like that and are able to relate right because they're not that way inclined so whilst that scenario helped you and helped move you forward in that would you agree that there's a big element of nature and nurture that's that's that's that helps you now in coaching yeah I think I think so it's hard to yeah see this is you being humble I'll tell I'll tell I was yeah I was being polite in asking you the question but the the answer is yeah like it's it's in you it's in you and I think um it is the humility that that that helps so much for you it's you you never come across as being above you never come across as having an answer you're always inquisitive you're always collaborative you're always you're always relating you're on a level with everybody that you deal with and you have a you have a talent that's that's your talent of connecting with whoever's in front of you and and and also then not just that person but whatever vibe or mood they're in um and and that is the coaching piece so to that then how do you how do you hold both coaching competence and your inquisitive curious analytical logical mind and that humility human side empathetic quality um do you even think about it I don't think I think about it that often until it goes wrong I don't think I get it right all the time and there was an interaction with one of our members a few months ago and she was a slightly older lady so I was you know not very like not very big immediately just think like a little bit on the like I wouldn't say frail but just like I just thought right we've got to look after you um never strength trained before but done a lot of yoga so like me like could like understood moving her body to an extent um and I think because she had done a lot of yoga felt um and I think she done a bit of Pilates as well felt like she was experienced in movement um and I don't think I understood her thought process with that before we had this conversation and I'd obviously been giving her the prescriptions I believe she needed but in doing so probably didn't make her feel as strong as she wanted to feel or or expected to feel and you know she she did tell me she said I feel like I'm not being built up in this environment I feel like we had a really good chat and she wasn't particularly it wasn't a negative chat necessarily we were really open and then I went then into explaining why that like resistance training is a little bit different just moving your own body and that like this is um it's not something that happened and she'd been here for three weeks and she said it's not happening quick enough happening quick enough I'm not progressing quick enough um and I try to explain like that you have to be patient um and these kind of things and we did actually end up having like a good agreement by the end of it and we're all good but I actually came away from the conversation and and feeling really because I think she said she said I don't I don't feel happy or I don't I don't come away feeling really built up after the sessions and I felt so disappointed in myself like I can't it was awful because that's what I pride myself on is like making sure that people feel empowered and confident and they leave our sessions feeling amazing and I've got it wrong I'd wrapped her up in cotton wool um because I was so far in the movement standards and that kind of thing and I hadn't thought about the emotional side of it enough um because she was on the extreme end so yeah that's one thing that I've just reflected on recently and thought that's I didn't get that right so what was the outcome um well she's carried on training with us which is great how did that come out how did you how did you flip it around did you or did you just give it time so we actually had we had two chats we had one chat at the beginning where she was quite upset and she was actually in a but she said she was in a rush so we didn't have a long enough chat to really break it down and then we she then kind of messaged me and said I'm sorry I was in a rush I'm you know let's tell like we well I messaged her first and then we said let's let's talk another time so we sat down and we had a really good chat we unpacked it all um and I just explained my thought process and she she just said yeah I was just I was expecting quicker results um and I just said it's a long game um it just takes time for your body to adapt and this is totally new to you um and yeah so it's you know it's been much better I've been more I actually think I probably pigeonholed her into a less ambitious um group of people um probably based on my own biases um and actually she when you think about you know when I sat back you know she was I think a fairly high level lawyer she's been very successful in her career she's still working even as like an older lady and yeah I don't think I took that you know we've got such a mix of people and we've got some people that just come in just to move and to feel good whereas she actually wanted to come in and see the numbers go up every single day which is more like what I would probably be like um and I just didn't think that that's how she would see the world yeah so you've you've seen her world through her previous fitness experiences as opposed to the whole thing yeah yeah yeah so much cool stuff in there I'm sure that prompted you to reflect on that bias of yours that you've perhaps not seen before win for all future conversations and knowing you know your ability to adapt to things I think that will have happened quite quickly but then the other cool thing as well is um the necessities for allowing time and meaning the gaffer spoke about this last week we can't expect to say things and it just land there's a there's a delay there's a process that not only yours but they need to go through in order to organize reorganize these these new things in their mind because we've just given them offered them a different view of the world essentially um and so it doesn't just change like that there's there's some time that it takes and willingness right so um fingers crossed they're willing and then the the the time the time sort of follows on after that so yeah that whole story lots of good stuff in there the other the biggest thing that we you know we try and take the way off coaches shoulders with all the time in in cpt is um the reality that we will learn the most through getting it wrong and the other reality that when we see things as being wrong they're never catastrophic because of how much we care like it might just have been the slight like even that did she notice that you had a bias around her previous activity i doubt it you knew it and then you you will have thought oh did i you know project that onto her and this like she had no idea as far as she was concerned all that happened to her was there was a delay between what she wanted what she asked for and then what when she actually got it or when she actually got a version of it um so how wrong it was for her probably not a lot but so much to learn there through just taking a bit taking a slight misstep yeah yeah it's interesting because yeah i don't i don't think i'd necessarily thought about it like that in the sense that to me it was just such a man it was all it was all i could think about today i was like that's just can't believe i can't believe i did that i can't believe i you know and it really um it really made me think and i spent honestly so i still think about honestly i had i've had a little cry about it yeah i was so yeah i was really like it really made me think it's probably like one of the key moments from like my whole coaching career i'd say yeah um yeah there'll be more there'll be more it's just the reflection to you that you care if you've not already noticed that you know um it's a good thing it's a good thing um do you ever feel like off the back of that do you ever feel like you've got to prove yourself i think yeah yes in some ways i think i'm getting better um the the further i get into this um in the sense that i think when i first started you like i i still care and i try and learn as much as i can but the function and anatomy thing used to really stress me out because i hadn't done a degree in sports and exercise science i didn't have that like qualification behind like behind my name and and all i had was a level two and three in personal training which um i found difficult because i think the background i'd come from is like you know you go and you get a degree in engineering and then you've done that hard work and then you've proven you can do that so you go and do that whereas it i almost felt like i'd like cheated myself into a an industry that especially when you're in it you know a business like march on where a lot of the coaches have um have more like formal education um or like a professional sporting background or all those things that like when you first come in you do feel like i think i think quite a lot of the first conversations we had was what qualifications can i do mass is there any courses you can put me on what would you recommend um that kind of thing and i think i was always chasing a piece of paper some kind of formal thing that would i don't know make me feel more worthy what yeah funny as you all think that everybody that i speak to at march on as says that in their own way it's funny none of you need it none of you need it you're doing a good job um so how do you work through that how do you how have you got from there that being one of the first questions to now what's what's changed um how do you lift that burden i guess i think i think because i i know that i am i know that i am growing because i know that i'm curious so even if i even if i don't have a formal qualification um i know that i'm still pushing the needle forward um and i think that's almost almost becoming enough at the moment good so it's just i think it's become yeah becoming more of a mindset shift and having i think having the people around us that we do um you know coming away from that like we did a like a march on coach's day coming away from that um and realizing that everyone we all have the same like worries or similar insecurities or you know it's um i think it's that that team feeling of like we're not alone in this and it's like you know having that constant cpd every week and hearing everyone talk and we all ask questions and we're all given a voice and we're not always bang on the money and hearing people that are you know coaches that are you know more experienced within march on or more senior in the march on actually admit that they got something wrong and then you know talk about that i didn't i think it all just makes it all feel like you're not the only one that feels like you're getting it wrong um which is really special to be a part of that kind of team i think great job just spent six months working on something that never actually came to fruition we all i was gutted for i was gutted for a week i my head went up my my ass for a week i was like fuck i knew it wasn't a waste of time because i knew how much we'd learn from it but i still felt i'd let everybody down was the thing and i guess that's what we all share right because you know we're together as a team and we want to do right for everybody around us not only ourselves but the reality the reality is that it was an important process to go through to get clarity on what was needed on the other side and i think it speaks to the nature of what we do that because it's so changeable because it's so variable because we're dealing with humans it's almost impossible to have a very um a very fixed education system and so when we talk about engineering we talk about accounting we talk about law we talk about those things you know uh architecture you know whatever it is the education needs to be such because there are definite things that you need to learn because there's maths involved and it's like well this equals this and that's the answer to that and so on and so forth and this is how you would do this and and then you know on top of those things that you learn at university then there are industry things that you know as tech advantage as well this is how we do this and so on and so forth but in coaching i think any sort of fixed education is actually detrimental because fixed education would lead you to the point where you think that you got it figured out and it's never the truth and so for me what's better in in in this in this arena is is education that looks somewhat similar to the practice in that we learn what's necessary at the time because it's relevant to what we're doing and and then we move on to the next thing so it's like well i'm just going to grab a bit more information on that because i think that's going to help my decision and then a bit more on that because that's going to help my decision and so you know whilst i i can be flipping on instagram and and be very idealistic and say we don't need this and we don't need to think about this and all the rest of it the only reason i say that is because i'm trying to get people to think and i'm trying to drag people or jar people away from their their current narrative which is this is the answer and this is the only thing and you know and all the rest of it so i can afford to be a bit of a dick because it doesn't really matter to me because i'm not coaching anybody anymore but the reality is is that we still need that detail it's just not it's just not all it's cracked up to be so we still need to we still need the knowledge of internal rotation and external rotation we still need you know we still need in our minds the kpis of a squat like what we're looking for and what we're not looking for before we then layer it over the individualities of each client we still need the knowledge of energy systems as we go into conditioning you know we need all that stuff we still need the the the new the nutrition stuff the the psych stuff we build that up over time but that just gets it that just sits in our mind then as as a as a reference point as a library to draw on when necessary as opposed to it being an answer so the answer is always as we say who plus what plus y equals how not the other way around like how equals and then we try to shoehorn that on the client had this discussion with with Ayman this morning when we're talking about all things pfca and so i think i can understand for you why that will have been a challenge coming from where you've where you've come from and i think it's i think it's also a challenge that a lot of coaches share that they think there's a there's almost like a fixed um textbook of knowledge that they need to learn on each subject to deem themselves worthy um where the reality is is that it's breaking away from that stuff and recognizing the things that matter is the the lifetime career challenge of a coach sorry that was a bit long but no it's it's so true i think that's probably what i needed to hear yeah yeah um what are you learning about yourself then in this process um think i'm let i already knew that i was curious but i think i'm starting to realize even more that like just wants to know why about things um and it's not always just for it's not necessarily always just to make my coaching practice better um i think it is just like i genuinely think this is what i'm just putting like i genuinely love learning about like the whole shooting match like as you said um like the whole thing i just find like fascinating so i think the more and more i know the more the more and more i seem to learn the more i know that i want to learn like a weird little cycle there um and i also think i'm starting to realize that i'm probably it's funny because you see like you put people on a scale of like being a feeler or a thinker and like i really like the more i think i seem to learn that i am somehow both like i am the most like i love logic and i like structure and routine and i like to know the exact ins and outs and why is but i also just seem to feel everything um like in that way as well and i think it's it's similar like so i think that's why i can i can sometimes i can quite often relate to the the client in front of me that's like very feeling driven on the gym floor with just wanting to like feel good or they don't really care about the numbers that they lift and all that kind of thing um and then there's also the people that just care about numbers and structure and the whys and the wheres and whatever um so i think that's probably why i do get i can relate to those people because i i think i sit on that whole spectrum somehow um yeah i think i think that answers my previous question of how do you how do you balance or how do you manage the competence versus humility thing right that's what we're talking about yeah so we could say that the competence was the was the logic side of things and the humility was the feeling side of things or the thinking and and feeling um do you ever get dragged one way to do that yeah i think so sometimes i think i can be i think i can be irrational sometimes um i think i can get really pulled into the feeling side of things and think it's the end of the world um the smallest little thing um and what are some of those things are they your own things or is it other people's things i think sometimes it comes out in my own training okay like my own life more so than it does in my work life so you know i think sometimes i'm you know one bad training day and i think that i've made no progress in six months or uh i squat when my heels come off the ground and i think that i've wasted 10 years of training yeah just feet like feelings of frustration um because i deep like i really care um so there's that um and then you know coupled with a couple of injuries that come along the way yeah i think that i do get dragged into the feeling side of things i think i get dragged into feelings more than i get dragged into logic okay i think um and it's quite often i need to like pull myself back into my logical side um to make sense of it and move forward it's only natural um it's only natural do you beat yourself up about it uh yeah yeah i get frustrated because i think when i get stuck in the feelings nothing happens and it it feels like no i'm not going anywhere um and i like to always think i'm moving forward so pausing seems to be stressful okay um but i don't think it's about it's probably not and you said this to me um you know i think actually you don't i can't remember do you remember we had this chat a few weeks ago a few months ago when you're down from pfca day and i think i was getting very caught up about where i needed to be in the future and you kind of just said well what's wrong with just sitting where you are now and getting better at being there do you know um i can't remember how you put it but no neither can i but i do i do remember i do remember the chat um and it was when it was what i was thinking as you were explaining that was that the force to pause is probably exactly what you need yeah and then bring those bring those emotions down and and look at it somewhat rationally to try and come up with the step forward and i think that's where it's difficult for it's difficult for cultures because we often find ourselves quite isolated even if we're working in a team right there we can be ships that pass in the night when it's busy and and all the rest of it but that's where you can use people like me and i know that you do but maybe perhaps more often than not because when those things come up for me what i found is one of the best ways of dealing with that is just talk about it is just to sort of have at it and just go okay this is what i'm thinking and i might not have arranged my thoughts initially and maybe you need to get over that because i did as well as as a as a young coach was like i can't take this to anybody because i've not arranged my thoughts yet whereas what i didn't realize was that i needed to have the conversation and say it out loud in order to arrange my thoughts because whilst they're in my home my own head it wasn't it wasn't getting anywhere um and so yeah maybe that's the thing maybe that's the pause it's like let me just pause and just organize these things and then and then we move on that might be conversation it might be a you know written piece whatever whatever it might be um but cultures listening i i imagine you know we've all we've all felt the same where it's like shit i'm frustrated because i can't move on i can't move on to the next level or the next thing or whatever it might be because this has happened or like you say this you know the training slowed up and all the rest of it's like we're at this for a long time we're at this for a long time um having said that where do you want to go with this i um it's difficult i don't i actually i've been trying to think about i've been thinking about this recently um and i don't i don't really know i think before obviously i always that happened in for a year and i loved that and then when the opportunity came to move to Bath i loved the idea of coming here because i always looked at um the boys experience of like building a community from scratch um and being able to kind of like shape where that went and i thought it would be a really amazing thing like amazing challenge and a cool thing to do and now that i'm here it it's so special i i've actually been like sometimes you stand back it was really funny actually today i sat on the bike for 35 minutes before coming back jump on the call and um i just had my headphones in so i couldn't actually hear anything that was going on on the coaching floor but the lunchtime class was going on and you like look out on the floor and Deshawn's coaching and and you've got you know 10 people there you've got you know a guy in his like late 20s who's pretty strong trained for years you've got a few mums of varying abilities and ages you've got a student that's back from uni who she her dad's been training with us so she's jumped in on a trial she's never trained before and it's amazing um you've got grandmas um and like that whole kind of but they're all you kind of you can see them interacting i can hear what they're saying but it wasn't just individual people moving um it was this whole like thing and it was really like beautiful to watch it was really cool um so i actually think going back to the point of just kind of like pausing i'm actually really happy where i am because we've only been open since april and the community is still building and i think i just want to keep going with that and making that uh cementing those relationships and um you doing the socials outside the gym uh we're getting to the point now that when we're you know when you've got 20 people in a session and you haven't break people up into like people sharing barbells it's not just the weight that you're thinking about people lifting together and what would work logically um it's more like oh i know that they're a chassis person she's pretty new um but i think they'd get on because they got this in common because i know that their kids go to that school or do you know me like it's it's funny and then you get and it takes so much time and i think it was really frustrating at first obviously we opened in april it's now the end of august and it only it takes time to really get to we've got 180 people so to get to grips with the personalities um who gets on the regulars at the different times and then you throw summer into the works and everyone's off for summer holidays and everyone comes and trains at different times so their friends aren't there and then they seem to feel you know so it's this one big thing and it's just i'm loving that aspect of it at the moment so um that's kind of where i want to be brilliant too far in the future yeah well then don't and that's the danger of i think we can have visions and what have you um and that north star of what we'd like to be maybe that's just like maybe that's just like a type of coach that you'd like to be or the coach that you'd like to be like who would i like to be those years down the line but what they're actually doing who knows and again i found this the hard way we are guilty of rushing i think as human beings on to the next thing on to the next thing whereas when we do that oftentimes we'll we'll miss the lessons that are right in front of us and like you say there's so much to learn there's so much to gain from your current experience that there's no real need to rush on from from it or feel like you need to or feel like you need to you know um go up a level or whatever it might be and i know that's you're not that way inclined but um yeah there's so much in there right um and so much more like the you know that there are levels to it and you've just opened up another layer there of i'm not just thinking about the weights that they're lifting now i'm thinking about how can they connect to each other and so on and so forth and i'm sure there'll be more layers that you that that you will open up as you get more experienced and um the things that you're learning now will become second nature and so on and so forth um but there's so much in it there's so much in it um and i think that's why you see culture still coaching for many many many years um and we could argue and say it's you know it's a young person's game and and all the rest of it but i genuinely don't think it is i genuinely don't think it is um i think that there just becomes a necessity for those with more experience to progress on to contribute more but again i had the conversation that i've been gaffing last week i asked him where does he feel most himself and he said on the gym floor and i share that if i could still coach now i would still coach i would i would love to i would i miss it and i think all coaches who were coaches at heart would want to um so yeah three years in whilst you're um excelling and doing bloody well stick with it stick with it um cool anything to add nothing i don't think so just thanks for a cool chat yeah as always let's leave it there um i said the same to charlie i said the same to gaffer we'll chat again because there's a lot for there's a lot for us to chat about yeah for sure thank you cheers rich cool see you