Sponges Vs Bricks

One of the biggest issues in the fitness industry is that coaches have the absorbency of a house brick

Whereas the best coaches are sponges.

The bricks read fitness content, watch fitness videos, follow fitness accounts, talk to fitness people, go to the gym with fitness friends

Then struggle to communicate outside of that echo chamber with people who aren’t as obsessive as they are.

The best coaches are sponges.

They’re pulling from behavioural science, marketing, philosophy, sport psychology, therapy, other businesses, art and more

They are more than willing to look for advice, strategy and tactics from completely unrelated industries.

They pay attention to the world around them, not just the world of macros and progressive overload.

But sponges don’t just succeed because they use the world around them to be better coaches and businesses

It’s because their clients don’t live in the fitness world - they live in the real world with jobs, and relationships and stress and Netflix and hundreds of other things competing for their attention.

If you only understand fitness, you only understand a fraction of what’s actually going on.

The sponges get this.

They’re curious about everything because everything is connected to why people do what they do.

Stay curious, read widely.