I met ‘Terry’ while coaching at a rugged mountain retreat.
A place where powerful people ‘unplugged’ by living spartan lives.Playing sport. And partying like second time teenagers whose parents are gone for the weekend.
The stories I could tell.
But since I can’t tell them without incriminating myself… my lips are sealed.
Every week began with assessments.
We’d watch the new campers play. Give them things to work on. And try to organize them into compatible groups.
‘Terry’ was in great shape.
Tall. Lean. I clocked him as late 50’s… he was 73.
His tennis… if you could call it that, came from a place, or perhaps more accurately a planet I’m not familiar with.
At all times he held the racket with both hands.
Sometimes his right hand was on top. Other times they switched.
I honestly couldn’t tell which hand he played with until he served.
Still, the guy could mostly keep the ball in play.
The one thing that was plainly obvious about ‘Terry’ was that he loved playing the game.
He’d put a ball into the trees… and laugh his ass off.
Hit the shot of his life… and laugh harder.
I called him over.
“I know… I know,” he said preemptively, “and I’m working on it. It’s just… well… you know… umm… well, it happens automatically and so it’s hard for me to fix.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Ya’know, the two hands stuff. I’m taking lessons… lots of em… really, I am! Its just… well…”
I held up my hand and stopped him mid-sentence.
“‘Terry’… I don’t give a rats ass how you hit the ball. Your mission for the next week: chase every ball that lands inside the fenced area… and have as much fun as you can doing it.”
He paused… waiting for the punch line to my joke.
Surely I was kidding.
I wasn’t.
‘Terry’ already had what most seek. Joy with the game. Good play flows from that joy… and not the other way around.
“Oh! I can TOTALLY do that!” He exclaimed.
And not only did he flawlessly execute his mission. ‘Terry’ was the most improved player that week.
The last breakfast of camp he asked to talk.
“You don’t know who I am, do you.”
“Sure I do… you’re ‘Terry’.”
He laughed. “Yes… but… I mean… you don’t know what I do.”
I don’t care about titles, and what people do… or, most commonly, did.
“It’s usually better that way ‘Terry’ but… if you want… I’ll play.”
He gave me his full name. No… I’m not going to drop it here, but… I had heard of him.
He is a bigwig researcher. A bestselling writer on happiness and play.
The reveal surprised me. A big time academic wrapped in a lighthearted and unassuming exterior is rare.
“What you did for me this week was amazing.” He said.
I reminded him that I really didn’t do anything. In fact, most of my colleagues would call what I didn’t do gross malpractice.
“This week was the most fun I have ever had playing… anything.” He said.
“I have taken A LOT of lessons. It’s like… well, it’s not like… it IS one the main ways I do my research… and… you are the first coach to EVER encourage me to be myself.”
Think about that last comment for a moment.
“… to encourage me to be myself…”
Is there a choice?
Can you “mimic the greats?” No. Copies are literally a dime a dozen.
How about “fake it to make it?” Pure garbagethink.
“Yeah but… this coach REALLY knows their stuff!” Not if they’re trying to change you.
Whatever your thing is…
It’s yours to DO in any way you want.
Why would you give that away?
Instruction
If you want to learn something… the unspoken belief is you need to be taught.
Unspoken beliefs are those things considered so obvious they don’t need to be stated.
You need to be taught, because being self-taught is currently equated with ‘DIY’ projects. You know… remodeled bathrooms with unfinished wiring and doors that don’t shut all the way.
From an early age you were told that sitting obediently in straight lines… being told what to do and how to do it… is how people are taught.
And you believed it.
Naturally, this is the learning environment you seek.
You’re in luck.
Since 99.99 % of instructors share your learning history… it’s the environment they provide.
The focus of this learning environment is… “how do I?”
To this end you are given information. And steps to memorize.
And if you can reproduce all of that stuff in the ‘correct way’, at the right time… like test time, the general idea is you get ‘it’.
Whenever a test is involved, you aren’t learning for you.
This approach works for certain simple, repetitive tasks… like flipping burgers during a lunchtime rush.
But for everything else… not so much.
Learning
The thing is… we don’t really know how we learn.
Yes, we have tons of theories. And a rudimentary idea of the basics. But when push comes to shove… the big picture eludes us.
Consider: there are 86 billion neurons in your brain.
Maybe 100 trillion connections between them.
As many as 1,000 proteins, all in various strengths, at every connection.
If we could grab a video of all of that as you were learning — we can’t… but even if we could — that video would be worthless to everyone but you.
Because no two brains are alike.
You really are a one of a kind.
It’s true that context based repetition makes things easier to repeat. And experience changes us.
But no one knows how.
And that is only a fraction of the learning conundrum.
Dig deeper and you find that ‘free will’ is a topic of hot debate. We don’t even know how much agency we have over ourselves.
If no one really knows these things… who but no one can honestly propose to teach you?
Methods
Of course, that is an entirely unacceptable proposition for a people who believe they ‘need’ to be taught.
And that grey area between our ‘needs’ and our knowledge is the fertile breeding ground for skulduggery.
Methods and multi-step plans.
Behaviorism. Cognitivism. Multiple intelligences. Scaffolding. Learning styles. Direct instruction. Discovery. Differentiated instruction. Twelve step programs. Part to whole progressions. Constraints. Eco dynamics. Success seminars. Failure seminars… I could go on for hours.
None of them offer anything more than a peek through a crack in a fence, onto a field of an unknown size.
Isn’t it strange to be living in the future we imagined would be enlightened, and still our colleagues in humanity insist on smashing themselves onto the same rocks that have been claiming us for centuries?
I think we can agree that the outcome a method consistently delivers is what that method is good for.
For instance, the method for turning on a computer is to push the power button. And unless something is wrong with the computer, that method delivers every time.
And if it didn’t… we would not think of it as a ‘method’ for turning on a computer.
Failure is the outcome that is most consistently delivered by the prevailing methods for sport or business or performance training.
It’s true!
Think about it… the reason we believe that only the smallest percent will ‘make it’, is that the largest percent of the people who take lessons, go to seminars, and attend training programs don’t.
The golf swing is one of the most studied human activities.
It’s the subject if more than 50,000 books.
And the focus of millions of hours of instruction.
Yet the average golf handicap hasn’t changed in fifty years.
And rather than admit the obvious… that ‘methods’ and multi-step plans don’t work. We have instead chosen to believe in ghosts like purpose and deliberateness and talent.
Imagine pushing the power button, and when the computer doesn’t come on, tech support tells you that you didn’t press the button with sufficient purpose…
Or deliberateness…
Or positivity…
Or talent.
Or perhaps, you were ‘afraid’ of the computer turning on.
You don’t need to imagine it. This is the current state of affairs.
Doom
Am I saying everyone can be great?
No.
I’m saying we don’t know what greatness is… until we see it.
A player makes a great play.
A business makes an extraordinary move.
A performer deftly handles a heckler.
And with the benefit of knowing the end result, those actions are dissected and methodized and fiscalized.
But consider this… nothing repeats.
No moment, no pitch, no lie or bounce of the ball, no position, no audience, no moment is ever the same.
And therefor EVERY swing, catch, throw, kick, reaction, and performance… has to be different.
And dependent upon your interpretation of the possibilities of the moment.
Trying to apply someone else’s static right ‘way’ to such a dynamic situation dooms you.
And that truth is almost completely unseen because it’s blocked by the lens of methods.
Escape
You don’t struggle for lack of knowing the one ‘right’ way.
You struggle because you have been convinced there is one.
In the thirteenth century an anonymous monk wrote “La Queste del Saint Graal”. (The quest of the Holy Grail) A story of the grail quest of King Arthurs Knights.
And in this eight hundred year old book is the following passage: “Each entered the Forest Adventurous alone, at the point he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no way or path.”
‘If there is a clear path before you… it is someone else’s.’
Following is the easiest way to get lost.
Whatever your thing is… to master it you must stop following, stop copying… and start creating.
Viewed through this lens a coaches job is not to fill vessels with information, nor lead, nor kindle the flames of inspiration.
It is to safeguard creativity. By admitting that we don’t know.
And this, I think, is the only way we can fulfill what should be our first obligation to all learners… at every level.
To do no harm.