I know how to play soccer
I’m 16 years old, running on the dirt road of an island in the Marshall Islands with a pack of teenage boys. It’s hot and humid. Our soccer team has been running non-stop for back-to-back practices for weeks. One of my teammates running with me verbalizes what I’ve been thinking “Why are we running so much?! We should be doing real practice!” It’s getting so bad that some teammates are starting to come up with excuses for why they have to miss practice. If this goes on for too much longer there won’t be a team.
But then, the season starts and… we start winning. And we just keep winning. We figuratively (and probably literally too) run circles around the other teams on the island. Our coach’s decision to focus 70% on fitness and 30% on skills paid off. Our coach (Coach C) had identified what our team needed to win. I’d been playing soccer since I was five years old and even played with a German club in Germany until my early teens. I didn’t need more footskills, I didn’t need more strategy, I needed more physical stamina and so did my teammates.
That was the only year that Coach C was our coach (probably because of all our grumbling) and that was the only year in my 4 years of playing varsity soccer that we won the championship.
On August 6, 1926, Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. She was 20 years old. I recently watched the film “The Young Woman And The Sea” [Insert YouTube Trailer] and during it I had an “Aha!” moment. At the beginning, her father finally decides to teach her how to swim (i.e. doggy paddle) but that’s it. However, she loves it. She’s constantly swimming and trying to get better. She has passion and determination but she's terrible. It’s not until she’s able to join a team and start getting tips from her coach (i.e., kick your legs) that she starts to excel. She applies the tips during practice and even swims on her own (practicing on your own time is critical, but it’s a topic for another day). This leads to her excelling rapidly, setting a world record at age 13, and eventually becoming the first woman to swim the English Channel and the fastest person at the time (of both men and women).
Okay what am I ranting about? What’s the point? Despite already knowing how to play soccer, it took someone else, a coach to help me and my teammates figure out how to move to the next level and win. A coach that identified and focused on what we needed. Trudy was limited in progression until she had a coach to focus her effort. The same applies to storytelling or whatever craft you are interested in.
Singers need vocal coaches: Katharine McPhee voice lesson with Natalie Weiss.
Actors need personal trainers: How a Celebrity Trainer Got Brie Larson, Bradley Cooper & More in Shape | Vanity Fair
Swimmers need a coach: Phelps' coach: "I can't make him do it"
Don’t get me wrong, I know coaches aren’t magical creatures and I know that not all coaches are helpful (in fact, there’s a great example of a really bad coach in the film). But a decent coach/mentor/guide can help you see things that you don’t and help you focus on things you wouldn’t think to focus on. (i.e., We can be blind to our own flaws. Check out this lemon juice bank robber article about not seeing our own blind spots: https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/.
So, two of the best things I’ve learned later in life which I wish I had learned in my teenage years and that I invite you to try are:
- Invest in yourself. Invest time and money into the topic you want to improve in. If you’re not willing to, why would anyone else be willing to? I didn’t get a real camera until I was 35 years old. My wife saw my passion and saved up for months and surprised me (that’s a story all on its own). Before that camera I would borrow cameras from friends and the library or use my phone. I was stingy with my money when it came to spending it on myself if something wasn’t a need. That is something I deeply regret.
- Find a coach/mentor/guide. Find someone who knows even just a little bit more than you about a topic you’re interested in and learn from them. Find someone. Ask around. Don’t go it alone. Can you go it alone? Yep. Totally. Absolutely. You can be the fastest or most determined dog paddler in the world. But you could be more.
Nothing magical here. Just the end.
