putting yourself on the professional hook 🪝

"It's time to get comfortable being uncomfortable, gentlemen."
-my high school basketball coach making our team run till we puke

Last Saturday, I spent the day teaching clinicians my "Simple Approach to Running Injuries" at APTA Headquarters in Washington, D.C as part of The Marine Core Marathon.

It was a great experience in a beautiful setting, and I hope the attendees found it worth their time.

But I don’t really want to talk about last weekend.
I want to discuss my decision six months prior to agree to teach a one-day course.

You need to take some big swings

Success in any domain requires consistent, boring progress over a significant period.

Clinical, athletic, and artistic mastery comes from putting yourself in positions that are slightly outside your comfort zone in order to adapt.

Last spring, I got an email asking if I'd give a 6-hour talk about whatever I wanted.

My brain immediately said,
"Nathan, you need to try something new."

I’ve spent most of the last decade learning and sharing how I approach bone stress injuries and resistance training.

I've got a tight slide deck.
I know when to lean in with a joke, or some sarcasm, or reference an obscure song lyric from my high school years.

I could have put together course covering the topics I already have, but man, the universe was telling me to do something different.

The idea of creating six hours of new content was intimidating, but I knew I would be a better clinician and educator on the other side of the weekend.

So I scrapped my notes and started over.
I reread the key papers on running, runners, and working with difficult personalities.
I thought up new individual and group activities.
We ran through new assessments and odd exercises.
And by the end of the talk, I think the participants got something out of our time together.

Figure out how you do it

It's too easy to follow the path you see others take instead of forging your own.

You only grow by trying things that make you slightly uncomfortable.
This is no different than how your cells respond to exercise.

That’s why I talk so often about not just following what every website, social post, and piece of content does to chase engagement.

The body senses a new, stressful environment and forces itself to adapt.

What are you scared to try?
Scared to say “yes” to?
Worried it might not work?
Anxious it'll be uncomfortable?

Because when the annoying voice in my head says
"Nathan, you need to try this", I know it's only gonna get louder the longer I wait.

We only get so much time to work.
So many years are mind is sharp.
So many foot strikes your legs can take.

So while you can, you should take some big swings.