Around a year ago, somebody asked me how I continue to get ideas for new things to write about. I’ve been writing articles about weightlifting, coaching, strength training, and the life of the athlete for over 10 years now. The last eight of those years have been with Catalyst Athletics. Between the articles I write for this magazine and the free articles I put up on the Catalyst website, I think my total number is somewhere around 220 right now.
 
How do I keep thinking of new things to write about? Well, here’s how I think it happens... I’ve been a competitive weightlifter and coach for the last 28 years. Because of this, I spend a lot of time thinking about the things other athletes and coaches think about. In other words, I’ve got the same things on my mind that you’ve all got on your minds. That creates a situation where there’s a common set of ideas, concerns, fears, questions, and challenges we’re all dealing with. I write about these things, and then you all read the articles and say to yourselves, “Yes! I’ve been thinking about this exact same thing!” I read comments that sound like this when my articles get posted on Facebook.
 
To make a long story short, I’m dealing with the same stuff you’re all dealing with. And because I’ve never quit the sport or stopped lifting, I’ve simply continued to deal with all of it. Fortunately, there are places where I can write about the things I have to deal with, and you all receive the benefit of knowing you’re not alone as you fight your way through this sport.
 
Because I know all of this is true, it’s easy for me to sit down and just start hammering out my thoughts on a computer. I don’t have to worry about whether anybody is going to care about what I write. I know you’re going to care, because I know what’s going on in your lives. I don’t know any specific personal details about you, but I know you’re athletes and coaches. That gives me a way to understand you, because you’re the same as me in many ways.
 
That’s why I want to write something this month about taking risks. When I look back on my life in weightlifting, and even when I think about my future in the sport, I’m completely positive that my career has been shaped by the times when I was willing to take some pretty big chances. These were situations where there was a lot of uncertainty involved in my life, and I didn’t have any guarantees that anything was going to work out okay if I rolled the dice and took the risks that were in front of me. There was potential to lose something, to suffer some pretty scary results if the chances I took didn’t pan out the way I wanted them to. But there was also potential for something great to happen, some kind of positive change that would make my life better. In many of these situations, I’ve simply decided to step forward into the risk and go for it.
 
There have been a few times when this approach didn’t work out, and I paid the price for it. But the vast majority of the time, I’ve been fortunate. The chances I took turned out to be the decisions that led to the best moments of my life. And that brings me to you.
 
Because I know what this sport is like…what this life we’ve chosen is like…I know many of you are dealing with this. Maybe you’ve got something huge in front of you right now. Maybe you’re currently enjoying the rewards of a gamble that paid off, or maybe you’re dealing with the fallout of something that backfired. Maybe there’s something down the road that you’re not dealing with right now, but you know it’s coming. Regardless of your personal situation, I feel good about the idea of putting some thoughts down on paper that might help you. I definitely needed somebody to listen, give me advice, and help me out when I was getting ready to take these plunges of my life. Hopefully this article will serve that same purpose for you.
 
Driving somewhere you’ve never been…
 
Let me give you an example of a big life risk. When I was 20 years old, I was living in Arizona and going to college. I had a pretty terrific life situation at the time, too. I had a job working as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the university I went to, which was a huge opportunity. This job paid for my tuition, and the rest of my school expenses were covered by academic scholarships, so college was free. And I knew I wanted to go into strength coaching as a career, so getting the opportunity to work through college as a paid coach was an invaluable experience. On top of that, I loved the school and the area I was in. I had a girlfriend, my family was only two hours away in case I ever got in a jam, etc. In most ways, it was a perfect set-up.
 
The problem was weightlifting. My training had been stuck in a horrible rut for over a year, and my relationship with my coach had completely disintegrated into dysfunction. My career was going nowhere, even though I knew I had the talent to be a big player on the national level. Other guys my age were pulling way ahead of me, and it was like acid in my mouth.
 
So…there was a coach in Washington named John Thrush, who ran the Calpian weightlifting program, which was one of the most successful teams in the United States. John was generally regarded as one of the best coaches in the country, and he had noticed me at national meets in the previous two years. He never openly recruited me or crossed any lines, but he knew I was frustrated with my lifting situation and he made it clear I had an invitation to come up to Washington and train with him if I wanted to.
 
I made the decision to do it. And you have to understand the circumstances of this decision. I had never been to Washington in my life. I didn’t know exactly where I was going to live, how I was going to pay for myself, where (or if) I was going to be able to finish my college education, etc. I was literally loading everything I owned into my car and driving out into the great wide open. All I knew was I had the chance to be a great weightlifter, and that was enough to make me walk away from a very solid life for…an uncertain future.
 
How did it work out? It was incredible. I lived in Washington for 12 years, rose to the top of the national scene as a weightlifter and eventually competed in the Olympic Trials, finished my college degree, got my first teaching job and worked for the first 7 years of my career in a job I loved, built some of the greatest relationships I’ve ever had, and basically just enjoyed the living hell out of that time of my life.
 
This risk paid off, and let me say a few things about it. First of all, it was a relatively safe risk. Before I moved up there, I knew I would be able to come back home and go back to school if the Washington thing didn’t work out. I probably wouldn’t have been able to get my strength coach job back, but it’s not like I would have been living in the streets. So even though I was rolling the dice, I knew I would be okay if it didn’t pan out. I think this is a really important step in taking risks. You have to ask yourself, “What’s the worst possible scenario that could happen if this thing backfires on me? What are the consequences I could suffer? And can I live with those consequences if they happen?”
 
If the answers to all those questions are manageable for you, then the risk is stable enough to consider. Sure, you’re taking a chance that your life might get rocky if the plan implodes, but you’ve got a pretty solid guarantee that you’ll still land on your feet.
 
The scary risks are the ones where you know you’re literally sticking your neck out. There’s legitimate danger involved. That danger might be to your physical health (or your life), your career, your reputation, or worst of all…hurting other people. I think that’s an enormous factor to consider. If my Washington move would have failed, the only one who would have suffered the consequences would have been me. Nobody else was going to get hurt in that situation. If you’re considering a risk that has the potential to hurt somebody else, that’s a horse of a different color.
 
Does it mean you shouldn’t take risks in your life, just to save the feelings of other people? No, I don’t think it means that at all. Of course we all want to do right by others. Unless you’re a scumbag, you don’t want to hurt anybody. However, there are definitely situations where you have to take an honest look at what’s best for your own life, and your future. If you’re planning to shy away from taking chances because you don’t want anybody else to take any lumps, and you know you’ll be passing up on a potentially great thing, then you’re living in fear. And I think it’s fairly certain that you’ll eventually deal with some regret down the road. You’ll always look back and ask yourself, “What if I would have gone for it? What would have happened?”
 
I’ve never been too interested in the idea of getting to be 75 years old, sitting in a rocking chair and asking myself a bunch of questions like that. I don’t want to spend the second half of my life wishing I would have had the balls to try something during the first half. We’re only getting one shot at this thing…life. Know what I mean?
 
The risks we all have to take…
 
And that brings us to the eternal question, “How does all of this apply to weightlifting?” I think we need to categorize some of the risks that go along with this sport we’ve chosen to dedicate our lives to.
 
Physical
I’m not going to lie to you and tell you there’s no risk of physical harm when you decide to become a weightlifter. In any sport where you’re pushing the absolute limits of your body’s capability and tolerance, you’re running a risk that you can get hurt. None of us have any guarantees. Obviously you’ve learned by now that weightlifting has a lower injury rate than most sports, and you’ll most likely be okay if you train sensibly. But there’s always a chance something bad can happen. You just have to settle up with it in your mind before you get started.
 
Fear of failure
I have to admit…I don’t totally get this one. None of us want to fail. I sure as hell don’t. But I’ve never let it stop me from trying. I think that’s the magic secret. When you fail at something, you worry that people are going to judge you, right? They’re gonna laugh at you or think you’re a loser? That’s what you think? Well…you’re wrong. People respect the ones who get in the ring and try, you know? Think about watching a boxing match. One fighter wins and the other one loses, but you wind up respecting both of them. Have you ever noticed that? The only ones you don’t respect are the ones who duck fights like cowards and refuse to step in the ring at all. Believe me folks, people are still going to hold you in esteem, even if you don’t achieve victory. People know when you’re showing the courage to make an attempt at something.
 
Life risks
That story I told you about my life was from when I was 20 years old. It’s easy to risk things at that age, isn’t it? We’re young, and we’ve basically got nothing to lose. It’s a hell of a lot different when you’re older, and there are real things in your life you don’t want to lose…like jobs, marriages, and homes. Are those things serious enough to make you avoid certain risks, or maybe just reconsider and hold off for a while? Absolutely. I would never encourage anybody to roll the dice with their entire lives.
 
Unless it’s the right thing to do… Listen, I don’t know anything about you. But I’m an intelligent man who’s been around the block in life and known a lot of people and their situations. And if there’s one thing I’m positive of, it’s this: just about everybody who’s an adult has some kind of uncertain situation in their lives where they’re considering taking some kind of chance. I think it’s part of life when you get older. You have options, possibilities, offers, or maybe just big things in your mind that you can’t stop thinking about. If you decide to pursue these things, you know you’ll have to venture out into the great wide open and maybe risk something huge. Maybe everything.
 
This is where you ask yourself a very simple question. “How will I feel if I DON’T take this chance?” Seriously, what will your life be like if you decide to pass this thing up and let it drift by you? It might be a situation where you know you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you pull back and walk away. If that’s the case, you almost don’t have a choice. Living in fear and regret isn’t what any of us want. You’ve decided to go into weightlifting, which means there’s a fire burning in your heart. Nobody jumps into this sport without having that fire. And if that’s the kind of person you are, your instinct is to listen to your heart when it talks to you.
 
What does this all mean? I guess it means we need to ask ourselves if the fear of passing something up is worse than the misery we’ll feel if we know it might have turned out to be something amazing. We can apply this to career moves, relationship decisions, competing, training, and even just how hard we commit to jumping under those snatches and sticking them over our ears every day. We might not make those snatches, you know? But we have to try them. Life won’t be any fun if we don’t.