Author of Do Hard Things: https://nitter.cf/t.co/pjojPvSirl Performance Coach: Mental & Physical Performance
Houston, TX
Joined December 2009
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Thrilled to announce my new book: Step Into the Arena!
It's for anyone who takes the risk to explore what they're capable of. It's about learning to compete, to handle the pressure, fear, doubts, and that voice in our head telling us to stop.
I can't wait for you to read it!
What does a high-performance environment look like?
Relentless work ethic, high expectations and standards, excellence, optimization, accountability?
Maybe...it's simpler: Fun.
How two elite teams emphasize "happiness" & being "joyfully deliberate": thegrowtheq.com/to-perform-b…
In 1992, current Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy found himself seated next to Muhammad Ali.
So he asked him: "Where did all the bragging come from? Were you always like that?"
Ali leaned over and said quietly:
"I was scared to death."
Three decades later, Murphy just led the Milwaukee Brewers to a World Series championship.
That Ali quote stuck with him, he realized:
"We all are (scared). Who we kidding. Fear is part of it. If you learn to use it like fire, it can do a lot of great things. If you don't, it can burn your house down."
Too often, we walk around with this idea that the best performers aren't scared. That they are relentless, alphas, who bulldoze through whatever they're feeling.
It's BS. The greatest of all time felt fear. We all do. The point is how do we navigate and channel it. Feeling fear and knowing what to do with it are different things.
For much of his early career he coached the other way entirely: hard, blunt, and, by his own account, driven by his focus on himself. He had real success with it, until he was forced to resign as a college coach in 2009.
Then he went through a litany of minor league jobs.
Along the way, with help from journaling and counseling he started to fundamentally change how he coached. One of the catalysts was becoming a parent.
"And I started thinking about it like, every kid I coach is somebody's Kai Joseph. You know what I mean? Every kid I coach, they have parents who love their kid the way I love my kid...
Wow, I've got to be a little mindful how I treat these guys."
He eventually landed on a different definition of success:
"This profession isn't about the wins and losses. This profession is about, how do I impact this person?"
You can see that switch in how he's guided the Brewers to become the best team in baseball. It was there when he didn't go to his closer in a save opportunity, as Trevor Megill said, "We’re not here for egos, we’re here to win a ring.”
It's there in his coaching philosophy for the team: He calls it love and discipline. In that order...not too dissimilar from how you parent...
The Brewers are the World Series Champions.
They did it with a closer who checked his ego, a first baseman nearly retired but returned for health insurance, and a manager who had to let go of the way that led him to early success and rebuild how he coached.
In the actual arena, performance is messy. It's not the cheap slogans we're sold online.
We're all afraid, even the greats. You have to figure out how to direct it. You have to care, but not so much that it feels life and death. You need discipline, but it's got to be founded on love.
And sometimes you need a 67 year old coach who was a tyrant, let go, and had to find a new path...to lead a small market team to the top of the MLB.
If you'd like to learn more about the science of fear and how to use it to your advantage, I cover it all in my forthcoming book: stevemagness.com/step-into-t…
Join me for a Live conversation starting soon (2pm ET) with former NFL star Malcolm Jenkins as we explore performance on the biggest stage: open.substack.com/live-strea…
Endurance is relative.
The endurance that a 400m runner needs is different than what a 10k runner requires. They both require endurance, but how they get there and what counts as “endurance” is different.
Steve Magness retweeted
Thrilled to announce my new book: Step Into the Arena!
It's for anyone who takes the risk to explore what they're capable of. It's about learning to compete, to handle the pressure, fear, doubts, and that voice in our head telling us to stop.
I can't wait for you to read it!
This is it. It's this inner drive, it stops feeling like work, and you just want to do it.
When I was a teen phenom, my parents would beg me to take a day off. It's the same with the greats I've worked with, they just want to be out there.
There's no one "pushing" them.
Steve Magness retweeted
All XC and track coaches should follow @stevensgness ! And of course, check out his book!
If you pre-order, you get some crazy bonuses:
-4 hour video course The Complete Competitor
-Workout Training Guide
-The Complete Coach’s Playbook
-Mental Performance Handbook
stevemagness.com/train-to-ra…
It's fascinating to see what people think is "fast"
The guy down the street thinks sub 3 hour marathon is elite
The recreational runner thinks sub 2:30 is elite.
The former college runner thinks everyone slower than 2:20 is recreational.
It's all relative.
I'm a big believer in meeting people where they are at.
I've decided to up my Instagram game. The goal is to share actionable, evidence-based advice on performance & well-being.
Check it out: instagram.com/stevemagness?i… instagram.com/stevemagness/
Steve Magness retweeted
It's a book to teach you how to be a complete competitor, to navigate the moments that test us.
In a curated and filtered world, stepping into the arena and doing something challenging that is real is even more important.
Pre-order today: stevemagness.com/step-into-t…
When I was in HS I used to eat a full dinner—steak, chocolate milk, you name it—and then head right out the door for 9 miles at 6min pace
It sucked for a week, then your body adapted & it was normal
The lesson: We can make the overwhelming feel routine
thegrowtheq.com/make-the-ove…
It's a book to teach you how to be a complete competitor, to navigate the moments that test us.
In a curated and filtered world, stepping into the arena and doing something challenging that is real is even more important.
Pre-order today: stevemagness.com/step-into-t…
The driven romanticize the grind.
In sport, we mythologize the athlete who is all consumed by the quest to reach the top.
You don’t have to be crazy all the time and neglect everything else in our lives to reach the top. There's a fine line between drive and obsession.
Steve Magness retweeted
To go along with the video created a FREE 31 page guide to lactate threshold training. Get it here: thegrowtheq.kit.com/5908852d…
New video: Improving Lactate Threshold.
There isn't one magic way or workout to improve threshold. You need to move up and down the curve, with each spot having benefits and drawbacks.
I walk you through it all: youtube.com/watch?v=3oiuUrlP…
To go along with the video created a FREE 31 page guide to lactate threshold training. Get it here: thegrowtheq.kit.com/5908852d…
New video: Improving Lactate Threshold.
There isn't one magic way or workout to improve threshold. You need to move up and down the curve, with each spot having benefits and drawbacks.
I walk you through it all: youtube.com/watch?v=3oiuUrlP…
Frank Gagliano was a college quarterback.
After his career, he was hired to start a football team at a high school. While waiting, he coached track. They never started the football team.
Gags went on to become one of the greatest American distance coaches in history: 15 Olympians, 140 All-Americans, 43 sub-4 milers.
He passed away this week.
We often think that you've got to have done it or experienced it to coach it. Gags was never a runner. He just wanted to coach, the true essence of the word, helping people out.
“I don’t have golf clubs. I have a stopwatch." And like the best 'old school' coaches, he'd help whoever showed up.
I was a former high school phenom, struggling in college. Then I got a call from an unknown number.
"Steve. We've never met. It's Gags with the Farm Team. I just wanted you to know that you're great. Talent doesn't go away. Stick with it. You've got people who believe in you. If I can ever help, let me know."
He called a struggling 19-year-old out of nowhere, while running the best professional team in the country.
In an era where training got really complicated, Gags kept it simple. His philosophy was strength + speed, consistently for a long freaking time.
“Everyone has to be patient in development. Everyone has to enjoy the sport, have a lot of fun, and work really hard.”
More than the workouts, his real secret was the one every great coach shares. Relationships. His son Ralph put it best:
“As a track coach, you have very large teams, many participants, and he carried over the years very special relationships — not only with the great ones, but even with the ordinary athlete.”
He was still coaching into his late 80s.
“As long as my mind is in the sport for workouts, so I don’t deprive the men and women that I’m coaching, I’ll keep coaching.”
And this summer, at 89, when they named a national championship race after him, “I’m not a cocky man. I’m the guy that just coaches, and the athletes mean everything to me, everything.”
He was a coach’s coach. Someone who lost his first meet 112 to 15, and then went on to become an all-time great...despite never having run.
Because the point was to help people....even those he didn't coach.
RIP Gags.
What happens when we live in a world where so much of the information flow is designed to make us feel afraid and threatened?
A deep dive into the psychology of fear on a societal level. This one is important:
stevemagness.org/p/a-world-d…
