Did you know?
For over a decade, I’ve worked primarily with young men—as a counselor, coach, and consultant—helping them navigate pressure, find purpose, and build meaning.
I recently joined therapist Brittani Procknow on the How to Relate podcast to talk about these exact themes. You can check out both episodes here:
Episode 1: What's Happening with You Men?
Episode 2: Understanding Men: Pressure, Purpose & Potential
Ok...onto this week's OPB...
Beginners, Pros, and Why You Should Start Over
I’ve been a therapist for about as long as I have played soccer competitively. To be clear, I wasn’t anything special on the field, but the sport has always been one of my favorites and I’ve long felt connected to it.
When Quinnipiac University was seeking an Assistant Head Coach to join their men’s soccer team, I was instantly intrigued by the possibility of getting back involved with the sport I loved. When I went to apply, I updated my CV only to grow increasingly dismayed by what I saw listed as experiences. I had spent the last decade shaping my career as a therapist and c-suite executive – not a soccer coach.
The inevitable happened and my application was passed on. However, fortunes turned, and an opportunity to coach the freshman boys soccer team at Fairfield Preparatory High School was presented to me. I was ecstatic and eager to prove myself as a competent coach for these young men.
Turns out passion isn’t a substitute for skill – shocker, I know. There was a steep learning curve, plenty of anxiety, nerves, and desire to fit in with the program that had taken a chance with me as coach. The juxtaposition between my day job and my coaching job was stark – precisely the kind of juxtaposition that humbled me into being a beginner again, and the subject of this week’s focus – why starting from scratch is important fuel for high performance.
Alex Rodriguez
Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) stirred up quite the buzz when the New York Yankees were able to sign him as part of a trade deal in 2004, beating out several weeks of back and forth that Rodiquez had also had with longtime Yankee rivals, the Boston Red Sox. Besides the massive contract and the notable contention between rivals, Rodriguez was making a monumental career switch of positions as well. At the time, New York Yankee Hall of Famer, Derek Jeter, was occupying Rodriguez’s usual position at shortstop. The trade required Rodriguez to learn a new position – start as a beginner of sorts – and move to third base.
What did A-Rod go on to do at third base? He was selected to his 8th All-Star game and would go onto not only win a title in 2009, but signed a record-breaking contract deal in 2007 that would seal him up at third base for the Yankees for 10 years at $275 million dollars.
Of course we all don’t really know exactly what went on for A-Rod to prepare for this kind of transition, but by changing his position he most certainly came in with a renewed sense of focus and intention. Becoming a beginner can have that effect. You learn pretty quickly not to take things for granted, pay close attention to the fundamentals again, and as a result, strengthen your all around game.
The Elon Musk Roller Coaster
Elon Musk is a controversial figure. That’s not the reason to bring him up this week. Rather, it’s to highlight his doggedness in building successful companies. Between 1999 and 2002 Musk founded what would go on to become PayPal, the payment platform that many of us use to this day. PayPall was sold to eBay in 2002 yielding Musk a strong $180 million plus dollar pay out. For most, this would be enough to bow out and retire, permanently providing your family financial security for generations. Not for Musk. Musk then went on to leverage over $100 million dollars of his own money to build SpaceX and Tesla. From 2002 to 2008, those companies faced failure after failure, and financial constraint after financial constraint. And yet, Musk remained steadfast in his audacious goal setting.
The point here is that Musk bounced from a $180 million dollar high after selling a payment software company and started fresh—as a beginner—by building a rocket company. Then, again nearly from scratch, he began building an electric car company.
There’s a throughline in understanding this rollercoaster that can apply to how we think about growth in high performance. Even when we reach our goals, the thrill of learning, building, and seeking something new often proves more fulfilling than the success itself. While we may not be launching rockets, we can learn from Musk’s audacity to start fresh and borrow from his play book, if even just a little bit.
Starting from the beginning on something new (and big) gets you to think outside the box. It forces you to think about first principles – what are the absolute essential things that are required for success. It puts pressure on you to not take things for granted. To remain disciplined and intentional. To keep pushing forward in an effort to achieve success.
How Past Skills Strengthen Future Roles
If you’re successful at something, it might benefit you to think about endeavoring to try something you’re a beginner at. As we’ve seen, by voluntarily attempting to start at the beginning allows us all to tie in our prior experiences to augment the current experience into something even better than if we had only had single source expertise on the matter – let’s apply this to the examples above:
- While I’m not the best technical soccer coach, I’m probably a better soccer coach as a result of being a therapist; my view on players is more well rounded than singly focused on soccer.
- A-Rod is probably a better third baseman as a result of playing shortstop, than if he had just focused on playing at third base. By mixing in elements from his experiences at shortstop, he was able to strengthen his capacity at a new position.
- Musk was able to take on the challenge of building out Tesla as a result of his prior experiences building big companies at scale. He undoubtedly applied the prior lessons learned towards the building of SpaceX and Tesla.
To Do’s
Perhaps easier said than done, but this week I’d encourage you to step into something that you’re a beginner at and note the changes you experience by answering the following questions:
- Did you feel humbled or humiliated?
- What kind of growth or challenge did you face?
- What knowledge or skills were you able to bring into this new endeavor from your previous area of expertise?
- How might this inform future decisions you make as a high performer?
Thanks for reading as always.
Time to win the week 🏆
See you next week :)
– J
