Fitness Business School – Potential vs Performance

Full Transcript

Hey, Pat Rigsby here. And today, I want to talk with you about the difference between potential and performance. I think too many people overvalue potential and don’t focus on performance enough. So we’re going to talk about the difference and how you can set yourself up to succeed in this episode.

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Today’s topic, potential and performance. Something that I have given a great deal of thought to for basically the past 25 to 30 years. Because during my time as a college baseball coach, most people would get very, very excited about potential, right? It creates so much enthusiasm. People would see, Hey, this is what this person could be. This is the potential this athlete does have. Maybe they were fast. Maybe they were strong. Maybe they threw hard. You know, but there was that kind of innate talent, that raw ability that people would get so caught up in, but before long, during my time as a college coach, it became very obvious that, you know what, there, there was not always this linear connection between potential and performance people that might be undersized, or they didn’t throw as hard, or they didn’t have nearly as much athletic ability might make up for it because they just worked harder. They had better practice habits. They were, they were able to focus more. They handled adversity better. And you know, that really hung with me over time. And in fact, the, the program that, that I led at the college baseball level we ended out becoming a nationally competitive, a very successful program you know amongst the best small college programs in the Midwest. And it was almost all driven by actual performance. We didn’t have pitchers who could throw the ball exceptionally hard, but we had a lot of people who just, they, they won games. They competed, we had hitters who might be a little bit too short or might be a little too, or something like that, that they weren’t recruited by these bigger schools. But when they got on the field, they could play.

And, you know, I saw it again later on with my, my step son, Tyler. He he was kind of a late bloomer as an athlete and became a much better athlete about the time his athletic career was coming to a close. But when he was younger, you know, he was definitely not the, the hard thrower, the explosive athlete, but he just, he was effective because he did what he was asked to do. And he was very consistent and very methodical clockwork-like, if you will. And you know, those things kind of always come to mind because I I’ve seen it when, when I’ve moved into, you know, the private sector into the professional world over and over again, in fact, you know, talent and intelligence and, and, you know, raw ability whether it’s somebody being a really eloquent speaker or somebody who you know, you knew had a really high IQ or something like that.

Man, I’ve met so many of those people that, you know, in many ways, I guess we would call them underachievers. I don’t know if that’s accurate because you know, I don’t know what they’re supposed to achieve, but what it does tell me is those talents are only really valuable. If they’re applied their own, it’s like knowledge, it’s only valuable if applied otherwise it’s just this stored raw material that never derives its value. And you know, when we go into the workforce, I hear it from, from business owners all the time, they tell me what somebody could be. They say, well, this person has the potential to be A, B and C. You know, this person could be a good sales person. This person’s charismatic, this person, you know, they, they show flashes of brilliance, if you will. Well, employers may hire you for what you could be, but clients hire you for who you are, clients hire you for what you can do for them. They hire you for what you actually do.

So if you want to be a business owner, what you could be no longer matters. In fact, sometimes it can be an anchor because it’s easy to get discouraged when you don’t reach whatever you perceive your potential to be. And in all that matters is that you produce. And, you know, honestly, I’ve always kind of seen myself that way as a business owner. I’m not what I would consider tremendously creative writer, but I’ve sent a newsletter for 15 consecutive years, day by day without fail. And yeah, you know, plenty of people with a lot of talent don’t have that kind of consistency. You know, I’ve been here well to kind of just play to my strengths and stay the course and kind of be the proverbial tortoise versus the hare, right. And just keep punching the clock and winning each day one by one and you stack those up and it works out well. And as a business owner, I think what I’ve come to find is those traits are the most important ones.

If you want to be successful more than a high IQ, more than looking like the cover model on men’s health magazine, more than being incredibly charismatic, being consistent, having grit, being somebody who perseveres that matters any of those other things. And it also matters more than what certification somebody holds, what equipment they outfit their facility with, what their website looks like. Because, you know, I mean, ultimately business is about showing up day after day and doing the important things that drive you forward. And it’s so easy to lose focus and get distracted by the things that aren’t particularly important. Maybe they feel urgent, but they’re not, not important. And you know, you look go up and you’re like, you know, I only made progress towards my goals two days this week, whereas the person with the consistency and the perseverance may have made progress every day, this week, they may have followed up a little bit better each day, Hey, with prospects, they may have done just enough marketing to generate one or two new leads each day. They may have done just enough sales training to continually get better at closing the sales that are in front of them. They may have studied enough to continually get better at their craft so that their results keep improving over time. They did better with followup with current clients to make them feel appreciated and all those small incremental improvements that take patience and perseverance and consistency, and not just relying on showing up and saying, you know what, I’m going to wow. People today with my personality and my, my charisma, you know, those things are the building blocks of really 95% of the success stories that I’ve seen in the fitness business world. Sure. There, there has been that kind of in the pan type of thing or the people that can just ride one or two characteristics, and then they hire somebody to do all the consistency things.

But ultimately if you’re going to be an owner operator, if you’re going to be a small business owner, you have to let go of what you could be or what employees could be. And you have to focus on what you are going to be today, because performance is what we’re measured on. Really. You can’t, you know, you, you can’t take potential to the bank. You know, you can’t pay the bills with, with, with potential, just like you can’t win sporting events. You can’t win competitive games with potential. All that matters is what happens on the field or on the court or in our world within the four walls, the work that you actually do. So, you know, I know that’s not a tactical thing as much as we may talk about in some episodes of the podcast, but it’s every bit is important because there there’s so much opportunity out there, but the gap between most of us and the opportunity, the, that we desire that we see it. It’s not that, Hey, we don’t have enough intelligence or we don’t have the right certifications. It’s that we haven’t done the daily work long enough and well enough to be where we want to be. So my, my kind of parting words to you today are focused on what you do, not what you could do measure your day when each day with the Actions that are going to move you forward, not what you thought that they should have been.

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