Rest day.
Will Champlin
I don’t watch much TV. Well, because most of it is really dumb. And I’m pretty busy.
I really only watch one show. The Voice. Some of my FRCF Athletes are saying, “Oh jeeze, here we go again. What is it with Skip and this stupid show?”
Bear with me.
I love the show because the stars in the chairs aren’t judges. They are Coaches. Their job isn't to judge the performances, it's to develop the tools their singers need to succeed.
They pick their teams in the early rounds from the best singers that are available. Then they work with their teams to make each individual the best singer possible. It’s a really cool process. And it is one of the things that I love about Coaching in the Sport of CrossFit as well. Working with driven, focused athletes. Working with them to achieve their goals.
The Battles
In the early part of the shows, the Coaches pair up two of their artists and the singers compete head to head against one another. And then the Coach has to pick just one of the two to move on to the next round. At that point, one of the other 3 Coaches can “steal” the artist that was not chosen to move on. The vast majority of the artists that lose in the first two rounds are done. Off the show. Thank you for playing, but it’s time to go home.
Each Coach has 16 artists. There are four Coaches. So a total of 64 singers start the process.
As of this Tuesday, there are just 6 artists left.
Will
One of the six artists is named Will Champlin. He started out on Adam Levine’s team. In the very first round, he came up against another one of the six artists still remaining in the competition. And they both sang their asses off. And he lost. So he was done, right?
Nope. Christine Aguliera scooped him up. And he worked his ass off. He did everything he was supposed to do. He listened to her. He sang. He took all of the input she gave him and just did the work.
In the second round, he came up against another one of the artists still remaining in the competition. And they both sang their asses off. They both did an amazing job. And he lost. So he was done, right?
Nope. Adam stole him back.
He had been in two battles. And he lost both of them. And it would have been so easy for him to get discouraged. To get down on himself, get pissy and just stop trying so hard. What’s the point? He just wasn’t good enough. At this point, both of the times his Coaches had to make a selection, they had chosen someone else.
Attitude
But Will didn’t do that. The one thing that everyone in the competition has said about him is that he just flat out-works everyone. He is the first to get to the studio and he just practices and practices and practices.
Since his two “defeats” he has sung three more times. And every week, he has been one of the Voice artists that has sold enough downloads to crack the top 10 on the iTunes chart. He has been absolutely killing it. Everyone still in the competition is incredibly talented. In fact, I don’t think he is the best singer still in the comp. But man is he good. And he works and works and works.
He has an awesome attitude. He never gets down. Even when he gets beat. He just keeps working. And because of that, he has a chance to win the whole thing. To achieve what he set out to achieve.
You know I am going somewhere with this.
The Reason you should still be reading
That attitude is the one quality that an athlete needs to be successful in the Sport of CrossFit over the long haul. The ability to just keep your head high when you get beat. Because you are going to get beat. Or you don’t do as well as you think you should have. Or you get passed over in a selection.
The Sport of CrossFit demands so much from you as an athlete. You have to be so good at so many different things that it can be overwhelming. There is always something to work on, something to be better at, something to learn.
And it would be easy to let that bother you. To get down about that. To be negative about yourself. To be negative about where you are right then, and not look at where you are going to be. But that won’t work. Not long term. You have to embrace the fact that you are never going to be “good enough”. That there will always be something that you have to get better at. It’s the beauty of this thing that we do. This need for constant improvement.
The trick is to accept that fact and use it as a motivator. Not as an excuse to accept failure or something to be negative about. All that does is keep you from being your best. It keeps you from achieving all that you could.
I am lucky enough to work with some of the greatest people in the world. On a daily basis. Every day I get to work with the athletes of FRCF. For that I am profoundly grateful.
But we can all chose to get better at this.
The Point
We can all chose to be more like Will Champlin. Who never gets down and works his ass off every day. So that he can achieve his dream of winning the competition that he has chosen.
At FRCF, you have everything that you need to be successful in the Sport of CrossFit. The facilities, the coaching, the culture, the teammates and the support that you need.
Now, I have three questions for you.
What have you chosen to set as your goal?
What have you chosen to do today to achieve that goal?
And what is it about your attitude that holds you back?
Figure that out.
And you can achieve anything.
