This is Day 20 in my 30-day blogging journey.
If you’d like to know why I’m doing this, check out Day 1.
Last week, I got to write about our Coach Mike Roder.
Today, I’d like to tell you about Coach David Cameron.
It’s difficult for me to express David’s evolution as a coach without also admitting my misstep as the person who hired him.
In full candor, I was not sure David was going to fit in on our staff.
I like to believe I’m an easy person to work for. I don’t lead with an iron fist and I try to lead by example.
That being said, the way this business operates probably runs counter to the way other businesses might.
We work unusual hours and the job can be physically demanding.
On any given day, we service 30-40 clients on average, all of whom have different goals, different personal histories with exercise and often different injuries to work around.
All of our clients have their own individualized programs written for them.
The coaches are here to make sure that everyone is where they need to be with the equipment they need to perform their exercise(s) and to be available to spot if it’s a demanding lift.
As you might imagine, every person brings a new dynamic to the training block and to the day.
We’re here to try and give the best experience we can to those sessions. It’s an upbeat environment with low intimidation and we’ve always been an “all inclusive” training studio.
But David was somewhat reserved when he started. Some things he grasped quickly and some things he seemed hesitant about.
I have always tried to lean on the assumption that if my staff isn’t performing at the level I want them to be at, then the fault is on my shoulders.
I even asked Coach Mike to oversee some of David’s work. Perhaps it was just my style of supervision that David wasn’t thriving under. I knew that Mike would be honest with me if he saw opportunities that I may have been missing.
Little by little, David’s work began to take shape.
I believe he just needed time to get comfortable with the operations of the studio.
With the benefits of hindsight, I realize that I just wasn’t giving him the space to shine on his own merit.
When David and I first started talking about opportunities here, he expressed his intentions of taking his lifelong love of martial arts and opening a dojo of his own at some point.
That opportunity presented itself shortly after he started working at RevFit.
In 2021, David officially opened Blue Wolf Martial Arts at the same plaza where RevFit is located.
What’s been fascinating to watch, is not only David’s growth as a coach here but also how he is evolving as a business owner.
Like Mike, I’ve worked with David long enough now to see him also get married.
David and I spend a fair amount of time talking about all sorts of things related to business, human behavior and even our own growth as individuals. Some of those conversations stretch much longer in duration than I think either of us anticipated.
I appreciate that while we may not necessarily agree on the same points and across the same topics, we have enough respect for each other to listen, to consider and to absorb.
David, like myself, is a student. He has things he wants to improve on, both personally and professionally and he’s constantly searching for answers to the questions he feels stuck on.
He’s embraced the community here and I frequently get positive feedback on the way that he programs training cycles for our clients.
It’s always been my hope that when I bring coaches on staff, it’s not just to have a warm body on the floor. It’s to have people who not only have the desire to grow and learn but also, to have coaches I can learn from as well.
David makes me stretch a lot of the ways I think about training or nutrition or even how I coach these things to others.
Maybe all of the philosophizing is having a positive effect.
When I look at how far David’s come in nearly 3 years of working together, he’s just as much a part of our team as I could hope.
Which is why I have to fall on my own sword in acknowledging that I almost cut the time short.
That would have been not only unfair to David, but unfair to our clients as well.
If there’s a lesson here for other business owners/managers, it’s to make sure your staff not only has the tools to succeed but the space to succeed as well. Let them have room to grow.
And to David, thank you for continuing to grow.
I’m not just proud of you for opening up your own brick and mortar business, I’m proud of you for taking each little step forward in your life to be the best man you can be to yourself, to your wife, to your family and to RevFit.
If you’re close to Stow, check out David’s dojo HERE.
