The following is an excerpt from page 17 of “Winning Words: Speaking Life to Influence Others” by Ross Hjelseth:
Almost all training includes at least two people: the person being trained, and the person doing the training. The goal of the trainer is not only to teach skills but also to elevate the performance of the trainee.
We have access to unlimited real-life and dramatized experiences via television, the internet, and social media, giving us the opportunity to observe the performance outcomes of countless athletes, musicians, actors, and speakers. What we often don’t see, however, are the hours and sometimes years of training that led to the particular outcome on display, and we seldom know who the trainers were. For example, you might turn on your television or device and see an accomplished musician deliver a beautiful performance of a powerful classic, and your reaction might be, “Wow, what talent!” But you are seldom provided with any background on what type of training the musician received, how much, and from whom.
It is a recognized fact that few people achieve significant success alone. Interview any accomplished athlete, musician, or artist, and I guarantee his or her story includes at least a handful of coaches, teachers, or trainers who helped develop their ability or facilitate opportunities for their success. Most success depends, at least in part, on the expertise of trainers who helped to refine the performance to its highest potential. Fulton Buntain, the senior pastor at Life Center in Tacoma, used to say, “If you see a turtle on a fence post, he didn’t get there by himself.”
The following is an excerpt and real-life example from pages 23-25 of “Winning Words: Speaking Life to Influence Others” by Ross Hjelseth
Practice With Purpose
Another Life Christian Academy graduate who has exemplified achievement through rigorous training, first as a student and now as an alumnus, is Amy Frederick Palmquist. Amy began participating in athletics as a middle school student. As a high schooler, she worked hard to develop her abilities as an athlete. She became an excellent volleyball player and also competed in basketball and softball. By her senior year, Amy had become an accomplished multisport athlete and received several commendations, including being named the Pierce County Female High School Athlete of the Year in 2002. She was the first in the region from a relatively small school to win this prestigious award sponsored by the Tacoma Athletic Commission.
One of Amy’s first coaches was Chuck Carone, a physical education teacher and longtime volleyball coach at LCA. Chuck’s recollection of Amy as a middle-school and high-school athlete includes adjectives such as humble, focused, determined, and team-oriented. Amy was a pleasure to coach because of her determination to train, practice, and lead by example. She was a real asset to the teams on which she played.
Following her graduation from LCA, Amy attended St. Martin’s University, where she continued her physical training regimen while also competing in athletics. She sought opportunities to pursue her passion—physical training and fitness—with increased focus. Realizing she wanted to build a career as the owner of an exercise and fitness facility, Amy left St. Martin’s University to pursue a degree in exercise science and nutrition at Eastern Washington University.
Upon attaining her bachelor’s degree, Amy accepted a position as a fitness instructor and coach at a fifty-five-and-over community fitness facility, where she began crafting her training for others. She also continued to train personally with great discipline and focus on nutrition. Four years later, Amy was ready to open her own facility. Located in Lacey, Washington, Transformation Fitness (transformationpt.com) now serves approximately three hundred clients each week. Amy is also sponsored by Nutrishop USA, whose wellness products she represents.
When I spoke with Amy recently, she said that her high school peers had believed in her and that she, in turn, had believed what they said to her. Over time, she became a self-motivated person who recognized that training and nutrition were key to her future success. I have heard many friends and fellow alumni speak with high regard for Amy’s achievement of an exceptional level of fitness, a direct result of her disciplined training for years, dating back to her high school experience.
Leveraging her personal passion, Amy has created a culture at Transformation Fitness that challenges athletes and other people to think differently about themselves and take action to become who they want to be. Part of this is helping clients to recognize what they are not doing on their own and to remove any obstacles holding them back. Amy teaches her team to help clients come to believe that they can establish new behaviors and then take action to make it happen. As early as their first appointment, clients implement one or two fundamental changes that quickly begin delivering results. Amy’s team then works alongside to help build on that first step and the next. The mission of Transformation Fitness is “transforming lives from the inside out”—an honorable endeavor on many levels!
Chuck Carone went on to become a corporate fitness coach for employees at Intuit, a large San Diego–based corporation with its own fitness facility on the campus. Chuck was hired to develop and implement physical training and wellness programs that would help employees sustain their efforts and teams in the workplace. When I spoke with Chuck about training, he preferred to refer to his role as coaching. His job, as he perceived it, was to coach Intuit employees in fitness and wellness. To achieve success, Chuck said, employees needed to cultivate (1) belief in the system, (2) belief in themselves, and (3) belief in their coach. In his experience, the employees, representing a variety of ages, really wanted to be coached. They would then transfer the coaching they received to the teams they were part of Monday through Friday in the corporate challenge.
I believe Chuck’s passion for fitness and wellness, beginning with his teaching at Life Christian Academy, led to his subsequent work in the corporate employee fitness arena. In both environments, the same principles of training with discipline and instruction accomplished the desired outcome of helping people improve performance and achieve greater success on multiple levels.
