What You Can’t Teach.

I recently had a training consultation with an enthusiastic young fellow looking to gain 10-15 lbs of muscular weight.  He’s strong.  He works hard.  And he was already getting great results, although I’m sure he’ll be in for even greater gains this year.

Truth be told, he’d have been successful in his task regardless of whether or not he ever met me, because he possesses two things that are instrumental to achieving any goal, fitness or otherwise: What Napoleon Hill would call a “burning desire” to achieve his goal; and a genuine interest in the process of achieving his goal.  The latter insures you find the knowledge you need to achieve your goal; the former, the drive to do so.

There’s plenty of ways to attain know-how you don’t currently possess – open a book, search the web, ask a trainer unhealthily obsessed with the lifting of heavy things – but there’s no way to teach someone how to want it.  I’m afraid that’s something you have to bring to the table.

You can teach a man how to fish.  But you can’t teach him the hunger that drives him to fish, nor can you teach him to be obsessed about tying the perfect bimini twist.