Avoiding 'More'

I participated in a coffee ride this morning with some very strong and friendly cyclists. All but one of them were new friends, or friends of those friends. During the ride, conversation sometimes turned to coaching as we got to know each other, and my love for it.

Coaching any one of them would be a privilege. With that in mind, I noticed I was having a hard time balancing “being one of the guys” versus automatically assuming the posture of a coach to demonstrate my value. In my eyes, that coaching posture translates to automatically taking a leadership position within the group. Or riding from the proverbial front of the peloton and taking extended pulls — metaphorically speaking. In more literal terms, that’s someone who can speak with authority on all manners of triathlon training and racing.

Why? When people know you’re a coach, I imagine them putting an expectation on that anyways. Or maybe it’s my own expectation. Maybe it’s my own insecurity with wondering if someone I’ve just met thinks I’m worthy of being a coach.

At the same time, nobody likes a know-it-all. Certainly not me — because I emphatically do NOT know it all!

So how do you reconcile those two warring factions within?

This morning, I chose to (as best I could) rely upon how I would want to be treated by somebody I had just met who happened to be a coach. Or put another way, how would I want to be treated if someone whom I just met happened to be a car salesman and found out I was looking to buy a car in a month or two?

What a turn-off it would be, I thought, if I felt that car salesman I just met during a bike ride “smelled blood” and tried to sell me a car on the spot. After five minutes of chit-chat.

Yuck. That sale is never gonna happen.

Thinking on it more tonight, part of becoming comfortable with your identity is to just be yourself — even when a profound desire to be “more” tries to interfere.

Like overcooking the bike and fading on the run, that “more” early on can become far less later.