An Open Letter to a Level 1 Coach
Dear Level 1 Coach,
I left a coaching job in 2020 to take another one and then the world went crazy and the team took a year off. I was outside of coaching looking in. I thought being a tier 3 AC and HC were the bottom, turns out being outside of the game is lower.
“Start a blog.” Smart people encouraged.
“Put your thoughts out there and attract your people to you.” They also said.
So I did. And if you’re reading this and don’t have a blog as a young coach, create a Substack account right now friend. It’s the best thing you can do for you.
Disclaimer: It hasn’t netted me a job in 4 years, but it is still the best thing you can do for yourself. Dear reader, you’re probably chasing the status of the next job, but if you sit privately with your thoughts, you’ll find something out about yourself… You’re chasing yourself.
When you start writing, do me a favor, send it to people you admire in your field. But know the Level 1 reality:
This will frustrate you until you read this letter. Catch this next part, it will get you into a critical level for growth and development. And unlike Han Solo, you’ll be happier when you know the odds about people. Lean in.
4 out of every 1000 people you meet have done enough work on themselves to actually care about you. 540 is the level of unconditional love. People actually think about someone other than themselves consistently at this level. Love is a way of being up there. 4 out of every 100 might care about what you have to say depending on their mood that day.
But the great majority of folks you send your work to are too busy thinking about the person in the mirror to give a singular ounce of care for what you just sent them. They don’t respect the courage it took to share your work, they don’t respect the time it took to craft an intro message, they don’t care about you at all. The additional notification itself might burden some.
That’s okay, you win either way.
If they don’t respond, or if they say the famous words of, “I’ll take a look and get back”… and then they don’t, well, they aren’t your people.
This is your superpower. You get to see who people really are at the bottom.
You’re the waiter, the barista, the janitor.
Observe the people, and make note in your head of who ignored, ducked, or disrespected you. Don’t do this to hold future resentment, just observe how those people change as you move up the ‘ranks’. As your track jacket gets a cooler logo. A couple of rules of thumb for the great majority that isn’t the 4 of 1000 unicorns…
Most don’t care about ‘what is being said’, they care about who says it
Most don’t care about you unless they can gain from where you are
Most people won’t bet on you early and they’ll try and connect when it’s too late
Here’s an example of this:
This is the time in someone’s career that they’ll reach out to coaches and get ignored. This is also the time where nobody will reach out to them because they are ‘nobody’.
Instead of betting on them early and connecting to see what they know, they’ll wait until you’re ‘proven’ and by that time, they’ll rush into connect but it’ll be too late:
As a Level 1 Coach, you might already know this guy because he is a fellow Level 1 Coach. His name is Matt McIlvane. You can be just like him, keep the faith. Even if you have to Uber for 4 years without a professional coaching job from 2020-2024.
What you can’t do is stop posting.
What you can’t do is stop blogging.
What you can’t do is stop podcasting.
What you can’t do is go away.
You will find your Jeff Blashill.
You will find your Sam Hinkie. Excerpt from Surf the Wave:
You’ll find your Todd. You will find the person who will take an unreasonable bet on you.
There’s your 4/1000. Now only one has to open the gate for you.
My encouragement is thus… Be someone through your character and works that people want to open the door for.
Love,
Drew