I begin reading an About page on this platform and I'm getting physically ill as I'm doing it because a coach is taking credit for all of these players’ individual accomplishments. He's taking credit for team accomplishments and their success in the regular season and playoffs. He's taking credit for players on that team that have ended up in the NHL and Division 1 hockey. He's taking credit for everything. And to remind you, he had almost no role with just the title of coach.
What’s the lesson?
Okay, let me back up.
There was this kid that I DM'd a few years ago. He was coaching at a level that I was coaching at. Tier 3 junior hockey. And then he all of a sudden jumped to be an assistant coach in Tier 1 junior hockey.
So I was like, that's interesting… I'd love to connect with this kid. I'm trying to do similar things. I'd like to know what he did or how he did it.
So I reached out to him and he told me he was working for free. Living on the other paid assistant coach's couch and just trying to learn as much as he could and also kind of staying out of the way.
He wasn't given a major role, responsibility, or anything like that.
He was essentially just doing an unpaid internship with the professional title of assistant coach, which would help him out in the future.
Respect.
No shame in that game.
And then a few years later, I'm scrolling Substack, looking for some people in my community that have started Substack so I can support their work. And then I recognize a name from the past…
I came across this kid that I DMed…
So I clicked on the About page and I read it. What the public doesn't know is that he had an unpaid internship role, with a coaching title. A glorified puck pusher of sorts.
So if you don't know the kid, it looks like he coached and you could assume that he had normal, regular assistant coaching responsibilities.
But what I know is he didn't.
So I'm reading his About page and I'm getting physically ill as I'm doing it because he's taking credit for all of these players’ individual accomplishments.
He's taking credit for team accomplishments and their success in the regular season and playoffs.
He's taking credit for players on that team that have ended up in the NHL and Division 1 hockey.
He's taking credit for everything.
And to remind you, he had almost no role with just the title of coach.
What’s the lesson?
Deception by handing yourself a false credibility stamp can ‘work’. You can make money because…
The people who are now paying him money to read his Substack don't know that he faked his stamp.
The people who are paying him to do one-on-one coaching and fund his service-based business don't know that.
But I do.
And I'm not going to roll him.
Because make your bag. To each their own.
I believe in divine justice for the deception game he is running.
See deception calibrates below the critical level of 200. It’s falsehood. Illusion. Hawkins has this to say about it when asked, “What perpetuates the illusions of the world?”:
The pleasure of profit, power, prestige, and money of the charismatic, politically savvy game players who have learned how to manipulate the egos of the populace and play on human ignorance perpetuates the illusions. This is facilitated by the mastery of the media that is the latest game board on which image is used to control and seduce. The media have discovered that it is not even necessary to have any reality whatsoever behind images. The so-called 'nonlinear' (here used differently than in the foregoing) imaging techniques simply bypass reason and the intellect and directly program the mind of the populace without any interference.
Reality is now considered to be irrelevant. (In current discussions, it is bantered about whether an objective reality even exists.) By Pavlovian conditioning, the naive mind is quickly programmed and does not even realize that it is being programmed. To the nonintegrous, such values as peace, honesty, caring, genuineness, and love are merely images to be exploited. Distortion is currently the most favored manipulation in which images bypass reason.
Said more plainly… Just because something is not illegal doesn't mean it's not immoral, unethical, and that won't catch up with you. Those sub-200 energy levels are toxic and the people around you realize it soon enough.
“Why such a strong objection, Drew? Sensitive much?”
You might be asking these questions. Thing is, I’ve been that kid and there’s a choice to make…
The choice is to drop the image in favor of the real.
Here’s my story…
Before building this platform, before coaching junior hockey, I was an actual unpaid intern at a strength and conditioning facility in Michigan as part of my college graduation requirements. One that has no role. Other than spraying a bunch of Simple Green on the benches, window sills, and whatever else the interns could clean to stay off the big, bad, ego-driven strength coaches shit list.
I wanted to get in around great athletes and got in at this place that trained NHL and NFL guys. I wanted to observe their process, how they conducted themselves and maybe even talk to them, although talking to the athletes was not allowed… Glorified cleaning bitch and band holder was my ‘real’ role. But Intern at ‘this’ facility was supposed to look great on a resume…
What’s the lesson for a Level 1 Coach just starting out? Remember the ‘choice’ I referenced. There are 2 paths…
Path 1: Go Slow, Earn the Stamp
“This ain’t overnight, this is Year 10 vision”
-Russ
If I wanted to make my bag quick, I could just say that I've trained Dylan Larkin, Kyle Connor, Darren Helm, and Super Bowl champion Brandon Graham. Because all of those guys trained at the facility that I was at.
And I have observed them working out.
Occasionally I've even put weight on the bar for them.
However, I was an unpaid intern without an official training role or responsibility. I didn’t do anything to ‘advance their careers’.
Just like he was essentially an unpaid intern without a role or responsibility at his Tier 1 job.
So if you're pushing pucks, don't take credit for making Tier 1 players that are now in the NHL.
Tier 1 players that have now advanced to Division 1.
Just don't, don't do that.
And if you're a Level 1 coach and you're struggling, I understand.
I've made $2,000 in three years with this business of building an online coaching brand and trying to help people.
$2,000 in three years, if you guys can do the math on that… It’s not enough to afford my half of our mortgage with Tiffany.
It's not enough to feed myself.
It’s not enough to take her on a nice dinner date at least once a week…
So I DoorDash and I Uber people to and from work and to the grocery store so I can afford life. Until I get another coaching phone call from my buddy or this Internet Money compounds given enough time…
That’s 1 path.
Path 2: Deceive Others by Giving Yourself a Stamp
The other one is way shorter, just do what he did.
He makes five figures on Substack right now, writing on the Internet just like I am about his coaching experiences. I’m not making 5 figures yet because I didn’t fake my credibility stamp.
And it's probably enough for him to pay for his mortgage or his rent, feed himself and not have to Uber or DoorDash or work at a grocery store, Chick-Fil-A or sell a house today.
So by giving himself a credibility stamp, he's ‘making it’ in life right now. He went the fastest way possible.
Add to the tweet: You can go fastest by pretending to have a credibility stamp.
But like Fugazzi diamonds, it’s all an illusion.
The next question becomes, why do people do it this way?
Here’s Hawkins again:
The satisfactions of the ego are more pleasurable and addicting than the preservation of human life, much less dignity. Characteristically, all that is required are a few parades, some bombastic rhetoric by a demagogue, plus an appealing slogan.
In response, we can watch forty million people enslave themselves and march off naively to their deaths and destruction.
Said simply again… When you value the money, the money is valuable. We protect what we treasure and if ‘making the bag’ by any means necessary as quickly as possible is more perceptually valuable than keeping your integrity… Well, you’ll do it that way and not think twice.
Said simpler than that…
Satisfactions of the ego > Dignity or Integrity
Reminder: Truth is true for you at your current level of consciousness.
“Okay, Drew… Bring this thing home…” Okay. I’ve got you loud and clear.
Yes, I've been in the same room as Dylan Larkin, and though I've been on the ice with him and 20 other NHL players, I haven't trained them. And even if I had trained him, here’s another dose of reality:
If they choose to collaborate with you by listening to what you have to say, they're still choosing to trust you, to listen to you, and to implement the teaching.
So it is still on them.
You will never make a player.
You can choose to play the short-term game and choose to make your bag or you can choose the game that most people don't have the time, patience or understanding for and to take almost no money from people for a very long time, earn your credibility stamp with the value that you provide, and then make the bag in a decade. You know the long game that coaches preach and don’t live by…
Most people don't have the patience to wait 10 years to get paid.
So they fake a stamp to get paid now.
200 is the level of integrity. The critical point between truth and falsehood.
When you're a Level 1 Coach and an In-Powered Coach, you calibrate above 200. You are integrious. So it's the only choice. Your game has to be the long game.
I'll wait 10 years to earn my credibility stamp instead of giving myself a pretend one to survive today.
Now, I gotta get in my car and ‘work’ for the real money in my life right now as I continue to build the online brand with integrity. And I’m gonna whistle while I work.
P.S. You already know how I am when it comes to the concept of pulling people up. There is a guy that is now on Substack that you need to know. You might remember his name from this article I wrote a while back:
is now on Substack and his writing is in my ‘can’t miss’ category. Read this piece which relates to some ideas we just discussed in this post.Sometimes you gotta DoorDash to keep the coaching dream alive while time catches up to your goals, and sometimes you gotta manage a Subway while the writing dream compounds. I can’t recommend Hunter’s writing enough, subscribe, you will not want to miss his ‘real’ work, his true calling:
P.P.S: New Merch is here… click the tweet image to head to the store: