The cook book excuse

"Yes, but we're/you're not ______."

I've covered this before, how this is either my top or one of two most maddening excuses.  

I'll tell you why this gets to me.  It indicates laziness.  It indicates a lack of ambition, drive, motivation, you name the hot button word and it's missing.  It's an easy way out that serves no one but those making it.  And worse, it comes off as a semi reasonable excuse.

This excuse has begun manifesting itself at an alarming rate over the last two years, and every time I hear someone say it, or start to say it, I want to cover my ears and jump out the nearest window or head for the door.  It's nails against a chalkboard for me.  

Why has this excuse become acceptable?  Let me back up.  Why do I believe that this excuse indicates laziness, a lack of ambition, and everything else negative that I associate with it?  I'll give you an example.  

I was working at a program that was struggling.  The proud history of the program had all but disappeared, and what was left was a coddled, self absorbed, big talk/small action mentality that the previous coaches had allowed to take hold and fester.  I wanted to turn this attitude around, "cut the fat" so to speak, and get down to the core of the team, and then start the rebuilding process.  I felt that there wasn't any reason for us to keep around those who wouldn't buy into this "retro" idea, and that we should simply replace them.  It was easier said than done, but I didn't want the old guard to influence the new recruits because we'd be fighting a never ending battle.  

I came up with a couple of tests that I felt that we should run.  A friend who worked at an established program told me that these tests were a requirement prior to being allowed into a boat, and while I thought we would need to adjust the test to fit my needs, it would work.  

I took this idea to the head coach who told me in no uncertain terms that this would not happen.  When I asked why, and mentioned who influenced the idea, the response was, "Yes, well we're not _____."  The idea was that we couldn't do the same thing because the other established program was too good.  It was the other program's, "way," something we couldn't replicate because we were not them.  

I had a similar incident in school where a professor was going to have me re-write a paper because they didn't like how I opened.  When I told them where I'd gotten the idea from, the professor said the same thing, "You're not _____."  

I don't understand the reasoning behind this excuse, and my counter argument has always been that whom or whatever I or the program was trying to emulate, wasn't always, _____.  It or they had to begin somewhere.  They had to start in square one, just like the rest of us.  And just like the rest of us, they had growing pains, and failures, and rejections, yet persevered, and now are, "______."  

Today while reading a cook book for some inspiration, I realized that this act, this reading of cook books is the perfect foil to this excuse.

Look, if you truly believe that you or I can't ever be like, "_____," if that's truly the mentality of the world, that the masters in their crafts, the established, historical programs are in another class, cannot be touched or emulated, then why do we have cook books?

You're taking a recipe, following the directions, and attempting to produce the dish that said master has previously created.  You are attempting to copy them and end up with the same or at least, a very similar result.  

Not the same you say?  I beg to differ.  Step by step guidelines?  I don't see your point.

If your excuse is, "I'm/We're/You're not ____," then this wouldn't work.  Ever.  But it does.  You can re-create a recipe.  You can be inspired by a great work be it painting, literature, music, etc.  

You can emulate an established program.  

This idea of, "Well, we're not _____" is simply trying to cover your fears.  Fears of failure.  Fears of hard work.  Fears that breaking away from whatever you have now will cause a decline.  If you change the program from what it was to something new, your numbers drop, the number of boats you can put out shrinks.

But if it wasn't working in the first place, if you were just middling through to begin with, then what's the harm?  It's a fact of life that we've decided to shy away from, that no, not everyone can do something.  We're so used to trying to include everyone that we forget that not everyone wants to be included.

So yes, if I want to establish difficult 6k/2k/500 meter tests, if I have a power:weight ratio that I want to maintain, I will lose people along the way.  If in my travels and talks with successful coaches, I find tests that they run or standards that they hold, and I adapt them to what I have and what I believe, I'm sure I will encounter growing pains.

But to sit back and say, "Well, I can't do this because I'm not the University of Washington, or Trinity College, or Bates" is simply me saying, "I could work hard, but that means I have to work hard."

I believe we need to turn this excuse around to a motivation, a reason to work, and a reason to try something, even if we're not UW or Princeton.  Rather than saying, "Well we're not ____," I think what we should be saying to these individuals is, "True, but I'd rather not be you."