You can do hard things—and other Leadership Inspiration from Great Fitness Coaches

I love group fitness classes. There's something about having both a supportive community and an inspiring coach that helps me push myself harder and achieve more than I can do on my own. This weekend I completed the "Dri-Tri" at Orangetheory Fitness (boy is my face red in that photo), where you do a mini triathlon made up of rowing, weights, and running. I sign up for activities like this when encouraged by others, even though I am often nervous I won't succeed. And, as it turns out, I can do them! As my coach, Michael (also in the photo), likes to say:

"You can do hard things"

That is true in group workout classes, and it's true in life. Most things seem harder to us before we actually just jump in and try. This is the premise behind the first step of starting a movement that I describe in "Purposeful"—the courage to get started by taking one small step. The incredible part about this example, is that it only took one person saying "You can do hard things" to get me to try something I might never have done. What if we could each do that for the people around us?

In fact, this was the initial goal of Rising Team. I hatched the idea while running outdoors during the pandemic, when group classes were cancelled, but I still had a Peloton Interactive coach in my ear. I thought, "What if we could help every manager deeply understand each person on their team well enough to serve as an inspiring coach to help their team succeed?" That idea became the core of the team development platform we have today.

These sayings that awesome fitness coaches use to inspire us could serve as a starting point for how we inspire others around us, not only in group workout classes (which I know not everyone loves), but also at work, at home, and in our communities.

Here are some of my favorite inspirational phrases from great fitness coaches. I'd love to hear yours in the comments.

1. "Forward is a pace"

Robin Arzon, one of my favorite Peloton coaches, shares this mantra that she uses when she's running races. She says this when she's coaching running workouts to help people understand that sometimes it matters less how fast you run, and more that you just keep running. It's the forward progress that matters.

I now use this saying whenever I'm talking about entrepreneurship or leadership of any kind, since as we all know, some days are just really hard. On those days, just moving forward at all can feel challenging, so I remind myself that even one step forward is progress.

Although I personally love this mantra, I was talking to my cousin recently who has a mantra of their own that has a slightly different take, which is "I'm moving at the right pace." They pointed out to me that there may be times when you actually do move backward, and that's ok too. Perhaps it's preparing you to move further forward down the road, or teaching you about something you'd like to change. Whichever of these sayings you prefer, the idea is that you can give yourself permission to not be at sprinting pace at all times.

2. "Don't compare your Chapter 1 to someone else's Chapter 6"

Another terrific Peloton coach, Ally Love , shares this saying that reminds us to meet ourselves where we are and not compare ourselves to others. In the class I teach at Stanford, we often say "Don't compare yourself to others, only to yourself yesterday." I think Ally's version is much more elegant. We need to remember that everyone is at a different stage of their journey and what's important is our own growth from wherever we are.

This is also true of the people we work with. We need to remember that sometimes we may be on Chapter 6 already and that we can't expect others who are newer or earlier in their careers to be able to operate with the same level of understanding. Sometimes we are the learner and other times the coach.

3. "Focus on Form"

My daughter, Emma Dulski , is a part-time pilates teacher (alongside her job as a Scribe, which I described in a previous post). She and her fellow teachers often guide people to "focus on form" as a way to remind them not to worry about how they look doing something or what others might be thinking of them, but rather to focus on the goal they are aiming to achieve and the form that will help them get there.

They offer two other supporting tools to help in this effort, first a series of modifications if you can't yet do the position or exercise in it's full version. That's ok. Although not a pilates example, it's better to do a correct pushup on your knees while you work up to a full pushup, than to do an improper one on your toes. As we are working to learn new skills, it can be better to focus on our form and get that right and then build up to the point where we can excel.

The second version of support they offer to help people get the form right are visualizations of what correct form looks like. For example, they might say "This looks like hugging someone you don't know very well, or imagine there is a balloon inside your rib cage" to get people to engage the right muscles. Our work equivalent of this is making sure we set clear expectations with each other about what "success" looks like. The more clear we can be about what we want—what is the right form—the better we can ensure we and others reach the outcomes we want.

4. "Breath's got your back"

I heard this phrase from Samira Agarwal at an offsite session I was leading about Resilience. She is a part-time yoga instructor (in addition to her day job), and so she does a lot of focused breath work in her classes. We were talking about how breathing can actually help boost our resilience and she said she uses the saying, "breath's got your back" in class, because it does! In fact, breathing can help us non only create calm in the moment, but it can also reduce stress for up to 24 hours at a time when done well. To learn more about the power of breathing, take a listen to Andrew Huberman's podcast episode about breathing. I adopted cyclic sighing as a practice after listening to it, and we teach that now in the Rising Team Resilience session.

5. "What seems impossible today, will someday become your warmup"

This quote isn't attributed to anyone in particular, but it reminds me of the words of Martinus E. , the founder of Slow AF Run Club who says "When I doubled my running time from 15 seconds to 30 seconds, I celebrated." He talks about how important it is to celebrate our daily achievements and that if we add up all that practice time, going from 15 seconds, to 30 seconds, to 5 minutes, to 30 minutes, that's where the progress comes from. He started with 15 seconds and now he has run eight marathons. What seemed impossible, has now become his warmup.

This is true for any new skill, it's the practice that matters, and the things that seem hard today get so much easier with time and experience. It's certainly true of our work as well. Whether it's learning a new coding language, building our first financial model, or becoming a first-time manager, all those things that seem hard at first, eventually become our warmup.

I'll continue to find inspiration in my group fitness classes that I take into all parts of my life. Please share any favorites of your own in the comments!