Thank you for checking out The Community Conversation, brought to you by Prototype Training Systems, home of CrossFit Prototype! The Community Conversation highlights a different member of the Prototype Community each week and allows them to tell their story, share their life experience, and communicate their perspective on all things fitness.
We’ve all listened to podcasts and watched YouTube videos that highlight some of the world’s greatest leaders and visionaries. We believe we have some AMAZING people at Prototype and we want you to get to know them! (Check out our last episode here!)
This is our 51st episode of The Community Conversation and today, Mike Collette starts his Leadership Series with the first episode: Put in the Reps! You won’t want to miss this episode as it’s a good one!
So, click the link below to watch this Community Conversation on our YouTube page! You can also check out The Community Conversation on all major streaming platforms including Spotify! Don’t forget to subscribe!
Mike Collette 0:01
Hey, what’s going on everyone? This is Mike Collette. This is I guess part of our weekly community conversation. We’re coming out of a pretty cool sports weekend. Wearing my Red Dox hat, the Red Sox obviously are in this wild card game they have coming up on Tuesday against the Yankees. Exciting weekend in baseball, we had the Patriots playing the Bucs and Tom Brady back in New England, we all know how that that turned out. I thought we all think we all probably knew how that was gonna turn out. But it’s a really good game. And then also before that I was in New York at a two day Leadership Academy, put on by the co-CEOs of a company called Next Job, Charlie Kim, and Megan Messenger.
And it was really, really inspiring to be a part of really just grateful to be invited to this, I was one of two people that were invited, and I got to take some of the folks that you guys know. I took, you know, Leah, who her and I are business partners with EmpoweredRx, she was formerly a coach, a prototype, our general manager, Steve Cimino, who’s a close friend of mine, we’ve been friends, we went to college together, Colin Lake who’s a member at prototype, and just one of my mentors and Jay Chung, who Jay and I have known each other for, like 10 years used to own Sapporo Korean barbecue, the restaurant that’s right next to a prototype. And you know, we’ve also just been really, really good friends. And he’s just, he’s just awesome. So yeah, I got to invite some folks. And there’s a lot of learnings and stuff we took away. So I wanted to start this little mini mini series within the community conversation calling, calling it our leadership series. And it’s not just about the stuff that I learned in the last couple days, but it’s also about the stuff that I put into practice over the last nine plus plus months of putting effort into my development as a leader.
And as just a just a person in general. And, you know, the first thing that I want to talk about is, is this concept of reps. And so, and again, I’m just kind of like spitballing here and just giving you my just very unfiltered thoughts. But this concept of reps and putting in the reps, you know, we can relate it to what we do in the gym, and how we get better at different exercises. You know, let’s say, you know, someone wants to get better at double unders or toes to bar, something that involves a higher skill. You know, we we, as coaches, you know, want our clients and members, you folks that might be listening to put in the reps, do that, do those reps, but also do that on a more consistent basis, right. So, you know, related to playing an instrument or doing anything, the more time you invest in putting into practice, the better that you’re going to get at it, right.
And then there’s the idea of the perfect practice makes permanent, you’ve all heard that before. But as it relates to like growth, and as a leader, putting in the reps yourself before, having other people put in those reps is one of the biggest things that I’ve taken away not only just from this two day Leadership Academy, but also from this, this leadership training that I’ve been doing over the last nine months, and just in full transparency and honesty, you know, I’m one of those people that learned some stuff, and I love the concepts and the ideas behind it. And then I would you know, I would get on the preach wagon, and, and preach, preach to do those things, but I also wasn’t the type of person that would put the hard work in myself and, and do those things necessarily, to to necessarily have the confidence to actually tell someone else to do it.
You know, I could think of a bunch of different examples. But let’s think of in the context of leadership, you’re telling someone to go off and do something or try something and say that that you know, do this, do that and that’s going to work they’ll help you overcome this challenge. You know, I might have read that from a book or it might be a quote that I’ve used from some different leadership books and whatnot. But I never really put it into practice myself and that’s been been one of the biggest takeaways for me in general by going through a lot of this leadership is actually putting it in practice and Charlie Kim and Meghan messenger and they put on this weekly session through their community online Academy called leadership in practice. And routinely, they have talked about reps talked about consistency, what those reps doing things often, you know, doing it, you know, you know, if you want to get better, avoiding, you know, avoiding difficult situations, you want to get better at, I guess, not avoiding difficult situations or not avoiding conflict or having difficult conversations that you have to put in the reps and do it consistently. And the thought of reps and doing it consistently vary. There’s the theory of that, and then there’s the practice of that. So the takeaways that I’ve had is like how to put those things into place.
In the big, the big, big concept, big theme is doing these things in an environment that you feel safe and you feel comfortable. And I’ve created some different small groups within like our team at prototype and, you know, a bunch of small groups, as related to the community online Academy. We call those leadership think tank or resiliency training small groups. prototype, we call that prototype Leadership Academy, some, some, some, sorry, some group that I formed with some other gym owners, we call it our Tinker Leadership Academy. And there are these small groups where we can kind of share our struggles, be vulnerable, put our fears out there, but also have a group that’s only going to support us but hold us accountable and call us out on you know, on our shit. And so the idea of being able to practice and put things into practice, try different things, you know, as it relates to like, let’s say it’s a difficult conversation, or you want to change some sort of behavior, doing an environment where you feel safe versus doing it for the first time in an environment where might have a higher level of risk.
So the easiest example is you want to improve your ability to have difficult conversations. And you’re just like, you know, have a difficult conversation, you go right out and just have that difficult conversation with your, with your boss, and you’re fully transparent and very candid, haven’t had enough reps or practice with having those sorts of conversations, that might be too high risk and maybe get fired or something bad happens as a as a result. So being able to put that deliberate practice and put those reps in, and then do that on a routinely basis with, with people that you trust, whether it’s in a small group, or having another individual you can kind of bounce back and forth with. And then this leads to the whole idea of this consistency and these reps with these things becoming habits. So if we want to identify ourselves, as someone who is a leader, you need to not only put those reps in consistently enough, that’s going to show people that you’re you’re putting your feet, you’re going both feet in to the swamp and getting dirty.
You also as that as those reps continue to progress, and you continue to improve and get better. That becomes a habit. Right. And we talked about habit forming as relates to getting better from a fitness perspective, from a health perspective, building solid routine habits that are that are going to make a lasting impact on your health that could be waking up early in the morning and getting your first workout in every single Monday to start your week off, right, that could be doing the five o’clock exam class every single, every single day. You know, from an easy perspective, you wouldn’t start with every single day, you start maybe doing that once a week or twice a week, and you build up that that habit and then you just add on more out on more. And for some folks, this might seem natural, especially as it relates to like fitness and exercise. But when you think about some of the other things in life that you want to improve on, maybe that’s like your, you know, your ability to have a candid conversation with your spouse, or be able to not overreact to smaller inconvenience, inconveniencing things, you can also put into practice other habits to build that muscle and build that strength. So you can build that habit of not doing the things that you don’t want to do anymore. And hope that makes sense.
What I’m saying is that we can take the same idea of building habits that you would build to get in be a healthier person, identify someone who’s fit, just like you could implement some of those habits to be a better leader, better communicator, a better parent, father and son, daughter, wife, etc, etc, you name it. You can put things into practice and do it routinely. And from my experience is that it’s, it takes time. Over the last nine months, I’ve been doing a lot of different stuff. And I’ve grown as a person, but I wouldn’t say that I’ve made massive, massive leaps and bounds. It’s been just the act of being consistent. And doing things deliberately. I might be, you know, I was saying over the last couple days, a couple days in this Leadership Academy, I may be four or 5% better. But if I keep doing that, and keep keep upping the level of difficulty, I’m convinced that I’m going to continue to improve as a person. And so the idea is putting this into practice yourself. And that’s the biggest takeaway that I want you guys to take from today.
With this idea of putting in the reps, the things that you want to get good at the things that you want to get better at, again, whether it has to do with your health, your fitness, or you being just a better person, you have to put in the reps and you have to do it consistently. And you have to stick with it. It’s not a one week thing, not a two week thing. We live in a world where we want instant satisfaction or instant change right away. That’s not what it’s about. I think you all know exactly what I’m talking about here. Yes, Mike. I know you’re talking about Yes, shaking heads nodding your head. Yep. Yeah, I get that. I get that. But it’s the deliberate action. Doing it and sticking with it, you know, the thought is doing something consistently for about 13 weeks. Or if you want to try something different or try something new, try it if you do it a few times consistently to see how that feels. See what that is like, before you say yes or no, don’t do something wants to say, I’m not doing it anymore.
Do it a few times, give it a chance, right as it relates to a building and becoming more routine and more of a habit. If you really, really want to do something, stick with it for 13 or so weeks, let that become a habit. Let that become something natural that you do, and start to turn that dial up and increase that level of difficulty. So this is like the first little tidbit in my leadership series. And this one is all about putting in the reps. Feel free to reach out to me anytime you’d like if you have any questions or thoughts or maybe have some stories as it relates to this.
My email is Mike@prototypetraining.com and I appreciate you all listening today. Thank you.