The Hardest Thing

 

My son’s an avid golfer, and he’s pretty good.

He’s tried to get me out on the course, but I am beyond hopeless. It’s embarrassing and demotivating.

Yes, years and years ago I actually took 2 or 3 lessons with a teaching pro. At the end of that summer season, he told my wife and I to keep practicing and he’d see us “next year.”

Then, sometime that fall or winter, he committed suicide.

I know. The inference is impossible to ignore.

He told me once his most difficult task wasn’t helping new golfers develop a good swing, it was convincing them to stop using their bad one.

At every stage of our lives, we’ve told stories to ourselves about why and how we got this far.

And once we have any small degree of competence and success, we resist any change that might threaten that.

We shut out dissenting voices. We close up.

And it’s really, really hard to pick something up using a tight fist.

Coaches have two jobs: the first is the emotional investment of the student, and the second is to teach.

If the “student” is unwilling to open up to another way, afraid to let go of what they’re holding on to so tightly, “Better” is going to be elusive.

If you’ve tried more than one or two coaches to help your PD or your air staff (or your GM) without much improvement, you’re dealing with resistance, even if its unconscious.

All of us produce perfectly logical reasons not to buy in, not to try something new – especially if we see that change as a threat to our job, or even more, to our own self-image.

It’s not uncommon, but it’s more realistic to understand why your station seems stuck.

It’s not always the teacher.

And it’s better to be realistic about that.