RANDOM THOUGHTS

I spent part of my childhood in this privileged place. My grand-father was the guardian of the Mont-Fort refuge. The refuge was one of the stops crossing the Alps from Chamonix to Zermatt. The only way to get to the refuge in winter was skiing. I remember getting there with my grand-father, my parents and brother finding our way. The fog was blurring all sensations and our sense of orientation. We were lost in the white world.

There are heritages that help you or not in your life. My grand-father's happiness and generosity  gave us  a strong root towards Nature. Joseph was a personage always laughing and jocking with the climbers. He gave us security and a high sense of honesty because you cannot lie to yourself when you are in the middle of nowhere with the high risk of avalanche around you. My grand-father opened our eyes to the silent world and taught us PASSION.

Joseph Michaud

Last night, my longtime partner was telling me that he will not change something in his life. He has lived everything fully at the limits of the possible. That’s passion.  It's certainly the most difficult to live with passion. From where do you get that intense sense of life? From your family and the people you get along with. There is no miracle. As the Spanish proverb says: ''dime con quien te juntas y te dije quien eres.'' Such is life. Such is our culture in Mexico. 

If you want something different, you really need to see and analyze who is around you. One of my client told me today that her three year old boy told her and her husband that he will see them latter, because he was going to do his ''exercise,'' taking his one year and half old sister with him. Such is culture. You learn from the people that are around you. If you live in the middle of mediocrity, low standards, you get those standards and live a mediocre life. It takes courage to get out and try to live differently.

Ten years was the time it takes to create a culture inside of Team Oaxaca.  Listening to Jack Daniels, Altitude and Eastern African runners you learn that social environment makes the difference. Eastern African runners' heroes are runners. And everybody wants to be a runner because everyone has been seeing village mates, friends who are successful running and making a living of it.  Back to Mexico, I always think that it is neither easy to really train, nor to change culture. And as coach Gambetta says: ''In a new situation you can change training but to no effect until you change culture. Changing training is easy, changing culture is not.´´

Our team making a difference

From Coach Gambetta, more random thoughts:

Coaches are change engineers, our mission is to change behavior and help guide, prod, cajole, and lead the athlete toward their goals. I have found that changing physically by changing workouts, putting in a new training system, and adding new exercises is the easy part, the hard part is changing mindsets and in a team environment changing culture.

Changing culture is changing attitudes and habits that are sometimes ingrained and deeply entrenched. In this situation you often here things like “we already do that” or in meetings phrases like, “let me be the devils advocate” when new ideas are discussed. In my experience there is no simple solution for changing culture. From a leadership or management perspective it requires many uncomfortable decisions. Changing culture requires everyone to share common goals, to sacrifice together to use the past to gain perspective to move forward. Certainly disagreement and debate is acceptable if the spirit is to problem solve and achieve a consensus with everyone on the same page moving forward together to achieve a common goal. Turning losers into winners does not happen overnight. I have found that losers, both individuals and teams are comfortable being where they. They have all the excuses and revel in being downtrodden. Change requires dedication, commitment and focus on the goal ahead all the while realizing that it will take time. Many are called but few choose the path toward excellence.

3k TT pace 3:02

References:

www.flotrack.org/coverage/234673-Saucony-Thirsty-Thursdays-with-Jack-Daniels/video/204257-6-Altitude-East-Africans-Thirsty-Thursday

http://www.functionalpathtrainingblog.com/2012/02/change.html