5 Years Young - Lessons Learned
Time is a funny thing. Simultaneously, an event can feel like forever ago and yesterday. That is how I feel when I think about Crucible and the amazing journey we have been on these past 5 years.
I can vividly remember where I was sitting when my father and I were brainstorming names for the business. We discussed branding, vision, why I was even doing this in the first place. I still have the sketches as I designed logos and all the iterations of what would become our branding. I remember sitting in my friend’s baseball as we filled out all the online paperwork creating the LLC and everything else that goes with actually “creating” a business.
I can still remember and remember the feelings I had and hear the conversations I had with myself as I drove out to “pitch” my idea to the owner of what would ultimately become our very first location. I’ll be honest, it was more prayers asking for the door to be opened if this was the place I was meant to be. Turns out it was a great starting spot for us!
It all feels like a lifetime ago, but I can remember it all like it was yesterday.
These past 5 years have been eventful to say the least! There are many of you who have been with us since the very beginning and have leaned into every challenge as we were met with it. I can’t express how much it means to have such amazing people along for the ride on this journey, and to stick by our side through all the venue changes and other challenges we have faced!
Your belief in us and what we are doing is humbling and beyond motivating.
It has been a journey full of excitement, amazing people and great accomplishments… along with all the challenges, adversity and life lessons that life tends to bring us.
And that’s where I want to focus for a moment! On some of the top lessons that I have learned through these past 5 years.
1. It’s Not About The Place
Just after our first year in business, we had to leave our original Crucible 1.0 location, which set us on what I call our “Year of Wandering”. We spent a year trying to secure a location where we could call home, but had to figure out how to keep the business going over that year.
One of the locations we “bounced” into for a couple months was the Tuscarora Tennis barn. I will be forever grateful for them and allowing us to hunker down for a period of time, but it was certainly not without it’s challenges.
The only equipment we could have was about 20 kettlebells, 2 TRX straps, some hurdles, and assorted mini bands. In all honesty, it was plenty to put together some amazing workouts.
The biggest challenge was the fact that tennis is a game that is primarily played in silence and we couldn’t shake the culture of their business up THAT much. You may be smiling right now, imagining me trying to motivate and encourage our athletes to do their best without something as simple as clapping. Silent training it was…
But you want to know something crazy? Despite the limited equipment. Despite the fact that we had to train in silence. Despite the fact that we were on a practice indoor court. Despite the fact that this was about 180 degrees opposite the culture I desired… When our time at the Tennis Barn was done, we had grown membership size.
That hurts my head to think about, because we live in a world where fancier and bigger is better! Truth is… better is better. And what made it better? It was the up close connection moments that we got to have with our athletes. We weren’t able to yell across the room, play music, or do anything that is typically done. We had to get quiet and were allowed to have those special moments where we got to truly connect.
Talk about an a-ha moment! It’s not about the place you are in, but about the true connection you make. Seeing, feeling and hearing what the person in front of you is really needing. That is why we make it our number one priority to have that “special moment” with each and every athlete, every session.
A difficult challenge in the moment, but a lesson that is etched on my heart forever.
2. Feedback Is Necessary
One thing most people try to avoid is feedback. Well, especially if it is feedback that they aren’t particularly going to like. Tell me I am doing a great job? “Oh sure, I will take that feedback all day!” But, tell me I need to change, or that something I am doing isn’t living up to the standard? “Eh, I think ‘ill pass.
But the truth is, we need feedback in every area of our life. This is how we know if what we are doing is working or not. This can be physically in your workouts by checking body composition or performance metrics. Maybe it is the profit and loss statement for your business. Or it could be those meaningful conversations with bosses, mentors, family and friends.
Technology can be a super awesome tool, and we have strived to implement it into everything we do in our workouts. We have ways of tracking acceleration, top speed sprinting, power output, vertical jump, body fat and muscle mass analysis and the list goes on.
One of our more fun pieces of technology that really reinforced the lesson of feedback was when we installed our Perch system to our squat rack. This gives real time data on every rep that an athlete does. It shows how quickly and powerfully you are moving each rep, and gives you a visual or where you are to see if you are moving slower or faster.
Want to know the amazing thing? Before we told our athletes what it was, we had them do what they would “normally” do. After we explained the system and they could see the feedback, their numbers jumped anywhere from 10% - 15%!
While shocked at the numbers, I wasn’t all that surprised when I sat back to think about it. Without the feedback, we have no accountability to the goals we have set or the standards to which we hold ourselves to. We can simply float along, “feeling” like we are doing a good job, but could ultimately be sabotaging our very own hopes and dreams.
Want to achieve something great? Find yourself a good mentor or set of standards that will provide the feedback for you. This works best for me when I refuse to get emotional about it. If I can see it for what it is, it is much easier to make adjustments accordingly. Emotions and the “feels” too often get in the way of real progress.
3. Challenges Happen For Us
One of the biggest challenges we faced as a company was when we had to move out of our original location after only a year of business. We were coming off of winning our first of two Best of the Best awards, but suddenly found ourselves homeless as a business.
This set off our “Year of Wandering”, where we bounced from location to location, simply looking to survive as a business. Definitely not the ideal for any business, let alone at a vulnerable young stage.
Along the way we faced many challenges as one would assume.
No home location
Limited equipment to train with
Being dependent on weather for outdoor training
The need to be QUIET during our training
The process of going through 17 locations to find our home
I can remember thinking to myself, “Why is this happening TO us”. I felt the desire to just grab the first location we could find as it would be “good enough”. But (thankfully) that didn’t happened. I was even on the way to a location to sign the paperwork when my agent called me and said they back out and leased it to someone else over the weekend. Talk about a gut punch! (Come to find out, even a year later it was never leased… Just another way God was taking care of us)
Now on the other side of the “valley” that we seemed to be in, I can see the connections and that all the challenges were happening FOR us!
Being forced out of the original location allowed us to come to the place we are at now.
Being forced to train in a “silent” facility taught us how to connect deeper
Being turned down 16 times for locations brought us to our best of them all
At the end of the day, the challenges allowed us to live authentically into our “Cherish The Challenge” mindset. It was no longer just a cool saying that sounded good… it was now at our core, Who We Are.
The challenges in our lives can be our greatest blessings if we allow them to be. It taught us to choose to grow from them, rather than crumble and fall apart from them. The same heat that melts the gold in the fire is what is also refining it! If you are in the heat, choose to grow!
4. See What You Can’t See
Have you ever heard the phrase, “Read between the lines?” Inside of Crucible we call it our “Super Power”. We call it using our X-Ray Vision. The ability to see inside a person and see what they are really needing in the moment. This has been such a profound lesson, it has even become one of our Core Values at Crucible that we live by as coaches.
This is something I have innately done my entire coaching career, but never realized it until someone pointed it out. They had mentioned that while they may have started training for the reason on losing weight, that I had helped them grow in ways they didn’t even know they needed to grow. That the biggest growth they received was from the inside out.
It made me pause and realize that this is what makes Crucible special! We aren’t just a place to workout, sweat, smile, build muscle and burn fat. It’s deeper than that, and we were naturally doing it all along! It’s our Super Power!
It’s our building of deep connections and relationships.
It’s reading between the lines.
It’s listening beyond the words our members are saying
It’s hearing the words that aren’t spoken
It’s reading the eyes
It’s being in tune with their energy
It’s being intentional
Our mission is to help take people beyond the limits of what they believe is possible, and the only way to do that is to help them see something you can’t see. We must see the life we want to live in before it’s here. So that is why it is our core value to do it first.
5. Listen to the Whispers
The challenges of life get loud. Chaos stirs in our brain, self-doubt, what if situations and any other sort of distracting thought turns into static in our heads. What started as possibly a small challenge has grown into something beyond reason in our minds, we have trouble sleeping because we are stressing about something that will probably never happen. Challenges, are loud and noisy!
Whispers are quiet. Whispers are personal. Whispers take focus and intent to listen to. You must lean into the source of the whisper to hear it. You must focus 100% on what is being whispered in your ear if you want to be able to understand what is being said.
This is how God speaks to us.
Through all the challenges that Crucible has faced in our 5 years, it has definitely gotten loud in my head. All the stinkin’ thinkin’ and words of others disbelief flows through my head like a deafening river at times. But it’s in those moments I know I must quiet myself down. I must slow down to be able to hear the whispers.
I learned one of the best ways to Cherish the Challenge is to get quiet and to listen to the whispers from the one who already has the X-Ray vision of what is to come. I’ve learned that every time I try to brute force things, it doesn’t go well. But, when I slow down, pray, seek wisdom, discernment, perspective and guidance, doors open and things happen that I personally couldn’t do.
In a world that is constantly wanting to speed up, go faster, do more, grind more, push more, do more, be more, multi-task, and fill our personal bandwidth to the max… I’ve learned that sometimes the best thing we can do is to “Be Still”. (Psalms 46:10)
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If you read this far, wow you are a trooper and I thank you for taking the time. These past 5 years have been an incredible journey BEYOND what I believed would be possible. Sometimes I have to slow myself down to think about all the lives we have impacted.
So here is to the next 5 years of more challenges, lessons, growth and helping you to go beyond the limits you believe to be possible!
Love You All, God Bless
Ryan