08/30/2026
𝗣𝗔𝗣𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗢𝗪𝗘𝗟 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗢𝗥𝗬
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***I've found myself explaining this a few times over the past couple weeks, so it's time for a repost!***
This is a great explanation of the visual representation of fat loss (attributed originally to a “Bob White”)
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You buy 2 rolls of paper towels, each with 112 paper towels on it. You put one aside and keep it for future reference (your “before” picture). The other represents you (I’ll call your paper towel “Ed”)
The core represents lean Ed. The towels represent the fat that’s covering lean Ed
Now, let’s say that Ed wants to lose 28lbs of fat, so (112/28) each sheet represents a 1/4lb of fat
And let’s assume that Ed loses his fat equally each day of the program. Each day during the 1st week, you tear a sheet off Ed, representing the fat he’s lost that day. Next, you put Ed next to the full roll (“Big Ed”) for comparison
No difference! Even after a week!
“This doesn’t work for me! This program sucks!”
But you continue following your program.
At the end of weeks 2 and 3, you continue to compare Ed to Big Ed, and still notice very little difference. But Ed is determined! He continues working hard!
Months go by, the sheets peeling off every day, before Ed gets up the courage to stand next to Big Ed again
Now there’s a big difference! By the end of the 112 day program Ed is down to his goal, or somewhere near it. Big Ed is still - well, big
The lesson is that bodyfat, like paper towels, comes off in sheets. In the beginning that fat is spread over a MUCH larger area – just like that outside towel sheet
The closer you get to the lean you, the more each lost pound of fat shows, because it is spread over a smaller area
While the outside sheet may only cover one layer of the roll, the inside sheet may go around 4 times. That last sheet looks like it gives you 4 times the results of the first sheet, but in reality, the results are the same – your perception is just different! And you’ll never see the inside, if you aren’t patient while the outside is coming off!
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You don’t see the small changes. But they add up
Focus on the process and stay the course
08/29/2026
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗜 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗛𝗮𝗱
I was 11. Two weeks into TaeKwon-Do.
They sent me to the back of the room with the assistant instructor. Red belt. One rank off black.
He had us sit on the floor, legs extended, then lift the whole lower body off the ground on our fingertips.
I couldn't do it. I wasn't strong enough.
So he gave me 100 push-ups as punishment.
I couldn't do 100 push-ups either. I remember my arms shaking. I remember crying.
He was the worst coach I've ever had.
And for some reason, I came back.
4th Dan black belt. 7x British champion. European and World medalist. A level that instructor never reached.
Here's where most people take this story:
"See, tough coaching works. Kids need to be broken down. Look how he turned out."
Wrong.
I came back in spite of him, not because of him. And I was one kid. I have no idea how many kids in that room got the same treatment and never walked back through the door. Neither does he. That's the point — he never had to count them.
Every bad coach has a highlight reel of the ones who stayed. Nobody keeps a list of the ones who quit.
Your best client isn't proof your system works. Your retention rate is.
Don't coach for the kid who was coming back anyway. Coach for the one deciding on the way home.
08/28/2026
Great athletes make average coaches look good.
I've said that for years and I meant it. Put a genetic freak in front of a mediocre program and they'll still progress.
The coach takes the credit. The athlete did the work the coach didn't know how to prescribe.
That's the honest version of a lot of coaching careers.
But there's a second half nobody says out loud.
Great coaches make good athletes look inevitable.
Not talented — inevitable. The kind where you watch them compete and it seems obvious they'd end up there, when the truth is somebody built that over years while nobody was watching.
30+ years in and I still don't know which one I am.
Some days I'm sure I'm the reason. Some days I watch an athlete do something I never programmed and realize they were always going to get there.
Here's what I've settled on.
You don't get to grade yourself. The athlete grades you. And the only athletes who can tell you the truth are the ones who trusted the plan long enough to find out — through the boring block, through the deload they didn't want, through the year where nothing moved.
Those are the ones who do the best. Every time.
So I coach like the second one is possible and stay honest enough to know I might be the first
08/24/2026
Efficiency can sometimes make you very good at something you shouldn't be doing at all.
The faster warm-up. The tighter transitions. The rebuilt template.
"There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." - Peter Drucker (again!)
Real improvements. Every one of them.
None of them the thing that's holding you back.
Optimizing a bad decision doesn't fix the decision. It funds it. Every hour you spend making it smoother is an hour that makes it harder to kill.
Before you make something more efficient, ask whether it should exist.
A lot of what might be slowing your program or gym operations down doesn't need improving. It needs deleting.
08/22/2026
I've been speaking on the Perform Better circuit for over 20 years.
The talks are always good. Some of them are incredible.
But if you ask me what I actually took home from any given weekend — it's almost never a slide.
It's the conversation in the hallway between sessions. It's the coach who catches you on the way out and asks the one question that reframes the whole thing.
It's dinner with people who do what you do, and understand exactly why the hard parts are hard.
You can watch a recording of the talk. You can't watch the hallway.
Online education solved access. It didn't solve the thing that actually changes how you coach — which is standing in a room with people who are further down the road than you, and people who are right behind you, and realizing you're all working on the same problem from different angles.
The information isn't better here. It lands differently when the person saying it is looking you in the eye.
So if you're at a live event this year — anywhere, any organization — don't disappear between sessions. That's the actual curriculum.
And if you've been exclusively online, do yourself a favor and get to a live event.
08/24/2026
08/22/2026