On Friday, a WNBA player joined my team of coaches and that gave me reason to reflect on my own life. I don’t know where it ranks in your life priorities, but touching people’s lives in positive ways has always been very important to me. In fact, as I have said before, I’ve always had a secret desire to be John Bereford Tipton.
Since that opportunity hasn’t happened yet, I have instead tried to help other people in ways that I could. I have been a teacher, was for many years a personal trainer and for even more years, a running coach. But that in reality, has been a small way to touch people’s lives and in my case had limited impact. (Obviously someone who teaches for twenty years or does anything for a prolonged period of time will have a huge impact – I taught for just a few years, coached a few high school and club teams, had a few dozen personal training clients, etc.)
I have felt much as Tyler Perry must have when in 1998, he rented a 1,200 seat theater in downtown Atlanta for his first play, “I Know I’ve Been Changed” and was certain that he would touch a lot of people’s lives, but instead, 30 people showed up the first night, fewer the next night and the play closed at the end of the week. But he persisted, as I am doing now, and in 10 years, he has been able to amass a fortune and build his own theater, opening in Atlanta on October 4th, which is 200,000 square feet.
My new coach has been able to touch people’s lives on a grand stage. First in high school, then in college and now in the WNBA, her athletic excellence and character must have touched untold numbers of fans and followers. Each stepping stone in her life has given her a greater opportunity to touch people’s lives on a grand stage.
And so it is with the Team Beachbody coaching opportunity that I am pursuing. No, I am not a playwright or a professional athlete. No matter how good I was as a runner, I really only touched the lives of a mere handful of people. Yet now, I have turned my passion for helping other people and my need to help people optimize their health and fitness into my own “grand stage” and I am truly touching untold numbers of people’s lives myself.
