My New Role at Performance360

Confession.

Over the past two years, I have struggled greatly at establishing consistency for myself professionally at Performance360, and it would be a bold faced lie if I said I’ve enjoyed my work this year relative to years passed.

There are some days where I wake up and actually find myself in professional depression, which makes absolutely no sense given that we’re as successful as we’ve ever been here by traditional measureables. However, I’m a guy that thrives on routine and consistency for my creativity to serve any sort of functional purpose, and I don’t well with veering in and out of different lanes in the manner that I’ve been doing.

I’ve sort of been coaching. I’ve sort of been managing. I’ve sort of been promoting. I’ve been wandering adrift, going back and forth between the micro daily tasks and the broad macro objectives, and it’s caused a lack of direction in my work that’s nearly crippled me with anxiety.

I need purpose. I need objective. I’m a far better soldier than I am general.

I’ve been forced to face some very tough realities this year, the most brutal among them that I am no longer an asset in the micro I’ve always known and loved. I’ve realized that I now far more enjoy educating the room than I do coaching the person, and where I’ve previously found comfort in the trenches I now find unrest and panic. I was selling myself a lie that I still enjoyed the coaching grind, and, that I was still effective in it.

Neither are true.

If you listen to or read any of our stuff, you might know that I am in the constant pursuit of firing myself. The longer I stay locked into a role, the longer I block someone from my team from growth, and the longer I become stale and ineffective in the role. Simple. With death comes re-birth, and the fresh face that inevitably occupies the void brings with it renewed vigor, perspective, and energy that nudges it up the ladder a rung or two where it was previously stalled. Always. Without fail.

Two years ago, I started the needed shift in handing over my micro roles to my incredibly talented and capable team. At first, I made Julianne Head Coach, which was followed by specialty class programming assignments to eager coaches, which was was followed by staff management to Julianne, shared PSC programming with her, and as of this Summer, she will take it over in totality.

This firing of myself from all of the critical micro work has been born out of purpose. The macro can no longer be a side effect of what occurs in the micro. It needs a shepherd. It needs a primary attendent. Performance360 has long needed a full-time voice to carry its flag out into the world and I will now begin that role full-time, with aggression and impunity.

We’re incredibly insulated, here. To a fault. I can say that my perpetual approach of “win today” has had the obvious successes, but the hidden drawbacks of incubating us from the outside world, and it’s time for that to improve. With my self imposed pressures of always feeling obligated to channel my efforts inward, I now have phenomenal people in place for that and can finally, without insecurity, feel confident to voyage outward.

Though on purpose for our sustainability, I would be lying if I said this shift to full-time macro work is anywhere close to as fun or rewarding as the micro. I am still very much getting used to it. In the trenches is where I was born in fitness. From slinging protein at mall kiosks, to globo gym personal training, to boot camps, to running the show here in its entirety the first few years, the play directly in front of me is where I’m always feel at home and thrive.

It’s time for that to definitively evolve.

I will begin properly organizing all of our knowledge into educational opportunities. Planting the Performance360 flag into the landscape of fitness leadership as if my job depended on it. I will begin the focused process of sharing my entire viewpoint on the gym macro. What makes a gym successful, its models, methodology, coaching concepts, culture, leadership, you name it. Our successes. My failures. These will be offered up as either free consumption or formal education.

The process of creating and sharing has always been something I’ve enjoyed and my sanity depended upon, just as much selfish cathartic intentions as anything else, and a great deal of where my challenge has been the past two years is maintaining a voice that is both consistent and beneficial to consumers of it. The lanes I’ve been veering in and out of have carried with it a different voice each time. It’s like I’ve been forcing myself to take on this role of chameleon for whatever the gym needs, and it’s time to take permanent form.

While I am sure this all reads as a semi-scattered, underwhelming “no shit” reveal rather than profound revelation, it is a big deal for me, and it has taken me a painstaking amount of time to accept that I am a far greater asset in this role of shepherd to the macro than I am technician in the micro.

If you have enjoyed my coaching or content at any stage of the past nine years, I am more appreciative than you know. In the beginning you are quite literally what built this place with us.

Here’s hoping you enjoy the next chapter of it.

Thanks, and stay tuned.

-Dave