Advice or Acceptance of a bias?

Advice or Acceptance of a bias?

The topic for this week people asking for and acting like they want your advice on something health and fitness related, but deep down (sometimes not even deep down, you can smell it a mile off) they are just looking for confirmation of their own bias.

Example

Person - “Luke, what do you think of this new squat programme that I’m doing to improve my table tennis ability? You know Jack, the bodybuilder, the ripped one that trains here, he gave it to me, must work”.

Me - “ermmm. Squats to improve your table tennis ability?”

Person – “yeah, I feel like its working and my game is getting better”.

Me – “ah nice, sounds like its doing the right for you mate – keep it up! I also remember you having that knee issue, how’s that since you started squatting?”

Person – “oh that’s much better now”.

Me – “lovely! Enjoy your workout”

Person trots off happily to his next set of exercises.

Now, the squats and table tennis conversation didn’t really happen but something of a similar nature did.

Also, my reaction to his comments may have come across as quite condescending and passive aggressive but I read the situation not the question and those two are completely different.

The guy just wanted to approval that he’s doing the a good thing and need a little bit of confidence in whatever he was up to and I know his character well enough to build a profile in my head about what he wants.

The old me, would have probably would’ve got into a long old discussion with the guy about the relevance of the exercise for the goal.

But over the years and the thousands of hours I’ve spent with clients and athletes and just working with people in general,

I’ve learnt a lot more about human behaviours and can understand the importance of looking out for what’s really important for them and not you. And sometimes that can still be challenging because of everything you studied and believe in can start going into overdrive and you feel the need to have your input.

Which is not a bad thing by the way, but there is a better way of doing it without making the person feeling like they’re doing everything wrong.

A very fitting saying I heard today a on a podcast today to go with this was “hide the broccoli on the plate” basically, give a lot of what they want with a little bit of what they need and they will be a repeat customer.

Be forward thinking and sign up now to train with me using my new online training platform. It’s on a first come first serve basis, so the first 5 people will receive a 25% discount on their first month of training!

Ps - Eat your broccoli!

Warmest regards

Luke :-)