An article (“How Insults Spur Success”)  from The New York Times’ Jobs Section,  page 9,  October 16, 2011, as told by  Peggy Payne and written by  Patricia R. Olsen, shared a story that is relevant to all of us, and more specifically, athletes.

A quote from the article is a good place to begin.

“At 62, I’m still stewing over not being chosen to attend the Governor’s School of North Carolina when I was 16. It is true that many good things have happened in my life: a happy marriage, a few books published, fulfilling years in journalism and freelance editing. But the fact remains that at age 16, I was not among those selected to spend six weeks in 1965 at the Governor’s School, a renowned summer camp for brainy teenagers. And silly as it may seem, this rejection has helped my career. That’s because there’s nothing like a little ’I'll show ’em’  to incite ambition. Many people cherish their motivational insults…The one’s that got away, never quite go away, and that’s not such a bad thing.”

I remember a story about Michael Jordon. He got cut from his high school basketball team. And the world knows what happened to his career as a basketball player. Roy Campanella, a catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, wanted to play a different position. But, a team early in his career, said they needed a catcher and he took the position. He took this negative experience and became a Hall of Famer. There are many stories like that in sports. What the old saying, Whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger. Boxers may lose a round or a match, but they need to look at the next one and let the disappointment spur them on to get off the stool and try again. They do this by saying things to themselves that are motivating – just like Ms. Payne did.

Forty years ago, we were issued single bar facemasks. Even so, as a lineman, the line coach called me a “big baby” because I had one installed on my helmet. It was a relief not to have my nose and face hit every other play. No one wore a mouth-guard back then – one of the reasons I had my two front teeth knocked out. (This wasn’t because someone belted me in the mouth, but from gritting my teeth at the moment of impact.)

On hot summer two-a-days, we were issued salt tablets, the belief being you needed more salt to replenish what you lost from sweating. From our stance, we blocked against a tree, and if “the leaves don’t shake,” you were hollered at, you’d hit the tree again, and again, and again. The leaves “shook,” incidentally, when a breeze came through; if you happened to be blocking when this happened, the coach gestured you “did good.”

Linemen wore high-top cleats; running backs wore low quarters. All football shoes were black, so if your coach allowed it, you could put in white shoestrings. Very seldom did you see any team uniform with stripes. The real ‘good’ teams (meaning their budgets allowed for this) had competition stripes on their sleeves. Otherwise if your colors were green and gold, it was a green jersey and gold pants. Red and white was a red jersey and white pants. Blue and white was a blue jersey and white pants. (I think you get the picture.)

Injuries – all injuries – were treated with something called anogesic balm. When applied to the bare skin, there was an immediate sensation of heat. It was applied to swelling, which of course, induced further swelling. It was an unforgettable experience to accidentally get some of this stuff in your eye. Years later, when the Vietnam War was being reported, I could nearly equate anogesic with napalm. Other things: You blistered and reblistered until the skin either toughened up or the season ended. If you had a sprained ankle, pulled muscle, or hyperextension, you were told to “run it off.” Open bleeding was considered manly.

I could distinctly remember the smell of whiskey on one of our coaches. Other football players smelled it too. No one said anything about it.

There was no weight training or “lifting barbells.” The only people who weight-lifted were “muscle guys” (called bodybuilders today), and they were said to be “all muscle-bound,” meaning, well, that they were muscle-bound. There was no stretching whatsoever. What there was for exercise was calisthenics, which you did before practice – jumping jacks, burpies, sit-ups, and toe-touches. Afterward, you ran the length of the football field, around the goalposts, about three times. This didn’t get you “in shape.” Getting in shape came through 100-yard sprints – six to ten of them daily, everyday, during two weeks of two-a-days.

After two-a-days ended, calisthenics continued every day throughout the season, and the only time you ran was if the coach got angry about something – usually if you lost a game.

Football practices were brutal. Bull-in-the-ring had one player in a circle of a dozen to 15 other players, usually all linemen, each of whom was given a number from one to fifteen. When the coach called a number, a player fired out of the ring to hit the guy in the middle. If you were fast enough, you could hit the guy from behind. Sometimes the coach called three numbers at a time. I never figured out if this was a blocking drill or just a street fight. The only thing I got out of this was a sense of dread.

Murderer’s Row was another drill of sorts. It was used as a punishment if you were late for practice, missed a practice, or didn’t work as hard as a coach thought you should. You ran through 10 to 15 guys. Carrying a ball, Murderer’s Row was supposed to be a tackling drill. It wasn’t. It was a punishment.

You played both ways in high school football. If you were taken out of the game, you could not reenter until the next quarter began. For some strange reason, I do not recall anyone ever being carted off the field on a stretcher. EMTs (Emergency Medical Technician) didn’t exist. I do remember a First Aid kit on the sideline, but the only thing I remember it being used for was “smelling salts,” which I think was ammonia vials. (Me and a buddy took a whiff of one and I still remember how my head veered back. Wow!)

Helmets back then had canvas suspensions. Those were the heavy plastic shells guys wore. Ours were leather – just like Notre Dame’s and the kind Paul Hornung, (Heisman Trophy Winner (1956) and All-American), wore during the Terry Brennan era. I remember having a constant nosebleed and couldn’t figure out why, since no one had belted me in the nose or face. Likewise, we had no protective lineman gloves, or elbow pads.

There were no specialists in football then. Ends were blockers and the longest pass they went out for was 5 yards. There were no wide receivers. Kickers could be anyone, and these guys kicked the ball straight on (and the ball never hooked like sidewinder’s kicks today). No special teams, either – just kick off guys, punt guys, but never unit, team or anything with the connotation, “special.” Offenses were comprised of the Straight, Tight and Wide T formation, and defenses were the 5-3, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, 6-5, and a weird goal line defense called the 7-umbrella.

Coaches stayed apart from their players. I never knew the head coach’s first name, and I don’t think anyone on our team knew his first name, either. We heard he played for two professional teams, but that was about it. If he talked with you, it was generally to chew you out. On other occasions, however, he’d come up and simply say, “Good job.” The words psychology, sport psychology, development, understanding, bonding, connection, may have existed in the dictionary as single entities, but those words as they are used today didn’t exist 40 years ago.

I think players were tougher back then, but they were tougher because they didn’t know enough to expect anything different or more. I think players were tougher back then because times were tougher. You just took a lot more then because the thought never entered your mind that there was any other option. (Even the word option did not exist as we know it today.) So, I don’t get real excited about the “good ol’ days.” I don’t think they were all that good, nor do I think they were all that bad. I think that we progressed and found better ways of doing things… and that has made all the difference.

But, that was all yesterday. Times have changed… or, have they?

Who would have thought I’d make it? Forty-plus years ago when I graduated from high school I ranked 170 out of 177. According to the test or tests I took back then, I could look forward to becoming a tool and die maker. I could be happy about that, I was told, because I would make “good money.”
Well, I wasn’t interested in money. I wanted to go on in education – maybe become a teacher. “Hmmmmm,” the evaluator posed, I just didn’t have the scores for that, he told me. So, being stubborn or stupid, I enrolled at a university. I dreamt of being in academia and being a part of it. In school, I loved what I saw – knowledgeable professors, educators, growth. It sure beat what I had been brought up in between Division Street and Damen Avenue in Chicago.
failed miserably. I didn’t know how to study, how to take notes, listen, read, or how not to take myself so seriously and probably a lot of other things. I had entered college on probation and lasted three glorious semesters and flunked out. I immediately enrolled in a junior college part-time, did well, then received my draft notice from the U.S. Army.
Anyway, to make this short, I often tell kids that had I listened to everyone who told me I wouldn’t make it, they would have been right. Instead, I learned. I learned from a lot of people, many of whom were good, some of whom were, well, bad. I learned how to tell the difference, and this is what happened: Was Honorably Discharged from the Air Force, where I served for four years. I earned a BA in English and became a teacher. Coached three varsity sports. I returned to the military via the Guard/Reserve. I went from corporal to captain overnight without ever being an NCO (sergeant) or a second or first lieutenant. I earned a post graduate degree from the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College. Held a Top Secret Clearance and worked in the Pentagon’s Army Operation Center. Earned every educational certificate in military intelligence from the Defense Intelligence College and other related organizations. Earned four rows of medals – the highest being the Meritorious Service Medal. I earned advanced diplomas in Infantry, Adjutant General, Civil Affairs, Military Intelligence, and Psychological Operations. Retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

&nbspI worked in radio, television and newspaper, and successfully owned and managed my own weekly newspaper. Through that paper, I experienced so many journalistic awards that I lost count. After 10 years, I sold the paper for three times what I originally paid for it.

&nbspI became development director (fund raiser) at a private school and in nine years earned over $6-million including a $2.3 million capital campaign. Before I left, I worked with and acquired a $1,280,000 personal gift – monies not earned by any other private school in Iowa.

&nbspWhether in the military or civilian life, I worked with young people – young women and young men. I saw many advance in career choices that I had the honor to work with them, often individually. In between, I earned a certification as a personal trainer, and later earned the distinction of Master of Fitness Sciences. I also became a specialist in performance nutrition.

&nbspAt age 61, I earned a Master in Education/Counseling.

&nbspI have been married for 35 years and have seen each of my three children graduate from college. Today, I have four wonderful grandchildren. My grown children return home often to visit.

&nbspNow all this sounds so wonderful, but none of this is what I consider “making it.” What makes all the difference to me is the many, many great and wonderful individuals I have had the opportunity to meet and know. What is an astonishing, thrilling experience, is that every one of these young men and young women have impacted on my life.

&nbspWhether it was the boy who lived on the edge growing up and is now a school principal, or the girl who wondered if she would ever be happy and is now studying to be a physical therapist, their lives touched mine. Just as the group of boys who are attorneys, engineers, coaches, accountants, sales reps, architects, soldiers, military officers, or pilots – or the girls who are now counselors, managers, business owners, directors, teachers, or medical professionals – they are my greatest accomplishment in life.

&nbspAnd what do I get out of this? Either personally, over the telephone, emails or traditional ‘snail mail,’ it’s hearing from each of them, visiting with them, and learning from each of them. What has made this even more incredible is I never expected it. Just as each of them approached me out of nowhere, they appear now. It’s an endless stream of wonderful faces. “Hey, Colonel.” “Mr. D, how are you?” “Coach D, thought I’d stop by and say hello.” “Yo, D, whasssss up?”

&nbspI have marveled at them all, and afterwards – after they have left to continue on their life’s path – I cry. I cry with joy. I am so happy for their success, their accomplishments, everything, but most of all happy just to have had that one instant in my life with each of them.

&nbspSo, back to ‘making it.’ I am now a guidance counselor – the very position of the evaluator who told me I just didn’t have the scores to do what I thought I wanted to do. I won’t lie. Yes, I look at scores, but I refuse to let what I see in figures lead me to believe this is all the latitude a student has. “What do YOU want?” I ask each of them, and I listen. No matter what anyone of them says they want as a possible career, my response is the same: “What are you willing to trade to have it?” They all know what that means. In other words, to get what you want, what things could or should be eliminated in order for you to obtain your goal? Too much television? Procrastination? Friends? Jobs? Telephone? Internet games? They know the list. They also fully understand what I am talking about.

&nbspThe next thing is skills acquisition. Do you have good study habits? Do you know how to read, comprehend, remember, retain, and if not, are you willing to learn? Listening skills? Communication? Reading? are you willing to read in order to grow mentally? Working with others? Following directions? Understanding what your strengths are, and yes, understanding your weaknesses? Behavior and what this says about you?

&nbspIt doesn’t matter whether you wish to be a surgeon or a plumber, I explain to students, you need to think about these things and reflect upon them. Doing so, I point out, will only help you be more effective in whatever you choose to do.

&nbspMost importantly, I tell each student, each is special. Each has qualities that haven’t even begun to sprout, develop, and expand. Accentuate the positive, I encourage them. Look at the things you have accomplished, whether it was learning how to use a water hose for the lawn, or putting in a spark plug in your car. Look at your achievements with pride because it took an effort on your part to learn how to do this and you did it. Look at what you’ve done and then think about what you can do. The only limitations you have, I tell students, are the ones you impose on yourself. Give yourself a chance, and if you fail, so what? Go at it again, but maybe from a different angle.

&nbspBe open with yourself. Be honest with yourself. Be responsible. Don’t ever allow yourself an excuse. (Excuses, I learned, are nothing more than reasons to fail.) Bite the bullet. Balance your life. Evaluate yourself regularly. Be considerate. Be kind. Be respectful to everyone. Be professional. Think. Listen. Smile. Be understanding. Work with facts. Disdain gossip. Be gracious. Compliment honestly, but compliment even the seemingly littlest accomplishment. Be humble. Walk away from arguments. Encourage discussion. Pat yourself on the back for doing something well. Don’t be afraid to cry. It’s OK to hug someone and be hugged. Help others. Be gentle. Be loving. Understand you are not perfect. Pray. Believe. Live every day.

&nbspWhen I look back to my high school days, and I think about my being told I just didn’t have the scores to do what I wanted, I wonder what would have happened had I been told what I just expressed? Could I have been a psychiatrist (as I secretly felt I wanted), or a surgeon (which I was told would be too hard for someone like me), or maybe an astronaut, or a hospital administrator, or college president, or a college or pro football player? I think about that and now believe that maybe the paths were always open but I just didn’t know it. I didn’t know it because no one took the time to tell me.

&nbspSo, yes, I explain to students, what is it YOU want? What are YOU willing to trade to have it? When I visit with each of them, and when I start the process of assisting them on their personal exploration, I see how much better this is than closing doors. I just think of the possibilities and it’s exciting. Isn’t it?

The general public often thinks of skydiving as a “stunt” performed by “dare devils” in Hollywood films. If a movie scene did not call for characters to jump out of a plane, they would be falling off the balcony after being shot, or having a fiery crash into the wall of a speedway. It appears as if the only skill required is their willingness to put life and limb on the line. Since the general public is not knowledgeable about the sport, most do not have a sense of the skills and discipline required to do it well. So, this article will begin by filling in the blanks about this high-risk sport.

Sport Skydiving Background Information

The United States Parachute Association (USPA) statistics reveal interesting numbers about the popularity of skydiving in the United States. There are more than 34,000 members of the Association. This does not indicate the number of competitive jumpers because you do not have to join to jump. Of greater significance is that there are 3.2 million jumps made in the US since 1998, 268,000 student jumps per year and 107,000 people have earned parachute licenses. There are 200 skydiving centers in the US and thousands of small and medium sized businesses serving the needs of skydivers.

Skydiving involves various disciplines, levels of ability and competitive venues. Formation Freefall, Traditional Style, Freestyle, Accuracy and Canopy Formation Flying are competitive aspects of skydiving that require dedication, training and commitment that other sports do. Modern skydiving is much more than simply jumping from an aircraft and descending under a parachute.

Skydiving centers build their training programs around the minimum requirements established by the USPA for an “A” license (Basic Skydiver). The requirements to acquire this license indicate very little except that the jumper can intentionally fall out of an airplane without supervision, pull his or her ripcord, and land without incident.

Challenges Facing The Teacher And Learner

A few serious studies have shown a tendency towards task goal orientation. Skydivers tend to view their activity in a sport not as competition against others, but rather as competition against their own past performances. This probably includes challenging their own perception of what they are capable of accomplishing. It explains skydiving as a way to explore personal limits.

The very things that attract people to make their first jump – the visceral exhilaration and excitement – creates challenges for those who attempt to learn or teach new skills. The reinforcing aspects of high arousal and novel sensory stimulation is enough to motivate inexperienced jumpers to repeatedly fling themselves from airplanes with little or no interest in learning new skills or achieving any specific sport goal. In other words, the intrinsic rewards of skydiving are so strong that it encourages a lack of structure, goals and planning essential to learning more sophisticated aspects of the sport. This challenges the learning of skills needed to excel as a skydiver. Once skydivers become acclimated to jumping and the anxiety is thereby reduced, they begin to look for another activity for excitement.

Efforts to involve jumpers at this level of experience in training programs often meet with resistance. This is because internal “locus of causality”, is highly valued by skydivers, and training interventions are often perceived as threats to self-determination. Combined with the influence of skydivers tendency towards task goals orientation (competition against own past performance), it’s easy to see how low time jumpers would view skydiving as a sport with little structure, goals, or planning.

Goal Setting For Skydivers

Motivation has been defined as the “direction and intensity of one’s effort”. The problem faced by teachers of skydiving is not lack of intensity – the problem is often lack of direction and ambivalence about getting any. Goal setting is a requirement to getting that intensity headed somewhere positive.

Cognitive Evaluation Theory states that events that influence perceptions of competence and self-determination also affect intrinsic motivation. If a participant infers criticism or covert attempts to influence behavior from another person, intrinsic motivation will decrease. One of the implications of powerful intrinsic motivations is the perception of the controlling aspect of extrinsic rewards. It’s logical to assume that intrinsic motivations and the need for control are positively related. The more intrinsically rewarding the sport, the more volatile becomes the issue of control for the participant. In order for structured learning programs to be effective with skydivers, organizers and teachers will need to make sure that the participants have control over as many aspects of the program as possible. This includes not just goal setting, but also technical aspects of the skydivers and simulated skydives.

Practical Suggestion For Goal Setting

There are a number of advantages to setting goals. Goals keep attention and effort focused on the elements that make up skills. Goals automatically provide motivation. Goal setting encourages creativity in identifying effective learning strategies.

Goals should be stated in behavioral terms with operational definitions, objective measurement criteria, and specific outcome definitions. Long-term goals should be broken down into short-term goals, and short-term goals should further be broken down into their specific constituent behavioral skills that can be observed and measured. Performance goals (relative work skills) should be separate from outcome goals (points on the dive). Similarly, practice and competition goals should be separate from each other. This is to ensure that participants do not make attribution errors when analyzing their performance. Skydivers often blame individuals for outcome failures when team performance is really at fault.

All goals should be recorded and attended to frequently. Strategies aimed at learning or improving specific skills should be overtly identified and developed. Evaluation and feedback relevant to goals should be ongoing. This is where comprehensive post dives, analysis and recording become important.

Summary

There is a rising popularity to alternative sports (i.e. skydiving) both as a participant as well as a fan. The setting of goals and training of participants in high-risk sports is complicated by the fact that the motivations operating are often in opposition to more accepted sports training methods. High intrinsic motivations and need for control need to be taken into account in attempts by teachers to improve skills. External rewards backfire in that these athletes will experience them as attempts to control. Therefore, it is important in designing programs to give them opportunities for input into various aspects of the training. Having the high-risk athlete evaluate their progress is, also, helpful.

For those of you who have seen the Star Wars trilogy, you may recall Obi-Wan Kenobi encouraging Luke Skywalker with “May the Force be with you.” I’m not sure whom or what the Force actually was – whether it was God, inner-strength, self-confidence, self-esteem, or positive self-efficacy. Maybe it was all of this. Whatever it is, I liked the fact that old Obi-Wan let Luke Skywalker know that he was special, and that he could do whatever he set his mind to do.

I was reminded of this recently when a workout friend of mine said to me that he wanted to reset my thinking. “Focus on kids,” he said, “and forget the adults.” I was taken by his comment, and didn’t respond. “I never told you this,” he later added, “but when you started working at the last school you were at, I had a mother call me and ask me what I thought about you.” He went on to say he had only good comments about me, but then asked the woman/mother what she thought. “I don’t think it’s right for Mr. Dominowski to fill kids’ heads with high expectations and things they will never achieve,” she told my workout partner. He answered her, he said, with a “Who are you to determine what someone can or can’t do? Wayne is giving kids hope and a belief in themselves. What are you giving them?”

Hearing this, I was both elated and then angry – elated with what my workout partner revealed to me, and angry with the woman who held such low expectations of her child and other kids. But later, as I thought about what I learned, I began to indeed readjust my thinking. I started to recollect many of the athletes and non-athletes I’ve worked with over the years, both girls and boys, young women and young men. I couldn’t think of one failure. There has never been a youngster I’ve worked with in the weight room who quit on me. (I smiled when I thought about what I just wrote, because the truth of the matter is, no one I ever worked with ever quit on himself or herself.) Each did great. Each improved.

Currently, I am working with one young man whom I coached in football when he was in high school. During his senior year, he told me he had gotten his girl friend pregnant. “OK,” I said, “what are you both going to do?” Without hesitating, he said they were “going to keep the baby.”

“Good first step,” I answered. “Now, what are you two going to do?” He said he didn’t know, but that he loved his girl friend and he hoped in time they would get married. That was almost two years ago. After some back and forth, the young man’s mother called me and asked if I would “talk to” her son. He had sunk in his attitude, the mother said. When he wasn’t drinking and getting drunk, he would sleep continuously. “I’m worried,” she said, “I think he is getting very depressed.”

I called up my former football player and asked if he would drop by and visit. “I haven’t seen you in awhile,” I said to him. He stopped over, and I asked him if he’d consider returning to the weight room. “You’ve got a scrappy build,” I said, “and I’d like you to enter the Body for Life competition.” I went over with him what it would take to build up his body and we sat together and looked up prominent sites on the Internet that provided materials and before and after photos of various body transformation individuals. Looking and listening, he turned to me and asked, “If I do this, will you be my trainer?” You bet, I responded, and a year ago, January, he began training.

The entire process never got away from him. With work, baby-sitting his young son twice a week, the young man made it to weights three times a week. I took before photos of him, put him through body measurements, and then organized his regimen of training. Three months later, after shaving down, tanning up, we took his after photos. What a dramatic change! When I reviewed his photos with him, I watched as he scanned the before and after pictures. He was quiet. “I had hoped I would get bigger,” he finally said. “Hey, that comes next,” I answered with all the seriousness and enthusiasm I could muster.

At any rate, the young man hasn’t stopped training, and I am so proud of both his effort and the tremendous changes that continue to take place. And this brings me to some of the things he has told me.

One day, while putting him through his paces, I said to him that I didn’t feel I was very successful with other kids at his former school. “Coach,” he said, “when are you going to get it into your head that parents in that community don’t want their kids to leave. They want them to stay at home, grow up, and be just like them.” I was startled and amazed at what he noted to me. Several weeks later, he talked about how he and his girlfriend were trying to get together, but how other people in his town would tell him things that would upset him. “D____,” I said to him, “when are you going to get it into your head that your “friends” don’t want you to leave. They want you to stay there, grow up, and be just like them.” I also added that in his town, he was everybody’s source of entertainment. Because he was not like everyone else, I explained to him, the people there learned which buttons to press. As such, he would react, drink and get drunk, then go after whoever was a perceived offender. The outcome, I told him, was everyone’s entertainment – they all had something to talk about for the next several weeks. I can still see his statement when I told him this. With his own words, what I told him was a revelation to him.

Not too long after that, a couple of additional things happened. One day after he completed his weight training, I motioned him to go in front of the weight room mirror in order to put him through his compulsory poses. “Lat spread,” I said, and VOOM, out comes these super wings. “Side chest,” I said, and BOOM, what a tremendous upper body. “Double biceps,” I said, and POW, the kid has a set of guns. “Abs and serratus,” I call out, watch, shake my head. “You’re going to have to concentrate on that,” I note.

As our session concluded, I was jotting down some notes to myself. When I looked up from my clipboard, there’s the youngster I’ve been working with standing there, waiting for me. “You know, coach,” he said, “this has just changed my life.” His brief comment packed so much meaning that I was quieted inside. I thought to myself how we sometimes spend so much of our time in something that we believe in and at the same instant can forget why we are doing what we do. So, that caught me. Then he said he and his girlfriend found a farmhouse about 10 miles from the town he had lived. “We’re going to move there with our son,” he said.

Wow, I felt inside. I was so happy to hear this. “And don’t let the freeloaders in there,” I said. The young man smiled. “Don’t worry coach, my girl said we’re going to make this our home.”

That brings me to the real issue: Kids reading this. I want you to know I am writing this for and to you. Well, what I want to say is: don’t let anyone steal your dream. The road to personal physical and mental development is a life-long commitment, not something we do in passing. Building yourself up mentally, physically, emotionally and yes, spiritually, means more than just building yourself up and looking good. If physical development is what you want, it means determination, dedication, perseverance, and patience. It also can mean you are alone and on your own. That’s sometime the real test of long-term endurance.

While others get their kicks partying, drinking, taking drugs, getting into trouble, or quitting school, you have taken a road that’s tough, demanding, and very often a solo endeavor. Don’t stop. Don’t quit. Don’t listen to those who would seek to discourage you. Listen inside to yourself. Listen to your heart and what it is telling you. When all has been said and done, when you’ve completed the first leg of your journey – and the second, third and fourth leg, and thereafter – you won’t ever regret the transformation you’ve brought about in yourself. You’ll never regret it. All the others you’ve met along the way – you’ll find out – will be among your greatest admirers. And, you’ll also learn, those who cut you down will have counted among those who are jealous or envious of you.

I’ve often told youngsters I work with that working out and training means you are doing something positive. Rather than being DE-structive, I’ve said, be CON-structive. Do things that help you, whether it’s bodybuilding, sports, academics, reading, writing, or math. Always advance. Never regress. In other words, like Obi-Wan Kenobi said, always “look inside yourself… and May the Force be with you.”

Wayne Dominowski holds a post graduate degree from the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College. He retired at the rank of lieutenant colonel. He also has a certification in Performance Nutrition and is a Certified Fitness Trainer. Wayne has earned the distinction of Master of Fitness Sciences from the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA). He is currently completing research (Master’s thesis) toward his Master in Counseling degree. Dominowski is a long-time strength and conditioning coach, football coach, sports and news