Hate the Vibe? Make the Vibe

During the summers I get to be a guest to some backyard pool workouts. I’ve cryptically referred to these before, but the short story is a couple days a week about a dozen or so high level individuals get together for some alternative training, and then there’s me. Just yesterday, I was talking with a couple gentlemen in between training evolutions at the pool. One was an actor with no experience in the world of athletics. The other was an NFL veteran with no experience with Hollywood. All three of us agreed unanimously about the need for positive training environments and the general scarcity of such environments.

“I’d make the time to come here 8 days a week. The energy, the people.. it’s just so positive and helpful. Everyone is inspiring and doing something remarkable but, you know, we all still make the time to do this…”

DEUCE Gym is the only other place I could imagine interchanging this description for. As he was talking about his detested feeling of going to the gym and other unfavorable life routines, I was taken back to my experience in the ‘Intro Session,’ where virtually 80% of people express (unsolicited) their negative feeling about gyms, gym memberships, and the fitness environment.

The gist? Everyone wants positive, open, inspiring experiences. However, most often, we rarely practice this behavior out in the world. Said differently, while most people come to me saying they can’t stand gyms I’d like to bet they weren’t necessarily in a gym setting trying to bring a new standard to the vibes. Rather, we assimilate. We contribute to the thing we hate. It’s like we’re all playing follow the leader without a real leader in directions that seem common, but is far from what we actually want.

As the luckiest man on the planet, there are a number of environments and social networks where I’m surrounded by world-class vibes, people, and motivation. If you go to DEUCE Gym, you have at least one safe-haven in your life. The take away here, however, is that when you’re in those awful settings keep in mind that everyone probably agrees with you and would like change. We don’t need to play along. Demand quality experiences in all corners of your life. This shouldn’t be rare and we’re all complicit furthering this behavior at weird gyms, social settings, and even in traffic.

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach