A Little Respect
You Only Get Back What You Give Out
It’s not my favorite song. But there are only a couple of songs between A Little Respect by Erasure and the top of my musical mountain. I first heard it back in my eighth grade year. At least I believe it was eighth grade. I think I place it there because I had a great time that year. And A Little Respect makes me happy. A Little Respect makes me want to move and start dancing and play some guitar and get outside and sing at the top of my lungs and help somebody out and tell someone else that they’re safe with me and invite someone else to a starting line and share a great book with somebody else and do another interval and search for a problem that needs solving and try again at something that I failed at the first time. I sincerely hope you have songs like this in your life or at least a song like this.
Is this newsletter about a song that was released a few decades ago? Nope. At least not entirely. This newsletter is about respect. When I was teaching high school history I used to tell my students on day one that they did not need to earn my respect. I meant it. Because they already had it. I already respected them. But I also told them that they could lose my respect. They could cheat. They could be cruel. They could humiliate someone. They could lie. They could purposefully make someone else’s life harder. Do any of those things and you’ve lost some of my respect for you. Maybe you lost all my respect. More importantly, they will have lost some respect for themselves. Whether they realized it or not… it’s true.
You can’t respect yourself and cheat. You can’t respect yourself and be cruel. You can’t respect yourself and lie. You do those things because you believe you are not good enough. Why else would you cheat? Why else would the truth not be good enough? Easy answer here… with apologies to Jack Nicholson… the truth is not good enough for you because you believe you can’t handle the truth. If you really respected yourself how could you possibly be cruel? You don’t think you’re better than that? And don’t you realize that disrespecting others… disrespecting yourself… is one of the things that’s holding you back? When you choose to not give out that deserved respect…there’s a reaction. Because everything you do causes a reaction. It’s all just pendulums swinging back and forth. So, when you don’t give respect to those that deserve it, well, you get some of your self respect taken away. And when you rob someone else (or yourself) of their self-respect you are also stealing some of their self-worth. That makes you nothing more than a petty thief. You’ve created nothing. You’ve given nothing. And you are left with nothing of value.
That’s why you feel so worthless. That’s why you can’t respect yourself. That’s why you keep coming up short. That’s why you’re so angry. But, this isn’t irreversible. You can change. You can start now. It won’t be easy. But taking on difficult challenges is one way to build back some self-respect. And you can always ask for help. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of fortitude. Fortitude is something to respect. And you can start helping others too. Maybe start with some of the people you hurt or hindered. You know, those people you disrespected. That going to take strength. Real strength. Not the puffed-out-chest-buffoonery-fake-strength of social media trolls and tech-bros that espouse toxic masculinity and an equally noxious combination of arrogance and ignorance. That real strength you’ll need to help others is something else to be proud of. It’s something to respect.
Yeah, I’m sure you’ve guessed that this is not about running. But it’s about running too. You want to guarantee you never get close to your potential? Be a terrible teammate to yourself on all those starting lines. Be a heartless and cold coach to yourself out there on all those runs. Be a cynical, hopeless and pessimistic friend to yourself out there away from the sport. Disrespect your effort when you try your best and you’ll stop trying your best. Disrespect the athlete you are today and you’ll stop doing the work you need to do today to become the athlete you hope to be tomorrow. Do that and you won’t ever do what you’re capable of doing. Do that and there’s a good chance you won’t just be holding yourself back. You’ll also be holding back the people around you too. And you’ll be holding back the people you say you care about the most… the most.
So, you want to get better at this thing called running? Yes, we can talk about meters and minutes and miles and tempo runs and fartlek and endurance and strength and speed and lactate threshold and mitochondria and hats and gloves and cushioning and responsiveness and stability and on and on and on. But if you don’t respect the runner you are and the runner next to you then you’re not ever to going to run as long or as far or as fast or as great as you could have. And to me… that’s just disrespectful.
ONE OF THE BEST PARTS ABOUT MY JOB(S)
One of the best parts about what I do is that I get to meet all different kinds of people. I get to hear their stories. I get to find out about where they came from and what they’ve overcome and the struggles they’ve gone through and the great accomplishments they’ve achieved. I get to learn from them. I get to be inspired and motivated and encouraged by them. My world gets a little bigger. My blind spots get a little smaller. I become a little more empathetic and a little less ignorant.
Some of you may think that I’m talking about my job as a coach. You’re not wrong. Coaching puts me in situations where all these things happen. But what I’m really talking about is my job as a human being. We’re supposed to be kind and supportive and open minded and curious. We meant to listen to each other and we’re better when we share our stories with each other. We’re at our best when we’re helping and not hindering each other. Anyway, just wanted to let you know I love both my jobs. And thank you to some world class runners that happen to be world class people too.
Cheers to Karissa Schweizer, Justyn Knight and Christina Aragon for being on the athlete’s panel and for sharing their stories with all the high school coaches at the Nike Track & Field Clinic in Portland last weekend. We all left the time spent with you better at our jobs… both of our jobs.
NEW COACH BENNETT’S PODCAST
Check out the latest episode of Coach Bennett’s Podcast - Metrics That Matter. And if you haven’t already… could you please follow/subscribe to the podcast? Leaving a rating and/or review is also greatly appreciated!
UPDATED AND READY TO ROCK WITH YOU!
That’s right! Coach Bennett’s Mixtape has been refreshed and I can assure you that it is ready to supply you with enough sonic juice to quench that seemingly insatiable audio thirst of yours. I had entirely too much coffee and I’m starting to confuse a great vocabulary with great writing. Anyway, enjoy the mixtape and give the playlist a follow so you can always have access to a suite of symphonic escapades. I’m going to go do some jumping jacks.
Thank you for reading the newsletter. I hope you know that you can comment on what you read. And you can share the newsletter too. I’m cool with that. I hope you’re cool with it too. And I also hope you know that I appreciate you. I appreciate you taking the time to read what I write. And I hope it helped or entertained or educated you or opened your mind or made you think a little bit or laugh or all of the above. And I hope you listened to A Little Respect. It’s a great song. And great songs… like great runs… deserve to be played. Cheers and thank you again for reading. And thank you to all the readers that have chosen to be (or are about to choose to be) paid supporters of the newsletter. I greatly appreciate your support.
Until that next starting line…
Cheers!
Coach Bennett
Hi Coach!
Loved this one! Same as with trust, we start having it but…can be lost. So true and meaningful 👏
Now I have both Respect and You Get What You Give floating in my head. Don't give up-you got the music in you :)