Providence Take II

Second time around isn't always AS good as the first, usually it's a little better or a little worse. In regards to the Perform Better Summit held in Providence (also 2 other locations) for me it was better than the first. This past weekend I got a great chance to see some of the best in the business speak and mingle with them a bit. Those of you that haven't been to one yet and are in this business then get your butt to one, they have a solid lineup every year for all 3 locations (others are Chicago and Long Beach). It's 3 days of the best there is out there, I'm even considering making the trek to one of the others next year.

A couple things I did this year as opposed to last. I did some switching up with some of the sessions I attended. Last year I went to everything I wanted to go to, whether it was a topic or one of the presenters. This year I made myself go to some sessions I needed to go to. I know I have holes in my game and there's even some stuff I'm skeptical of so I try address those this year when I went. Luckily I had a partner in crime this year, my colleague Steve, so if I felt like I missed something in the session I wanted to go to, I knew it's one he was probably going to attend so I could trade notes with him.

I managed to make myself go to the final day Sunday this year even, maybe next year I'll make it to the Thursday sessions and get the full experience. Sunday is reserved for the "rookies" as Charlie Weingroff called them, I would certainly say you can peel the rookie label right off the 3 people I saw. I'm proud to say that one of them I enjoyed the great sport of rugby with once upon a time. Topics included Postural Restoration, teaching women how to love the iron and the value of getting off the elliptical, and the ins and outs of the Paleo diet. PRI is something that's way over my head that could have a little value in learning a thing or two about. Much of my clientele is women and half the battle is teaching them that a weight heavier than the pink dumbbell won't make you look like Arnold, plenty to bed learned about that. Finally diet and nutrition alone are some things I feel a ton of people struggle with, that said something like the Paleo diet makes for an interesting topic as a general discussion, so when someone as smart as Brian St. Pierre from Precision Nutrition is presenting, I was excited to pull up a seat and listen to old Sainty on this one.

Finally a word to the wise, when you attending one of these summits, don't throw out the baby with the bath water. I have seen it with every one of these types of things that I attend, people want to just completely throw out their system and do everything exactly like one of the coaches at these. Now if your system or programming is that bad that you want to make that large of an overhaul to it, my first reaction is what the heck were you using it for in the first place? 2nd thought, more importantly, is good for you for recognizing it's not working. For those that have a system that works don't just completely overhaul everything you're doing, just make some tweaks. Paraphrasing from Ron Hruska via Mike Boyle, take the system you love and believe in and simply make it better.

That is all I have today guys, go out there and get after it.