Ep. 215 Kegan Returns
Kegan Dillon used to work closely with us and has been on many, many episodes of the podcast. For the past couple of years he has been seeking and growing in a different zip code but occasionally visits to see what we are doing and to share what he has learned out there, on walkabout. He sat down with Michael in April to talk about the state of the fitness industry, learning from the students you are teaching, the concept of authority gained by accreditation rather than — and not reinforced by — actual experience and practical application, and marketing, the goddamned albatross of marketing. The bad version of it is manipulation. The good version is holding up a flashy thing to grab attention and then transmitting good, useful information, and that's a tough balance to achieve. If we defined it in a way we could live with it would be simple, simply, "sharing with the world what it is that you do ..." But marketing isn't truth and sometimes the marketed get caught in lies or omissions their business can't withstand. "Can you imagine how awesome our world world be if politicians were held to the same standard (re: lying) as the Liver King?" Yeah, that would be a fine world to live in but too few will confront a truth that might expose their own dishonesty and lack of integrity.
Deeper in the conversation Kegan and Michael discuss the importance of fitness as we age, 80s and 90s sort of age, and how one must have something to look forward to, something to work towards. If you can find no reason to stay fit or recover lost fitness it's difficult to motivate yourself to do anything but be sedentary. Will can carry you beyond yourself, but when Will goes, the physical world slides away with it. How do you keep going when you no longer want to? And it's not a question of endurance in sport, this is about life, about career, about work and making that work mean something or help change something ... without meaning there is no reason to keep breathing.
Finally, the conversation turns to concepts of trust, and freedom, and always keeping a "Fuck You" in your back pocket. Because if you are willing to walk away then you are free to do anything.
