The process of improvement takes time. Above all, you need to “Trust the process.”
In the City of Brotherly Love, “Trust the Process” has a more significant meaning beyond your training goals.
The Philadelphia 76ers had a “process” that was put in place by a general manager named Sam. Sam’s process was to make the team as bad as possible. Unabashedly awful. Like he actually tried to be bad.
The town and team somehow embraced this strategy. So much so that the star player, Joel Embiid, gave himself the nickname “The Process”. Usually, self-proclaimed nicknames are lame, but Joel is funny and people love him. So we are cool with it.
Anyway, Sam started the process by repeatedly trading away all-stars and top prospects.
A weird thing to do when the goal is to win games, right?
But Sam believed to do well in the NBA you need to have a top level player. A top 5 player.
Like LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant type player.
And Sam is right.
Most teams cross their fingers and hope to get a guy via trade or in free agency. Some dummies just think they have a good team.
But Sam believes you need to draft a top player. So you need a high draft pick. The best way to get a high draft pick is to be bad during the season.
So Sam made the team bad. Real bad. For a long time.
Then something happened.
The plan started to work.
The 76ers were getting high draft picks. They had a top three pick, four years in a row. Two of the four draft picks are AMAZING (One being Joel) and one is TBD.
During this time Sam spoke of his strategy as a “process,” and the town started to trust the process. The process of being bad now to be good later.
During his stint as GM, Sam was highly criticized outside of Philadelphia, but he stayed process oriented. Not outcome oriented.
In theory, it makes sense. But four seasons is a long time to suck. So teams won’t do it. They want outcomes
The outcome of winning games.
The process was to get high draft picks.
To get high draft picks you needed to lose games.
To lose games you need bad players.
To get bad players, you need to get rid of good players
Sam’s focus was getting bad players.
You need to be like Sam when it comes to your training.
Conventional thought is to crush your every run. Run close to your race pace. Work hard and run fast. You are reinforced by things like social media and likes on Strava.
But you need to focus on the small steps that get you to your big goals.
Every run has a purpose just like every move Sam made had a purpose.
You need to focus on your day to day process.
Whether that is a run, stretching, strength, or rest.
Trust your running process and you will reach your desired outcome. The journey will be much more enjoyable.
