Interns and Impact, Part Three

The Impression You Make on Your Peers

In parts one and two of this series, we discussed how, as an intern, you can make a positive and negative impact on the coaches and athletes you come into contact with. In this final part, I’ll discuss the impact you can make on the other interns you work with. Let me preface this by saying these interns may be the individuals responsible for molding many of your thoughts and end up being either your closest friends or your most hated adversaries. To make a Matrix comparison, you'll without a doubt intern with red pill and blue pill people. Thus, it’s up to you to choose which rabbit hole you go down and who you want to jump down there with you.

Using your fellow interns to share training ideas and philosophies

At my first internship, I soaked up every piece of information thrown at me and considered it all to be the truth. My head was so empty that I wasn't in any place to try to determine a philosophy of my own. However, by the time my second internship rolled around, I was beginning to develop ideas and expand my mind past one way of training (thank God). It was around this time that I met two of my closet friends and fellow interns, Paul and Skylar. Had it not been for the time we all spent together bursting blisters on Strongman Saturdays, reading away Sunday mornings about different training philosophies, and working long hours on the job together, I don’t know that I would have developed into the coach I am today. So take advantage of the guys you intern with. Pick their brains and learn together because two intern’s experiences combined are a lot closer to 10,000 hours of coaching knowledge than just one's.

On the flip side, for every great friendship you develop during your internship experiences, I can guarantee you will have a nemesis or two. On my first job, there was one intern who resented me. And by resented me, I mean disliked. And by disliked, I mean I’m confident he hated me. He felt threatened, was insecure with his own abilities, and hated to put in the required hours. Together, we were olive oil and vinegar, and his attempts to draw me out into a catfight were never-ending. However, take this advice—when you end up on a staff with someone like this, take it in stride. Know that this person is threatened, take it as a compliment, and then stay the hell away from him. He's only trying to ruin your experience, but at least you hold the keys to decide whether or not you're going to let him take you on that hell ride.

The type of attitude you come in with

Through my previous years of interning, I've noticed that interns normally come in with three types of personalities when they first meet their peers—the superior/arrogant intern, the quiet/reserved intern, and the bubbly/energetic intern. It shouldn't be any surprise to you as you read this to find that I'm the third type. However, now that you're aware of these personalities, realize that all three will have different impacts.

Going back to my first internship, I was lucky enough to have the king of arrogant interns as my co-worker. This was the intern I referenced earlier in the article, and for the sake of privacy, let's call him G.I Joe. Anyways, G.I. Joe and I clashed on everything. He couldn't handle the fact that I, the polar opposite of him at five feet two inches and 100 lbs, wasn't going to back down from his rude remarks to me or stop calling him out for showing up to work late and leaving early. Thus, by the end of the summer, his arrogant behavior had become apparent to the entire strength staff. Despite having all the intangibles required to make him an ideal strength coach, he ended up alienated from the staff and didn't go on to work as a strength coach. Long story short, don’t be that guy because arrogance can act like kryptonite to even the most qualified interns.

As I previously stated, it isn't any secret that as an intern, and even as a coach today, I'm bubbly and energetic. Often times, this can work in your favor because having a positive and energetic personality makes you approachable to athletes, staff members, and other interns. Also, it's this type of personality that can also help bring the team back to life when summer session two rolls around and everyone is dragging ass and rocking some serious under eye circles. However, on the flip side, this can also hurt you. I remember working for one coach who could only handle so much firecracker personality. Anyways, come evaluation time, he let me know that my personality was like a bubble machine, and if I didn’t learn how to pop a couple of those bubbles that I was cranking out, eventually it would be my downfall. While he phrased his thoughts in a much more “direct” way, I'll say that this reality check actually was a huge help to me. I now give this coach most of the credit for my development to this point because without this reality check, I probably would have gone on pissing off one or two more coaches than I would have liked to with my monster fuel packed personality.

If you're the quiet type, chances are the impression that you make on your peers will be neither positive nor negative. If you're wondering if this is an issue, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t have an answer. Do you want to be remembered by most or do you want to be remembered by those closest to you? I can't really give you advice here because that's a personal decision. One of my closest friends was this intern. Those he is close to now know him as one of the most brilliant young coaches around. However, to everyone else, he's just another quiet face in the crowd of many interns working hard to become top-level coaches. Thus, as a quiet intern, the impact you make on your peers will be closely related to how well you open up to them.

This is strength and conditioning, not middle school

I feel I should share a word of caution for any intern trying to make an impact at the expense of their intern brethren. If you're one of those interns who feels the need to spread gossip about other interns to the strength staff as a way to bond with them, I hope you read this and stop that bull immediately. Here's the truth—if you act in that manner, one of two things will happen. Either the strength staff will catch on and view you as untrustworthy, or the other interns will catch on and think you're a mole. Put it this way—if we worked together and I watched you throw others under the bus, you had better believe that I would handle this the way that the “U” football players handled locker room business in the 80s. Jokes aside though, acting like you're a gossipy girl in middle school isn't any way to make a positive impression as an intern. So take my advice and check yourself before you wreck yourself.

So to sum it all up

Well, that's it. My article series on interns and impacts has come to a close. I hope that more than a few people read this, and of those who do, I hope at least a handful are motivated to make a positive impact as an intern. To be honest, if I have helped at least one person, I will consider this a success. So hopefully a few of you take this as extra leg drive on that Prowler™ push from the intern end zone to the coaching goal line and move one step faster toward accomplishing your goal!