I’ve had a few issues with my calf recently. Running 40-45 mile weeks, if I’m honest, I’m not surprised. Went to see my physio last night and we ended up sat in deep conversation for well over an hour.

We got talking about injuries. About how people often train too hard but don’t balance nutrition, sleep, and recovery properly. But also about how all of that is individual to the person, we are not clones of each other. We know we need to eat right, train right, sleep right, recover right, and while there are core principles to all of it, everyone is different and has different things going on in their lives. People trying to train like an athlete whilst running a family and a full-time job often run into trouble, because they don’t have the ability or the time to do the recovery work that athletes do.

In honesty, that conversation sounded familiar. But it’s true.

The Usain Bolt trap

Look at how Usain Bolt trains the 100m and then think you can go out and train like that, it sounds silly, I’m sure. And yet so many of us do exactly that. We watch someone at the very top of their field and try to lift their programme, their diet, their schedule, straight into our own lives, with none of the context that made it work for them.

On the other side of the coin, that’s not to say there isn’t a lot any runner could learn from him, his training, his mentality. That’s the balance most people never find. They either don’t study anyone at all, which to me is crazy, you have the ability, through books, podcasts and videos, to learn from some of the greatest minds in history and today for almost nothing, or they do study, but then try to become a clone of someone else. Neither works.

Take the lesson, not the blueprint

I’ve read in excess of 250 books, mainly on business, fitness, and personal development. I’ve spent time with, and studied, those ahead of me in the arenas I want to play in.

My run coach can run a 15-minute 5km. He’s spent his life running at a high level, so I can learn a lot from him. But he’s also under 60kg. I’m 90kg. So how he eats, and some of the training he does, simply won’t work for me the way it works for him. I have to take the lessons and make them fit myself and my goals, not the other way round.

Business is the same. I’ve read so many books that say hustle, sacrifice everything, have no balance. A younger me was probably closer to that. But at 41, with a family, it’s far more about balance for me now. I’ve read books on being fully present in the moment, on Buddhism, and again, there are great learnings and philosophies in there, but not all of it fully fits my values or what I want from life. You may have read some of my other posts about how I’ve taken principles from Buddhism and Taoism and made them relevant to today, and to my own goals. Not adopted wholesale. Adapted.

Get clear on your values first

This is where most people get it wrong. They either don’t study anyone, which, again, is crazy given what’s freely available to us, or they study and then try to become a carbon copy of someone else. We’re unique. We don’t learn the same way. We can’t always train the same way. Different foods affect people differently. And what we want from our lives differs too.

Before you study anyone, work out your values and be clear on them. What’s important to you, and in what order. For me, it’s my family first, always. Then my fitness, both mentally and physically. Then business and financial. Then relationships and friendships. Then fun and hobbies. In that order.

Because I’m clear on that, if I read a book that tells me to put my business above my family, I know that doesn’t fit my values, so I take it with a pinch of salt. That doesn’t mean I can’t learn other lessons from that same book. It just means I’m filtering everything through what actually matters to me, rather than swallowing it whole.

What older men taught me about being a father

Work out your values, then study those who’ve done what you want to do, in every arena, not just the obvious ones.

Some of my biggest lessons as a parent haven’t come from parenting books. They’ve come from speaking to guys 20, 30 years older than me and listening to their regrets, most of them about working too much. For the first five years of my son’s life, I put time with him ahead of everything. I still do. But now he’s at school, that does allow me to be more balanced in my approach.

My ethic with him is simple: when he’s at school and I’m working, we both put our heads down and work hard. When we’re together, it’s about enjoying what we’ve been working hard for. Giving him a reason for it.

The blend

In business, I’ve studied so many entrepreneurs and read so many books. Some have been gold. Others haven’t fitted what I want at all. But there are lessons in every one of them.

In fitness, I’ve been coached by runners, triathletes, special forces coaches, and bodybuilders. I’ve learned from all of them. But if you look at the way I train now, you can probably see the blend of all of them in my approach. It isn’t any one of their programmes. It’s mine, built from pieces of theirs.

Life, business, family, it’s all the same principle. Study everyone you can. Learn everything you can from them. Then filter it through what you actually value, and build something that’s yours.