Episode 10: Why Pacers, Sherpas, and Coaches Matter (and Why Doing It Alone Usually Ends With Snacks)

A marathon pacer slipped off for fuel, then cruised past me back on pace like nothing happened—and it reshaped how I think about coaching. That calm, consistent presence in the chaos is exactly what most of us need when goals get hard and emotions try to bargain us into comfort. Today I share what that race taught me about guidance, structure, and the surprising ways we sabotage progress when momentum feels good or life gets messy.

We break down the three big models of support—DIY, DWY, and DFY—and why done-with-you coaching hits the sweet spot for fitness. DIY offers freedom but often taxes you with overthinking and inconsistency. DFY works in areas like nutrition or business systems, but nobody can do your reps. DWY blends expertise with autonomy: personalized plans, accountability, and a cohort that keeps you moving forward without smothering your independence. Think of it as having a fitness Sherpa who knows the route, calls out the hazards, and adjusts your plan when the weather changes.

I also unpack two common traps. The confidence trap shows up after a streak of wins, when you drop the structure that produced them and slowly slide back. The stress trap strikes when life gets intense and you retreat until you feel “worthy” again. Both are solved by connection, not isolation: taper support instead of quitting it, shrink your targets instead of disappearing, and keep a line to your coach when capacity is low. We end with practical guidance on when to add more structure—starting over, returning from injury, shooting for a deadline—and why your environment can either multiply willpower or drain it. If your home and habits don’t support your goals, borrow an environment that does through community and coaching.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s stuck in DIY mode, and leave a quick review—your feedback helps more people find a pace they can keep.

Transcript

Welcome And Marathon Setup

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Well, hello, and welcome to another episode of the 1% better podcast with your host today, Josh Williams. And super excited to be here today. Happy to have you all listening, to be in your earbuds. And today's episode, I want to talk about my experience that I had with the with the marathon I did about a month ago now. And if you haven't done one, I guess this isn't at all of them, if you've never run one, is they have uh pacers. So for new people that are trying to hit a certain mark, they had, if I my recollection recounts correctly, they had a pacer that was like, you know, sub-four, four minute, four fifteen. And then all the way there was a uh 530 pacer, which is the one that I was hanging out with for most of the time. And it just kind of struck me the amazement of a pacer in the sense that in theory, they on any given you know marathon can just go out and they know they can hit that pace. And they're not gonna have something come up. It's they've done it enough that it's like routine. They're gonna hit it. And I mean, of course, with the the fast pacers, it's it's it's amazing to do that and all the people that you are helping in that cohort to stay on that time and to hit that record. And so, in some ways, they're kind of like a coach or a Sherpa, as I like to call myself, a fitness sherpa along the way. And the pacer that I was hanging around, my my 530 friend, who I was hoping, you know, to beat because my goal was 515, did not happen. But it was just amazing the pace that she kept and you know the energy that she brought. And there was points in the race that she would actually, you know, pull off, stop, you know, rest, get something to eat, whatever. And she'd be gone for like, you know, 30 minutes. I'm like, man, I'm so fast. And then she would come up behind and pass me, and I was like, oh geez. And so she would get right back on pace. And it was just amazing to see all that unfold and how that works. And it just reminded me a lot of coaching, what a fitness sherpa is, and how valuable it is to have coaching and guidance uh through the the tough times in the slog. And so I wanted to kind of go over that today and kind of understanding the differences in in coaching. And so some of us might be new to coaching or maybe forgotten about coaching, but there's really three categories of coaching. You can kind of break these up to subcategories if you want, but I'm not going to. So the first category is what you call DIY, done or do-it-yourself style coaching. So this is gonna be typically something that is free, it's something that you just do on your own. You're just gonna buy a gym membership to rent equipment. You're gonna go in, you're gonna do it. You have a level of knowledge to do it safely, or a level of ignorance to not know. And typically, the pros of this is gonna be it can be cheap or free. On that end, it can be flexible and it's independent. You don't have to rely on anybody on your own. So there's there's definitely some pros to it. But just like a DY DIY project at your house, you're probably gonna pay for time, mistakes, and effort. Sometimes it's actually cheaper to just help with a professional. But that is uh is an option for sure. You know, the cons. There is no accountability, it's very easy to stop. It's easy to overthink or under train. So overtrain, under train, overthink programming. There's no outside perspective of expertise that you can rely on typically on that end. There's no there's no cohort unless you find one as you as you do that. The most common one how we work at Sprillin is a DWY done with you style of coaching. So this is gonna be you are working with somebody who is giving you structure, personalization, giving you what you need for when you need it based off of your goals, accountability, they're providing that structure, that community for you to thrive. It's a really good balance of autonomy plus support. The cons, of course, it is gonna be more expensive than a DYI as well. So and then the last one is what we call DFY, so done for you style of service. This is typically very expensive. They're gonna do the result for you. Very hard to do in the fitness space from my exercise strength standpoint. Unfortunately, I don't know of anything that is in that space. You typically have to do the work. So the DWF done with you format is the best for that. But for things such as like nutrition, yeah, you could have meal prep services, you could hire a chef, you know, all those kind of things. You know, in the business world, it might be hiring somebody that knows particular software and they build it up for you. So yeah, I could figure it out on my own and spend hours and hours and make mistakes, or I could pay somebody, you know, to do everything and they've already made all the mistakes. So they just do it for me. So very similar with like nutrition, things like that can be much more of a DFY. The closest thing would be personal training, even though personal training really is more of an expensive version of the done with you format. So those are really the three categories of of coaching and services. And I would say, I mean, really for anything in life, but uh it also applies to the coaching. So what a coach provides, what a Sherpa provides in this, and what you should expect is the understanding that they have experience. They they've worked with hundreds of clients, they've worked with people getting them from point A to point B. I love the Sherpa analog just because again, it invokes for me like visions of Everest. Never hiked it, have no desire to, but this idea that there are these people that pretty much guide people up the mountain all the time. One of the hardest things to do, and they do this all the time carrying people's stuff, helping them traverse, getting from point A to point B and back. And so that to me is a lot of what a coach is. They they know the route, they know how to get you there. They're gonna help you get there. Of course, not as dangerous as ever, so we're not losing people, thankfully, but but what they can do is they can provide a sense of calm when things get hard. They provide encouragement of stuff like that again, but they're also we're here to anticipate as well. We know that these are gonna happen. Hey, you're running a high, there's gonna be potentially a low, life is gonna get busy again. How are we gonna navigate this to make it easy so we stay on track and hit that goal that we actually care? Our big why, the thing that's actually going to provide happiness, joy, and provide uh move us forward to our ideal self and not get distracted by ease on that. And so that is why a coach or Sherpa can be extremely important. And that kind of brings up my next point of we I call these the coaching traps that I see people get into. And so number one is uh the confidence trap. You know, you feel good. I don't need this anymore. I don't need coaching anymore, I can do this on my own, blah, blah, blah. I see this all the time. Sadly, in our industry, is when this happens, when I check up on clients down the road, you know, they're they're typically not doing anything. They've gone back to what they were doing before. And one of the things I remember having a conversation with somebody with, because when when a client leaves, we're gonna lose clients. I really want to educate them and I care about them and understanding that the results that they got don't stick. Unfortunately, strength, once you stop stimulating, it starts to deteriorate and at a pretty rapid pace. So if you've been training for a year, you're feeling stronger, you're feeling better, and then you decide, you know what, I'm gonna try to do this on my own, but you don't have the structures in place, you don't have the habits built, the confidence, the routine built outside of that structure that we provide, then you might do it or you might get frustrated or discouraged, and then fall back to doing whatever. Like again, you're gonna fill that time that you dedicated to working out with something else. And what some people don't know is that if you end up doing nothing, maybe you start doing walks again, that this and that, your strength will actually start decreasing. You will actually lose that strength over the course of you know two to three months pretty rapidly. Most of that strength that you took a year to put on. And it's it's not to like scare people, but it's like, if you're leaving us, please put the structure in place. Do a tier off. Hey, we're gonna see you once a week as I build this new structure, new routine, and then wean off. And so that's what we'll always recommend. But this confidence trap has destroyed so many people where it's like I can do it on my own, but then life happens again. You don't have that structure and support, uh, that encouragement to keep going on, even when it is hard. So don't fall into that. I would say we all need coaching. Again, as a coach, I get coaching, whether that's for my my own health or mental health or business, whatnot, always using coaches and advisors to help me along the way, to give me that clarity, to give me that confidence, that support, and to help me when my brain maybe isn't thinking right or I'm thinking too emotionally and want to go back to comforts. The second one is what we call, I call like the stress trap. And, you know, life is busy. I'll go get back to it, you know, when I'm feeling better, or I'm just gonna do it alone right now. And what kind of triggers this is a feeling of overwhelmed, you know, feeling embarrassed, maybe, fear of letting your coach down. Uh, you know, stress leads to retreating. So going back to old comforts, going back to old ways because it's comfortable. You know, so you know, behaviors that we'll see is you know, avoiding sessions, pulling away instead of leaning in. You know, I'll get back on track first, then I'll come back. This perfectionism. And really, we don't need perfectionism, we need showing up and building that habit and routine. And the truth is stress isn't the time to, you know, go into like a silo. It's the time to stay connected. And a lot of times when we get stressed, we actually want to disconnect instead of you know, have the harder conversations, have you know, how can we do this, how can we keep this and working with your coach, your church as we go through this. So those are the two things to really watch out for. I mean, I see those in myself sometimes. You know, when I'm working with a coach and everything's going good, like I want to talk to them, like oh, everything's crushing it, going great. And then you go through a stretch and it's like not going well. Maybe fell off nutritionally, your workouts, business life, whatever. You're like, yeah, I don't I want to skip the meeting. Like, hey, I'm I'm sick, I can't go to that meeting or I'm gonna miss this session. So again, really being aware of that and then pushing through that hardness. Because when we push through something that's hard and uncomfortable, that we know will lead to growth, that is where the growth happens. So yeah, that's really what I wanted to talk about today. You know, when you need coaching, you really need more coaching when you're starting over, starting from scratch, when you don't know what you need, when you need structure, when there's a life change, when you have an injury history, how to navigate that, if you have a big goal, big deadline. I would really say when you need less structure is really a lot of it depends on your level of knowledge that you want to put into it. So the planning, the understanding, as well as probably the most important is the environment that's created outside of the space. So a spurling, one of the things we do is create an environment. An environment that encourages and fosters continuing to live 1% better, also getting stronger and a helping community. Now, if I don't have that at home, I don't have the encouragement to continue going on. And like encouraging, you know, with a spouse or or an environment that's actually encouraging me to make the right decisions, encouraging me to stay active and moving, encouraging me to make the right food decision. So if I have a spouse, partner, or an environment that I live in that is maybe not discouraging me, meaning like, oh no, you shouldn't do that, but is this a passive environment, meaning, you know, there's snacks that you struggle with and this and that, but your partner's not willing to get rid of them or hide them or put them someplace different, though they are not actively discouraging you, it is an environment that you're living in that you're having to fight against. And so if you're going back to an environment that hasn't changed at all since you started on this journey, there is a high likency that you were going to slip back to what you were doing before, because environment matters that much. And so it's extremely hard to fight against it and just be aware of that. And so that's why, you know, coaching, accountability, and that community is what we really strive so hard for at Sperling Fitness. So again, if you're new to this whole fitness thing and you're joining us, well, thank you. Thank you for listening this long. Uh, hopefully this was all helpful. But I would encourage you to check us out at Sperling. We'd love to meet you, you know, meet you where you're at, understand your goals, and get you started, have you try us out, make sure it is a good fit for you, for all the Sperling community. Thank you all so much. Love you all. We will talk to you soon and have a wonderful day.