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The Secret Passage to Body-Building Success

Ralph Rose of San Francisco was a world’s shotput record holder back in 1908. However, his training “success” was not solely due to his many victories on the field. Public domain photograph.

When I was a senior in college, I took a drafting class as a requirement for my field of study. Today, over two decades later, I remember little about the drafting lessons that my professor had desperately tried to pound into my head. But, I do remember an important life lesson that I picked up from him during one particularly special lecture.

One of the students in my drafting class had mentioned to the professor that she worked after school hours, and she proceeded to request that an upcoming test be postponed for a few days so that she would have adequate time to prepare for it. Upon hearing the student’s request, the professor asked her, “What kind of work do you do?” The girl hesitated to answer. Then, after lowering her head as if to save herself from disgrace, she softly mumbled in a condescending tone, “I’m just a waitress.”

I caught nothing wrong with the girl’s answer, but my professor most certainly did. He looked sternly at the student, and he told her, “Young lady, you are not just a waitress; you are a waitress.”

The professor then paused briefly, looked across directly at his students as if he had something really important to say (which he did), and then in continuation of his life lesson he remarked, “It’s not what kind of job you have that’s important; it’s how well you perform the job you have that counts.”.

Years later, I still reflect upon this important “life lesson” that was brought forth by my drafting professor. And, from it, I have derived an important corollary – one directed at the world of strength. Here it is:

It doesn’t matter if you are the strongest, the biggest, the most victorious, or the most popular strength athlete around. And, it doesn’t matter what school of strength you belong to. What matters is that you enjoy your training and that you work the best you can to realize your full potential, whatever that potential may be. Only by understanding this truth will you arrive at the secret passage, the one that leads to a meaningful, rewarding, and successful body-building career.

Rob Drucker