So, I Wrote A Book

On May 5th, 2019, I tweeted a gif of my book and said it was coming. Today is February 7th, 2022 and I’m happy to tell you I am in the final stages of editing and formatting that book. So what happened? What have I been doing for the last three years?

The “book” in that tweet was not a book. It was a manifesto and practice arena for my writing skills. I was (and still am) frustrated with how coaches and athletes practice and train for their sports, and how “supposed” educators in the coaching field talk and write about how to get better. I infused my frustration into my writing which got words on the page but little of it was useful for you, my reader. Anything I had seen, read about, or felt, I wrote. I said everything, and because of that, my book said nothing at all. I had hundreds of pages full of words that sat between covers and yet those pages were empty. I failed to be clear about any topic and more importantly, what to do about any of it. 

I only had three points of clarity. I wanted to greatly reduce the risk of noncontact injuries and evolve performance, which is what I do at Apiros. Thirdly, I refused to publish a book that would be as boring as all other movement and skill texts. I had an unwavering commitment to craftsmanship. My book was going to be excellent no matter how long it took me. I knew my book was not excellent, despite what my friends and peers told me. Not knowing whether your writing is good is a critical problem as a writer. It’s as bad as not knowing if your coaching actually helps athletes get better.

If I was going to make noncontact injuries extinct and evolve performance, I needed to get exceedingly clear on what I was going to tell you, and that it works. Then I needed to communicate those lessons to you in words that actually meant something.

My first obstacle was unawareness. It always is. I didn’t know what was wrong with my book but I knew something was wrong. I had a penchant for poetry and rhythm filled lines, and I still do, but I sacrificed clarity and applicability for beauty and I didn’t know it. I needed help but didn’t ask for it until late in the game. But that’s my style… I love figuring out as much as I can on my own before I ask for any rules, guidelines, or coaching. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. Those years spent on the first iteration of the book were incredibly useful but would not take me to the finish line.

So I hired an editor. Her name is Ann. And I took a step all right, but it was not toward publishing. She told me to scrap what I had and rewrite the whole thing. She said, “I can tell you right now that if we were to work together, I'd be suggesting nothing less than a total overhaul. And if that makes you want to heel-turn and sprint in the opposite direction, I totally understand.” 

Her words had the opposite effect. Finally, I thought. Someone who knows what I want to do, how I can do it with words, and most importantly, shares my commitment to craftsmanship. 

I replied to her, “Nothing you said makes me want to turn and run. You’re the first person who has given me such critical feedback. Your words make me extremely curious. (There’s nothing I can imagine that would have me abandon this book.)” I was relieved, she knew why I felt my book was not excellent and knew what to do about it.

She made me aware of my mistakes and what I did well, that awareness alone helped tremendously. She also gave me a North Star to follow with my writing: clarity, clarity, clarity.

So I did what any sensible person would do and archived over two and a half years of daily work and started over. That’s not crazy. What’s crazy is publishing a book that wastes the reader’s time.

A few months passed and I had new unpolished chapters. I had a hunch I was going in the right direction but wanted more feedback, so I reached out to Ann for help. For the next seven months, Ann and I met every weekday at 9 am to put hands on my book. “Where are we starting today?” she’d ask. I always had something to show her because I have started every writing session between 4 or 5 am for the last several years. 

More times that I’d like to admit, I showed up to our sessions expecting praise. I thought I had scored and she would say, “airball.” But then she would show me precisely what I did wrong, why it was wrong, and how to make it better. Countless times we spent sixty minutes on one paragraph. We dissected it. She made me acutely aware of—each—word—I—wrote, and why they did or did not work. Then, alone, I returned to my pre-dawn desk and adjusted my writing. These lessons and their adjustments took time. It’s why the book has taken so long. 

But within that time, I learned the rules, the boundaries, and most importantly, I figured out what I wanted to say, and how to say it in a way that made it meaningful beyond just me. I got a lot better. And so did my book.

The second time I wrote the book, it reunited me with the feelings I had as a collegiate athlete—a daily practice with useful feedback from a coach who cares. Paired with my dedication and passion, Ann’s incredible edits and advice evolved my skills as a writer faster than I could have imagined. (Seriously, there were times when I re-read what I had written and didn’t know who wrote it because it was so much better than I expected of myself. Unawareness, again.) She taught me useful concepts that actually progressed my writing. The more I evolved as a writer, the higher her standards became, and the better the book got.

In a way, Ann reminded me the importance of coaching. I got to experience what I give my athletes. Frequent and useful sessions with an excellent coach can make a world of difference in a career. In total, I’ve spent about 1,260 days on this book—forty-two months. Only 20 percent of them were coached but my skills grew exponentially. Shouldn’t our athletes get a similar experience? Shouldn’t you get a similar experience when you’re trying to learn from a book, speaker, coach, or educational course? That’s what I offer with my book and coursework. 

Early in our process, I’d text Ann, “I wrote so much good stuff over the weekend. Can’t wait to show you!” She later told me her internal reaction to those announcements was, “Oh, fuck. Here we go. Monday is gonna be a lot of work.” Late in our process, I’d text her, “I wrote so much good stuff over the weekend. Can’t wait to show you.” And her internal reaction became, “I can’t wait to see!” This is learning. This is coaching. This is progress. This is the book you’re getting.

So how did my writing and my book evolve in these seven months? What actually happened?

As I wrote, I became more aware of what I did as a coach. I clarified the thoughts in my upstairs thinky-think. I learned how to get my thinky-think and my face-hole to finally speak clearly, and have the same messages. There was finally alignment between the words in my mind, the ones that came out my mouth, and those which were typed by my fingers.

Ann perpetually asked me for evidence of what I said. I replied with research and/or stories about my athletes becoming injury free and more skillful. She asked me questions I never thought to ask my athletes, but needed to if I was going to publish this book. I found myself asking my athletes questions that made me uncomfortable, and would probably make other coaches uncomfortable too. Things like, “how has our relationship affected your training? Does what I teach you actually work? Can you provide me with evidence?” I had to form my theories around the facts, instead of twist the facts to suit my narrative.

I distilled my many ideas down to one idea: evolution. I already used evolution as a movement framework with my athletes, and then I expanded that to human development and skills. As it turns out, sports culture leaves a lot on the table because it has not yet looked through an evolutionary lens. 

When I looked at my athletes' ontogeny, their individual development, and compared it with the evolution of the human species, I found answers. Each athlete has finite windows of opportunity to invest into robust ligaments, tendons, and bones. The metaphor I use for this is Movement Banking. Now, I interview my athletes about their childhoods. The answers they give inform me about their limits as adults, or how much we need to invest into preventative measures. 

I examined the popular traditions in weight rooms, physical therapy clinics, and sports practices from an evolutionary lens and found comical problems. In chapter two, Movement Meltdown, I point out our follies and opportunities through humor. What better way to grow than to laugh at ourselves. 

Then my bread and butter gets served: the evolution of our movement patterns. In parallel to life’s structural evolution from water to land are a series of movement patterns. Each pattern is determined by environments and behaviors. Like orcas that live in captivity develop limp dorsal fins, like inherently athletic dogs that live in small apartments with sedentary roommates develop limps and obesity, and modern humans who have created artificial environments and imbalanced behaviors devolve their movement patterns. Yes, devolve. As in resorting to primitive methods of locomotion. Devolved movements lead to injury. Devolutions are predictable, preventable, and reversible. 

But our athletes need more than normal human movement to perform well, they need skills. Skills also have an evolutionary progression. For instance, a cattle dog herding livestock isn’t too different from a linebacker chasing a running back. They both even have a “master” who verbally abuses or encourages them. Amongst these similarities are vast differences: the emotions, relationships, and contexts of a farm versus a football field. These distinct differences set us apart from the animals, however most coaches and athletes don’t take advantage of them. Using evolutionary principles has allowed me infinite creativity in practice while still advancing skill. My athletes get better than they ever have before.

Writing this book has been a marathon of sorts. In the beginning, I had no direction and ran in circles. Angry circles. Once Ann helped me find my direction, I put real miles down, except I had no idea the length of this race. I took one step at a time, trusting on blind faith that marathons end if you just keep going. Real-life runners know they’ve won before they cross the line. That is the moment. It’s when the tears and emotions start despite still running the race. I had that same moment a few months ago. I reread one of the last chapters, finally aware of who wrote the excellent words on the page, and suddenly was looking through watery eyes. I knew the finish line was in sight. I never had anything close to these emotions with the first book, and I’ve never been more proud and ready to say that the book is finally coming. 

The book is called The Evolved Coach: The Extinction of Injury and Evolution of Performance. It’s in the latter stages right now. Commas, periods, dashes, and colons are being plucked or planted. Grammar is enforced. Citations are being checked. I am practicing the audiobook and comical character voices to use. The book cover is being designed by Rodrigo Corral. He has designed book jackets for Jay-Z, Ray Dalio, Edward Snowden, Daniel Kahneman, and plenty of others. I also made a website for the book, but I still don’t have a release date. If you’re interested in buying the book, put your email here and you’ll be the first to know when it’s ready.

WHAT ELSE IS COMING?

You can expect more writing. I still put pen to paper before every dawn, but now work on long and short form blogs. (I still ask Ann to edit them—she’s that good.) Those who share their emails with me will get them first, and will be the first to know when the book can be pre-ordered.

I made an Evolved Coaching course too. It’s for coaches who want to leverage principles of evolution to help their athletes stay healthy and perform better. Similar to the book, it’s an outlier. How so? Well, for one thing, it’s not a traditional course. It’s education meets mentorship. For eight weeks, attendees get to implement these ideas in real-time with my guidance. I will coach the coaches and their methods, instead of solely preaching PowerPoint slides. I won’t be the only one bringing material to class either, the coaches will contribute videos of their athletes and practices. We will meet a lot—momentum and consistency are powerful tools for learning. Most weeks will look like this: Mondays and Fridays will be ninety minutes while Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, will be thirty minute check-ins to keep the ball rolling.

If you’re a coach who is interested in this course, and have a current practice with clients, you can apply here. The first course will be in the spring of 2022, and it filled up before any formal announcement. If you want first dibs on future courses, click the link to apply.

If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you may have noticed that I’ve been posting a lot more regularly. That habit is here to stay. And if you’re not following me, check out my IG to get a glimpse of what Evolved Coaching looks like.

I can’t wait to show you how a little evolutionary knowledge can evolve the world of sports.

– Austin Einhorn