Ten years ago this month I started this blog. The last ten years have been a journey, a journey of growth, discovery, self-reflection and sharing. I got the idea to write this blog when I was driving across country returning home to Sarasota after a terrible experience with the Nike Oregon Project where my dream job quickly turned into a bad dream. I needed to put the back-to-back negative experiences of the Oregon Project and the New York Mets behind me. I knew I needed to find my voice again and define myself and not let those experiences define me but to learn from them and move on. I was out in the middle of the Great Plains when I came up with the idea of the Functional Path blog, I vowed that I would use it to help me focus on completing my book Athletic Development – The Art & Science of Functional Sports Training and as a means to define myself and regain my confidence. I knew I needed to dedicate myself to writing each day so I used the blog to motivate me. I am a big fan of John Steinbeck who wrote 200 to 500 words a day in a journal as a warm-up to his actual writing (Working Days –The Journal of the Grapes of Wrath), so like my literary hero Steinbeck I used the blog to get me started writing each day. I finished the book that fall and it was published in early 2007. I am trying to find the same inspiration to finish my next book – Developing Athletes. Hopefully when I get done with my travels in October I will get back to working on the book daily with the blog as a daily kick-start.
Ten years later I am still writing the blog. Sometimes it has been a catharsis, it is certainly a daily reminder to stay on task, to gather my thoughts and seize the day. As I have said several times over the years, I write the blog for myself not to gain followers, to market or sell anything. The fact the blog has attracted a certain following is flattering. I am looking forward to continuing to write the blog to share ideas and information that I have found useful in my career. As I embark on a different stage of my career with my professional focus on GAIN I will be sharing more of what is happening with GAIN and the GAIN community. I hope there are many more years of reflections on traveling the functional path.