Harry S. Truman is one of my favorite presidents. I’m not sure if it’s because everyone wrote him off as losing the election to Dewey (so he was definitely the underdog) or because he made bold decisions, constantly read, and tried to learn from other people. Maybe it was because he wasn’t afraid to make tough decisions (some of which are still controversial today) or because he’s from Independence, Missouri. Regardless of why he's one of my favorite presidents, he had a sign that sat on his desk for everyone to see that read “The Buck Stops Here.”
Many people don’t know the origin or the significance of this statement. According to historian James Palmer Mann (this is what my father told me), the statement started with the miners who, in their off time, had nothing to do, so they played a lot of poker. To help them remember who was dealer and who was next dealer, the person was marked by a buck knife. As the dealer, it was your responsibility to make sure that everything went well for that game. When the game was over, the buck knife was passed on to the next dealer. When issues occurred during the game, the dealer often got pissed off and blamed others. He would relinquish dealing and pass the buck to the next person. So from that, the moniker "pass the buck" came to mean putting the blame elsewhere and not being accountable.
The buck stops here—the ultimate sign of responsibility and accountability. Truman took responsibility for every action that came from the government. Whether or not he had something to do with it directly and whether or not it worked, it was his fault. It could've been the wrong doing of someone in his administration who he hadn’t crossed paths with in two years, but when you got down to it, ole “give ‘em hell Harry” made the hire, so it was his fault that it went wrong because he had hired the guy. Truman looked at every error as a learning experience. He learned what to do and what not to do each and every time he stopped the buck at his desk.
What does this have to do with powerlifting? Everything! I can't begin to tell you how many times I've heard excuses for missing a lift or having an off day. “That judge was out to get me," "my training partner called my squats high," "the bench shirt's groove was off," "someone put something on the platform," "someone got the bench too wet”—I've heard them all. What do all of these things do? They are ways to put the blame on someone else so that you don’t have to accept responsibility for what went wrong. Because it wasn’t your fault, you have nothing to change. Well, guess what? Those excuses will allow you to keep underachieving. You don’t have to work on your technique, your weak points, or your mental game because it was all someone else’s fault. This leads to a stagnation in results.
Why do we do this? Because we don’t want to be flawed. However, when we learn from the flaws that we have and the mistakes that we make, we become great. Accepting that you allowed yourself to squat high during training and thus weren’t able to achieve depth in a meet forces you to change that. It forces you to squat deeper in every rep in training so that you can feel like you’re squatting high on meet day but still be an inch below parallel. Accepting that you couldn’t get yourself into the bench shirt's groove, which caused the meet to suck, forces you to spend time learning the shirt and its ins and outs so that this doesn’t happen again.
Passing off responsibility to someone else is easy. It means that it wasn’t your fault. You weren’t wrong, so you aren't to blame. Passing the buck allows you to feel better about yourself at that moment. There isn't any shame brought to you because you didn’t do it. However, you won’t get any better. People don’t make changes because they want to. Change is difficult, change is hard, and change is...well, change. Most people aren’t comfortable with that. They would rather place the blame elsewhere so that they have a reason to keep doing the same thing. This is insanity—doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result.
Memories are short, so if you put the blame elsewhere, you won’t remember what to change. Then you go insane and can’t figure out why you aren't improving. Why is the judge always out to get me? Why does my bench shirt never work? Why does the platform always suck at every meet? I’m doing everything right. Why am I not improving? Well, Kimosabe, you aren't doing everything right. You haven't accepted the responsibility and you haven't been accountable for your actions.
Only the people who have great resolve and a sense of responsibility realize that it was their fault and can accept that. Everything that happened on meet day was on them. They did the training, they ate the food, they did the conditioning, they bought and took their supplements, they chose the equipment they used, and they chose what hotel to stay in. If they squatted high or beat a command, it’s because they did it. They chose to use those handlers (even if they were the only people they could get, they chose to use them instead of trying to get help on meet day). These people learn from their mistakes. If the bucks stops at them, they want to make damn sure it doesn’t happen again because when it does, it’s painful. They have to look in the mirror and say to themselves, “I did that. I caused myself to fail.”
But then what do they do? They learn from it. They move on. They get better. They improve whatever it was that went wrong on that given day. They choose better training partners. They work on their shirt technique (or squat suit or deadlift suit technique). They work on their depth. They try to train on similar equipment or surfaces. They are accountable to themselves and the buck stops with them. What do they get for it? Well, for starters, they get to feel like crap at the meet because whatever happened, the buck stopped with them and they accepted responsibility. But you want to know something? In exchange for feeling bad for a few minutes, they get strong(er).
Everything in life is a choice. You have many choices to make every day. Your choices can either keep you comfortable or get you out of your comfort zone. Your decisions can push you toward your goals or push you further away from them. It’s easy to stay where you are and be comfortable with who you are and what you’re doing. It takes more to be a champion. If you want to reach the limits of your potential, you have to develop a strong(er) mind.