Now What?: The Ongoing Pursuit of Improved Performance

by Dan John, Chip Morton (Foreword)

In Intervention, Dan described how he evaluates adults and suggests course corrections to improve the basics. He followed that with Can You Go?, where he addressed assessments trainers and coaches might use with their clients and athletes. Now, in Now What? Dan loops back around to tell us what to do next. You’ve brought your clients up to the minimum standards. You’ve done your assessments. Now what? That’s the question Dan answers in this book, the third installment of this series. Dan John’s Now What? will help you determine the next steps in moving toward the goals of your clients and athletes. “In Now What? Dan presents basic tools and training principles from his experiences as an athlete and coach, and applies them with experienced hands and through empathetic eyes toward the personal growth of his readers. It’s a reasonable approach to help us all reach our goals, bringing greater satisfaction while working through the process.” ~ Chip Morton From Dan’s Introduction to Now What?: The lessons learned about the road to success from elite athletes and performers can make everyone’s life better. From de-cluttering the inbox or letter pile with a shark habit, to applying pirate maps to ongoing health and fitness, most people can free up some mental space to focus on moving ahead with all of life’s goals and dreams. Elite performers focus on the fundamentals and basics more thoroughly than the hobbyist. Elite performers keep their heads clear, carving out the clutter of life—both the important and the unimportant—with a scalpel. When needed, the elite focus on two- to twelve-week programs to shore up a weakness or some other issue. Elite performance is principle based. Most of us can learn from this “carving of the clutter.” At times, we can follow a program, but most of the time, we can adopt a simple list of pirate maps for our fitness, health and longevity needs and goals. The stumbling block of Now what? soon takes on a new meaning. After emptying the inbox and finishing the laundry, we can ask Now what? as the start of a new adventure, a new challenge. In this book, I outline a simple quadrant showing how I teach elite performers the tools to deal with life, living and high-end achievement. And if you don’t think you’re an elite performer, I would like you to reconsider this. ~ Dan John

Genres: Fitness, Nonfiction

328 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 24, 2017

About the author

Dan John has coached for more than 30 years. He's helped hundreds of athletes pack on double-digit pounds of rock-solid muscle. As an athlete, John broke the American record in the Weight Pentathlon. He is the author of several books.

Reviews

[cellomerl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook. A little repetitive, but fun to listen to, as with all Dan John books read by Dan John. This one is focused on coaching methods.
I like listening to experienced strength coaches. They tend to know what works. Do you want to get stronger? If you’re an athlete, you should. If you’re an ordinary person, you should. Getting stronger means putting in the work. And it’s a lot of very hard work.
Dan John is an enemy of the complicated. He has a refreshing voice when everyone else seems to be trying to sell you something you don’t need.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. There are a lot of great insights here. For example, if your goal in life is elite sports (or elite anything really), shark habit everything else in life and pirate map your way to your goal (read the book to understand those two concepts). There’s more (and it’s all gold) but that insight alone was worth it. I’m really not sure why this book isn’t more popular...

[Bob Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dan John rocks!!

I have read and reread all of Dan John's books. I also subscribed to his podcast on Spotify. He continuely boils things down and makes them simple for me. He makes lifting kettlebells fun. I recommend his work to everyone I come in contact with fitness-wise.

[Chuck Kechter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now What is a natural extension of everything Dan John has ever written about. Building, expanding and clarifying his approach to (physical) performance.

Highly recommended!

[Chuck Kechter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now What is a natural extension of everything Dan John has ever written about. Building, expanding and clarifying his approach to (physical) performance.

Highly recommended!

[Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pirate map

Keep a highlighter ready and you will have principles, shark habits and pirate maps for being a slave to good habits.