Keegan Smith explains how leaderboards in the New Athlete program shift from ego competition to personal progress tracking and community support. Posting scores publicly creates contrast that motivates improvement, while watching others' achievements fosters encouragement. Higher leaderboard engagement correlates with rising performance standards, with the goal of developing the top 1% of athletes within 12 months.
Why do we need leaderboards? What are the role of leaderboards within New Athlete? Traditionally, you would look at that as being like, I'm only going to put a score on there if I'm first. And it's all about competition and ego. And if that's your paradigm and you're excited by that, cool. I have been there in the past where that's huge for me. There's still definitely some of that within me. I was brought up in that kind of culture. But there's another side to the leaderboards, which is to express yourself and to have the courage to say, this is where I'm at today. And that provides a contrast for where you're at tomorrow. You're so much more likely to get to a very high level of athleticism if you're measuring at checkpoints along the road. And the leaderboards give us the opportunity to do that. They also show you what other people are doing, which gives you community and support. So you putting your scores up actually supports others to do the same. And if the scores aren't great to begin with, that's great. You're going to get extra support within this network. If you're really struggling, if it's really real challenge for you, if you're not at all comfortable with road flow or with juggling, or with foot juggling, or with the snatch or with the skipping, the harder it is for you to begin with and the lower your scores are, the more exciting that is to see the contrast and to enjoy your journey and your transformation of improving yourself. So I look forward to people going past me on the leaderboards because it encourages me then to think bigger, look further ahead. It's also exciting just seeing any of the scores going in because it means that people are engaging themselves, they're engaging their energy, they're engaging their minds. We do have plans to reward our community and our network. We've seen with CrossFit that helping athletes to be full time, to be professional pushes the standards up. And the more people engage with the leaderboards, the more more those standards are going to go up. So whether you're doing that for the vision towards future financial reward, and also those who do well will have opportunities to come to the physical locations and other opportunities will come from being strong within this network. Thousands of men, if you're leading in one area, it's fantastic for you, it's fantastic for the community because you push the standards forward. It's a bit like in the Tour de France, where someone has to take their turn at the Front. In New Athlete, the goal is that everyone gets their turn to take it to the front by choosing a leaderboard that they can really lead in. If there's something there already that you're strong at, that you're a lot better than everybody else, don't be shy, put your best forward and challenge everyone else to go with you. If you'd like to help others to get to that point, you can play more of a role in the community to lead others towards the thing that you're very good at. If you don't yet have one of those abilities, that's okay, too. You're still going to be unique and powerful in your journey in some way. Maybe for your age, maybe it's given the injuries that you've had in the past, maybe it's given the life circumstances that you've been through. We've all had individual journeys, and because there's so many areas within New Athlete, no one's the best at everything. Everyone's going to have an area that's not natural to them, that they're a little bit uncomfortable with, and that's a good thing. I think it's good to be humble and to be humbled by seeing how much better someone else is or how much better you can get within a different area. So the idea with the leaderboards is not to make anyone feel bad or inferior. It is to support the growth of the network. And it's really important for the standards that we're looking to create with this network that the leaderboards show that we're getting better objectively. Top 1% athletes in the first 12 months is the ambition of the program. And those who follow the system are going to do that. You're going to be able to perform many athletic feats that most professional athletes can't achieve within 12 months. When you follow this system and the leaderboards are there to support you to do that and to help you to do that.
