Tagged: ego

Julie Loeffler: Stop Dressing to Impress

Julie Loeffler of Mid-Ohio IMB:

Have you ever wondered how we, as instructors, come across to other people who aren’t steeped in the business of personal defense? I mean really, have you scrolled through your newsfeed and looked at how people want to be identified? Take about five minutes of your time (realizing that you’ll never get it back!) and check out profile pictures of people in the biz. After you stop rolling your eyes at all of the clichés, ask yourself who you think their target market is.

And ponder this for a moment: If new and curious people are looking on social media to find a personal defense class (armed or unarmed), what type of impression are they getting from all of these ludicrous photos? I don’t care how awesome you think you are, or how loudly you’re shouting that you want to teach the new shooters, if your first impression via social media looks like someone who just stepped off the movie set of either Apocalypse Now or Full Metal Jacket then you will get nowhere with that crowd. You don’t look knowledgeable, you look unapproachable and unrelatable…

Continue reading at The Trigger Press

This. A thousand times this. Go read the whole thing, it’s worth it.

Jeff Gonzales: The Unteachable

Jeff Gonzales of Trident Concepts:

Every instructor will run into this student at some part in their career, it is only a question of when and how often. It’s unfortunate, but it is also nothing more than triage in a classroom.

An unteachable student is someone who is unable to make changes, improve or adapt due to mental obstacles. Examples of these obstacles are ego, dogma and my favorite ignorance. Ego is the most common I see in our classes and one of the easier ones to remedy…

Continue reading at Trident Concepts

Note: I think he’s using the word “ignorance” to describe a fixed mindset that refuses to grow into safety or competence. That kind of ignorance is a huge problem. Literal ignorance, a lack of knowledge, is in my opinion not only ok in students but is the point of training. We go to class to turn areas of ignorance into areas of knowledge, through learning. That does require a growth mindset, though.