While watching Stuart Armstrong’s presentation from the 2021 Sport Movement Skills conference on the weekend there was a quote he shared from Christina Katz that jumped out at me:
“Reach down and pull someone up. Then reach up and ask someone to pull you up. We are all in various stages of being the puller and the pulled. Nobody is at the top. We are all climbing together.”
The last three lines are important to reflect on and embrace. We are all on a journey. None of us are at the top. We are each in various stages of being the puller and the pulled. If we are going to enhance our training with the goal of enhancing the competence and confidence of our people, and thereby enhancing the profession, it needs to be a collaborative effort; we are all climbing together.
Two words not explicitly stated in Katz’s quote, which jump out at me as important in this journey are “intentional” and “deliberate”. Are you intentional and deliberate about pulling others up? It is easy to think that just because you teach all the time that you are pulling people up. We have all been exposed to trainers who, for a variety of reasons, are just going through the motions, checking boxes and unconcerned with pulling anyone up. Some, through their negativity, are pulling actually people down. Some are only interested in advancing their agenda, their business, or their career.
Hopefully you have also been exposed to trainers and coaches who are intentional and deliberate about investing in you and helping you live into your potential. They are intentional and deliberate about pulling the participants in their training up by advancing their skills, knowledge and understanding. Hopefully you have also had trainers who were willing to connect you to someone else who was willing to help pull you even higher on your journey of learning and growth. What about you? Are you intentionally, deliberately, and authentically striving to extend a hand to others and help them up on their journey?
What about reaching up? Are you intentional and deliberate about finding people who will pull you up? These might be people with whom you have a personal connection and who are knowingly and intentionally mentoring and investing in you. It might be someone you know personally, but the mentoring relationship is not a formal one. It might also be people you have never met or spoken with, who have positively influenced you through their writings, their podcasts, or their online or in person training.
I have been very fortunate to have had countless people over the years who were, and are, willing to invest in me and reach down to pull me a little higher on my journey. Some are people I worked with and knew well. Others are people I reached out to and asked if they would be willing to do an interview for The Excellence in Training Academy to share their insights with members of the EIT Academy community. Very few over the last 6 ½ years have said no and some have been willing to do more than one interview. They asked nothing in return, which speaks volumes about them. Their willingness to extend a hand and share their insights, knowledge, and wisdom with the members of the Excellence in Training Academy community also pulls me up.
Many of the people who are willing to extend the hand to you would likely say they are not reaching down, but rather reaching across, and walking along side, as we all work our way through the winding journey of learning, growing, sharing, and striving.
ILEETA is another community where you will find people willing to extend a hand up, down and across and to walk along side. For the last 20 years ILEETA has stood on the foundation of being a peer organization where we are all in this learning journey together. While some have more experience, some have more name recognition, we are all peers, brother and sister trainers, all trying to figure out how to provide a better training experience for the heroic men and women of law enforcement.
What are you going to do in the coming year to be more intentional and deliberate about reaching up, down and across and walking along side others?
Take care.
Brian Willis
Winning Mind Training – Providing practical training to law enforcement professionals in the areas of instructor development, Performance Enhancement Imagery, leadership and mindset.
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