The theme of a recent blog posting by Darren Hardy, the editor of Success Magazine, was: Pick a Fight. In that posting Hardy made the following statement that resonated with me.
“Everyone Needs an Enemy. An enemy gives you a reason to fight. Having to fight challenges your skills, character and resolve. It forces you to assess and exercise your talents and abilities. Without a fight, we all become fat, lazy and sedentary; we lose purpose, passion and vigor.”
It struck me that that is the purpose of this blog. To pick fights. The key is to fight for not against. This is the difference between fighting with passion, commitment and dedication and going through the motions in a fight. Get invested in the fight.
- To fight for What’s Important Now.
- To fight against mediocrity in training and fight for excellence in training.
- To fight against training that potentially programs officers for failure, and to fight for training that programs all officers for success.
- To fight against training to survive, and to fight for training to win.
- To fight against training gaps and to fight for complete training.
- To fight against unintended consequences of well intentioned training to fight for intended consequences of well thought out training.
- To fight against going through the motions in training and to fight for training with imagination and emotion.
- To fight against instructor ego standing in the way of good training and to fight for an understanding of What’s Important Now.
- To fight against the dangerous use of videos and fight for the effective use of video.
- To fight against the use of exercise as punishment and to fight for functional fitness in training.
- To fight for effective debriefings.
- To fight for context based training.
I assume that the fact you are reading and following this blog means that you are fighting the same fights. I encourage you to continue to fight the good fight. To fight for the officers in your agencies, their families and the citizens in your communities by fighting for Excellence in Training.
Take care.
Brian Willis