If you’re thinking this is going to be some negative rant about Personal trainers and Dumb questions – Think again!
This post is about being a better fitness trainer by understanding how to become a better learner by appreciating that there are truly NO dumb questions, but there are indeed lots of questions that are asked for the wrong reasons.
I’m all about interacting with my fellow Fit Pro’s and I Iove talking shop – especially in-person! However, I’m no longer going to enable a sense entitlement; I won’t feed into (nor am I responsible for) selective hearing (a common Personal Trainer talent). And, I refuse to talk about fitness training as thought it’s religion or politics!
You see, I quit forum “discussions” a while back because I realized they were a waste of time and metal energy since they were more like piss for distance contests, which I covered in my post, 7 Psychological Reasons Why Experts will always argue; Training Debates are a waste; and the Fitness industry will stay divided.
Now, I’ve realized that there are three other types of questions/ discussions, which are also a BIG waste of time and mental energy:
1. ENTITLEMENT
I will no longer respond to those who feel entitled to ask me to JUSTIFY what’s in my articles.
I’m happy to answer questions which help you to better use the information in my articles, as I’m all about helping people to improve their training results. But, I refuse to enable a sense of entitlement from folks who read an article (they got for FREE) and think they deserve MORE info, and feel they have the right to ask me to justify myself or my information.
When I write an article – I’ve already DONE my job and given you a million dollars worth of practical training information at no cost to you! The only folks of whom I owe an explanation to are those who’ve PAID and entrusted us with their hard-earned money for our workshops, DVDs and mentorships.
Whether you are into an article/post/video of mine or not – You’ll either learn something you want to use, or you’ll learn about one less thing you’re interested in using. Either way, you’ll have gotten something out of it – FOR FREE – from some one of whom the information DID come at great cost to deliver. So be thankful there are experienced people (in your field) who are making an effort to provide you with immediate, free access to all kinds of simplified and battle-tested training information that would cost you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to acquire on your own.
If you want MORE – Come hang out with me in-person or attend one of our live events. And, we’ll talk shop all day long! But, no more of this nitpicking over soundbites business. Let’s leave that to the folks in the media!
Plus, I’ve found that when someone asks me to “justify” something in one of my posts or articles, It’s usually a creative way to try to bait me into a “discussion” (aka. Pissing contest).
2. SELECTIVE LISTENING
I will also no longer answer questions, which either 1) Ask me to explain or refute something that was NEVER actually said in my post/article. Or, 2) Have the answers ALREADY clearly covered in my article/post.
All to often personal trainers seem to selectively hear things that either equate to some overly simplistic thing like “Nick said ____ is “bad” or good”, when I simply talk about universal scientific principles and share our training experiences at Performance U.
Take it from some one who’s been there – if you’re thinking in Black & white (i.e. good or bad) – You’ve stopped thinking! And, you’ll never actually “hear” what was said with that mind set.
3. RELIGION & POLITICS
It’s no secret that emotion is the antithesis of reason. And, no two types of discussions are more charged by emotional attachment and belief (over reason and critical thinking) than religion and politics.
Many of the fitness “discussions” I’ve seen remind me all too much of R&P. And, there’s absolutely no sense in me trying to talk principles and reason based training when one’s questions/arguments are based on belief or guru-worship.
In other words, fitness training is WHAT WE DO, NOT WHO WE ARE!
When we get emotionally involved and make the fitness profession (i.e. what we do) become WHO WE ARE as individuals, we become less driven by reason and more driven by emotion because all things are now personal, not professional. Therefore we become LESS REASONABLE and become very defensive when someone simply states “the limitations” of what we do based on training principles because we now look at this as as personal insult.
This emotional reactiveness often causes us to block out the “benefits” that were also listed in the same breath because we were too busy trying think about how to defend ourselves… because anyone who embraces the “cons” of what we do has to be against us or not like our Guru. Right?
This mindset, is not only unprofessional, it also makes us hear things that weren’t actually said (see #2) and want to ask for justification (see #1) for things that we’ll never be able to fully understand and discuss (with logic and critical-thinking) until we learn to separate our emotion and belief from reason and science.
Labels, Groups & Systems
You see, “Names” and “Systems” are used for marketing. As I said in this post, if we can’t look at the principles behind the methods, we have nothing to talk about except belief, which is the basis for religion, not science. And, there’s no sense in me trying to talk principles when conclusions have been made on belief.
And as soon as you label yourself as part of a specific fitness group (i.e. political party) who champions a specific method (i.e. religion) you’ll always be blinded by it. This is something Bruce Lee taught us about, which I cover in this post.
At Performance U, we are in no fitness (political) party; don’t pledge alliance to any single fitness modality and we aren’t “for” or against anything. So, I can promise you that if you ever “hear” me say that “______ is bad” – Selective hearing got the best of you 🙂
Final Thoughts
As you can clearly see, ALL 3 of THE TYPES OF QUESTIONS (cover above) END UP GOING NOWHERE FOR ALL PARTIES INVOLVED. AND, I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I PLAN ON BEING PRODUCTIVE EVERYDAY and wish the same for everyone, which is why I no longer wish to help people go nowhere by attempting to answer these types of questions.
