Monthly Archives: October 2019

The Successful Home Gym

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As I was loading up the like new, $350 half-rack squat rack that I just purchased for $175, the guy said, “I hope you have more luck with it than I did. I intended to use it everyday and it just never got used.”

That was about a year ago when I was replacing the rack I had to leave behind in Ohio, and that rack has seen use 4 to 5 days a week since that time. It doesn’t look new anymore. The pads have been beaten off of the bar hooks, the paint is fading from the Florida sun, and that rack is kicking ass handling everything I throw at it.

Few things in life rival the failure rate of the home gym. Every Marketplace and Craigslist from every city is full of equipment for sale, at a fraction of what the seller spent on it, because they had big plans that “just didn’t work out.”

It doesn’t have to be this way.

My absolute favorite place to be is my home gym, but that didn’t happen overnight. I want to share with you a few things that have made the home based gym a success for me. Hopefully it will help some of you to avoid contributing to the pool of under-used equipment for sale on the internet.

Equipment Selection and Mission

One of the first mistakes people make is in choosing the wrong equipment. Hell, some never even get started because they can’t afford the fancy Rogue home gym for $3000 that they think they need to “do it right.”

Bullshit. You don’t need a full rack and high temp bumper plates with $500 bars to get started. You can go to Dick’s and buy the 300# iron Olympic bar set and a half rack with a moveable bench and have everything you need to keep you busy and in great results for as long as you can handle it.

Sure, it’d be nice to have all the fancy stuff. I have some nice Rogue bumpers and bars because I owned a gym business and kept all of my equipment when I moved (because ultimately I will re-open in my new area). But I started out with cheap bars and iron weights.

Is it true that cheap iron weights can vary greatly from their advertised weights? Sure it is. But if you are not an elite athlete where 1 kilo can make a difference in winning or losing, then why worry about it? You want to get strong? Put fucking weight on the bar and move it around.

Dig around on the selling sites and you will find a rack, bench and weights. Get started. Don’t try to be perfect, and for the love of progress don’t worry about what it will look like on Instagram. Just do the work. Just make sure to get a rack with moveable safety bars so you can miss lifts and not die. You will get strong.

Solitude, Focus and Meditation

One of the greatest benefits I have experienced from the home gym is the solitude and focus. If you are not the type of person that can function well completely alone, maybe a home gym isn’t for you. Or maybe, you can keep a cheap gym membership for that once or twice a week trip into a more social setting.

For me, because I live in Florida my platform and “gym” is outside. I placed my gym in the most beautiful setting I could find, so it is generally just an enjoyable place to be, period. This matters.

I can remember some basements I worked out in that were moldy and probably dangerous to be breathing heavily in. If it’s all you have, work with what you have. But if at all possible, make it your goal to put your gym in a space that is inspirational and enjoyable to be in. That will help motivate you to be there more. Decorate it with inspirational props if you have to. Make it your space.

That setting is what creates the mental space to focus. Weightlifting is very close to a meditative practice for me. It is the hour or two of my day where I can tune out all of the things that piss me off and stress me out, and take time just for myself.

I can practice something that is making me better, stronger and faster. I can do it by myself. It’s for me, but then the better version of myself that emerges from there everyday is for everyone I care about.

It is the space of reflection, dedication, perseverance, focus, and self-development. It’s a place of constant challenges and frequent victories. It is precisely where I go to make myself better each day. That’s what my gym is to me.

Understanding Programming 

Another huge failure that the home gym’ers suffer is a lack of programming knowledge. You can’t just grab a program off of the internet and expect it to work. Hell you can’t even rely on a trainer to make it work, because getting an experienced program writer and getting a trainer can be two very different things. (For a primer on programming, check out my article Programming 101 Part 1 and 2.)

Almost any program or workout plan will get results when you are new. Your body is just responding to doing anything more than you have been doing. But it doesn’t mean it’s the optimum program for you. You are uniquely individual in your life, metabolism, habits, and how you respond to stimulus. Programming is an individual task, not a group task.

But life gets in the way…

The second part of the programming problem that causes massive failure is the inability to stick to a schedule. Life does get in the way. One of the reasons that life disrupts the ability to keep working out is because people tend to look at working out as totally a separate activity from the rest of their life.

This is a mistake! Working out is another part of everything you do. Every mental and physical demand on you, from jobs to family duties to house work, needs to be considered in your program. This will ensure you are working as a unit toward a common goal and will keep you from burnout and loss of motivation.

As for life getting in the way, I program heavy on volume and use the 80% to 90% standard. If I can complete between 80% and 90% of my prescribed workout for that week, then I am successful. Often, I can hit that 100% and it feels great! But if not, I am still at an acceptable standard and I feel accomplished for it.

Perfection is the enemy of the good in exercise plans and intentions. Miss a day or two, and your motivation quickly falls away as you feel like you are just getting nowhere.

Kick that volume up in your prescription, allow for some flexibility in your times and volumes, and shoot for that 80% minimum. (For some ideas on how to do this, check out my article on Writing Life into your Fitness Program.)

Video Analysis and No Fear

It is strongly recommended that you find a good remote coach if you are going to use a home gym. If you do so, they will direct you to video yourself doing the lifts to help guide you to safe and effective form and intensities.

Whether you use a coach, or not, you will need to utilize the awesome capabilities we all now have with smartphones. Video yourself doing the lifts and then analyze and compare them to professional videos from Youtube (from proven sources, like Catalyst Athletics, Starting Strength, or whoever does your particular style of training.)

The benefit of doing so in a home gym is the full freedom to set up and video yourself without looking like a social media narcissist in the gym. You can set up the camera where ever you like and get all the angles you need.

You can also go hard, utilizing proper safety bars and equipment of course. There is no fear in a home gym of being embarrassed because you miss lifts with lower weights than what someone next to you in the public gym is easily lifting. Nope. At home you can suck all you want and there is no social consequence.

Just make sure you video yourself sucking so you can stop being bad at it. Use the solitude and technology to your advantage. This is a HUGE benefit of home gyms.

Wrapping it up

This article is just a quick note about just a few of the many ways to be successful in a home gym. These are probably my favorite ways that I have found to make it a success for myself. There are a ton of other reasons and concepts, but I hope the few I outlined here can help you at least get started and keep going.

There are few places I would rather spend my alone time than on my platform at home. I hope you find the same peace and progress in your own space as well.

Feel free to message me with questions or comments, I’m glad to help out where I can.

Today on Facebook…

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Today on Facebook I witnessed two things that caught my attention and caused an emotional response in me. One was the closing announcement of a friend’s training company, and the other was a firearms “instructor” vehemently arguing that a safety on a single-action-only pistol is unnecessary during loaded carry or use.
 
 
These two things made me sad. And angry.
 
 
For the closing of the friend’s training company, he reported no desire to continue to operate at a loss after several years and wants to enjoy his life in other ways. Which brings up a strong point in my mind, and one I’ve been considering deeply for quite a while now: is the cause enough of a reason to fight through the bullshit AND the lack of prosperity?
 
In other words, unless you are one of the dozen or so instructors nationwide who can make a living traveling and teaching, you are stuck with the job of literally fighting for clientele. Often, it is the very clientele you are trying to teach that you are fighting with.
 
The level of apathy about training with a firearm in the wide-open world of gun owners is disheartening. People just see shooting a gun as an isolated task, and an easy one at that. “Just point it and shoot!”, they say. No training needed beyond maybe a concealed carry class taught by some local “expert”.
 
I can assure you that if you spend enough time in the business, you get a really good read on what the average skill level out there is. Trust me, training is needed. So is practice. It’s not just about shooting, it’s also about dynamic muzzle control and other advanced safety concepts like getting on-line or in front of no-shoots, moving around crowds with a weapon out, dealing with stress and skill/decision making degradation, and so much more.
 
But “we don’t need that. We’ve been shooting guns with Uncle Buck our whole lives!” Or, “my dad was a marine and taught me how to shoot.” Or, “I was in the military, I know how to shoot” (despite never touching a handgun during their entire military service…) Or, “I’ve been to the police academy and I know everything now.” 
 
Sure you do.
 
But like I said, spend enough time on police training ranges and public ranges, and you will have an ugly, truthful picture. Most of you can’t shoot worth a shit. You fall apart under stress. You unconsciously muzzle flag yourself and others more times than you’ll ever believe, and you do it when there is no stress involved.
 
But, as an instructor, you want to help. So, you put your time in and you become extremely proficient because you want to do some good in the community. You want to help fill some gaps in the public knowledge, make some people safer, and maybe make a few bucks in the process.
 
But being a firearms instructor is not as cool as you thought it would be. You literally have to convince people why they need better skills and safety. And often you are fighting against dug in mindsets. They just know what they think they need to know, and they don’t know what they don’t know.
 
It’s reminiscent of being a vacuum cleaner salesman in the 80’s.
 
Salesman: “This baby right here will pick up all of that pet hair and keep on running for many years!”
 
80’s Housewife: “But it’s expensive, and my current vacuum works just fine.”
 
Salesman: [vacuums up obvious pet hair and dirt left behind by said current vacuum] “But look at how much it is lacking in pick up power! My model will really do the job and the cost is justified because it will last three times as long.”
 
80’s Housewife: “But I already have a vacuum…”
 
This is exactly what I felt like every time I talked to gun store customers about further training. “But I already know how to shoot.”
 
Nowadays, good portion of your time is spent arguing on social media, so bystanders can be convinced enough to come take advantage of your services. I say “bystanders” because you sure as hell aren’t changing the mind of the asshole trying to argue that the safety on a 1911 is unnecessary.
 
Day after day, you write good information out and share it. Maybe you make some videos, too. You subsequently put in your time arguing. All this, only to have to cancel classes for low attendance, or teach to half full classes.
 
Are you doing it for the cause, and is the cause worth your time and effort without sufficient monetary reward? The cost of equipment, range property fees, ammunition spent practicing and honing your craft, your own dollars spent attending other training and becoming a better teacher, these are expensive and time consuming.
 
Do you do it because you love it? Or is the cause what motivates you?
 
Now, I’m not bitching. I just taught a sold-out course in Okeechobee FL, and have a pretty much sold-out course coming up next month in Alliance, OH. But I remember the days that I did struggle, and I still have classes that get canceled. I watch other teachers go through it too.
 
And for those instructors on the grassroots and local level, it’s literally a constant fight for them. Like I said, if you are not one of the dozen or so guys who reached that magical level of national traveling instructor, this is your reality.
 
(As a side note, even if you do make it national you now work with mostly the same 5,000 students nationwide that support the higher training industry. You see the same faces over and over and the training world becomes an echo chamber that fights evolution with the institutional inbreeding of information that becomes closed loop doctrine and dogma.)
 
As my friend found out, one day you will have to make the choice. Is the cause worth the continued donation of time, money and effort? He ultimately chose to close his business and go live his very good life in peace and happiness. I support him 100%. But it does remind me how much the firearms instruction business does suck.
 
It doesn’t suck because it’s not lucrative at all. I’ve made a great living in this business for several years. I’m fortunate. But even when I didn’t make much money at it I made enough to cover my investment and a few goodies.
 
No, it sucks because people suck. They think they know everything. They can shoot guns, and even hit targets. Why should they give you money to show them something they already know?
 
It sucks because any monkey can attend an NRA course and be certified as an instructor, and they can carry their myths and falsehoods right into the front of a classroom or range to spew upon the unsuspecting public.
 
Which segues me into the second thing that made me sad on Facebook, the “safeties are for pussies” guy. He’s an “instructor”. Here’s a guy who is literally teaching people that using the safety on an SAO pistol such as a 1911, which has a short trigger pull that requires significantly less pressure to fire by design, is a “personal preference”.
 
No jackass. The Smith and Wesson striker fired Shield model that can be purchased with an OPTIONAL safety is a “preference”. That gun was originally designed to be a no-manual-safety, striker fired weapon with redundant built in safeties and a longer, harder trigger pull to fire it. The addition of a safety was a marketing feature to make the untrained feel better.
 
But you are confused. You think you are not one of the untrained, so you apply that line of thinking to any fucking pistol with a safety. You are going to hurt yourself or someone else. Especially if you are teaching others that it is a “preference” on weapons designed to be carried with a safety engaged.
 
You claim that the pistol is not “ready for the fight” if the safety is on. Let me tell you bro, if you cannot effectively disengage that thumb safety on a 1911 as you initiate the press-out of your draw stroke, then YOU are not “ready for the fight”. That’s that.
 
There are plenty of accomplished 1911 shooters who can demonstrate to you that disengaging the safety does NOT slow them down. They will still outshoot you by a wide margin.
 
So, there you see it first hand, an argument I was dragged into so far as I actually took the time to write about some asshole on the internet and the ignorant shit he posted.
 
Thus is the life of firearms instructors. Everyone knows everything, the public doesn’t need training, cops are experts with small arms, and instructors can literally make choices on well-developed safety concepts based on “personal preference.”
 
Don’t forget, since this is the age of “SCIENCE” a lack of “data and evidence” to prove them wrong is magically proof that they are right.
 
You’re fighting that guy. You’re fighting to get through the myths he put into unknowing minds in the classroom and on the range. You’re fighting to overcome the false confidence transferred from Uncle Buck, who hunted his whole life. You’re fighting to overcome the bad training of police academies of the 70’s and 80’s (and some still today). You’re fighting to overcome the trash information the guy behind the gun store counter pumped into the minds of new gun owners for years on end.
 
Fighting. Fighting. Fighting.
 
For half full classes and a few likes on the article you spent time writing.
 
Godspeed to you my friend. I know you are industrious and will invest your now freed up time into your health, fitness and family, and that is time better spent if you ask me.

Crawl out of the Psychological Swamp

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Today I woke up and got right on social media to make sure no one was talking smack, and to see everything I was afraid I would be missing. Then I spent time going through the groups and forums to make sure no one was spreading incorrect information about things that I obviously know a lot about. I spent time typing comments about topics for the 7000th time, and argued with some people so I could change their mind on the internet. After that I agreed with all of my Facebook friends that always agree with me…

Actually, I didn’t do any of that.

I rode my horse on the dirt roads of my neighborhood, with my daughter on her horse beside me. I spent my ride thinking about what a beautiful day it is. The featured video clip on this blog post is from that ride. That’s the back view of Tommy, my 22 year old appendix horse. He’s a stubborn old guy that likes to mosey around. My daughter was next to me on her American paint. Look at that beautiful sky at the end!

Get out and live your life!!

To be fair, I don’t ride horses everyday (my daughter sure does), but I do work hard to avoid any and all of the activities I listed in the first paragraph.

I see people everyday wasting their lives on social media, and I do not want to be one of them. Yes, I have to be on there for my business and it is a large piece of how I earn a living, but there is no need to live on there.

What if I told you that you could change your life so much that in 3 years you could be doing something you would love to do, but that you do not think is possible?

Three years ago it was the fall of 2016 and I was just beginning this journey to change my life. In my case, I was making drastic changes on a major life altering scale, but the principle will apply no matter whether you just want to have a better life or if you are balls out burning it to the ground, leaving your marriage and giving away all of your stuff (like I did).

I was in a place that I could not stand anymore. It offered zero inspiration and nothing but bad memories. I was in a job that was choking me to death. I wanted more, and by more I do not mean material things. I wanted more peace, more family time with my daughters, more enjoyment of this precious short life we have.

I wanted horses, and maybe a motorcycle, too. I wanted to live somewhere that inspired me. I wanted more freedom. But there I was, in that job, in that little house, on that shitty side street outside of dreary Youngstown, Ohio, with people that made me feel miserable.

Exactly 3 years later, here I am, 1000 miles away. My horses are in the back pasture, my Harley is in the shed. The weather is beautiful most of the time, and there is not one person around me that makes me unhappy.

Sure, my life isn’t perfect per se. I do still have issues. The major difference is that my issues today are planned for. They are being dealt with, like left over residue from so many years of bad decisions being eliminated one by one.

And the most important part is that I am not creating new problems of any large scale in my life. I am still struggling, but I wouldn’t trade my struggle today for any of my yesterdays. 

That is where the internet comes in. Why would I work so hard to remove drama and misery from my life, to create this inspirational space where I can live and work, just to wake up everyday and fucking destroy it with the constant negativity and drama of the internet?

Quite frankly, how can you expect to get to a better space in your life at all when you are both wasting precious time on the internet and, day after day, letting yourself be dragged into the psychological swamp that social media is?

Put the phone down and start living. Pick it up to capture great moments that you want to remember. Take the pic or video and put it right back down. Get back in the moment. You can post that shit later to be inspirational to other people. Right now, you’re busy living.

If your life is: go to work, spend breaks and spare time on social media, come home, spend time in between family and dinner on social media, go to bed, repeat…then you definitely need to change directions. That’s a prison of a life.

I know, I used to live it. Maybe you are uninspired by your surroundings. Maybe you are unhappy with the people around you. Maybe you just became stagnant and got lazy. Whatever the case, it is within your power to change that life, and you absolutely can not change it sitting your ass on social media staring at a phone all day.

And I get it that sometimes you’re just passionate about a cause. But, here’s the thing,

You aren’t changing the world.

You aren’t even changing anyone’s mind.

You need to use your limited energy to change your own life first, and be an example of a happy, peaceful person showing the world how to do it.

Of course it’s not easy. But you can do it.

I’m not bragging at all. Hell, most people would consider my lifestyle “poor”, since I made a decision not to accumulate any more debt, which means everything I get is older, smaller, or cheaper. Nothing I have is new or fancy. But I am happier than I have ever been, and I have way more peace in my life than I ever thought possible just a few short years ago.

I sure as hell am not going to let the addiction of social media and the negativity of people, who are able to type away with no consequence, steal that peace from me.

If your life is great, that is awesome. If you’ve been lucky enough to have made good decisions from day one, great. You’re awesome. But there are a lot of people out there like I was, coming from not so great places and mindsets and struggling to find ways to end the cycles of poverty and misery. It doesn’t mean they are bad or stupid, but they are struggling.

I am speaking to those people primarily. Here’s a guy that grew up in a drug house, watched his entire family die off from drugs and bad choices, lived through years of prison as a teen and young adult, followed that up with a few bad marriages and failed careers and businesses, and basically accumulated enough bad choices to stack the deck completely against me having any real success in life.

But I was able to turn it all around. And I don’t have to create some fake fucking persona in fantasy land (the internet) or attack other people to make myself feel worthy.

If I can do it, you can too. But you will never do it with your mind stuck in the cyber world, letting all of the stupid, meaningless shit flood your thoughts all day while it soaks up any time you could be using to better your position in life.

We only get one shot at this. Nothing is going to last forever, not your time with your family, not your children’s childhoods, not your youth or health, not the beauty of anything or anyone around you. It will all go away. Don’t miss it. Don’t waste it.

Helping others

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This past Sunday I had a great, sold out pistol class in Okeechobee. This class had a lot of new faces that I had never met before, and a few things really set in on me while I was teaching it…
 
The class had a good amount of beginners in it. For a few it was actually their first real training course, while some others were still working off of 15 to 30 year old government/law enforcement training (that probably had not been practiced in that time gap).
 
There was also a wide spectrum of gear, from unacceptable holsters that I had to immediately remove from the range for safety reasons before we even started, to Serpa’s and other subpar examples. There were also some very tuned up shooters in the course with tricked out Glocks and solid gear to run them with.
 
After spending some time working in the training industry at a national level (traveling throughout the year to teach, attending SHOT Show and NRAAM, training at national level events like OTOA, working for companies in the industry, etc.) I’ve seen the spectrum of students and instructors from the local levels to the widely known popular level.
 
One of the things that sticks out to me is how the level of student can change the more well known you get. It’s like a hierarchy, and the higher you are in popularity the more you can charge, the more you charge the more “serious” the students become, and so on.
 
At that level, “the industry” (everyone who considers themselves “in the know” about gear, weapons, training and tactics and falls into similar choices and beliefs) gets pretty harsh in their views of the average gun owner. If you are on social media, which seems to be where “the industry” actually lives, you will no doubt run into this harsh attitude.
 
Name calling and shaming for weapon and gear choices, making fun of people for being poor (“the poors” as they call them) and just a general negative attitude towards anyone who is not at least making a good attempt at being in the cool club is pretty much the norm.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I do get it. The gun world is full of absolute bullshit. The NRA, the glossy magazines and the TV shows all pump out garbage information about garbage guns and gear and the masses eat it up because they don’t know any better. In fact, they believe it is good information because all of those named sources are actually the most well funded and best looking sources out there. I mean, they’re on TV, right?
 
So, we have this general gun culture that is at best misguided and misinformed on a large scale. It is a problem. I am saying this after years of working in gun stores, working at public ranges, working for holster manufacturers and other companies in the industry as well as running my own training company for many years. (To the NRA, the magazines, the gun shows on TV, the manufacturers, you ARE the problem.)
 
Many of the people at my class this weekend would fall into those categories of dislike: less than optimal gun choices, a lack of fundamental skills like grip and trigger press, beliefs in myths about gunfighting and, especially when it came to gear and holsters, it was a serious struggle.
 
I even had one contraption calling itself a “belly band” that was basically an oversized Ace bandage with no velcro and a patch sewn into it to “hold” a gun. (If you make such a contraption and sell it to the public to carry guns around, you should be absolutely fucking ashamed of yourself, whoever you are.) It literally hit the top of my list as the worst holster ever seen with my own eyes.
 
To the guy’s credit, he immediately recognized that his rig was unsafe and told me it was not going to be suitable for the course, so he did recognize his poor choice just by being exposed to the introduction of the course in the morning.
 
It took some of the others a few hours of struggling with gear failures to get the idea that their choices were not only poor for training, but that such failures in a life or death situation on the street would be catastrophic.
 
I was patient. I was helpful. I kept the class safe. If something was unsafe, it was not permitted to be used. The failures that did happen, were well within the safety margin so I let them happen for their educational benefit. I didn’t attack anyone. I didn’t shame them.
 
I did my best to balance the class out and deliver the goods to everyone who showed up, no matter their skill level. People learned on Sunday, and when I asked the question at the end of the day, “Did you feel like I provided a safe and comfortable training environment for you today?” It was a quick and resounding “Yes!” that followed.
 
I ended up with this group for a few reasons. I am not established yet in Florida locally, so I am attracting new people into the fold by design and that is a good thing. Another reason is because the course was intentionally priced very affordably. My overhead is lower because I am a short drive away, and I want to build the type of local training culture that I had successfully built in Ohio for so many years.
 
I am intentionally declining more and more opportunities to travel and teach, opting to stay close to home for my family now. So, I end up with beginners, newbs, bad gear, and all that comes with them.
 
All I could think about at certain points throughout the day is how interesting it is that I have traveled full circle to come back to where I started: teaching average people how to be safe and effective with the guns they carry.
 
Average people. People who do not eat, sleep and breath training. People who work jobs, raise families, have hobbies, who do not live on social media talking about grip stippling, flashlights and triggers for the 57,000th time. I was very happy to see these people showing up for a course. I am happy to be of service.
 
I am happy to be of service because that is why I am here. To help people. I did not become a firearms instructor because I thought it was going to be super awesome, or because I want to be some famous instructor guy. I sure as hell don’t do it because it’ll make me rich, because it definitely will not. I started out doing it because I saw bad things happening and I wanted to fix it as much as I could.
 
I saw cavalier attitudes with little experience to back them up, macho personas based on purely bad information, and flashy bullshit based on just plain garbage (the days of plate carriers at “pistol” classes comes to mind).
 
I saw good people trying to be prepared to defend themselves and stay out of the cemetery or prison while doing it, and they were being fed information that would lead them directly to those places.
 
That is why I started this, and that is why I still do it.
 
As I make my long talked about and planned for partial exit from the industry, I look to maintain my ability to help the average people who are genuinely looking for help. I intend to teach a limited number of courses annually.
 
I have very little interest in making the cool club person feel “cooler” by having attended my course. I have very little interest in working with someone who is looking to shave that next 2/10ths of a second off of their Bill Drill time. Not only is it not my lane, but it’s not what I prioritize in fighting and self defense. Glory seekers will not find satisfaction in my classes.
 
That is where the most money is. But unfortunately, it’s not where the greatest need is. The greater good is served by welcoming more good people into the fold of the knowledgable and trained populace, and eliminating the dangerous misguided information that saturates the concealed carry population as a whole.
 
I have also found over the years that many professional students who think they are really tuned up are nothing more than great shooters. This is because there is still a shortage of classes about fighting, and a ton of classes about shooting.
 
At best you can work your way up to CQB courses, which are limited to working inside of structures and largely founded on team-based military or law enforcement doctrine. Solo foundational fighting knowledge is hard to pass on in a one or two day course, and even harder to find someone attempting to do it.
 
If my course is “open” enrollment without prior training requirements, you are welcome to make it your first training course. Those who are “tuned up” are also welcome to attend. You will see the foundational levels of how I prioritize what is important in fight training.
 
If my course lists having “developed fundamental skills and equipment choices” as a requirement to attend, then you should not show up unless you clarify with me directly that you are where you will need to be.
 
It was no shocker to me to get these students of course, because it was a no pre-requirement course. I am just happy that I have retained the ability and humility to be able to help these people raise their skills and equipment to be safer in their defense plans.
 
I will still run advanced level courses, as well as my favorite: the application-approved-only limited spot courses where I take 6 hand picked people out and we go hard on a specific skillset or procedure. There is no money in that, I do it because I love it.
 
I don’t have any tolerance or time for shithead people who think they know something, that they actually have no idea about, and they are unwilling to learn any different.
 
I have all the time in the world for the average person who doesn’t know any better, but they are genuinely out there trying to learn what they don’t know and improve their position.
 
As I go forward, progressively I want training to be something I do because I enjoy it and because I enjoy helping people, not something I do to strictly for money. It has a higher purpose than that for me.