Are you an experienced trainer, wannabe trainer or have just started dipping your toes into the world of training? Either way you need to know if you’re a Terrier trainer or a Labrador puppy trainer. Here’s how to tell:
1. If something’s not working in a training do you look at it as an opportunity to learn something new, dig in and explore (acknowledging your fears about doing so but pushing through)?
2. If something’s not working in a training do you focus on getting through it as soon as possible perhaps by being cute and charming?
3. Are you tenacious when it comes to training, hanging in and hanging on and pushing through all the ups and downs in order to create an environment for great learning?
4. Does your yearning to be liked sometimes get in the way of creating optimal learning situations?
5. Do you take leaps of imagination and try new things in your training, being prepared to fail and possibly meet resistance from your clients and participants?
6. In your training do you do what is likely to be most popular and liked, sometimes taking the easy way out?
If you replied yes to mostly odd-numbered questions you’ve self-assessed as a Terrier.
Terrier trainers have an instinct for digging deep, they are confident and most of all tenacious. Nothing gets in the way of creating a great training, they’ll do almost anything to make a training magical so that it pops, is relevant and able to be put to use.
If you replied yes to mostly even-numbered questions you’ve self-assessed as a Labrador puppy.
Labrador puppy trainers need to be liked and as a result sometimes take the easy way out, not pushing the boundaries or exploring barriers. For example they may let inappropriate comments that a participant makes slide because it would be too uncomfortable or risky to bring it up. Cute, even adorable they look for opportunities to get scratched behind the ears and wag their tails.
What kind of trainer are you? More importantly does it match the kind of trainer you want to be?
Food for thought. Bones to chew on.
Footnote: the idea for this post came from a conversation with my social media mentor Julie Szabo from Capulet Communications when she was talking about needing to have a Terrier instinct for social media.
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