What Must You Think of Me!

For years I have heard people joke about the iTunes recommends section of the iStore "you don't know me, iTunes!!" Though the suggestions sometimes feel insulting, I can see the path fairly clearly and the conclusions are logical, even if taste is not. Amazon recommends however, those require leaps of the imagination.

Regular readers will be aware that I teach karate and enjoy cooking. It should come as no surprise that I have purchased books about karate and cookbooks such as home canning guides. Both are activities I want to do safely without injuring or poisoning anyone and with all due respect, I don't believe everything I find on the internet.

After teaching karate for 10 years, I worry that my drills might be getting a little stale, so one of the books I purchased was about conditioning for martial arts. I thought I'd learn some new exercise ideas to liven up my advanced classes (I didn't, the book was useless). When Amazon recommended books on Kettlebell training, it didn't seem that far fetched. "Jailhouse Strong" was a little unsettling, both that it exists in the first place and that a search engine would lump it in with fitness and martial arts. Why does everyone think all dojos Kobra Kai from Karate Kid?

What really surprised me were the prepper book suggestions. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "prepper" it is a new word for "Survivalist" - people who actively prepare for the apocalypse. As a Red Cross trained Disaster Relief volunteer, I understand the importance of having an emergency kit in case of fire, flood or natural disaster, (even though I don't) but that is child's play to the prepper. Preppers are more the modern equivalent to the bomb shelter builders of the 1950's. Prepper websites include such topics as, "safely crossing a fence with a firearm" and debating "bugging out vs hunkering down". All this because I wanted to enjoy my favourite roasted tomato sauce during winter when produce available at the grocery store is flavourless. 

Taken individually, these recommendations are funny. Put them together and you get the kind of profile the NSA would red flag. What Amazon seems to be suggesting is that I am hording supplies for the inevitable doomsday that I may or may not be planning to cause and preparing my body to survive my prison stay once the authorities catch up with my unhinged ass. 

Seriouly, Amazon, you do not know me!

If You Want My Advice......

Those of you who irregularly read my blog will know that I work in the fitness industry. I am a certified personal trainer, a Spinning (tm) instructor and a karate sensei. Like anyone else who provides a service, I frequently get asked for free advice by friends and acquaintances alike. I don't mind sharing information, in fact, I generally enjoy it. I work in the industry because I have a passion for it, not to make a lot of money (which is a good thing, because, well, I don't). 

What I do mind are the "...yeah, but..." people. We've all met them, they are the people who pretend to be soliciting your expertise but what they actually want is for you to tell them what they want to hear, and what they really want to hear is, "what you are doing at the moment is perfect, you are absolutely right, don't change a thing." Thus, their response to your informed and considered advice is to offer a well rehearsed list of why your solutions won't work for them, because "...yeah, but..." is almost always followed by, "I can't."

My methods for dealing with people like this have ranged from the fake sympathetic - smile and nod saying things I don't mean like "yes, it's a tough one" while my brain screams, "THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU ASK ME?!?!?", to the patronizing, "naturally, you would know better than me", and on occasion, outright blunt, "look, do you want to be 'right' or do you want to actually learn this?"*. The problem is, I always walk away feeling frustrated that the advice seeker is going to fail when ultimately it is not my problem whether they succeed or not. Why is that? They aren't clients, often they aren't even friends, why is it more important to me that they succeed in improving their fitness than it is to them? Why can't I develop that 'professional detachment' I hear so much about?

Years ago I joked with friends that I was going to write a best selling self-help book and I knew it was going to be a bestseller because I had the perfect self-help formula: take what people are already doing, rephrase it so it sounds different, provide very small easy changes that aren't really changes, because ultimately, that is what advice seekers really want, to find out they are right, but with different phrasing. Now, if only I could get down that not caring part, I'd be rich.....




* This would be the point in the program when my friends would argue, "oh, yeah? What about all those times we gave you relationship advice along the lines of, 'why do you insist on staying with this person who so obviously does not make you happy and is not right for you on any level?' which you completely ignored and continued to whine about how unhappy he was making you for the next year and a half?" And they would be absolutely right. All I can offer is that I am a  slow relationship learner but  I eventually got it right.