Confidence and Competence, this is one of my favorite topics of conversation. Why, because most people would rather talk a good game than actually have a good game. This distinction is very important to me. In my experience that’s exactly how people get themselves and others hurt or worse, killed. A well rounded Enforcer has both of the big C’s (confidence and competence) in his arsenal of tools.
As an Enforcer, nothings worse than going threw a door all the while thinking there is only one or two bad guys to deal with and finding out that there’s more like four or five.
Surprise! These kinds of surprises suck! Yes it is important to have your mind “set” the right way to handle these kinds of surprises, they are bound to happen. But unbalanced confidence and competence can lead you astray.
It’s so easy to get rapped up in mindset, mindset, and more mindset when you’re with your brothers or sisters on the job or listening to / reading one of Lt. Col. Grossman’s outstanding works. It’s too easy to get full of ourselves really fast.
Please allow me to make myself very clear, mindset is a massively huge part of getting the job done and in truth it can get us extremely far. And if I had the choice of a partner who had no skills and balls of steel over a partner who had skill but no balls, you’d bet I’d take the balls of steel any day. But in truth the best Enforcer will have the mindset to handle any kind of threat mentally and also the massive skill to take him through any scenario and finish on top!
During our scenario based training students go through many exercises under high pressure full blown attacks and the combat encounter success rate is low. Frequently what the enforcement student says is “I guess I’ve never really gone up against somebody with any street fighting skills”. The truth is often the best educator. What I’m pushing in this article is an appeal to go get training, training and more training with high pressure scenarios whether it be verbal judo, shooting, empty hand, situational de-escalation or evasive driving, you can never get too much real training. All the confidence in the world without competence and skill set to back it up can spell disaster. And the reverse is true as well. If you’re lacking in the mindset or confidence department then get to work on that!
I ask you to take one thing that if you improved on would make your law enforcement effectiveness monumentally better. Then go after it right now. Make a plan to get involved. Enroll in a class, join a group, read some books, bottom line take forward moving action toward achieving that goal. We find that generally improving one thing makes all other related areas better.
Ask yourself this important question, does you’re competence match your confidence? If not go get trained – simple and straight forward.
With the proper principles, strategies, tactics and team any battle can be won.
