Although this sign was at a church, it’s applicable to many aspects of our lives. Interestingly, I saw it while thinking about the 1,000 Days while driving a surveillance detection route I don’t usually take. Synchronicity, as Jung would say.
Working the 1,000 Days has brought a clarity to me about the value of following through on what we start. One of the things that I have noticed is that training classes frequently don’t include a followup program for students to follow. Insights Training Center and Mid-South Institute of Self Defense Shooting are the only two I can recall that gave me a takeaway. I include the NRA Marksmanship Qualification Program Defensive Pistol I course of fire as a followup for people who take my short classes.
I want to make sure that the students who come to our Violent Criminal Actors and You course have a followup program also. Since it’s not a physical skills class, I have to approach the followup program in a different way.
This is how I’m going to do it: the next 10 people who sign up for the class will get a personal one hour telephone consultation with me about how to develop their individual program. Since everyone’s situation is different, each consultation will be personalized. I ordinarily charge $125/hour with a two hour minimum for training and consultation, so I think this is an offer that has value.
Those who have signed up already will also receive the one hour consultation. I want to get the consultations finished within a month after the class, so that will probably be as many people as I can accommodate. This will be an interesting way to me to followup on what the students gain from the class and how they plan to implement their education.
James Yeager‘s philosophy that training is just a down payment has always appealed to me. So, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and help our students follow-through.
tacticalprofessor 
I agree. We offer any returning student a 50% discount on retakes. Even so, it can be challenging to get students to continue with their training. And we have other classes as a follow on to our basic classes. The follow on classes are the most difficult to fill. Training is still not widely accepted as insurance, like home and automobile insurance seem to be. I suggest that my students set aside as little as 1 hour per week, plus range fees ($15), and up to one box of ammo to start. Even this commitment can be difficult for some folks to make. The value of dry fire is still not realized by many, even though it takes only a commitment of time, (and very little of it). That is our challenge as instructor’s. How to be a better motivator and mentor.
I think it is extremely important for instructors to focus on the needs of the student, not just a curriculum that has remain unchanged for many years. Women, particularly, are not interested in what I like to call “the weekend warrior concept.” There is value in reloading drills, timed drills, etc, but more often my students seem to benefit most from drills involving real life situations such as getting to the gun while in the kitchen cooking. Something as simple as running to a locked safe, (in heels), unlocking & grabbing the gun, loading and racking the slide, and firing three shots at a silhouette target from 5 feet away, has changed students entire outlook on how they store their self defense gun. You can talk all day, but let them experience it, and they will learn. We all have different lifestyles, different choices in guns and equipment. Training can and should be flexible.