Rules of Being a Handler: Agility Mindset
===
[00:00:00]
Christoffer Endresen: There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ends up working.
Now, this is one of the things that I really love with agility and in sports in general. Not only will help you perform better in the sport, but they're transferable to other aspects of your life as well.
What you make of your agility journey is really up to you that you decide what success looks like for you.
It's really about what are you learning and who you're becoming in the process. And by shaping a new set of behaviors, by becoming more, by growing, you will see that what you get from the sport allows you to give more in other areas as well.
Hi, and welcome to The Champion's Journey and welcome to the 13th episode of this podcast. My name is Christoffer Endresen. I am the host of this [00:01:00] podcast. And today we're going to do a solo episode, as you probably know if you follow the podcast for a while, this podcast is all about helping you, a dog handler, learn how to build and grow your growth mindset.
Mindset is basically the foundation of the sport, and I would say in most sports. And by developing that, you're investing not only in yourself, but also in the team. Most of the time I am ha I have guests on this podcast that I'm interviewing them, trying to figure out their journey, what they've gone through, the struggles they've faced all the lessons they've learned.
And I recently just recorded a podcast with one of the guests and suddenly it popped into my mind that I should share a. A text that I read maybe 15 years [00:02:00] ago called The Rules for Being Human, and I decided that I wanted to read this and share this with you, the listener, but also change it a bit and twist it a bit and tune it in towards agility.
And I will start first by reading the rules for being humans, and then I will share the rules of being a handler. I wish that I could actually credit this to to the author, but since it's unknown, it's very difficult. But you can always find this by searching for rules for being human, and Google will basically find it for you.
So here it goes. Rule number one, you will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for this time around. Rule number two, you will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called life. Each day [00:03:00] in this school, you'll have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid.
Rule number three, there are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error. Experimentation. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ends up working. Number four, a lesson is repeated until learned. lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.
When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson. Rule number five, learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that does not contain lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
Rule number six, there is no better place than here. When you're [00:04:00] there has become here, you will simply obtain another there That will again look better than here. Rule number seven, others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
Number eight, what you make of life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours. Rule number nine. The answer lies inside you All you need to do is look, listen, and trust. And rule number 10, you will forget all this now. I remember it so well when I listened or read this text so many years ago, and it's been a text on one of a few [00:05:00] texts that I've revisited several times.
in my cases, especially going through difficult times and struggles, I've been lucky with having my mind saying that you should go and look up this text again because it is basically, as rule number 10 says, you'll forget all this, but you can remember it anytime you wish. And I think that it's an idea that it's worth repeating several times because.
You probably faced it in life and also in agility, that there are lessons to be learned and that if you haven't properly learned them, then they'll just show up in a different way, in a different circumstance, and you will have to go through it another time. This has happened to me several times, and quite frankly, I haven't always been aware that I'm going through the same lesson again, but that's the cool part.[00:06:00]
I think that no matter which level you are at, there's always something new to learn. And it goes back to this definition of learning. I think a lot of people think that learning means to know more, but the definition of learning that I've come to love is that learning is a relatively lasting change of behavior.
Due to experience. Now that means that knowing more doesn't mean that you've learned something. It just means that you know it or you can memorize it and recall it. But learning is actually shaping behavior. And as I said many times, agility is a unique sport because it teaches you to shape behavior. It teaches you to shape behavior of a dog.
You also need to learn how to shape your own behavior because if you're able to use the same principles as you use on your dog to shape a dog, walk to [00:07:00] shape the weaves, to shape the jumps, to shape a sit, you can basically take those principles and teach yourself any behavior that you want.
And that is why I think that agility handlers and dog trainers are so much better suited than most people because , they don't just have the knowhow. You don't just have the knowhow of how to shape behavior. You have experience of shaping behavior. It might not be with yourself. It is actually with.
Your dog, and it could be several dogs, but what if you apply that to yourself? What would happen then? One of the most valuable skills is to learn how to shape behavior, and I think that mental training is not just about learning how to deal with nerves in a competition setting, but it's the foundation of it.
It's learning how you can shape your [00:08:00] own behavior. And if tho that behavior or those sets of behaviors are aligned with the outcome that you want, the goal that you want, you will obtain it. Now, I really had some fun with this because it doesn't take much. To change the text before it becomes a text that is very relevant to agility.
And since this podcast is basically about agility, I thought that it will be fun to have the rules of being a handler. So here it goes. Rule number one, you will receive a dog. You may love this dog or struggle with this dog, but this dog will be yours for the duration of your time together in agility number two.
You'll learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Agility. Each training session, class, and competition gives you the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the [00:09:00] lessons or dislike them, but you have chosen them as a part of your handler curriculum. Number three, there are no mistakes, only lessons.
Growth as a handler is a process of experimentation, a series of trials, errors, and occasional successes. The runs that go wrong are just as much a part of the process as the runs that go right.
Rule number four, a lesson is repeated until learned Lessons will be presented to you in various forms. That could be different courses, different environments, different levels of pressure, until you've learned them. When you have learned the lesson, you move on to the next one. Rule number five, learning lessons does not end.
There's no stage of agility that does not contain lessons. If you're still handling a dog, there are lessons to be learned. Rule number six, [00:10:00] there is no better than here. When you're there, the next class, the next title or championship becomes here, you will simply create another There. It appears to be better than your present here.
Number seven, others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot admire or criticize something in another handler unless it reflects something you admire or criticize in yourself. . Number eight, what you make of agility is up to you. You already have all the tools and resources you need, your dog, your body, your mind, and your time.
What you do with them is entirely up to you. Number nine, your answers lie inside you. Your dog is always communicating with you. All you need to do is observe, [00:11:00] listen, feel, and trust. And number 10, you'll forget all this. You can remember it anytime you wish.
Now, this is one of the things that I really love with agility and in sports in general. When you do a sport, you're basically involved in an activity. You're involved in arena that is helping you to build and shape skills that. Not only will help you perform better in the sport, but they're transferable to other aspects of your life as well.
When it comes to, let's say, mental training where I'm mostly involved, you'll learn how to deal with pressure. You'll learn how to. Objectively look at your performance and compare it to your subjective experience to try to figure out what is the truth so that you can collect that feedback [00:12:00] and improve.
And I'm thinking that if you were to just take those two skills and you are to implement that in, if you're young and you're going to school, you would implement it there. If you are working full-time. With a different job other than being an agility instructor or handler. How would, you use those skills there?
How would it be in terms of being a parent, of being a partner? If you can take that same mindset that you've developed the same skills and transfer it into a different category of life, that is when a sport like agility really starts to reap. It benefits. Because it's really more about the ribbons, it's more about the titles.
It's really about what are you learning and who you're becoming in the process. And by shaping a new set of [00:13:00] behaviors, by becoming more, by growing, you will see that what you get from the sport allows you to give more in other areas as well. And this is something to keep in mind. One of the things that I see is that you could have a person that is really skilled in agility and who have learned all this thought patterns and behavior patterns, but they haven't transformed it and implemented into other areas of their life.
And I really want you as the listener to start to reflect on that fact. What are the skills agility has taught me as, a person, not just as a handler and a dog trainer, but as a person, and how and where could I take those skills and implement the same type of mindset so that I can actually reap the same rewards?
That [00:14:00] is a game changer, and I think that if you can start to do that process. You will learn new things in other categories that you can also implement back into agility, and that is when those different parts of your life are starting to learn from each other. And you can even, like we said, reverse it.
What are things in other areas of your life? It could be your profession, it could be from school. It could from being a partner. What are the skills that you learn that you can implement to agility, lessons from other areas that will help you actually become better in agility?
Think about that, and it's actually worth putting this podcast on pause and just reflecting on those questions for a moment. If you're sitting somewhere, or if you're walking in the woods and you're listening to this. Put it on pause and think about it. [00:15:00] And the smart thing is to always write it down because writing clarifies your thinking. It crystallizes it. It makes it from abstract to concrete, and that helps your thinking.
It creates additional focus. But there's so many lessons that you learned in agility that might show up in other aspects of your life that you actually need to learn and implement. Before you can go on to the next lesson, and there's another thing that I also want to touch upon is lately I've been looking into how important it is to direct our expectations or said in another word, control our expectations.
One of the challenges is that as you get better as a handler and you perform better as a team, your expectations will change . Your expectations when you started with agility are not [00:16:00] the same as today. And as we raise the bar of our expectations, there will be a couple of challenges that follow along.
One of that is that the pressure might increase. As stated in rule number six, there is no better than here saying that when you're there, the next class, title or championship becomes here. You will simply create another there that appears better than your present here, and that means that we're setting goals and setting goal is important.
We also need to learn how to manage our expectations ourselves, because if we set the expectations too high and make it too difficult, that could basically ruin our enjoyment of the sport and our happiness levels, what we need and might need to shift. It's not necessarily [00:17:00] lowering the standards and lowering the bars, but we can still change our expectations.
So when you go to a competition, what are your expectations? What are the expectations of yourself? What are the expectations of your dog? And if you can take the mindset that every competition is a lesson, and it is an opportunity for you to learn something, whether that is at a local competition or at one of the big events.
That, that lesson will help you get better, then that is a big shift. as stated in rule number two, you will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Agility. Each training session, class and competition gives you the opportunity to learn lessons. would like to [00:18:00] challenge you next time you're going to a competition, I want you to reflect on your expectations for that competition.
Is it to win? Is it to Qualify? Is it to show how good you are or is it to learn lessons?
Is it to collect feedback that you need in order to get better? Because the way that I view competitions is that it's an arena to stress test your skill levels. Whether that's the skill level of you, the handler or the skill level of your dog , but through that experimentation, you will see that, the runs that didn't go as you wanted.
Just as much of the process as the runs that go right, and if you can treat both of them the same as an opportunity to learn new lessons, to collect feedback so that you can improve your [00:19:00] plans, that you can improve your training sessions, that you can get better as a handler and as a dog trainer, then you're setting yourself up to success.
And one of the things that I found through interviewing different guests on this podcast is that the number of lessons will never end. Every time that you get to a new level, there will be a new set of challenges and agility is a great metaphor for life as well. Because we have different grades.
Depends on where you live in the world. Some have a , three grade system, some have a seven grade system, and there might be an additional one as well. But for every grade that you go up, there will be a new set of challenges, new set of lessons to be learned.
And it could be that you managed to qualify for the national team, and then you get to go to the European open or to the [00:20:00] AWC. But what you will learn is that even at that stage where you think, that's it. That's the thing. There will always be a new lesson to learn.
And since we're getting to the end of the year, and it might be that you're listening to this at the beginning of 2026 or in the middle or maybe in 2027, what you need to remind yourself of is that. What you make of your agility journey is really up to you that you decide what success looks like for you.
But you also have to understand that once you define success, it's required that you need to do what is required to accomplish that, and that goes back to learning the skills of shaping your own behavior. As I said many times, [00:21:00] dog training and mental training are basically the same things.
There are more things that are similar than, there are things that are different that gives you a solid foundation, a solid set of skills that you can start to implement into a new category. As er Nightingale defines success, it's a progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
That means that if you define what you want to accomplish, who you want to be in this sport. You constantly work and progress towards that, is when you are a success, not when you've accomplished it necessarily. Because what happens then is that the what was once there that has now become here will simply just create another goal further along the way.
But if you have, since you began your journey, understood that by taking the [00:22:00] step forward. Makes you a success. And every time you take a step forward, whether that's a training session, analyzing your runs doing a fitness session for yourself, that each time you take those steps, you're basically saying that I'm a success because I'm making progress, then the game becomes something totally different.
And that reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, a quote from Ray Dalio saying that pain plus reflection equals progress. If there's one skill that I would really love for you to learn during 2026 is the ability to reflect agility might facilitate with the pain part, but if you can add the reflection part in that equation, 2026 will be a year where you will see tremendous [00:23:00] amount of progress.
That means that you need to stop and think, why am I getting this outcome that I don't want? What is the thing that I do want and what is required of me to get there? And if you can reflect on that in addition to why am I doing agility, why did I start with this? Am I still consistently doing this because of the reasons I started it?
Or do I need to update it? Do I need several reasons to do agility? But if you can add in the reflection part, you will see progress. And as my old mentor used to say that, if you can add this to your life, you would need a telescope to be able to look back to where you were.
And the more you can go through that cycle, the more progress you will have, meaning that at one [00:24:00] point you will not recognize the old version of yourself and use the end of this year to celebrate the growth you've had. Throughout the last year, yes, 2025 has probably brought you many trials, many cha challenges, many quote unquote failures, but also you've accomplished a lot.
You level up, you've accomplished goals. Maybe you've gone beyond what you expected, you'll be able to do so celebrate that at the end of the year, and then once. The calendar starts at the 1st of January, then the score is zero. Zero. Use it to your benefit. Make decisions on what you would like to accomplish and figure out what you need to do in order to accomplish it, and then do your very best.
It won't be [00:25:00] easy, but if you think that it's worth it. You're willing, able, and ready to do what is required of you. Then go ahead. For me, I've learned tons of lessons throughout the past year, and I'll use the holiday season now to really reflect on what those lessons were so that I can improve so I, I can progress and make the necessary changes for me to acquire the goals that I've set for myself.
And we will do the same thing when it comes to agility as well. One thing is for certain, I'm really happy that I decided to start this podcast. I truly hope that the listeners of this, and that's also the feedback that I received from many people, that listening to the stories of champions has been a valuable insight.
It has changed their [00:26:00] perspective about what is required, and maybe it's required more than what they thought, but at the same time it has increased their motivation because knowing that and being able to relate to other people's stories, they can see themselves in it. And then they are then willing to put in more effort in order to progress because they know in a way that someone else has walked this path before and that they just need to persist and stay patient in their journey, making sure that they're always taking the next step,
as I say, to people that are entering into competition. The only thing that you need to focus on is the task at hand and the task at hand and the task at hand. Those are the three most important things, and for you, it's all about what is the next action? What is the [00:27:00] next action, and what is the next action?
And through that you'll have progress. This is the last episode of 2025. And we'll start up with new episodes at the start of January. I would like to thank everyone for listening into this podcast, giving the feedback helping me to get back on my consistent pace because that has been truly, valuable to me.
I hope that this will continue, that you will find these podcasts valuable, and one of the things that I've recently received is suggestions of people that should be on this podcast. And if you have suggestions, you can definitely go send it to me on Facebook if we're connected there. But you can also go to dog agility performance.com, go to contact and [00:28:00] share the name of someone you think should be on this podcast because you know that they have a great story.
And that's what this podcast is really all about. Collecting great stories from champions so that you can listen to them, you can study them, you can learn from them, relate to them, and use that as a tool to build your growth mindset. I wish everyone merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Use the time to reflect on the year the things you've accomplished and set the stage for 2026.
