Certifications Over Lived Experience - Which Do You Value? | Ep 41

In this weeks episode I talk about how a certification linked to what I do for the movement side of my business keeps popping up on Social Media and it's got me thinking about whether my potential customers will see the benefits if I go for it, compared to my own expertise and researched knowledge 

I would love to know your thoughts on whether you value someone with a certificate/qualification over someone with a live experience

Connect with me on Social Media 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MoveWithCharlotteE/

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Weekly Email - https://movewithcharlotte.myflodesk.com/email-list

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Hello and welcome back. So, um, at the time of recording this episode, it is another hot one in the UK. Um I've got the fan on, um, but I tested it before I hit and record to make sure that you can't hear the fan. But I can stay cool whilst recording it because it is hot. Like, I love the sun. Um, I like the winter for the coziness, but I don't like being cold. But I have also kind of had enough of this heat now. Anyone else? I've had enough of trying to find comfortable, appropriate clothes for work and just yeah. Um, so son, if you could just cool down a little bit, would be great. Um, anyway, that's not the point of today's episode. It's just, you know, these episodes are always a ramble. They are my thoughts, things that have happened for the week, and things that I think you may find interesting, and some potentially useful lessons for you. So today's episode is a bit of a it's a bit of a market research type episode. So I would really love you to hit reply, get in contact, let me know your thoughts. Um, and it's all around certifications, qualifications, and all that jazz. So if you have listened from day one, you will know that dance is the thing I have always done. And kind of earlier this year, I sort of transitioned the business, if you like, or kind of expanded it to be kind of more movement focused, easier for people to engage with, and less kind of wedding. And I still do the weddings, but it's not the only thing I do, and kind of helping people make those easy habits because it was things I'd done. People had been following along with like my pole dancing journey, for instance, which um it's been a year, like later today, the video will go out. So at the time of recording this, I haven't yet been to my my poll class. Um, but at the time that it goes out, later that day, the video goes out, and it's my one year of poll. And I've and that's kind of where the whole transition came from people have become so invested in my pole dance journey of bunny hopping around the pole for an hour. Like, who pays to bunny hop around a pole? Like, really? Um, to now getting on the pole, getting stronger, more confident. Heck, I've bought pole dance outfits, and let me say pole dance outfits uh leave very little to the imagination sometimes. They are skimpy, shall we say? Um, and that would never have been me. I would always have been the vest top and shorts, but no, I've I've embraced the crop top and shorts and and all the on all the kind of the things that comes with it. So that's where the kind of the transition of making things easy for people that you don't have to go to the gym and do three hit classes and eat this and calorie can and all the kind of it gets to be really simple, really, really simple. Um, and when I first started exploring that avenue of kind of what could that look like? Have I got the expertise to do it? There was an ad that I kept seeing, and it was like, oh, this is kind of where my brain is at. So let's kind of look at it a little bit, but I don't want to do a certificate or horse. But it was enough for me to go, yep, this is the angle, this is kind of something I've been trying to do for 10 years. Um, so backtrack a little bit. When I was at uni on my first year, I and I spoke about this last week. Um, so do go and listen because I talk about it in a more in more detail. But in simple, kind of in simple sense, I was crippled from day one of my dance degree, paid 12 grand to fix it and find that my ligament had detached from the femur head, and that's why I'd been in so much pain and couldn't dance for my degree. But during that time, I did a lot of somatics because we were doing it as part of our degree, and I love somatics, I love what it does for people. That was an episode for another day about more of what somatics is, but I've been trying to find a way to build that into my business without qualifications necessarily, been able to use my expertise in enough sense that and an expert is always just someone that knows a bit more than someone else. So it was, but I'd never found a way to make it seamlessly fit. Whereas this whole movement kind of thing that I'm still kind of exploring and playing with is exactly that. So the ad I kind of ignored. The ad has reappeared in the last week or so, and I'm like, okay, you were here when I transitioned and I ignored you, but now you've reared your head again. Maybe this is something I need to explore. And this is where the market research kind of thing comes in if you're looking to attend a movement session, would you prefer the practitioner to be certificated slash licensed, qualified, whatever you want to call it? Or are you okay with just their expertise and their own experiences and knowledge and their own research to interpret kind of the benefits of music and how music affects the nervous system and all that kind of do you want them to be certified? Or are you happy with just their own knowledge? Because I'm in that limbo-y mode of I don't know that I want to do a certificate, but it's reared its head again. Everywhere I go, every social platform I go onto at the minute, this ad is there. Now there is some language within it that I'm like, nope, I'm I'm not a therapist, not a therapist. Absolutely, I'm not gonna heal you. However, I can see that there is content within the certification that could really help me. So then part of me is like, oh, do I just need to go and find some CPD sessions to build my knowledge kind of around um lesson planning again, kind of remind myself the kind of the key principles of building a structured, structured but not structured class. Is that is that what it's telling me that actually I'm doubting my own expertise of I've been in business for 10 years, I've been teaching in some way or other for probably the last 15? Let me do the maths, hang on, 32, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17. Yeah, roughly the last 15 years. So I've got the expertise. So why do I feel I need to explore this? And is it gonna be beneficial? Like I can see it would be beneficial in some ways, but I don't want to do a course just to say I've got a certificate. If actually my ideal audience who are gonna come along to these things really couldn't give a monkeys, but how do you decide? So I'm definitely gonna have to go and do some deeper exploring into what is actually covered in this certification because it keeps coming up. It's annoying me that it keeps coming up now. Um, but I would love to know. I would really, really love to know. So please do get in contact, let me know your thoughts. Um, if you want me to send you details of the of the certification that I've seen so that you can see what I mean about the language and kind of why it's drawing me in, I am happy to do so. But yeah, do you want someone certified? Or are you happy with their own expertise? And there's merit in both. But I I need I I kind of need to know what my audience want before I commit a load of money. Um, so that's the rambles for today. Um do you value someone having certifications and qualifications over their own expertise and knowledge on research and things? Because I can absolutely go down a research rabbit hole, and I probably will do even if I don't go for the certification. I will still go down a research rabbit hole. But is there power in that certification? Who knows? So if you're in the UK, stay safe, stay hydrated, move. You can still move, you just gotta bring it down a tempo. Um, and yeah, so let's move.