The Experience Training

Reflections on a training

I am feeling very full today. Not only do I have the weekend off, the first one in many weeks and the only one for another 6 or 7 weeks, but I just returned home yesterday from Oregon. I went to Oregon to do a training for a boarding school that works with teens who have been in trouble in some sort of way. Some of them have done drugs, acted out, gotten bad grades, etc. The thing that all of them seemed to have in common is that they had given up on life and anything fulfilling or worthwhile.
I walked in on Tuesday and I remember their faces. These are young men and women between the ages of 14-16 and all  of them had a look on their face that said they had given up. Some of them were from the poorer parts the country, others from more affluent, but despair is classless.
Hearing them share about their lives can be heart breaking. As many times as I have done these trainings, it still amazes me how quickly the promise of a full life can be buried under the so called realities of life. Each of these "kids" came into the world full of promise and possibilities, and so quickly put all that under a wall of fear and belief that said they have nothing to look forward to except pain.
The opportunity and challenge before me is to look under the pain and mask of toughness or sadness and see that there is something more inside. Some of these young men and women have a very tough exterior. Sometimes so tough that it requires more than the three days to get them to see that there is more to life. Sometimes it means I ask some to leave and come back when they are willing to look beyond the beliefs that they have developed in life thus far.
My task isn't really any different than that of any training that I do. I see people of all social classes and various different backgrounds etc, and the walls and masks that they put up are not all that different. People sometimes walk into a training believing they don't "need" to be there because their life is fine. And that is exactly why it serves them to be there, because there is so much more for them and for everyone, no matter where they are in life. The training simply assists to accelerate their progress by years.
With these kids, it feels different to me. For many, they have never felt like there was anyone they can trust or look to to be honest with them. Some have grown up in extreme conditions of pain inflicted upon pain. Some have grown up in the affluence that others dream about, yet expectations are so high that they feel they can never be "good enough" to measure up. Some have grown up in homes with the "rose colored glasses" feel where we don't acknowledge hurt, emptiness of feeling not good enough for fear that we will see what we don't want to see. Under all of this, it is my task to see that person they were born to be and assist them to bring it out.
The faces I saw on Tuesday are much different than the faces I saw on Thursday. In two days, these young men and women went from feeling like there was nothing more in life and shifted into a place where they are starting to see an abundance of possibilities. When on Tuesday the sharing was very limited, limited to the pain and beliefs that they had based on life experiences, on Thursday they shared how they had never felt like this and could never hope to feel this way from any drug! As we began to look at life and the possibilities before them, they went deeper and deeper into the desires of the heart and the life they could have, realizing it is all possible when they trust themselves.
As we circled up on Thursday evening, just before this part of their training was coming to a completion, until the next phase, they shared how different life looks to them. Instead of the empty vacant looks in their eyes, they had a glow, a shine and a countenance was amazing, especially considering that just two days before, there was simply a hollow look on their faces.
As I sit here, I am grateful to be home. I don't have many weekends where I am home, so I am embracing this one knowing it will be awhile before another one is available.
On the other hand, I am also grateful and fulfilled to have been part of the first steps of transformation for some young men and women who a few days ago, believed life was just empty and painful. I am blessed.

Enrollment-The Ultimate Life Activity!

Right now I am very fired up and very grateful. In the past two weeks I have facilitated a "Grad Training" and an enrollment weekend for those who are in our Launch Training. I am fired up for two reasons. One, we have raised the bar in so many ways on the concept of a grad training. What has been seen in the past as a nice get together with some "feel good" moments has been transformed into an actual training that challenges the grads to actually tap into their power source, which is them, and transform their lives.
The second is that this enrollment weekend, in my very biased opinion, was the most powerful transformational weekend that I have ever experienced.
I can lay these experiences, and the overall transformation that The Experience is creating, to one simple thing. ENROLLMENT! But enrollment different than I have experienced before. Somewhere along the journey, somewhere in the process, somewhere amidst many powerful, sometimes painful moments, I got that enrollment is something far more than a recruiting method of getting people in the training. In fact, enrollment is anything but recruitment!
Enrollment is simply me enrolling me into all of who I am! Enrollment  simply means that if I want people to be on my team, I only enroll them when I am enrolled myself! In other words, if I am not enrolled into the idea that I am the greatest captain of my team, why would anyone else want to be part of it? If I don't trust me, if I wouldn't pick me to be the captain of my team, why would anyone choose to be on my team? It is also knowing that when I choose to be captain of my team, of course others desire to be on my team.
At the same time it is the same for the trainees, enrollment  is simply them enrolling them into all of who they are and realizing they are the greatest captain of their team. Once on that path, it is a matter of clarity of who else gets to be on that team and of course people desire to be on their team. Then it becomes a matter of synergistic growth as teams are really each of us being enrolled to be part of each others teams.
In the past, and even now for some trainings and people enrollment has been seen as getting people in the chairs of a training. This leads to all sorts of manipulations, begging, price gimmicks, etc. If I believed that the way to get people to come to The Experience is to be the lowest priced training, then I don't believe in my training.  I don't believe in the people coming in and their ability to create. Then I don't believe in the trainees who are enrolling, and their ability to inspire.
True enrollment is to enroll the trainees into all of who they are. It is to trust that in that space, they are powerful and they are inspiring. It is to trust that in that space, all of us, being enrolled into who we are, have with us a light and energy that invites others to desire more in life as well. No matter who anyone is, what they have done, or even to believe that life is great, it is in the space of enrollment that they realize there is still so much more in life to create. Enrollment is to enroll them into that ideal and they manifest it by registering to attend the training. In this space, any manipulation of the enrollment process, any gimmicks to get people into the training in any way other than to enroll them into their lives becomes simply a sell out on our part. It says we don't believe, not only in ourselves but in the value of our training such that we resort to gimmicks, tricks, even lies to get people to attend. It also says we are not really changing lives, we are just having a training and don't care if it really is transformational, as long as we get more people to attend.
To be clear, there will be 150 a month who attend The Experience training by March of 2010 or sooner. There are no deviations, excuses or stories. In this case it DOES have to look a certain way! There are 150 because those who have come before are living enriched powerful lives! There are 150 or more, because those who have gone before are enrolled into themselves, their lives and their purpose and there are no stories, excuses or deviations......it does have to look a certain way!
There are 150 or more per month because the angels know that they can count on The Experience to deliver! They know that the context of The Experience is consistent, clear and supports everyone to BE their word and promise to themselves! No compromise, pandering or consensus. Our word is not a consensus, but a promise to ourselves as to what creates the greatest joy, fulfillment and growth!