-How to tell a story: Ira Glass

"Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap." - Ira Glass

Here's something we found that's really interesting. Ira Glass a veteran radio personality, and host of the beloved radio show This American Life, offers a helpful insight on how to take basic, mundane, boring facts and turn them into compelling content that attracts and holds attention.

In these videos Ira, gives advice to those making short stories such as vloggers. There are good pieces of wisdom in there that we can apply to presentation in the broader sense as well.

Ira Glass Part I (on storytelling basics)


Summary of Part I
(The following is an excerpt from Garr Reynold's blog)
The old way: Have a topic statement then fill out the facts that support your statement. (This is not to say that logic and evidence and support are not important. Of course, they are important, but they're rarely sufficient.)
In storytelling there are two basic building blocks, says Ira Glass:

(1) The anecdote, a sequence of actions, a story in its purest form, one thing following from another (rather than just disjointed "facts").

(1a) Raise questions. Provide the "bait." The anecdote should raise a question right from the beginning. Implied in any question that you raise, however, is that you are going to answer it. Constantly raise questions and answer them. The shape of the story is that you are throwing out questions and answering them along the way.

(2) The moment of reflection. What is the key point? What does this all mean? Why have I asked you to sit and listen for 30 min, etc. It is not just a series of facts/events. Many people get the first part, they tell an interesting sequence of events, but in the end it fails because it doesn't say anything new, it did not have meaning.

And sometimes people have the reflection part and the question is clear in their mind, but they fail to put it in a sequence that compels people to follow and engage.In a good story you need both -- you can flip back and forth between the two. The Anecdote and the Moment of Reflection are interwoven to make a story.

Read the complete article, and watch three more clips from the same interview, that follow at: http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/03/ira_glasstips_o.html .
And if you want to skip the videos, the article also summarizes Ira's main points.

Following are the links to the rest of Ira Glass' videos from the same interview:
Part II (on finding great stories)
Part III (on good taste, persevering)
Part IV (on finding your own voice)

Enjoy telling stories!

 

-Charging Premium Prices

In our earlier post we talked about the importance of creating SVP (Sticky Value Proposition), of creating value for others first before expecting to get value.

Before we move on, watch this extremely sticky and powerful commercial of a famous training company.



Hilarious and drives the message - If you’re scared of public speaking, Dale Carnegie has a solution for you - Neat!

Now sample this - a 2 day Dale Carnegie Training workshop on public speaking - Public Speaking Mastery - comes to you with a price tag of $1595 a piece.
On the other hand, another lesser known training workshop on the same topic, of the same duration (or longer) involving the same incidental costs (on training material, venue, food etc..) can be yours for only $200 or even less!!

What’s happening here?

How do companies like Dale Carnegie or Franklin Covey manage to command such a price for their training.
With so many cheaper substitutes available, why would anyone still opt for them?

Here’s the ugly truth - Because the $200 trainers may have done nothing to DIFFERENTIATE themselves in the prospects’ minds.
There's nothing that sets them apart.

This is where USPs, or Unique Selling Propositions, come in - and if you don't have one, you need to get one ... or more.

A USP is your definable difference that makes you worth more in your customer’s mind, enhancing your perceived value. The better your USP, the higher premium you can charge. Hence, you must invest considerable time and effort into creating your USPs. Nothing will give you better results.

Unlike physical goods whose price depends on various factors like price of raw materials, transportation costs, production costs etc, the price of information or knowledge products largely depends on how much value the CUSTOMER assigns to them.

It’s the sum total of their brand equity.

It is the customer’s perceived value that is directly correlated to what price they are willing to pay.

Here’s an unrelated example: If you are out to buy furniture and you were at the marketplace that has 12 furniture stores, which one would you choose?
If they all just had the owners' names or the shop number or a generic name, you would probably pick the one that was less crowded or the closest.

But, if one furniture store puts up a sign that said, ‘Furniture Design Award Winner 5 Years in a Row', you're probably not going to miss that one.
If another store had a sign that read, ‘The only store selling antique and reclaimed furniture'; you're going to go there, too. Suddenly, the other ten stores become invisible.

And that’s what you become when you don't have a differentiator - invisible.
Invisible from Google’s search results, invisible from the prospect’s mind and invisible from the market.

As Jack Trout once said - You differentiate or you die.

So, how do you differentiate yourself and your training product so that you're able to charge premium prices, and then how do you sell it?

What sets YOU apart?

What makes you SPECIAL?

We’ll leave you with that thought.

Watch our future posts for more on this topic and for more strategies on differentiation.

Stay sticky.

 

-How to choose a Sticky name

Welcome to that aspect of training content development which is given the least amount of time by most trainers - Naming!

Naming can appear deceptively easy and is often treated as an afterthought.

The reality is that it is one of the most important elements of the brand proposition.
In fact, it is a very challenging discipline that is most effectively performed by a specialist.

Can you beat that…. Its a DISCIPLINE and ‘product naming’ is an industry in itself!

Some names are so BAD that they cause the product or service to fail, even though it might be an AWSOME PRODUCT! On the other hand, good names may help a product to not just succeed but to DOMINATE the product category for years.

StickyTraining brings to you a ton of research done in this field, all jam packed into this 13 page report which we like to call - The Training-Naming Report.

Inside you will find loads of tips and proven strategies from the gurus in the field, on selecting a sticky name for your training product; On why some products end up being failures simply because of a bad name, and others end up being superhits.

Logic said that we should charged money for the value being giving out.
But here's the real deal - As our way of saying thank you for sticking to our blog, this 13 page report comes to you absolutely FREE!

All you need to do is enter your email address in the space on the side bar, to sign up for our updates and a periodic newsletter. That's it!

The report is quite detailed and is jam packed with loads of sticky learning. Make the most of it.

We'll catch you later.

 

-Humor: WHAT-WHY-HOW

Having watched George Carlin' s video in our previous article, for better learning, we would like you to relate the video material with the techniques mentioned here. Its no algebra, have fun!

(If you haven't read the article yet, go to 'Humor is sticky!')

What is humor (or a joke)?

The dictionary defines a joke as - ‘something said or done to provoke LAUGHTER; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist’.
Melvin Helitzer in his book, Comedy Writing Secrets, mentions that there are two primary reasons why we laugh:
• We laugh out of SURPRISE.
• We laugh when we feel SUPERIOR.

If you conduct an autopsy on a joke or a funny comment (see joke diagram above), you would realize that most laughter occurs when something called a 'punchline' is delivered. As the illustration shows that a punchline is a diversion from the regular storyline and throws in that sudden surprise at the climax - a climactic humorous twist so to speak.

Why use humor?
There are several universal components of language that humans beings from all cultures and backgrounds seem to use - one is crying in response sadness or grief, the other is yelling or screaming in response to fear or anger and the third one is LAUGHTER.

Laughter is a universal BONDING phenomenon and can help you connect and build rapport with all kinds of people. Something that’s essential for success in almost all professions.
In fact, as David Deangelo (Eben Pagan) says, humor or 'cocky humor' is one of the key ingredients in dating success as well.

Our brains are engineered to FILTER OUT the boring, mundane stuff. What’s presented creatively and in a humorous unexpected manner tends to stick more, since it BREAKS PATTERNS and SINKS into long term memory - something that a mundane boring presentation does not achieve.

How to?
Helitzer has listed several techniques of writing comedy in his book. We have included some techniques and examples from his book here.

Most are based on Play on Words or POW. You imagine what-if situations, and you play with words. More than 50% of all humor is based on POW. It is a twist on a familiar cliché; aphorism; book, movie, or song title; famous quote; national ad slogan—in fact, any expression widely known by the public. Examples:

I just broke up with someone, and the last thing she said to me
was, "You'll never find anybody like me again." And I was think¬
ing: I should hope not. Isn't that why we break up with people? If I
don't want you, why would I want somebody just like you? Does
anybody end a bad relationship and say, "By the way, do you
have a twin?" —Larry Miller

The quickest way to a man's heart is through his chest. —Roseanne Barr

Following are some of the most important POW techniques:
1. A double entendre is the use of an ambiguous word or phrase that
allows for a second—usually racy—interpretation.
Let's get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini. —Robert Benchley
It's no wonder foreigners are confused by our language. Here a slim chance and a fat chance mean the same thing. —Joyce Mattingly
2. A malaprop is the unintentional misstatement or misuse of a word or phrase, or the accidental substitution of an incorrect word for the correct one, with humorous results. Malaprops are effective in part because they allow the audience to feel superior. Malaprops can incorporate clichés and double entendres. These examples of twisted language only qualify as malaprops if the person speaking them is unaware (or appears to be unaware) of the mistake (eg Joey in FRIENDS).
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry is named William.

Include me out.

You wouldn't have won if we had.—Yogi Berra

They misunderestimated me. - George Bush


3. An oxymoron is a joining of two incompatible ideas in one phrase. It can also be called a contradiction in terms. eg - pretty ugly, found missing, living dead, good grief, working vacation, larger half, soft rock, extinct life, Microsoft Works, plastic glasses, alone together, exact estimate, taped live, small crowd, even odds.

4. A pun is a word used in such a way that two or more of the word's possible meanings are active simultaneously. A pun may also be a reformation of a word to a like-sounding word that is
not an exact homonym.
Once a knight, always a knight. But once a night is usually enough.

God is like Scotch tape: You can't see him, but you know he's there.

5. Reforming is a process that adds a twist or a surprise ending to a cliché (a predictable, hackneyed phrase) or a common word, phrase, or expression. Other POW techniques, such as double entendres and puns, rely heavily on reforming.

That restaurant inspired the TV show That's Inedible!

The things my wife buys at antique auctions are keeping me baroque.—Peter De Vries
Do under others as you would have them do under you.

6. The simple truth and the take off - Simple truth is the opposite of a double entendre. It plays on the literal meaning of a key word in an idiomatic phrase. The take-off is a statement of the standard version of a cliché or expression, followed by a realistic but highly exaggerated commentary, frequently a double entendre.

I was trying to get back to my original weight—seven pounds, three ounces.—Cheryl Vendetti;
How long was I in the army? Five foot eleven. —Spike Milligan
I like a girl with a head on her shoulders. No neck!

The formats include - Lists, Comparisons, Similes, Observations, Mimicking and Callback (a Callback is punch line that refers to a joke that you have already said).

And remember, SELF EFFACING humor is always a safe zone (If you're fat, talk about it! Think of yourself as a safe venue for mocking the fat, since you're really just making fun of yourself), because if you laugh at yourself, others will feel comfortable laughing too.
It communicates that you’re comfortable in your own skin.

Hope that helped. Remember the idea is not to turn you into a comedian, (unless you really want to become one), because cracking jokes ALL THE TIME during a presentation or a conversation may make you look goofy, but to strike the right balance and use humor as a spice or a starter ….or a dessert, and not the main course - and turn you into a sticky facilitator.

For more in depth knowledge on comedy, we suggest you get your hands on Melvin Heitzer’s bible on comedy writing - Comedy Writing Secrets meant for those looking for a career in comedy or copywriting. The following are excellent reads as well:
Stand-Up Comedy: The Book by Judy Carter
How to Be a Working Comic by Dave Schwensen
Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy by Jay Sankey

You may also visit the following sites for more education or just hit the Sticky Recommended Search button on this page.
http://www.stand-upcomedy.com/lib-glos.htm
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/standup/standup.html

Better still, watch em in action! The world wide web and You Tube is full of videos on comedy. Our favorites being the comedy of - George Carlin, Chris Rock, Russel Peters, Jay Leno among others.

Keep checking back on this page for more education.

 

-Humor is sticky!

Ok now this one is a killer. We’re going to start this article by showing you a video featuring the famous George Carlin (courtesy Laugh.com), and then throwing 2 questions at you:



Ques 1. How often have you been told about the importance of using humor during training or presentations and how it helps generate interest, keeps your audience hooked, makes learning stick yada yada yada?
Probable answer - Always!

Ques 2. How many train-the-trainer courses have ACTUALLY provided you with specific TECHNIQUES or INSTRUCTIONS for using humor or cracking a joke?
Probable answer - Maybe NONE!

We know you’re going to kill us for this, but most education in comedy either lies in comedy clubs or theatre or entertainment or writing workshops … not in train-the-trainer workshops!This is one aspect of communication that most communication skills trainings tend to overlook.

Well we can’t turn you into a comedian with just this article but we sure can provide you with some free sticky techniques and quick tips to get your audience smiling (better still, laughing), all packaged in a WHAT-WHY-HOW format … all in our next post.

 

-Designing a training program (ISD)

The big topic that everyone’s been searching for. If you have landed on this page through a Google search, congratulations! For being among one of several thousands reading up on this topic as we speak!

And why not …organizations these days look for the best possible training solutions to address their problems, at the lowest possible cost. Return on Investment (ROI) being the buzzword here, and is more important than the actual costs. Basically means how much juice 'y' we manage to squeeze from 'x' number of fruits.
Ok from our lame attempt at adding a twist of humor to that mundane topic lets focus back to why you clicked on this page - to learn how to design a damn good training program.

Since the world wide web is full of information on this topic, we thought it would be much better if directed you to the best possible resources than repeat the entire story on this small web page. (Instructional System Design or Instructional Design or ID is a HUGE topic and this site may not be able to include everything!)
We will however summarize this topic in our own twisted kind of way to help you learn better (remember, being unusual, out of the box or funny helps messages stick. To know more read our section titled ‘Humor is sticky!’)

(add comic strip diagram)

Is someone crying for help? (Is there a performance gap?)

Are you going to be the super hero? (Is there a training need?)

Conducting your investigation (the truth about, and how and why’s of TNA/ TNI)

Enter the ADDIE-man! (Writing SMART objectives using Blooms, creating a design document, choosing experts, assigning trainers - internally or externally or hiring a training firm)

ADDIE stands for - Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate(the ‘man’ was just our attempt of creating another comic book superhero and raking in the moolah in royalties!)

Following are some important resources on ISD that we happened to discover:

 

-Body Language 101

“Stand up straight and don’t slouch!” - is what your mother said. For many of us, this bit of motherly advice has probably been stashed away alongside others like - “sucking your thumb will give you buck teeth.”
Before talking about anything related to the topic of Body Language, we can NO WAY skip POSTURE!

Sticky learning video - Watch this classic video where young Adrelene's mirror image teaches her (and you!) the fundamentals of good posture (all copyrights belong to their respective owners).

The fact is that as a training professional, a public speaker, a classroom facilitator or just about ANYONE - you cannot afford to slouch, and in the process end up becoming the hunchback of Notre Dame. Apart from looking uncool, ruining your backbone comes as a free bonus!
When practiced correctly, good posture reduces the risk of scary conditions like arthritis, prevents muscular pain and keeps your joints in their correct alignment, while making you look and feel more confident.

********************************************

The following section of this article is an extract from an article on this topic from Wikihow.com (hey they allow to republish there articles!)

STEPS to correct your posture:

1. Know what good posture is believed to be. Most people think that to "stand up straight" means tensing your back to heave your chest 'in and up', and pulling your head back in to your chest. This is not so. The spine has two natural curves that you need to maintain called the 'double C' or 'S' curves, these are the curves found from the base of your head to your shoulders and the curve from the upper back to the base of the spine. When standing straight up, make sure that your weight is evenly distributed on your feet. You might feel like you are leaning forward, and look stupid, but you don't.
2. Using a mirror, align your ears, shoulder, and hips. Proper alignment places your ears loosely above your shoulders, above your hips. Again, these points make a straight line, but the spine itself curves in a slight 'S'. You'll find that this doesn't hurt at all. If you do experience pain, look at your side view in a mirror to see if you're forcing your back into an unnatural position. If so, stop it!
3. Do exercises that strengthen the muscles across your upper back and shoulders. These do not have to be strenuous! Try the following, with or without hand weights:
- Align your ears over your shoulders. Raise both arms straight up, alongside your ears. Remember to keep your ears aligned! Bend forearms toward shoulders to touch your shoulder blades. Do 10 repetitions with both arms, then alternate 10 reps for each arm singularly.
- Align ears with shoulders. Raise both arms out to sides at shoulder length. Hold for a slow count of ten. Slowly lower arms to sides, counting ten as you lower. Slowly raise arms back to shoulder height, counting to ten as you raise arms. Do ten reps, constantly checking your alignment! If ten reps are too many to start, do as many as you can. You should at least feel a slight fatigue in the shoulder muscles.
- Be a penguin. While you wait for a web page to load, toast to pop, or the microwave to beep, place elbows at your side, and touch your shoulders with your hands. Keeping your hands on your shoulders, and your ears aligned, raise both elbows (count one, two) and lower them back to your waist (count one, two). Do as many reps as your wait allows. You'll be surprised how much exercise fits into 30 seconds.
4. Do stretches. This can greatly help if you find that you have a sore back or neck after a while.
- Tilt (stretch) your head in all four directions over your shoulders (forward, back, left, right), and gently massage your neck. Avoid rolling in a circle, as it may cause further strain.
- On your hands and knees, curl your back upwards, like a cat, and then the opposite. Think about being able to place a bowl in the hollow of your back.
5. Repeat the exercises a few times each day. Doing them in the morning helps your body stretch out the muscle lethargy of sleep, and periodically throughout the day helps raise your energy level without a heavy workout.
6. Try taking ballet classes. You can take ones from a performing arts school in this instance; they are simply recreational.
7. Doing yoga is also excellent for posture. You can take a class or find a good workout video.


While Sitting
- Sit in an office chair.
- Align your back with the back of the office chair. Avoid slouching or leaning forward, especially when tired from sitting in the office chair for long periods. Keep your shoulders straight.
- Flex your arms at a 75 to 90 degree angle at the elbows. You may have to adjust the office chair.
- Make sure your neck, back, and heels are all aligned.
- Keep both feet flat on the floor. If there's a problem with feet reaching the floor comfortably, a footrest can be used along with the office chair.

While Standing
- Stand with weight mostly on the balls of the feet, not with weight on the heels. Avoid locking your knees.
- Keep feet slightly apart, about shoulder-width.
- Let arms hang naturally down the sides of the body.
- Tuck the chin in a little to keep the head level. Be sure the head is square on top of the neck and spine, not pushed out forward
- Stand straight and tall, with shoulders upright.
- Stand against a wall with shoulders and bottom touching wall. In this position, the back of the head should also touch the wall - if it does not, the head is carried too far forward (anterior head carriage).

While Walking
- Keep the head up and eyes looking straight ahead. Avoid pushing your head forward.
- Keep shoulders properly aligned with the rest of the body.

While Driving
- Sit with the back firmly against the seat for proper back support. The seat should be a proper distance from the pedals and steering wheel to avoid leaning forward or reaching.
- The headrest should support the middle of the head to keep it upright. Tilt the headrest forward if possible to make sure that the head-to-headrest distance is not more than four inches.


While Carrying Objects
- Always bend at the knees, not the waist.
- Use the large leg and stomach muscles for lifting, not the lower back.
- If necessary, get a supportive belt to help maintain good posture while lifting.
- When carrying what a heavy or large object, keep it close to the chest.
- If carrying something with one arm, switch arms frequently.
- When carrying a backpack or purse, keep it as light as possible, and balance the weight on both sides as much as possible, or alternate from side to side.
- When carrying a backpack, avoid leaning forward or rounding the shoulders. If the weight feels like too much, consider using a rolling backpack with wheels.

While Sleeping
- A relatively firm mattress is generally best for proper back support, although individual preference is very important.
- Sleeping on the side or back is usually more comfortable for the back than sleeping on the stomach.
- Use a pillow to provide proper support and alignment for the head and shoulders.
Consider putting a rolled-up towel under the neck and a pillow under the knees to better support the spine.
- If sleeping on the side, a relatively flat pillow placed between the legs will help keep the spine aligned and straight.

Some More tips

- You can have someone tape a giant X on your back from one shoulder to the opposite hip. Then put a straight line of tape across your shoulders closing the top of the X. Wear this during the day, to help retrain your back. This works really well if you hold shoulders back before taping, use wide non stretch tape and ideally change tape each day.
Don't tighten up your muscles when you are assuming a straight posture. It will only stress the joints and muscles themselves and this affects the skeleton, therefore your posture and even the way you move and breathe. Try to eventually relax into it but if you experience back pains, stop it! You are probably causing unnecessary muscle tension. It is important to differentiate between back pains, and muscle exhaustion. Since the correct posture is foreign, the muscles needed to maintain that posture might not be strong enough yet. A guideline for this is that if it strains you to breath, realign your posture. Let the breath guide you, it needs to feel good! It can take weeks to strengthen the muscle imbalances and this is very tough work, but worth it in the end.
- If your head is hanging, you can't be properly aligned. Keep your head at the level that allows you to look directly ahead without having to turn your eyes up. If you cannot do this without feeling tension in your neck, this means you are causing unnecessary muscle tension.
A great side benefit of keeping your head straight, and your ears/shoulders/hips aligned is an improvement in your self-esteem and attitude. If you walk with your head up, you appear more confident, and feel more confident, which improves your attitude and mood, making it easier to walk with your head up.
- Try these steps to get in alignment: push your shoulders forward, then bring them straight up, then bring them straight back, then bring them straight down. Feel good? If your shoulders feel slightly stiff or tense you may have unnecessary muscle tension.
If you need help remembering to keep your posture, think of a unique object or color. Every time you think of that object, check your posture. (By the way this is also an NLP technique!)

 

-Essential reads you ought to stick to

This section lists some of the most essential pieces of writing that anyone wanting to create a strong foundation and framework should read. To learn more about why its important, read the section on 'DO NOT read this page’.

For more info on these titles from the world wide web, you may run a Sticky recommended search located on top of this page, or hit the nearest bookstore to get your hands on them.We will keep adding to this list as and when newer posts are added.

Since the list is expected to become quite huge, we would be categorizing and indexing them and adding external links for easy search. Happy reading!

  • Think and grow rich .. Napoleon Hill
  • How to win friends and influence people .. Dale Carnegie
  • Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway .. Jeffers
  • Mastery .. George Leonard
  • Frogs Into Princes (NLP).. Bandler and Grinder
  • The Secret of Creating Your Future (Timeline therapy) .. Tad James
  • Psycho Cybernetics .. Maxwell Maltz
  • The Strangest Secret .. Earl Nightingale
  • Speak Easy .. Arjun Raina
  • The Sound of your voice - Carol Flemming
  • Don’t Undress to Impress …SKB
  • Body Language … Alan Pease, Julius Fast
  • Comedy writing secrets .. Melvin Helitzer
  • Games Trainers Play .. Edward E. Scannell and John W. Newstrom
  • The Accelerated Learning Handbook .. Dave Meier
  • How to Mind Map .. Tony Buzan
  • Use Both sides of your Brain .. Tony Buzan
  • FISH! .. Stephen C. Lundin
  • Nuts! .. Kevin Freiberg
  • Good to Great .. Jim Collins
  • 7 Habits of highly effective people .. Stephen Covey
  • Mavericks at Work .. William C. Taylor
  • Ogilvy on Advertising .. David Ogilvy
  • Beyond Disruption .. Jean-Marie Dru

 

- Demonstrate your Sticky Value Proposition (SVP)

‘’Move the free line!’’ said Eben Pagan. And when he said that, he gave the information-marketing world a very valuable lesson. Being a great trainer, Eben is a phenomenal marketer as well and moving the free line concept can be applied to a variety of products and services. It simply means that - If we want to GET value from the world, we need to GIVE value first.
You cannot expect your car to run for you without YOU giving it some clean fuel first, and the periodic maintenance.
As a trainer or as someone who is in the profession of imparting knowledge and skills, it becomes super important for you to be someone who is a CREATOR of value.
Once you create value for others, you automatically make a deposit into their emotional bank account (read Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits for more on this topic; also read about his concept of abundance mentality).
The next step is to ensure that THIS VALUE STICKS, without any withdrawals being made from the account. The idea is to gain trust & respect and BUILD A RELATIONSHIP.
Hence your ability to create massive amount of value for others is something that we like to call Sticky Value Proposition or SVP.
Giving away something for free (in this case learning) or without expecting anything in return may sound a bit difficult to do, but you need to cultivate this as a habit. That’s just step one!
In the next set of articles you would learn how to keep and enhance your SVP and convert it into wealth for yourself.
We’ll leave you with some examples and ideas of demonstrating SVP (or what we happened to observe around us):

  • At office if you happen to help someone out or do a short training activity proactively, do not EXPECT an ‘appreciation mail’ of sorts. It would come anyway!

  • Giving a short crash course to your not so tech savvy work mate on how to make their Powerpoint slide look great so that he/she struggles no more

  • Giving away free learning on your website (like we’re doing!)

  • Doctors offering free consultation

  • .

  • .

  • .

  • Can you think of more ways (big or small in which you have or you can demonstrate SVP for yourself?)
    And trust us on this one - There's nothing mushy here. It's just good business!

 

- DO NOT read this page!

Gotcha! By clicking on this page link, your curiosity has helped you discover probably the MOST valuable lesson on Sticky Training: Train the Trainer.
The dictionary defines curiosity as 'a need, thirst or desire for KNOWLEDGE'.
Everyday, thousands of people hunt for something on the internet - Google to be precise. That something is 'knowledge'. Knowledge that would help them solve a problem or lead a better life or become good at something or just satisfy their curiosity. Think about what made you search for the knowledge contained on this webpage.
Talking of knowledge, we’ll introduce you to the idea that Peter Drucker introduced several decades ago, called the KNOWLEDGE WORKER and as a knowledge worker …or as a training professional, you work mostly with your mind (and not do much of manual labor).

The phenomenon of knowledge workers, trainers, life coaches or personal development, self help gurus is not recent. The grand daddy being Sigmund Freud (of the Freudian slip fame) he founded the theory of the unconscious mind and the potential it holds. After that came Dale Carnegie with How to win Friends and Influence People one of the world’s best selling books of all time, considered second only to the Bible, in sales! Napoleon Hill in his classic Think and Grow Rich wrote his philosophy of personal and business success after conducting a 20 year study of the most successful people in the world. Earl Nightingale in his book The Strangest Secret wrote his famous quote ‘We become what we think about’. Bandler and Grinder broke down human experience and the way we take information in, forming blocks came up with Neuro-Linguistic Programming or NLP.
(We’ll talk about these and few other gurus and their teachings in a little more detail in the section ‘Essential readings you ought to stick to!’)
Why the heck are we talking about all this?
Each of these gurus are pioneers who discovered the different pieces of the human potential puzzle and have given them to us as basic building blocks. Its now up to us, the future teachers of this world, to take their methods, apply them to the world and help the world be a better place and help people lead better lives.
These gurus have given us a framework, a structure, a blue print to hang our concepts and ideas on. Concepts and ideas which relate to our situations.
With this framework in place, when you teach or train, it gives those teachings a UNIVERSAL APPEAL and you come across with the power, authority and clarity that resonates with your learners, and in the process creates a IMMENSE VALUE, and learning THAT STICKS.

Our advice - feed and exercise your mind, gather lots of knowledge and build a rock solid foundation and a great looking framework.
Stay hungry, stay curious and always stay sticky!

 

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