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The best training program I have ever participated in was the Introduction to the Forum Leaders Program at Landmark Education.
A good training, I say, begins with screening.
If the purpose is to get the participants trained.
If the purpose is to find out who, what kind of person you can’t train successfully, then accept everyone who applies.
Therefore, the first step of any ‘good’ training program is to screen the applicants.
The screening question in the questionnaire was, I am paraphrasing: ‘prove with examples that you take correction well‘ was what struck me as the most important screening question.
Most people don’t take correction well, or don’t take correction at all.
With a simple ‘Starting Point Measurements‘ and the flexibility question helps you screen out all the liars.
But even with that careful screening, the program (I did that program twice for good measure) the program ended up with about one or two people per hundred, people who actually completed it successfully.
You cannot fulfill the promises of a program unless you meet pre-conditions, take correction well, and do all you can do.
I have literally never met anyone who did all they could do, myself included.
When I muscletest, at my most invested periods, I did 70% of all I could do. Nowadays that number is between 10% and 30%.
And my students do between 1% and 10% of what they can do.
The rest of the time they just slack off, or pretend that they are busy.
I watched a Polish series the other day. In it I got a glimpse of why the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is the measure of a country’s prosperity.
How you do anything is how you do everything…
Your ‘how’ is the result of your attitude. And your attitude decides your altitude.
It also decides the country’s altitude.
The attitude of most people on the planet is ‘it’s not worth it‘.
It’s not worth investing energy into producing, even if you want the result.
It’s not lazy. In fact it’s contempt, says muscletest.
Contempt for what?
Contempt for work. Contempt for effort.
It’s learned. It’s the culture of getting by. Getting by with as little invested as possible.
What is most tragic, in my humble opinion, is that this attitude extends to health.
You, and the people I can see, we invest as little into being well as we think we can get away with.
I even noticed that it has infected me too.
For about 10 days now I believe that I can be well. I newly believe that I can live longer. I believe that it is largely up to me what life will be like. Whether I’ll be able to support myself, or become a bag lady and die in the mean streets.
Source is talking to me.
I have been sleeping really poorly. When I ask why, the only thing that tests yes is: ‘I need to get tired‘
Physically and mentally tired.
Investing only 10% of what I can do isn’t making me tired.
Interestingly fulfillment and how much of my energy and time I invest in my work go in tandem.
And also probably interestingly to you, happiness, joy, self-love is a consequence of fulfillment.
Of how much of all you can do you actually do.
The question that you should have is this:
Can you change your attitude? Can you work harder? Work for your money, work for your relationship, work for your health?
Muscletest says you can.
I am looking at my own inner, invisible attitudes.
I see that I am willing to do more. And I am not committed. I may never commit to do more of what/how much I can do, but I am at least willing to do more.
I can also see that what stands in my way is the all-or-nothing infection I have never had before.
I watch my students barely doing anything for what they say they want. If it is not going to give them all… all at once, they won’t do it.
This is especially visible to me with people who are ill. Their attitude is ‘if doing the Big Bundle doesn’t completely heal me, I won’t do it‘.
I have a few clients whose illness is past being curable. Eventually it will kill them. But if they use the Big Bundle religiously, meaning every night on a normal audio volume, then they can live for decades more than if they don’t use the audio.
But no, they don’t want that. They either want to be perfectly healthy or they won’t do anything. It’s not worth it… they say
I have clients who are looking for ways to make money. The kind of money it should take decades to get to, and using tens of skills. So they buy the ‘instant millionaire’ schemes that they can’t even begin to use… because they lack the skills.
I have one (1) client who actually learned one skill to some level in the past year. Not two, not three, but one.
Without skills you’ll never be able to do all you can do, or even 7% of what you can do.
Maybe I could add a new measure to my Starting Point Measurements, measuring how much of what you do in a day uses any skills. Any skills. Or are you ‘unskilled labor’ regardless of your education.
A degree doesn’t give you skills.
A degree, maybe, shows the direction to the skills you need to learn to be good at using your degree.
I have degreed clients. All except one are on the level of unskilled labor. They don’t do anything that needs any skill, or not more than 1% of their time. I have two clients whose number is 10%. 10% feels like ‘hard work’ to them.
For me 10% has been vacation time.
Last time I had this kind of vacation was in 2009. I took out that whole summer, and only did 10% of what I could do. Just enough to survive myself and my business.
I have some degreed people whose work is so routine, that their skilled work number is only 7%. They report on experiencing no fulfillment. No joy. No self-love.
So what could you do if you ABANDONED the idea that life is an all-or-nothing affair?
You could start with one thing.
For example you could start tweaking your listening. You could start using your listening to hear where you need correction. And as you are already reading this article, you could start right now. Pick one thing you can see that you could take correction in, and start correcting your attitude.
It is all about the attitude. All.
Correction vs. Fixing
Correction is incremental. ALWAYS.
If you have been into fixing, fixing is the sign of the all-or-nothing attitude. You probably have noticed that all your fixing has resulted in you going backwards.
Digging your hole deeper.
A wise man said: if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
And if you are at least as intelligent as the donkey that fell in the well, you’ll shake off (allow) everything that comes at you, and correct your attitude.
Your attitude about anything, including skills, listening, seeing, work, and what is worth it and isn’t.
Learn to identify your attitude firstIt is time to experiment with new attitudes and see what resonates, see what produces better results.
Better results in at least one area of life. Well-being, relationships, productivity, communication, self-love, fulfillment, love… you pick the area. Pick an area where the results or the lack of them will show up most frequently.
Once you pick the area, don’t change it. Trust yourself. Whatever area you picked, the attitude and the possibility of tweaking it will be present.
Tweaking means: improve something by making fine adjustments to it.
