Module seven - the module beyond the training
Those of you that have been through Leadership Breakthrough One already know that this powerful, life-influencing class has six modules designed to address specific leadership behaviors. Insights are gained and commitments are made throughout the six modules to ensure every aspect of the training allows you to practice, experience and live leadership. In the end though, it’s not about having a great class – no matter how much you gained from the training. What really matters take places in Module 7, the module beyond the training! It’s all about what you do, pursue and achieve following your three days in class. It’s about bringing it back to your career, family and community!
Maximizing Module Seven, and ultimately the rest of your life, involves creating an environment for your life that aims to address the same performance behaviors and criteria established throughout Rapport’s class modules. Leadership Breakthrough One demands full participation, going to your own next level, being passionate and enthusiastic, and giving to your team. Your life demands these same four areas – set up the same criteria to fully experience the affect of living leadership.
Full Participation
Life asks us to move, to get out of your comfort zone, to take action. The world is full of plenty of fans sitting in the bleachers – often cheering more for a favorite team – rather than enthusiastically celebrating their own personal teams at work and home. Making the most out of Module Seven means being more than a spectator – it means approaching life as player in the game. Being alive means that we choose to engage the world instead of insulating ourselves from it. Life will throw you obstacles; expect adversity, because the only time you won’t have challenges is when you are six feet under! When you’re in the hospital hooked up to a heart monitor, what does it mean if the line is flat? It means that you are dead. When we truly live life, the heart monitor and our life is full of ups and downs. Full participation involves taking responsibility for your successes as well as your setbacks. It entails taking risks and exploring your dreams. When we fully participate in the game of life, we design and define the meaning of that little line between our date of birth and date of death on our tombstone – we reveal our legacy . . . we define our DASH!
Going to Your Own Next Level
Going to your own next level means pushing yourself to unleash your potential everyday! Creating an environment of continuous learning and growth demands a constant examination of habits and behaviors, and a willingness to see everything from a new perspective. Studies on the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia consistently show that keeping your brain muscle active actually keeps you younger and more alert. When something is learned, you create new neural pathways, and those pathways engage your brain cells in exercise. This results in increased energy and enthusiasm for the world around you. When you engage your mind, you open it – becoming aware of new possibilities and opportunities for personal and professional advancement. When you become a professional student, learning becomes a positive addiction. When you crave the adventure zone, change and new experiences become part of your daily routine – whether you do it by solving the Sunday crossword, taking up a new sport, exploring a new approach to an old problem, or mastering a foreign language. Make it a priority to go to your own next level everyday.
Being Passionate and Enthusiastic
Your drive to live with passion and enthusiasm are direct outflows of knowing and embodying your purpose. The energy of passion and enthusiasm galvanizes, motivates, and inspires those you come in contact with – and even those you don’t come in contact with! Have a conversation with someone who has a deep passion for something that you never thought you could get excited about; and then observe yourself feeling their emotions and getting intimately involved. Passionate and enthusiastic people lead others down the path simply by their energy. Passion generates action. Instead of feeling strongly about something, or expressing ourselves strongly, passion urges us to act strongly.
Giving to Your Team
You may be familiar with the saying, “Givers Gain!” When you give, you get back more than you would have thought possible. When we hear the word “give” we often think of donating large sums of money and think, “Wow, I wish I could do something like that, yet I still have to send my kids to college.” Or “If I had the time I would volunteer at the local shelter, but I have so much to do at work!” This concept of “giving,” while important, is not the only way “Givers Gain.” Giving back to the people on your team – your coworkers, family and members of your community means supporting them with all your heart, and that kind of giving is the most valuable. Too often we keep scorecards in our hearts, we make note of what the people around us have done for us lately and respond in kind. Yet when we give up that tit-for-tat mentality and just do good to the people in our life because we want to, we gain the things that make life worth living – love, respect and great relationships.
Module Seven - Module Beyond the Training is the real final exam, and this time there’s no trainer, no defined criteria, no option to “do it again.” We have one life that we know of on this earth, one chance to play big, one chance to experience the skinny branches. Choose to pass yourself.
