Lessons learned from my last course

I was recently asked to participate in a transformational workshop. I had never participated or spoken to anyone who had done one before. I was told that it was five weekends spread over a 2 1/2 month period. The workshop started on the same day I started counting down my last 100 days in Puerto Rico. It was not explained to me that the last 6 weeks of this workshop entailed more than just spending three weekends working on different aspects of our lives. It also required spending a lot of time working on related activities. If I would have known that six of the last ten weeks I was going to spend in PR were going to be spent in things other than the move, my company and spending time with my family, I would have never agreed to doing the workshop at this time. My energy and concentration must be put to use in the sale of my house, 60% of the things I own, packing the rest and doing as much as I can over the phone and the internet so that when I get to the new place, I have a smooth transition. Still, I believe that the only way you really fail in life is if you don't try anything new at all and/or once you do, if you don't learn anything from the experience. I did not finish the workshop. I did learn a lot. Here are some of the lessons I learned from the three week-ends that I did attend the workshop.

1) There is no such thing as ONE SIZE FITS ALL: The day you hear someone tell you that they have a product, service or system that works for everybody, run in the other direction. It is impossible. We all come from the same source, be it God, the Universe or whatever you call yours. We are not all in the same stage in our "journey". I am not talking about age either. Some young people are highly spiritual and some adults still think that religion and spirituality are the same thing. Since we are not progressing exactly the same way, it is impossible that all services and products will work with ALL persons. In the fields of psychology, sociology, coaching, etc, there are many doctrines. Some work for many people, they do not work for all. Therefore, a transformational workshop might work for some people but if someone leaves, that may mean that it did not work for that person, not that they are sabotaging their own process.
2) The only real failure in life is when you don't learn from your experiences. I kept in touch with some of the people in the group. They have not learned anything from the experience. What is the use of such a costly investment of time, money and energy, if you are going to finish the process and stay the same? That, to me is real failure. In the month that I was in the process, I fixed my marriage, I learned a lot about myself and I discovered that I am not afraid of heights. That might not sound like much, but for me, that is huge.
3) I learned what I want my company to be and what I DON'T want in my company. The company that I am creating wants to transform the lives of so called "middle aged" women. Thanks to this experience, I know exactly the kind of coaching and coaches that I will not allow in my company. For example: I will never allow any of my coaches to tell a client that in order to get a man, she needs to loose weight. If you need to know what I mean, check this out.
4) "Choose to be happy and not to be right" may be opposite to "win-win" mentality. The group was always saying that they chose to be happy and not right. That depends on the kind of person you are. I know a lot of people that choose to be happy because they "know" that they are right and eventually, the other person will figure it out too. I don't think that is what that statement means. Also, when you are in a win-win situation, you give a little and take a little. Giving in all the time certainly does not feel like winning. A lot of the people that were in group with me gave in all the time and felt resentful after. What is the lesson you are trying to teach?
5) You can have it all, not always at the same time. I kept hearing the staff of the company talking about "you can have it all, declare it and it will be". Oddly enough, on my daughter's graduation day, my mentor told me how he could not go to his own daughter's graduation because he had a rush job from a bossy client and since the economy was so bad, he chose to do the work and miss the graduation. If your own staff does not have it ALL, all the time, what do you think your students are going to do? Which takes me to the next lesson...
6) People learn more from what they see than what they hear. You can talk a good game and sound off on positive thinking, thinking outside the box, having it all, etc. You also need to lead by example. If you are telling people to loose weight and you are overweight, there will be a disconnect between the message and the image. When you tell people you can have it all, and you are not showing it, another disconnect happens.
7) Students can only be as good as the people teaching them. This was a new system for all of us. We wanted to learn from good people that were achieving their goals. The group was always accused of "not doing their best". A group can only go as far as their leaders will take them. If you are not a great leader, a great teacher, a great person, do not expect your followers to be any better.

There were many other lessons I took with me from this little journey. The most important one is this: once you figure out what you got from the experience, let it go. I have a company to create from scratch, a move in 60 days and a life that is a lot more fun since I got out of this workshop. Now that I "cleaned my space", I can put it all behind me and move on.