I’m running a workshop at QUB for all those thinking of becoming an entrepreneur, that is, setting up in business, rather than working for someone else.  It will deal with the following key issues, among others:

• Personality Suitability
• Concept to Reality
• Myths and Legends
• Crucial Financial & Legal Stuff
• Developing Chutzpah
• Confidence and When To Make That Jump!
• Recession Resilience

And, anything else attendees would like me to cover.  If you’re attending (even if you’re not!) go to the Contact form, and make any suggestions you feel may be appropriate.

To book your place, phone the School of Education (Open Learning) on 028 9097 3539/3323 or email openlearning.education@qub.ac.uk.

Look forward to meeting you there!

Image credit: apesara.

I like designing new workshops and working on new ideas as much as possible.  So far, I’ve only repeated one course within the Queen’s University Open Learning Programme.  That was my 1-day workshop called Body to Body: How To Communicate Without Words.  Read about it here.  Now, I intend to add to this repeated course hall of fame.  On Saturday, 31 May 2008 I delivered a workshop called Confident Conversations: How to Talk in Any Situation.  Or, as I called it my my post-workshop report blog, The Art of Talking Without Talking.

We will run this course again on Saturday 7 November 2009.  I’ve received word from Queen’s that there are already enough people enrolled for the course to get the official go-ahead.  So go ahead, sign up, you won’t be alone!

If you want to know more about the content or focus of this course, please lick on the links above.  To book a please, go to public events section of our current events schedule here.  You have to book through Queen’s rather than Sensei.

Look forward to talking to you there!

Image credit: [nati].

The course was on the meaning of life, and how to find it for yourself.  It’s interesting to me that this sort of topic is becoming more in demand not only for personal development but also in organizational growth.  A framework of meaning connecting individual and corporate purpose provides the ultimate in occupational motivation!

I’ve already mentioned the direction of the course in the enigmatically-named blog called 42.  Instead, what I want to do here is share a few insights that I’ve gleaned during the course of my research and the delivery of my course.

• Don’t look for a single sentence answer.  To use some metaphors – don’t think in terms of a shooting a silver-bullet so much as a weaving a web.
• Better to ask,  ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ than ‘What is the meaning of life-in-general?’.  There is no ‘life-in-general’ so  make your answer concrete and specific.  Focus your mind towards people or activities or experiences.
• Try to balance the comic with the tragic.  Too much either way will led to depression.  In fact, I would suggest that a third element is necessary to round off your life-narrative – the fantasy or ‘fairy-tale’.  This leaves space for the magic of creativity and change.
• Everyone has a meaning to life, a personal philosophy.  It may be implicit or explicit, coherent or contradictory.  Best if you become aware of it and then make it what you want.  Otherwise, you are under the power of the imposed meaning of others.
• No-one is a total relativist.  Everyone believes in some standard or follows a way. The issue is how you hold to it.
• Some of the ‘big issues’ of philosophy can have real, everyday implications for how you live and think and feel about yourself.  Freedom versus fate.  The individual versus the collective.  The body versus the mind.  There are some of the issues that drive your engine.  Better pick the ones that help you run the most efficiently.
• Reality is not objective.  All seeing is ‘seeing-as’.  Your perspective on the world becomes your world.  As you construct your worldview, you construct your world.  Your world is the place that you inhabit.  Take responsibility for it!
• Worldviews are detected by the language people use to describe their lives and the stories they tell each other about themselves.  But it works the other way around too.  Language and stories are not just indicators or expressions; they are also the tools you can use to alter your world.  They work from the outside in as well as the inside out.
• Try this image.  Don’t think of yourself looking out at the universe, asking it the question, ‘What is the meaning of my life?’  Think of you, standing at the center, with the universe asking the question to you, ‘What is the meaning of your life?’  What will you say?  The universe waits to see.  (Or for advances students, what if you universe whispered to you, ‘You are the meaning of the universe, you are the answer to the question.’)

In writing these points I’ve used a mixture of metaphors and questions.  They are some of the most powerful tools in the making of meaning.  But, first of all, know yourself! Self-awareness is not only the beginning of Emotional Intelligence; it is the beginning of all personal meaning.  Use whatever means you can to achieve this goal: self-assessment instruments (Briggs-Myers Type Indicator, Enneagram of Personality, Character Strengths and Virtues, learning styles), journaling, meditation and mindfulness training, whatever.

Then, take responsibility! Be pro-active!  This ain’t just for philosophers.  Or rather, since we’re all philosophers, seekers after wisdom, it’s up to all of us.  For the making of meaning is a task that makes us human.

Thankfully, only humans attended my course.

This term at QUB, we have three new workshops for the working professional: Assertiveness and Workplace Confidence; Managing Customer Experience and Emotional Intelligence Goes to Work. These workshops are hosted by the School of Education, Short Courses Programmes (CPD).

For eveyone else, there is the School of Education’s Open Learning Programme.  This term, we’re running the following events:

Social Networking: Facebook and Twitter

Lies and Damned Lies: How to Become a Human Lie Detector

How to Be Funny

Welcome to the Blogosphere: Blogging for Beginners

The Main Thing: How to Find Meaning in Your Life

See Current Events Schedule for dates and prices for all events.  And, if you’d like to find out more about a particular event, please ring us on 028 9043 6634 or email info@sensei-winbeforehand. co.uk.

We’re also planning the following (dates to follow):

I Want to Speak to the Manager!

So You Want to Be An Entrepreneur?

Streetwise: How to Protect Yourself Against Aggression

It’s the second time I’ve led this workshop at Queen’s.  Both times it’s been the largest, most popular course I’ve ever taught.  Both times, the numbers have been well over the 40 mark.  But there have been a few changes over the years.

Back in 2006 when I first taught the course I tried to lay a foundation of theory before offering some application and role-play.  This time I launched straight into it with a ‘Top Ten Uses of Body Language in Evey-day Life’.  Only after this I squeezed in a bit of theory before lunch, mentioning the likes of Mehrabian, Morris and Eckman.  After lunch, I hit them with 10 ‘Special Techniques’ of nonverbal-communication they could try out upon unsuspecting friends and colleagues.  The day finished with a test and ‘graduation’!

Another difference was the venue.  The first time, we were squeezed into an average sized room, which makes it hard to organise activities.  This time, because the numbers were greater, we were placed into a lecture-theatre with fixed seating… which made it hard to orgaise activities.

As usual at these Open Learning events, the students demonstrated a brilliant mix of interest, insight and debate.  They don’t let a PhD get in the way of their crap-detection skills; I’m never short of challengers.  This is how it should be, doubly so when teaching adults.

A few times they asked me to recommend some books.  Any bookstore with a half decent ‘Self Help’ or ‘Popular Psychology’section should offer a fair choice.  My judgment is that about 80% of what these books have to say is the same, so its a matter of personal preference for the ‘feel’ of the books that’s perhaps the best criterion.  However, I found the Body Language For Dummies useful for the scope and variety of its content.  But your first port of call should be the Web.  There’s a massive amount of free stuff out here for those who know how to Google.

I’m thinking of taking this workshop on the road, out of the cloistered halls of Queen’s University and into the real world.  What do you think?

Oh, I forgot to say that I got no lunch due to being interviewed by a journalist from Dublin.  More of this later.