What Does it Mean to be a Transformational Trainer?

You've been very specific about not just being an expert, not just being a speaker, being a transformational trainer. That whether people look at themselves as coaches, consultants, entrepreneurs, salespeople, mortgage brokers, nutritionists, real estate people, it's. You really believe that when they think of themselves as transformational trainers and add that to their expertise, much like a teacher, like you did, you added to your subject matter the transformational part. It makes a difference. So let me ask you this question. What, in your view, Jack, is a transformational trainer?

Well, I think a transformational trainer is someone that works with people in a unique and powerful way so that the people receive more than just information or motivation or teaching or learning information, but they actually transform. The person that's in that training transforms as a result of what they learn. And what I mean by transform is it's kind of like going through a car wash. You come out different. You know, it's not just like you learn something, a technique or a tool, but that your being changes. You become different. I remember a lot of the graduates of my trainings will go home and meet their kids, like, two or three years earlier, and they talk about before Jack and after Jack. Like, my dad was this way, and after the training, he was this way. He was more compassionate, he listened more, he was more loving, he was more supportive. You know, it's not just a behavioral shift, but it's a. A consciousness shift. It's a beingness shift. And once that happens, I remember being on a program with Deepak Chopra and John Gray, and Deepak Chopra and I were on the CNN program, and they asked Deepak, at one point, they said, you've read Jack's books. Do you find them motivational? And he said, no. And I thought, oh, my God, Deepak Chopra is going to diss me on National. And then he said, I don't find them motivational. I find them inspirational. And I said, well, what's the difference, Deepak? He said, motivation is like a shower. You have one, two days later, you need another one or are you going to smell? He said, inspiration is like you light a fire inside of you, and once that fire is lit, it doesn't go out. And so basically, it's the idea of external motivation or internal generation coming from the essence of who you really are. And once that's been turned on, then the world, you're unstoppable.

So I know it's funny you mentioned Deepak. I know we've got a slide. We've got Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, yourself And they're really known for more than just speaking. It sounds like, in your view and mine as well, they really are making much more lasting change.

No, it's true. What happens is when you work with any of those people, and John Gray and Gay Hendricks, all kinds of people like that. And I started a group called the Transformational Leadership Council. And these are all people that run experiential seminars, not just talking heads. They don't just lecture at you, but you have an experience that you have that as a result of it, there's this aha. There's this enlightenment that occurs, and you're never the same again. And that's really what we want to see happen in the transformational training. And these are all people that do that.

So let's go through the actual keys to becoming. What is it that transformational trainers do differently from most experts? So let's take our first one.

Well, basically, most experts teach you what. What to do. They give you a list of how tos, and you write them down. And then mostly you go home and you don't do them. And so transformational trainers do it in such a way that once you've learned it, you actually take action. And what we want to see is. I think. I can't remember who had said it might have been Benjamin Franklin. He said, true learning occurs when your behavior changes. It's not just information. We all know we shouldn't smoke, we should eat better, we should exercise more, we should save 10% of our 20% of our income. We should appreciate people more, all of that. And we should meditate and all these things. But most people don't do it. And so it's not about knowing what to do. And sometimes it's not even knowing how to do it. It's really getting in touch with what has to shift inside of me so that I actually get it done. Some of that's internal. Some of that's removing beliefs and fears and things that stop you. And some of it's external, building in support systems like mastermind groups, accountability partners, coaching programs, et cetera. So that someone actually takes the information and moves it into action and gets a result.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Kind of like the students where you got them really interested and they really shifted. They were now taking action on what you were teaching and their being was changing.

Absolutely.

That's great. What's the next one? What would you say is the next distinction between transformational trainers and everybody else?

Well, transformational trainers don't just present information. They teach by giving people aha experiences.

Aha experience.

An aha experience. An aha experience is you do something and as a result of doing it, you go, oh, my God, I'll give you an example right now.

So that should occur in the seminar, in the workshop, in the coaching session.

Yes. So that after you've had this experience, you go, I get it. In other words, you've learned by an experience. I mean, if I was to teach you how to swim, I could give you a lecture on swimming. I could show you films of the greatest swimmers. I could have Michael Phelps come in with his eight medals and motivate you and do all that. But until you get in a swimming pool and begin to realize, if I don't move these things like this, I'm drowning, falling down, that's not a good thing. And so basically, you want to create an experience where people have direct knowledge of it. For example, it's one thing to tell people they should be more positive. They should focus on their good strengths, they should focus on their successes. And people would hear that, and they'll go in one ear and out the other. But if you were to get people into a group of four people, have them go around and maybe share three different successes from their life, one before 18, one between 18 and 36, and one afterwards or whatever, and then have people talk about the successes they want to have in the next five years, but talk about them in the past tense so they're experiencing what it would be like to have that already. And then you have people give each other feedback what I like about you based on what I've learned about you. And they're getting all this strength, feedback coming back in. What happens is they begin to go, hey, that feels really good when I do that. I should do that in my staff meeting. I should do that with my wife, I should do that with my son. And it's not about telling them, it's about having the direct experience. I remember I was called in by Johnson and Johnson, the pharmaceutical company. They were having diversity issues. And they brought in all these people that were so called diversity trainers, and they would have them talk about, here's the experience of being black, here's what it's like to be Hispanic, here's what it's like to be a woman. And basically they just made people feel guilty for what they weren't doing right. And when you attack people and make them feel guilty, they resist and then they push back. So I came in and just mixed the blacks, the Hispanics, the women, and the men, the white people, all in groups, had them do a whole set of processes all day long that made them talk about what really goes on in their life. Just not even the racism stuff or the sexism. But just what do they love to do? What are their successes? What do they hope will happen in their life? What are their dreams? What are their visions? What's the biggest thing they're worried about right now? What keeps them up at night? At the end of the day, everyone was connected. There was no more separation. So it's having that experience that shifts your consciousness. Another example would be we could tell people you need to break out of your comfort zone. People hear that all the time. But it's like, what does that mean? But you can do a simple exercise where you just ask people to fold their hands. If you're watching this at home and you can do this, just fold your hands like this and notice what that feels like. And then take your hands and separate to move all the fingers up by one notch so the other thumb's on top. And notice how does that feel? And most people will say, that's uncomfortable. I don't like it. They say, great, let you go back to the other way. So they go back to this. And how does that feel? And they go, ah, feels better. Feels like me, feels relief. You actually hear people go, ah, and me again. And that's literally. I say that little exercise shows you what's keeping you stuck because you're so uncomfortable by doing anything new. Anything new you try is going to make you feel uncomfortable. But the fact is, if you hold your fingers like this for about a minute and a half to two minutes, the discomfort goes away. It fades away into the background. So we have to be willing to be uncomfortable long enough to let the discomfort fade so that we get into the new way of behaving rather than being stuck where we are.

So I think one of the big things I'm taking from this is the idea that when you're crafting, your teaching, your workshop, whatever it is, one of the things you're saying is, give people the experiential exercises. And there's ways of doing that, and there's ways of screwing it up if you don't know what you're doing.

Right. You know, we talk a lot in seminars about victim language. Can't have to. I'll try things like that to keep you stuck. And the reality is, if I get you and you can say all you want about that and nobody changes, but if I were to have you And I go back and forth for a minute each starting sentences with, I can't. I can't find time to answer my mail. I can't lose that last ten pounds. I can't find time to practice tennis. I can't, you know, whatever. We go back and forth. Then I have. You go back for a minute and a half back and forth and say, I won't. I won't find time to answer my email. I won't lose weight. I won't stop smoking. I won't confront my boss. I won't ask my kid. You know, whatever. All of a sudden people go, whoa, that's more true. That really feels right. I felt more powerful when I said, whoa, you know, and you can begin to see that I can tell them what Kanth does to their brain, but when they experience it, it's totally different.

Totally, totally different. And that's what everybody watching wants to do, is they want to have that aha experience. Because as you said, also when people have the aha experience, people leave your workshops and your trainings and they go and they tell everybody, you know, their friends and their relatives, they talk at the dinner table, you know, and that's. And I think the other thing I think that I've observed is that people think of you as a speaker, as an author. But as I've gotten to know you, I think being a transformational trainer is like your secret weapon, because just what you're doing now, you're taking people through some exercises. When you do a TV interview, when you do media, when you're doing speaking, you're really training.

I was on a Today show pushing the Success Principles book. And I got Meredith Vieillea, whoever was interviewing me at the time, I had her stand up and I had her put her arm out, and I had her say things like, my name is Meredith. And her arm stayed strong. Said, say your name's Marcy. Her arm went weak. So all of a sudden you can tell people that when you lie, it has an impact on you. And she goes, do it again, do it again. Okay, say your name's Michelle. Down it goes. My name's Meredith. Stays up strong. So the idea is, again, as a speaker, as a coach, the more experiential things you can do, it accelerates the learning, it makes it stick longer. And as you said, real transformation occurs. And then people are telling their friends and they want to come back and work with you more.

And what I'd love, as I've learned about, as I've prepared my seminars or My workshops is you've really been just learning from you. Even if I don't want to do the arm thing or whatever, I'm thinking, hey, how can I put people in groups? How can I have them role playing? How can I have them sing? Because you're really, for all of us. You're really, I mean, you've been doing this for 40 years. I mean, you are the master. You have founder of the Transformational Leadership Council. I mean, you've not only have you pretty much done everything, but you know everybody else in the industry who has. And, and I know you're, as you said, you want to help more people do this and have an impact. And in many ways, this presentation is a preview of your program, the Train the Trainer program. I know you're going to decided this year to work with another hundred trainers and really pour a lot of yourself into their work. We have some students, we're going to try to get some of them on with us. I know we've got. Here's a picture of one of your, your students and maybe you can tell us about her.

Yeah, we've got someone standing on by from Mexico. But let's talk about Pooja from India here for a minute. This is Pooja Gupta. She was a Montessori school teacher. She worked basically teaching little kids. She was fairly, you know, I won't say shy, but she wasn't really out there in the world in a big way. There was an arranged marriage that she had to be part of and she had everything she wanted in terms of material things, but she wasn't happy. And so what she decided to do was come to my training. She read my book, came to my training all the way from India, brought her husband. And there she realized she needed to go for her own dream, not just be her husband's wife. And so she decided she wanted to be a trainer and do this work. So she came and took our train, the Trainer program, went back to India and started her own program. I think it's called Training by Design or Life by Design. She has a beautiful office which I visited in Chennai, and she is doing amazing work over there. She put on the first TED conference that there ever was in India. And she invited, I think about, I think 5, 7, 8. I forget the number of our train. The trainer grad she actually invited to come over to India and speak at this TED conference they had. They're putting on a second one now. She's brought Brian Tracy over, she brought John Gray over. She brought me over to do Workshops.

And prior to this, she hadn't really.

Been doing, hadn't done any of this. And now she is, I would call her, the number one premier personal development trainer in India right now. And one of her goals that she's told me recently, she's actually thinking about at some point, she's young, is to actually run for president of India. I think she could pull it off.

And she got all of this by just being in a one year program.

All of this by being in a one year program.

Wow.

And then I know we also have another one of your students. I mean, you are the worldwide influence. This gentleman's from Mexico. Why don't you introduce him to our viewers?

Sergio Sedas is a wonderful person from Mexico. When I met him, he was a professor of robotics. You don't normally think of a robotics professor as someone who's going to come in and do human potential work, but he's really a renaissance guy at this point. And he has done all kinds of programs with youth. He's developing, he's developing a course now that's going to be a required course for college students for their first year in 33 universities. But I may be stealing what you're going to say, so I will just say here's a great guy who took our program and is implementing it and doing a great job. So, Sergio. Hi.

Hi. How are you doing?

I'm doing great.

It's fun to be here. Nice to see you again.

Nice to see you, my friend.

And tell us a little bit about your story. Sergio, before you came into this world of Jack Canfield and training, and before you took train the trainer, where were you? And then where did you end up? What did it do for you?

Okay, sure. I had just become. I had just been invited to be the head of the mechatronics program at my university. Now this program houses 960 students. So I was pretty much the head of the academic program for this. And on one of my flights, I found a book that had a green cover. It's not the white cover, but it's actually the previous version and it's the success principles. So I read it. I was really attracted to it. I really liked the principle. And there was a little card that said coaching. So I hired, I borrowed my first $5,000 or whatever it was, hired the coaching and, and I thought that they were going to help me just organize my ideas and stuff like that. But really what happened is they really helped me find what my real passion was. So once I did that, which is to inspire youth, to really inspire them to be and do the extraordinary. I started to realize what I was doing in my life and I was doing a lot of interesting things like starting a new program in research. And I had a whole bunch of things. I really felt like a hamster. So my life was running around.

So it opened up a lot. It got you in touch with your passion. Opened up a lot of possibilities.

It opened up a lot of possibilities. Yes. I'm sorry. And it also focused me. It allowed me to focus.

And what type of work are you doing now?

Okay, well, with that I said I need to learn how to do this and do it with other people. And that's when I joined Jack in the Train, the Trainer program. I worked with him for a year. And now what I'm doing is actually I'm creating a national program to create self confidence and resiliency in students. And as Jack mentioned, it's a required course. So it's starting, starting January, it becomes a required course all over Mexico and 33 campuses nationwide. I've done other things like. Well, we're hosting an event. We just started a non profit organization or initiative. We started it in Greece where we're attracting speakers, world known speakers to share some of their experience and change the lives of people in different cities of the world. We're going to, we're fortunately we're helping. We're having Jack come down here in Mexico in a couple of weeks. So those are some of the programs. I'm already near to publish my book, it's coming out in January, so intentional possibilities. So I don't know, it just transformed me. I mean, I had given conferences and like Jackson said in robotics, I did a lot of things in robotics, but being able to really transform a group of 1,800 people and get them engaged in activities and just see, I mean, just all this energy around it.

So it sounds like what I'm hearing, Sergio, is that you getting up and speaking to people, that you are comfortable doing that. But now you see that you're not just a speaker, you're somebody who knows because you've learned from Jack exactly how to engage an audience and really create that, that heartfelt energy in the room.

Is that right? Yes. There's a difference between being a motivational speaker and being a transformational speaker. And Jack mentioned it right now. But I used to be a very good motivational speaker. I could have everybody feel very good from a conference. But I relate that to having a balloon. You fill up a balloon and as soon as you walk outside of there, you go to your environment, and suddenly the air starts to leak out of the balloon. And sometimes you have situations where you lived. You just go back and they pop the balloon. So motivation just lasts a small time. Well, what's really been empowering is what Jack has taught us. First of all, it's very simple. It's very deep, but it's very simple. I liked what Jack told us the first day. He said, if you want to turn on the light, you don't need to know about electricity. You just need to push the button.

Wow.

He taught us. I love that.

And I was very impressed. The first time I tried this, I said, well, let me try it. And it's part of our course and I've got to get these seminars, so let me do it. And it was awesome because I think my first seminar was a small group. My second seminar was actually to 1,300 people, and it was a conference on mechatronics. And I told them, I'm not going to speak to you about robots. I'm going to speak to you about your life and how you can change the world with what you're studying. And that was what it was about. And it was like, I say, a lot of people, and it was just awesome. And I've spoken with them, and this was a couple of years ago, and the stories they come back with are just amazing.

That's great. Well, thank you for joining us, Sergio. So appreciate your making yourself available for this.

No, it's a pleasure and thanks a lot.

Thanks, Sergio. Take care, buddy.

Take care.

I think it's a just. Yeah, it's a great example of what you're talking about, of not just teaching the technical, but he's now adding this whole new dimension to what he does.