by Mark Laughlin

I recently attended a five-day training seminar, to enhance my knowledge and polish up some weak skill areas.  This was the fifth different training session I have attended in the past seventeen years. 

Over the years, I have seen way too many attendees not focus on the primary objectives of these seminars.  They were not mentally prepared and they focused on the “party” agenda not their business agenda.  Their focus should have been on gaining knowledge, enhancing weak skill sets and taking home practical ideas that would assist them in the day-to-day operations of their business. 

When you attend one of these events, many of you will spend the better part of a day just traveling to your destination.  In my particular case, that amounted to eleven hours of travel.  By the time I had checked into my hotel and had a late dinner, I was brain dead. 

Traveling can screw you up.  If you’re coming from the East coast to the West coast, your “internal clock” will be messed up.  If you’re going from sea level to mile-high Denver, you’ll find the air is thinner and you tire much faster.  Give yourself some time to adjust to the new setting.

Even with my long trip, I left myself enough time to grab a full eight hours sleep and to have a decent breakfast.  I also allowed myself enough downtime to relax and read the paper over coffee before things kicked off in the morning.  By the time the session convened at 8:30 a.m., I was well rested and my brain was ready to start processing new information. 

Far too often, I’ve seen folks checking into the hotel way past midnight, shoveling down some junk food in the morning, and being a “yawner” the whole first day of the seminar.  They may have been sitting in the session, but their mind was a million miles away.  This is not a plan for success!

When preparing your travel plans, I highly recommend taking an earlier flight (even if it costs a little more) so you have ample time to get settled and relax.  Take the time to completely unpack, make your phone calls and take a walk to clear your head.  You did come to learn, right?  Why not give yourself a fair chance?

As the seminar progresses, you will probably find yourself getting overwhelmed with all this new information.  You will probably be given reading and/or homework assignments every night. 

The party animals in the group will seem more concerned about not missing a single minute of happy hour than they do their homework.  They may attempt to do their homework assignments at 11:00 at night after warming up a bar stool for the last five hours.

It’s no surprise that these people are ill prepared in the morning.  They are asking questions that were covered in the homework assignment.  They are wasting the instructor’s time and the class’s time!  They are nodding off by 10:00 a.m.  For them, the high point of the day’s session is lunch.  They’re checking their wristwatches every five minutes.

Did they come to learn?  Probably not, they probably came because they had to.  Did they check their ego at door?  Absolutely not! 

I can usually tell you who out of the group is going to make it and who will be struggling.  Now is your time to become a giant sponge and absorb all this knowledge.  It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you think you know.  You’re there to learn.  Aren’t you?

If you are, here are a couple of recommendations based on my experiences:

• Get plenty of sleep every night.
• Eat sensibly and keep properly hydrated.
• If you have homework assignments, don’t try doing them after drinking all night.  Keep happy hour short and use your time productively for networking, not just drinking.  Then you can do your homework before you get too tired to think straight.  If you must party the whole time, try getting up early in the morning to review the material when your head is clearer. 
• Don’t let outside distractions interfere with the seminar.  Shut your cell phone off.  I negotiated the back-end of a real estate deal on my last trip.  I didn’t let it interfere with the seminar sessions.  I did my phone calls at night and I reviewed the last contract and faxed my proposal back on Saturday afternoon.
• Don’t burn the candle at both ends doing “fun” stuff.  If you’re in a part of the country you haven’t been to before, you may want to do some sightseeing.   Consider tacking a couple of days onto the backside of the trip for this.  Do your fun stuff when the seminar has concluded.  Please don’t try cramming it in during your training week.  You can’t be productive when you’re burning the candle at both ends.
• Get some exercise in every day.  It could be very intensive, using the hotel’s workout facility or it could be as simple as just walking.  If the hotel is located close to the training facility, consider walking over in the morning and back at night.  Exercise will help dissipate some of your stress.

• Don’t be embarrassed to ask questions if you’re stumped or just don’t get it.  If you’re too embarrassed to ask your questions in front of the class, talk to the instructor about them on break, or after the class has been dismissed.  Don’t be afraid to ask for solutions to your problems.  Consider asking for a mentor within the system.  Ask about other people that have had the same problems as you and what they did to get over them.  Ask for additional training materials that will help solve your problems.
• Take notes!  Unless you have a photographic memory, you’re not going to remember all this stuff two months down the road.  You might even get hit with a brainstorm relating to your business that you want to jot down.
• If it’s permitted, consider taping part or all of the sessions.  You can listen to the tapes on the way home to cement concepts into your brain.  You could also go back to the tapes a week or months later to refresh your memory on a topic.  You could also play portions of the tapes for your key employees.

Have a great training session!  Learn all you can!