Imagine you had the power to create an entire workshop on some personal development topic that interests you but that no-one else seems to cover. What would the topic be?
I had great fun recently facilitating a workshop in personal power; I gave the rather Machiavellian title of Power-Plays: How to Take Control in Life. We began by looking at some of the key thinkers on the subject of power, starting with Machiavelli himself and his modern incarnation, Robert Green. After these introductions, we explored the challenges of gaining power over your mind, power over your life and power over others.
At the end of the workshop I issued a challenge to the participants. We’d been working through the different ways of influencing others (such as arguing, asserting, empathising and energising). My class gained much pleasure from trying out these techniques on each other. This culminated with them testing out their new found powers on me!
The final exercise of the day was this:
“Congratulations! You now have a significant set of persuasion weapons in your armoury. Use them to try to persuade me to design and deliver a workshop in the Autumn on a topic that really interests you but that no present course covers. Let the games begin!”
I meant this exercise in all seriousness. Ever since I’ve started designing and delivering public courses for Queen’s University, I’ve tried to tackle something different each time. So far I haven’t repeated any course. I’m always on the lookout for new ideas.
The class came up with three ideas:
- Body Language
- Happiness
- Flirting Techniques
Did they persuade me?
Not so long ago, I did run a 1-day workshop at QUB – Body To Body: How to Communicate without Words. It was the most popular course of its kind I’ve created so far, with well over thirty participants. I’m giving serious thought to running it again. What do you think?
Happiness is big business these days and is roughly equivalent to such popular phrases as well-being and quality of life. I’ve covered such themes as optimism and positive thinking in my courses on Emotional Intelligence. But the notion of focusing in on this one theme is proving hard to resist. Should I?
And as for flirting… I’m running a course called What Men Want: How to Manage the Men in Your Life. So – I’m no stranger to the problems of communication between the sexes; gender relations at work is a specialist topic of mine. But flirting? The closest I’ll come to this hot topic is in the forthcoming workshop Confidence Conversations: How to talk in Any Situation. But I will say that we are planning more workshops on these sorts of themes in the near future. Watch this space!
I’d really love to hear your ideas for public course topics. What interests you? Let me know and you could have a course specially designed for you!
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