What to Expect at the Training
What can I expect on Friday evening?
Friday night logistics Unless there is inclement weather or some other unexpected traffic challenge, we start the training promptly at 7:00pm. We'll begin the training by welcoming you and letting you know about the basic logistics of the training and the weekend.
- Dress in Layers. Due to outside temperature fluctuations and your own temperature preferences, you will be most comfortable if you are prepared to shed layers as necessary.
- Use the restrooms whenever you need to. They are located down the hall from the training room as well as on the floors above and below the training room. All require a key, which will be in the door. We rarely take formal breaks except for meals, so please take care of yourself as your body's schedule dictates. It will not offend the training leaders or volunteers if you leave the room for a break.
- Volunteers for the training can be identified by their yellow nametags. Feel free to ask anyone with a yellow nametag for anything you need at any time. They are there to support you in having a positive experience.
- Cell phones should be set to vibrate or turned off so as not to be disruptive to the training. We'll ask everyone to double check this before we get started.
In addition to the basic logistics, we'll teach you a few simple tricks we use to get your attention at the front of the training room. Often times when we're in the middle of an exercise or working in pairs it can get loud and be difficult to get everyone's attention back to the front of the room. We'll demonstrate a few techniques we use to catch your attention.
Friday night agenda and curriculum
The Friday night curriculum is primarily intended to set context for the rest of the training. It's critical to understand the context in order to get the most out of the training. Dr. Judith Wright begins by learning about the goals people have for the weekend—what they'd like to get out of the training experience—talks about why we do the training, and provides an overview for the weekend.
After forming the teams you'll work in throughout the weekend, you will hear from Dr. Bob Wright about the techniques (see section on Wright Performative Education) we use to help you get so much out of the training in such a short period of time. You will review and agree to some ground rules that will support maximum learning, and together your group will delve deeper into your goals for the weekend. As Bob works with these goals in the large group, you will begin to understand the Wright methodology and the process by which people achieve their goals and reach their potiential.
Dr. Judith Wright then provides context for this process of Evolating by introducing her ground-breaking research on what it takes to live a great life—a life of MORE. Friday night she and Bob will reveal what volumes of studies say are the Secrets of Happiness, as well as cutting-edge economic and neuroscientific research about how we undermine our own efforts to live lives of MORE joy and satisfaction. Judith will begin to address the concept of Engaging in the Adventure of life before closing the evening with an assignment to do after leaving the training Friday night and before returning Saturday morning.
Friday evening is the latest evening of the training and will be the shortest evening of sleep you'll get. We will end around 11:00pm, and you'll need to be back in the training room about 8:00am the next morning. Volunteers will be available to walk you to your car if you desire.
Throughout the training you will be given a number of tools to help you maximize your experience and your learning. In the following overview, you can learn a little more about each of these tools and how to best take advantage of it. Assignments: Assignments are one of the most powerful tools of our technology. In this training you will learn more about what we at Wright call the "Assignment Way of Living." The Assignment Way of Living is the explicit and ongoing experiential activity of engaging in new behaviors and performing new roles thereby challenging limiting beliefs, disrupting routinized ways of being, upsetting automatic systems, teaching new life skills, and launching us into a journey of personal discovery. Assignments can be one of the most powerful tools you use to experience a breakthrough this weekend. For now, we simply ask that you give any assignment your best shot. This weekend is your opportunity to break out of old ruts and routines and do things in ways you never have before. Even a "failed" assignment is an opportunity to learn more about yourself if you're willing to hold it that way. Notice how you respond to assignments and how others respond. Use your team leader to help you in any assignment where you feel blocked. Group Discussion: Group discussion occurs on two different levels during the training. When the entire training room is together, we may discuss a particular experience or insight. At other times you may be discussing the same types of things in your team. Engage in the group discussion as much as you can. If you are naturally shy and are afraid to speak in a group, you may try speaking up once where you wouldn't in the past. Most important in the group discussion is to keep your sharing about what you are learning for yourself. It's not a time to give advice or opinions or share about past experiences or others you know. Instead it's a time to see what you can uncover in the moment to propel you forward toward your dreams.
What can I expect on Saturday?
Saturday morning you'll begin by gathering with your small group and sharing about how you did on your assignment. Whether you felt very successful about the assignment or not, the very process is an opportunity to learn more about yourself. The rest of the day Saturday is experiential in nature and covers several content areas from Judith's books and research on living a life of MORE—Engaging, Yearning, and the Truth. You'll alternate between individual exercises, small group exercises, media, lecture, and large group discussion. We understand that every individual learns differently, and we try to teach the curriculum in as many ways as possible to make sure that it really sinks in.
Lunch on Saturday
Lunch on Saturday and Sunday are part of the experience. On Saturday you'll leave the training space and go with your small group to lunch at a local restaurant. We pre-arrange with the restaurants so they are prepared to accommodate large groups. The lunch fee is your responsibility so please be sure to bring cash to pay for your lunch. During lunch you'll have another assignment that you can do with your group. If for some reason you get separated from your group, just be sure to ask anyone with a yellow nametag to help guide you. The experiences and assignments all build on each other throughout the training, and you don't want to miss any opportunity to learn about yourself.
Saturday evening
On Saturday evening, like Friday evening, you'll receive an assignment to complete between Saturday night and Sunday morning. Unlike Friday, you'll have a lot of time to accomplish the assignment and to get more sleep! Saturday evening ends around 7:00pm, and you're free to spend your evening however you'd like—with your team, alone, with friends in town. Just plan to do your assignment between the time we end on Saturday and the time we start on Sunday morning (usually around 8:00am).
What can I expect on Sunday?
Sunday is similar to Saturday in that you'll start by meeting with your small group and that the day will offer a variety of different learning opportunities—lecture, small group exercises, individual exercises, etc. In the morning you'll learn about the Way of the Heart and Emotional Intelligence with our unique curriculum introducing you to the power that is available in recognizing, naming, and using our feelings.
Unlike Saturday, we tend to go to lunch much later because we of the way the curriculum is structured. We don't want you to go hungry, so please plan to have snacks with you and expect a very late lunch—around 2pm or even 3pm. As is the case throughout the training, don't ever hesitate to take a break or take care of yourself by getting water or coffee in the back of the room, by getting up to have some of your own snacks, or by using the restroom.
Although we will talk about our programs and core curriculum—the Year of MORE—throughout the training, Sunday is the time we will go into much more specifics about it. As you may already know, the MORE Life weekend is when we offer our deepest discounts on the full year program along with special bonuses for signing up that day. We'll cover these details right before the later lunch.
After lunch, we will revisit social science research to discover the ways we limit our growth, explore the brain's mechanisms for blocking change, and learn what success and goal achievement really talk. We will also discuss having Allies on your journey and practice uncovering your Heart's Desire as you and your team vision for the future, then finish with a special training closing as a group. Please do not plan to leave the training early—your most potent insight could come in the last moments of the training.
What can I expect from staying through the whole training?
It is not uncommon to feel confronted or challenged by the concepts of the training. All of us hold beliefs that limit our potential, and most of us rarely stop and take the opportunity to take a look at ourselves at this level.
The MORE Life training will challenge limiting beliefs to help you maximize your success and satisfaction in the world. At times you may feel uncomfortable and at other times you may feel elated.
One thing we have learned about the full training agenda is that your experience is unique. We cannot predict when you will feel confronted or when you will feel like you are having the biggest breakthrough of your life. What we do know is that if you commit yourself to the full weekend you will get the most out of the training. We have had participants in the past say they almost left the training on Saturday but were so glad they stayed until the end of the day Sunday or they would never have had the insight or breakthrough they did. Do not rip yourself off. Plan to give yourself the gift of the full experience, from Friday evening through Sunday night. We promise it will pay off.
At the end of the weekend, our hope is not that you think what we think. We hope that you think more for yourself.
We hope you have a better understanding of your own mechanism—your desires, your passions, and who you are. We hope that you, like us, discover the power and possibilities of a lifetime of learning (knowing something you didn't know before) and growing (doing something you wouldn't have done before).
We hope that you discover that you really can have MORE in life, and that the possibilities for MORE are all within your reach.
It has reminded me of the responsibility I have in my life to make it extraordinary. Also that this course will offer me the insight and accountability to invest properly in my life. It allowed me to tap into my own stinky thinking that stools me as well as the loss aversion that I use that sells me out.
