YLO Curriculum

Weekend Retreat Focus: Purpose and creation of Life/Career Plan (1st draft) while establishing a culture of trust and support of each person’s achieving more as a leader with less effort.

  • Instrument Results:
    • MBTI
    • FIRO-B
    • S.I.
    • EQ-i
    • Lifeline
    • Picture of now and then
    • StrengthsFinder
    • 360 Narrative and LPI

  • Books:
    • StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath
    • Leadership From the Inside Out by Kevin Cashman
    • Art of Living by Epictetus
    • The High Achiever’s Guide to Happiness by Vance Caesar and Carol Ann Caesar
    • The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner
    • Success Principles by Jack Canfield

  • Articles/Book Summaries:
    • “What Makes a Leader” by (HBR)
    • “Managing Authenticity” by (HBR)
    • “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Goleman
    • “Authentic Happiness” by Martin Seligman
    • “Who’s Got the Monkey” by (HBR)

  • Videos:
    • “It’s In Every One of Us”
    • “Who Moved My Cheese”
    • “Power of Positive Vision”
    • “FISH”
    • “Joshua in a Box”
    • “Everyday Creativity”

  • Discussion Topics:
    • Happy High Achiever’s Scoreboard
    • Questions asked: Who are you? How did you get to become who you are? And what did you learn along the way?
      • Invited to list top ten: Loves, Fear, Gifts and Consequential Beliefs
    • It’s all about relationships: how to assure you are creating relationships where both parties are getting more than they are giving
    • Mr. Slaight story: our choices come from the stories influential people tell about you as you earn their trust
    • Meaningful work and getting paid abundantly in the most important currencies
    • Stakeholder Scoreboard and its use
    • Ethics: Yours as a leader
    • Branding yourself toward optimizing your value

Full Day Meetings with Themes:

1. Vision: Creating our life and career destinations and plans to get there
  • Videos:
    • Excelling as a Leader
  • Additional Resources:
    • SLAP CD: culture’s role and keeping your vision of a leader
    • 16 Day Calendar
    • Draw a picture of your vision as a leader
    • Accountability: what it means to you and us
  • Discussion Topic:
    • Career/business (and life) written plan shared with group and to be referred to the rest of the program
  • Speaker:
    • A Leader’s Story

2. Work: Creating and growing meaningfulness
  • Books:
    • The High Achiever’s Guide to Happiness Chapter Four: Meaningful Work
  • Articles/Book Summaries:
    • “The Speed of Trust”
    • “Built for Trust”
  • Additional Resources:
    • ‘Stakeholder Scoreboard’ handout and processing
  • Discussion Topics:
    • Get to’s and Got to’s
    • Branding yourself as best at something that counts
  • Videos:
    • “Everyday Creativity” with Dewitt Jones
  • Speaker:
    • A Leader’s Story

3. Relationships that give us energy
  • Books:
    • Art of Possibility by Rosamund Zander and Benjamin Zander
    • The High Achiever’s Guide to Happiness Chapter Five: Energizing Relationships
  • Additional Resources:
    • Stage of life picture (relationships on your stage of life)
    • The “what” and “how” scoreboard used by eBay and G.E.
  • Discussion Topics:
    • Who is looking for you? Create a brand and a compelling story that cause you to be given away as a gift.
  • Speaker: A Leader’s Story
    • A couple’s stories
    • A couples’ therapist leads a discussion on what works

4. Beliefs and behaviors that create peace
  • Books:
    • The High Achiever’s Guide to Happiness Chapter Six: Beliefs and Behaviors that Give Peace and Power
  • Additional Resources:
    • 90th birthday toast
    • ‘The Last Three Things Taken Away From You’ questionnaire as we explore your values
    • Values report from website: authentichappiness.com
    • VCG questions: deck and cards
    • Update your beliefs and highlight each with green and red highlighters
  • Speaker:
    • A Leader’s Story

5. Ethics-Morality-Legality
  • Articles:
    • ‘Ethics in Business’ by Executive Book Summaries
    • “Ethics After Enron”
    • “The Ethical Mind”
  • Discussion Topics:
    • How would you lead a culture with your ethics or code of conduct?
  • Speaker:
    • A Leader’s Story

6. Power: Getting it, using it and giving it away
  • Books:
    • Secret Handshake by Kathleen Kelly Reardon
  • Additional Resources:
    • River of Life picture
    • ‘Sources of Power’ (excerpts from Organizational Behavior text)
    • Life Board and its role in optimizing your power
  • Discussion Topics:
    • ‘The Six Keys to Business Success and Power’
    • Captured Vendor: Avoiding it
  • Speaker:
    • A Leader’s Story

7. Branding
  • Books:
    • Be Your Own Brand by David McNally
  • Videos:
    • Tom Peters video on: ‘Be Distinct or Extinct’ and ‘Brand You’
  • Additional Resources:
    • Current bio and future bio
  • Discussion Topics:
    • Intentions vs. perceptions
    • Verbal business card
  • Speaker:
    • A Leader’s Story

8. 3 R’s: Reviewing, Renewing and Recommitting
  • Books:
    • The High Achiever’s Guide to Happiness Chapter Seven: The Three R’s
  • Discussion Topics:
    • Create an updated picture of your vision compared to the one in full day meeting number one (and/or the weekend kick-off) and examine the implications of the similarities and differences
    • Techniques of renewal
  • Speaker:
    • A Leader’s Story

9. Discipline
  • Books:
    • The High Achiever’s Guide to Happiness Chapter Eight: Discipline
  • Discussion Topics:
    • Module: Examine ways to add more discipline to your life, including accountability partners, coaches, peer groups and periodic retreats
  • Speaker:
    • A Leader’s Story

10. Wrapping up and opening up
  • Additional Resources:
    • List the next five year’s annual milestones for growing toward the leader you are becoming, and how you’ll hold yourself accountable for staying on plan
    • Picture of future
  • Discussion Topics:
    • Updated Stakeholder scores and initiatives
    • How have you used and how will you use your marbles?
    • Your 360 results compared to the first report. What has changed and what are the crucial implications?
    • How did you change in the year as perceived by each fellow YLO’er?
    • How will you continue to leverage your YLO resources?

Annually:
  • YLO “Holiday” Gathering
  • Myriad social/business gatherings with Senior Leaders and speakers
  • One-on-one sessions with a YLO mentor
  • Invitations to other YLO groups’ speakers
  • Family Focus: Creation of a common experience possibly at the Blue Lantern Inn with two dinner options, that includes spouses (significant others) being included if they want