Russ Hall on Enrolment

Successful men know that enrolment is something that they do every day, multiple times a day. It's how we get people on board with us to do things we need them to do, want them to do, help us do things. Enrolment is an essential life skill for men to be successful. That's what we're gonna be talking about in this program.

This first video is your introduction to the program. The purpose of the program, rules of the road, guidelines for online participation, the content you can expect in the program, and then we're gonna talk about your current experience with Enrolment — not just in MDI, but in life generally — because that's the way we really need to think of enrolment moving forward. It's not just something we're doing to get men to a particular meeting or event.

The Basics of a Training Program Such as This

So, the basics of an online MDI training: We're gonna go through what we're expecting of you, what you should expect from us throughout the training. We're not gonna cover it all that much in the first session. We're gonna expect that you've gone through this, that you know what the expectations are.

But if you got any questions, you ask the questions in advance of the meeting.

Remember, you're gonna have one week from getting this video to being in your first live session. So there are some things to do. We really want you to review this in advance of the session. And not in the 30 minutes before the session's gonna start.

There are workbook sections, in which you pause the vodeo to think upon certain topics and write answers to questions — these need to be completed before you attend the live session, and you're gonna need a little more time to integrate your thoughs and answers so that you're mentally prepared..

We're not gonna review those questions and topics in depth. It's just not a good use of your time, your money, or our time, to go through all of these details about just how things run.

The purpose of this program, to connect you with your relationship with enrolment and guide you to define your context and action plan for enrolment — so that you trust yourself to execute enrolment every day, and with that, produce concrete enrolment results in your life every day.

Rules of the Training

Rules of the road for this training. This is a new way of doing training for you. We're gonna be using pre meeting videos, like this one, to deliver the content.

Why do we do pre meeting videos? Why do we do that instead of doing it everything live, the way it's been done in the past?

First, it provides a flexible learning pace. You learn it your own pay. So let's be clear. Some men learn really quickly. Some men don't learn as quickly. All men can learn in different ways. So if we try to do all [a huge] information download, if you will, in a live session, do we do it for the fastest learners, and everybody else is left in the dust, trying to catch up? — or do we tailor it for the slowest learners? And it's not that it's bad to be a "slow learner". I tend to be a little slow learner in some topic areas. But then the people who learn quickly are just kind of sitting there, tapping their fingers, or even worse, they check out of a call. By learning the material in advance, you can learn it at a pace that works for you.

Videos also give us the ability to break it up into short segments, where you control the short segments that you want to learn it in. We have you for three hours a week, and a team meeting as it is, we understand that it's important for you to invest the time to grow yourself.

That's why we're doing this, but you don't want to necessarily do it when you don't have the right time, the right focus, the right energy. So you can set your pace up of learning for yourself. Rather than you hearing the content for the first time in the live session, you can learn it on your own, integrate it, think about it, talk about it with other people. When we get into the live session, where the learning really happens for adults, is not hearing somebody lecture you, whether it's live or in a video. It's you participating, taking what you've learned, talking about how you're gonna apply it, how you've seen it applied in the past. Hearing other men talk about how they think they're gonna apply it, them hearing you talk about how you think you're gonna apply it, and everybody ends up in a better place that way.

If you learn best by taking notes, you can take notes. If you learn best by listening to things and saying them out loud, you can do that. If you draw pictures, — you know, I know some men are pretty artistic — you can draw pictures to help you understand things. You do the learning, the way that works best for you when we do pre meeting videos.

Rules of the road for the training:

The pause and rewind buttons : This is one of the best inventions in learning technology that came out of the 20^th century. You can watch a section of the video, deposit, we're gonna ask you to do that from time to time, and write down answers to questions. Do some thinking about things. Rewind the video if you want to get some more clarity around some point after you've already gotten past it. You control it. You are responsible for and in control of your preparation and learning in this program.

Expect to deliver on what you've learned and how are you gonna use it in the live meetings. Does that mean that you're gonna answer every single question that we ask you? No. You're gonna be in a room with 10 other men. We set the meetings up to last an hour, maybe a bit longer, but generally an hour, 'cause we know that after an hour on Zoom, nobody's really at their best. So, one hour meetings, up to 10 men in the room, not everybody's gonna answer every question, but nobody will hang out on the sidelines.

Everybody is gonna be [asked] questions [and called on] at random [to answer] about different points in the video. [This] makes it a little more exciting, not knowing when your name's gonna be called, just like when you were playing in school, playing a sport, and the coach called your number, you're up off the bench, you're in the game, you're ready to go. That's how these meetings are gonna be for you.

There is no manual for this program. The best way to learn is to think of this as, you're creating an operating manual for successful enrolment in all phases of your life.

(personal investment in semantic learning)
You're creating your own manual : It's not my manual, then I'm giving to you. Because let's face it, when I give you something, I own it. You may or may not buy it. But when you created for yourself, you own it, you understand it, you get the most out of it.

Preparation : You have got to prep this in advance. You got to think of it doing it in days in advance. Last minute cramming wastes your time and money. I'll admit it, I did some cramming in college. I can't think of anybody that I knew that, you know, in school at any level, didn't do some cramming. Cramming does not work well. We also know that from our experience in school, but here's the difference. We're not in school here. We are learning to use an important tool for our lives. So cramming's not the way to go after this.

When you do the live session, or even when you're doing it for yourself, the pre meeting videos, but certainly, in the live sessions, be in a quiet, private space where you can speak freely.

Do not try to participate while you're driving for the live sessions. Just don't do it — because you're not gonna be as focused as you need to be, you're gonna be missing important things, and, you know, you might not be missing another car. If you gotta be on the road, when the session time comes up, pull off to the side. Give it your focus. Keep your video on during the session.

It's not like there's gonna be 45 people in the room for these sessions. There is gonna be ten at most. So we're gonna be able to see everyone. It makes the energy of the room better. Lets us know that you're there. So when we ask you a question, we know you're gonna be ready to answer it.

Microphone etiquette : mute yourself when you're not speaking. Say your name before you speak. Now, at the beginning of the program, you know, the first week, you may or may not know the men that are in your room, that are on your team. It's really important to say your name. As the program goes on, speaking protocol can maybe, like, slide a little bit or slip a little bit. We prefer that it didn't. We maintain that men's discipline throughout the program.

Confidentiality : Confidentiality can apply here. At least in the sense of, you're gonna be learning things, you're not gonna use them with your team back, back in the MDI world. You're gonna be wanting to use them with teams outside of MDI. Don't use men's names. You know that, but don't use men's names. Don't get that specific about what you're learning. But absolutely use what you're learning. And if, you know, some man in your team, in this training, couldn't make one of the training sessions or something, and just want to talk with you about what went on. Yeah, feel free to deliver on everything you can. But be conscious of the fact that we don't want to necessarily be talking about too many details outside of our team. That way, the conversation within the team can be a lot more effective for everyone involved.

Stay fully engaged : Don't even talk about "multitasking". First of all, there's no scientific validity to multitasking for human beings. Computers do a great job of it. People really don't. They jump from task to task to task to task, back and forth. Stay focused, stay active and engaged in the conversation.

Focus on moving the discussion forward : What does that mean? If you hear someone express something from what they did in their preparation, and you did the same thing or something awfully close to it, It doesn't really help a conversation moving forward for you to say the same thing, but they just said. And it certainly doesn't help if two or three men in a row say the same thing that everyone was saying. So, think about moving the conversation forward when a good point's been made.

On the other hand, if you get something that no one else has talked about, let us know as leaders for the call, so we can make sure we cover that point, 'cause everybody's gonna benefit from it. that's the essence of how these trainings work in these small group settings. Everybody's input matters for everyone. Everybody's gonna play, everybody's gonna contribute.

Be on time : be prepared with your notes, in advance to the start time. So when the hour hits, we are rolling, because we only have an hour. If you're not gonna be there, let your leader facilitate or know. Uh, we're not doing follow up calls. We're not gonna go looking for you, if you're not on the call when it's time to start, we're gonna be rolling.

Program content : it's four sessions. First session is "Welcome to your Enrolment Training Program". We're gonna cover some of the things that are coming up in this video, not so much in just the rules for the road. Check them a little bit, maybe. Second section of the video is about enrolling yourself. Third section is teams of two, and then, finally, your Enrolment Team. Ultimately, the best things in life happen when we involve a team. That's why you're on a men's team now. Maybe you've heard this before. If you want to go fast, go by yourself, but if you want to go far, go with the team.

Absolutely, while we have teams of two as a way of delivering and enrolment communications, being on a team around enrolment, and anything that we do helps us do much better and be more successful at it.

I want to talk about what that means and why. We're gonna cover what's gonna be the main portion of the first meeting that we have live. And that's your current experience with enrolment. We call this "enrolment conversations". Why do they matter? Little bit of explanation here about how this is gonna work.

[Image of a man sitting at a table, thinking, holding a pen, with a notebook/journal in front of him]

When you see this man show up on any of these PowerPoints, pause the [video], hit the pause button, because you're gonna have journaling work to do. The [Enrolment Training] program depends on you doing the journaling. It's not us telling you, "this is how enrolment works. This is what you do. One, two, three, A, B, C". We're learning our way of delivering enrolment, by hitting key points in it.

So you gotta do the journaling, 'cause that's how you're gonna draw the information out, really integrate the information. It's not a good strategy to begin reviewing the video just before the live session. This is what the third time I've [mentioned] that. But really serious: do these videos and do this kind of journaling well in advance of the live session that it's due in! When you've completed your journaling, un-pause to restart the video, and go to the next one. And if you don't have a journal, go get one. You gotta have a journal, you gotta have it with you every meeting.

The MDI Experience

Next set of questions, or first set of questions, why are you here? Why are you doing this enrolment training? What do you expect to receive as a result of this training? And now here's an interesting one for you. How many MDI Team Meetings have you attended in your life?

Lifetime Men's Team meetings

Now, if you've been a member for a year or two years, it's what, at most 50 or 100 meetings, (one a week for a couple of dozen months), [but if you've] actually been in MDI for, you know, 20 years, it could be a lot of meetings. But we're asking that question because we want you to really be able to answer the next question.

How many Men's Team meetings do you have to have attended for you to be an expert at team meetings? What will make you, when will you become an expert at team meetings? Give it some thought, write some answers down. Go ahead and pause the video if you haven't yet.

How many Men's Team meetings to achieve "expert" proficiency?

Comment on why you gave that number as an answer:

Open House and Similar Events

Next set of questions.

What event caused you to attend your first MDI event?

And I say "event" because it could have been a team meeting; it could have been a visitor's night; it could have been a division meeting; it could have been an L.D., and could be a The Art Of Masculinity. There's lots of ways to attend a first MDI event. What happened? What was causing you to say, I'm gonna go do this?

What was causing you to say, I'm gonna go do this?

Even though it's something that I may not know much about, but something was going on, and the little voice in your head said, Yeah, go do this. Why did you go?

Why did you go?

There's a difference between the event and why the event had an impact on you. And absolutely, if you remember the emotions that you were feeling in your life, that said, I gotta go to this. What was the emotion at the time?

What was the emotion at the time of deciding to go to that first event?

What caused you to come back after that first event? Because depending on what that event was and how it went, some men don't come back, but you did. So what did you see in that first event that caused you to want to come back?

What caused you to come back to the Team Meeting and/or similar event(s)?

What causes you to keep coming back to Men's work?

And then, what causes you to keep coming back? Not all MDI events are created equal. Some are great, some are less than great, but you keep coming back. What causes you to keep coming back? If you haven't paused the video yet, pause it. Do your journaling around these questions and then unpause to restart when you've got the journaling complete.

So here's a big one. What have you learned about enrolment from your answers to those questions that we've just asked you to journal about? Pause the video, write down what you've learned about enrolment. Restart when you're ready.

What have you learned about Enrolment from your answers to the foregoing questions?

Types of Enrolment

Next pause. What is a Enrolment Conversation? Write down some notes, be prepared to deliver to your team. When we get into the first live session, what is a Enrolment Conversation?

What is a Enrolment Conversation?

Is there more than one kind of Enrolment Conversation? Pause and then restart if you haven't yet.

Is there more than one kind of Enrolment Conversation?

And finally, you know, I mentioned a couple of PowerPoints ago. There are different kinds of Enrolment Conversations. If you can think of different kinds of Enrolment Conversations, write them down, write down some notes about everyday Enrolment Conversations, not just MDI stuff.

My notes about everyday Enrolment Conversations (not just MDI stuff):

Think about enrolment in your life. And when you've done enrolment, when it's been successful for you, and then maybe when it hasn't been so successful, and I understand you may not really have a definition of enrolment or an idea about it. But this is to get us thinking, get us started on the path, and you're gonna have answers for that by the end of the program, if you don't have them now. Take the shot. Remember the great one, Wayne Gretzky? "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Take the shot!"

All right, this is not one you have to journal. Who's the first person we must always enroll? It's us. Every day, we've got to enroll ourselves for what kind of day we're gonna have, what we're gonna accomplish during that day. What we're gonna do differently during that day. But everything that matters in that day, when we're having one of those days that are good, or great, or fantastic, happens because we started the day by enrolling ourselves.

All right, preparation for your first live meeting. Review the guidelines. If you haven't done it yet, make sure you understand what you're gonna do, how you're gonna do, what we expect. If you haven't done the journal entries yet, if you wanted to go through the video first, go back and do all the journal entries.

And then last, as part of the registration process, you'll have gotten some info from us. That's how you got into this video in the first place. It's gonna tell you who your facilitator's gonna be for the team that you're on during enrolment training. Reach out, make sure you talk with your team leader, your facilitator. You are gonna be a team throughout this program. We need to make sure that we've got a relationship going with a man who's leading the call. We'll see you in your first live online session. We're looking forward to seeing you there.

Thank you, men. . . Hall out.

Week 3

Men, welcome to session two.

Enrolment is in your head and in your heart because enrolment is a way of life. It's not just a single event.

We're gonna be talking about that today in some detail, as you are all used to doing. So in this video, we're gonna cover the live enrolment conversations, primarily, enrolment is a key life skill for men, enrolment conversations and teams of two, and asking for commitment to change. Those are three things that really need to happen for enrolment to happen well for you.

There's an administrative note that we're gonna lead off with here.

[Image of a man sitting at a table, thinking, holding a pen, with a notebook/journal in front of him]

By now, you've gotten used to when you see this man over his journal, pausing the video, answering the questions, making the notes, and restarting the video. And seeing the little warning about no correct or incorrect answers, they're just your answers. By now, you've gotten used to what this picture means when you see an assignment for journaling, so we're not gonna include that bottom statement anymore about it being for you and your journaling and that kind of thing. We figure, you know it by now.

The Why of Enrolment Conversations

We finished off the first meeting, or the first video, with the idea that enrolment is something we do for ourselves every day.

If we're gonna have a better day than we had yesterday, we're gonna enroll ourselves to what kind of day we are gonna have, what we are gonna do, what we're gonna talk about. And if we don't do that, if we're not conscious about it, the day may not turn out as well as we would have hoped.

Helpfulness

So, we're at our first journal point. What are the bigger, meaningful, or important things in your life that you've done so far, the things that really stand out, that you've accomplished with other people, that you've had their help, that you've had their support? I want you to list some of those things.

Once you've listed them, go ahead and pick one of them:

and talk about:

What did the help do for you?
What did the assistance of other people do for you?

More importantly:

If you got people to help you, what did you do to get them to help you?

And if you helped someone else on something that was big and important for them, what did they say to you to get you to want to help them out?

We've talked about listing ways that we've been successful in getting help and helping other people. It's something we do every day if we're gonna be successful, or we must be successful, to some degree, 'cause we're all here. And we don't get along in the world without dealing with other people well.

So how is getting other people to help us — how is us convincing other people to do something different — how is it any different than talking with people about what we do here at MDI and getting interested in what we do in MDI? (Go ahead and answer the question. Restart the video when you've completed it.)

The Team Meeting Experience

Next, we're gonna do some thinking about the experiences that we have at weekly team meetings. Now, there are the events of a weekly team meeting, and it does tend to follow somewhat of an agenda. I want you to think about not just the basic event, like a mudroom, or a physical, or a spiritual, but think about what those things do for you, and what makes them work.

What do you look forward to at team meetings? What do you get out of team meetings that cause you to want to come back every week? (Go ahead and pause the video, write them down.)

What are the things that you, as an MDI man, bring to your team meetings that cause other men on your team to want to come back every week? You know, we don't want to be driving our teammates off, but what do we do? What is our contribution that causes them to want to come back every week?

How many of those things could you bring into a conversation with someone who's not an MDI every time you have the opportunity?

Think of the opportunities you've had in the last week, where you could talk with someone about MDI, or talk with someone about something in your life that really matter, where you wanted them to change something they were doing. List those things and describe the situation.

You've listed a few of those things now. Pick one:

... and talk about what the outcome could have been, if you brought to them [or] to that conversation, the man you are in your team meetings, the man who makes you different at these team meetings, then you are in the rest of the world sometimes.

What's the energy? What are the things that you bring? What's the mask off or the depth of conversation that you have?

Successful enrolment is a conversation. We have conversations every day, don't we? With some intentionality, with some conscious thought in advance, we already know how to have great enrolment conversation. We really don't think about it in advance a lot of the times, where it's intentional, where we've really thought through how to have a conversation. Here's how I want you to think about enrolment moving forward:

Enrolment is a conversation with a purpose, guided by interesting curiosity.

What the heck did that mean?

Enrolment is a conversation. We have these everyday, don't we?

... With a purpose. How many of your conversations during the day have a purpose? We like to think that they do, but a lot of times, we just have conversations, and it's like, how do I get here? What are we talking about? Ever have one of those?

[So] it's a conversation with a purpose, and [when] we say guided by, it means we've got someplace to go that we want to get to.

That's part of the thinking and through an advanced intentionality.

It's guided by interest and curiosity: interest in the person, curiosity about the facts. We get to those with questions: questions about the person, questions about the situation.

And when we ask good questions, we have a great conversation, and that is almost all we need to get to enrolment.

So think of it as having a team meeting with someone who isn't an MDI. We build a relationship with them. It might be fairly quickly. It might be over the course of years, but we build a relationship. We are pleasantly persistent.

You know, we never have knockdown dragouts with people that we're trying to enroll. And over time, it works. It works to get them enrolled. Every one of us probably has some kind of enrolment story — certainly for the rest of our lives: the things we do with our families, with our career, the community activities that we're in.

We also probably have MDI enrolment conversations, too: meetings that worked with someone. We call those "team of two" meetings, because we recreate the atmosphere of a team meeting, where we're mask-off, we're genuine with one another, we speak the truth. We don't put up with a lot of malarkey.

Do you have a relationship with a person, 'cause you heard me talk about building a relationship over time? Does it even matter to have a relationship? Well, it depends.

If someone's "been hit by life's sledgehammer, (and that's what I call it, there's different names for it; we'll talk about it more as we proceed through the enrolment conversation training). How much of a relationship do you need with a man who has just had like, his life knocked out from under him?

Men like that are not in a great place. They are looking for something very often where some of our juiciest stories sometimes come about enrolment, where we met someone, and something bad had just happened, and we just started talking with them, and we brought them to a meeting or something like that. That's one kind of conversation. That is one kind of situation, where we didn't have a lot of time to develop a relationship, but they were ready, they were open.

In other cases, it might take a while where it is gonna help to have a relationship.

Earning the right precedes asking for commitment.

What does that mean? People inherently resist change¹. We're wired that way as human beings, and we need a really compelling reason to expend the energy, to start thinking about a new way of thinking, a new way of doing something, and then accept the fact that we're willing to disrupt our current habits, our current, whatever we do, even if it doesn't seem to be much, because we lose dopamine, we lose the brain chemical reward for engaging in habitual behavior. We're not gonna be rewarded for it anymore. We hate to lose that reward.

We've gotta have a compelling reason to want to make that change. I heard this a long time ago. I think it's really true. It seems to be true in everything that I've experienced when I started really using CPR technology with consistency. The strongest context always wins. So when we go into our enrolment conversations with a solid CPR, with a solid context of why we're being that way in the moment, we have the energy, we have the power, we get stuff done.

Men, we're wrapping up this session. [Two] things to keep in mind is you prep for your second live session:

I know some men go through this without stopping. That's okay, but go back and make your journal notes. Do a close review of your notes after you've done that with your study partner that you've been assigned by your team leader.

There's a reason we're getting you used to doing that kind of thing. It's also a great idea to not just connect with your study partner. You not have to connect with everybody in your team right now, but if you can do it, if nothing else, talk to a couple other men beyond your study partner, to really get their ideas about what they're getting from the videos, how they think about doing enrolment. We do best, at least in MDI, maybe in other parts of your life, but we do best in MDI. When we think about enrolment, when we think about it as a team activity, because teams can help us when we're stuck, when we're not at our best, when we're thinking of a way that we can connect with someone, they can hold us accountable of it, too, just as our study partners hold, and we're holding each other accountable with that.

And in particular, note in your journal over the next couple of weeks, whenever you now see an opportunity for enrolment, whether it's for MDI or outside of MDI, with your family, your career, community, the things you do otherwise. But opportunities where you're gonna have a conversation with someone about changing something they're doing, or a way that they're doing it, or something that they're talking about. Or if you find yourself being enrolled by someone else, but make note of those opportunities. Make note of those things, have some observations about them.

You've got increased awareness now of how enrolment works. You're gonna notice it more. You're gonna notice the opportunities more. Write them down, so you're gonna reinforce that whole enrolment muscle that we're building up right now. Think about it, use it, be intentional.

We will see you in your live online team session. Looking forward to seeing you, your team leaders are looking forward to seeing you. Thank you, Hall, out.

Week 5

Men, Russ Hall here, your Vice President of Training with video 3 of your Enrolment Conversations training program.

What's my enrolment pregame? Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

We're gonna talk this week about the things that we do to prep for enrolment and to anticipate the things that we're gonna get in the way of us successfully doing enrolment conversations. So, we're gonna be talking about CPRs and enrolment, because CPRs are critical to being successful in any enrolment activity. And then we're going to start dealing with things that get in the way of enrolment. There's gonna come in a couple parts, so there's a lot to cover.

Your enrolment pregame

First thing that we're gonna do, and we're not gonna do it on this video, we're gonna talk about beliefs about enrolment when we get into our team meetings. That's gonna be the first thing we cover this week.

Do I prep myself every day for success? And the success code for the cheat code for MDI success is CPRs. We all know that, and it's not just for enrolment. CPRs provide us with a winning context for everything in our day, assuming we do good CPRs to get our days started. It gives us the ability to actively think and get out of our habit patterns so that we can do new things that are gonna serve us in the future — as opposed to the things that served us in the past, but may no longer do that.

Pull out your journals, pause the video. How has your understanding of enrolment skills played out in your success in life so far?

List some results in your life that matter to you, that you can achieve with stronger enrolment skills.

Do you have a personal CPR to help you achieve greater skill in enrolment as a life skill, as something you're going to use all the time?

(yes/no)

Make a best effort at a personal CPR that will help you to improve your skills and enrolling people in your life. Remember, this is not just about MDI events. This is about anything where you want to get people to help you, or you want to get people to change the way they're doing things, to change what they're thinking, to change how they pursue their life. CPRs create powerful context for us. They let us move forward and the world each stays successfully. When you have really strong CPRs, you'll take a stand for the things that matter.

The mission of MDI and the value it brings to men in the world. I mean, it brings a lot to us, but now let's think about all the men in the world that could use what the mission of MDI represents in their lives. [Context] gives you the ability to act with a sense of mission in a way that people notice, because it's not something that you're wearing as a mask, it becomes who you are, because you have that context. You act with confidence, because it's who you are. You connect with men, connect with everyone, really, but you connect with men that want that in their lives too, because they see it in the way you act in the world.

"head trash": The Untrue Stories Within

Now we're going to take out some head trash. The things that get in the way of being successful at enrolment. The first piece of trash we're gonna work on is "ego before commitment". Instead of what? commitment before ego. We're gonna talk a little bit here about ego, in a sense [that] you may not have thought about in the past. What is it, especially in enrolment conversations? Ego is who I am in the world. It's how I represent myself as an individual in the world. It's my knowing that I'm different, I'm special. I'm Russ, or whoever you are. All healthy humans have an ego. It's a way they see and represent themselves in the world.

Be careful not to associate it with a mask. It's more interval to you than a mask you put on and off. Ego prefers the comfort of the familiar, resists change that can disrupt the way things are, because if we're happy with the way we are in the world, if we're comfortable with the way we are in the world, even if it's not what we really want in the world, our ego is gonna be built around, maintaining that us in the world. When ego becomes intertwined with our sense of self, it makes it difficult to let go of things we identify with, even when they no longer serve us. It's when we start to talk about ego in the negative sense, the way a lot of us talk about ego like, someone having too much ego. Well, what they're really talking about there is that ego is preventing us from growing. What does it sound like when it's holding me back? "No, that's not me. I can't do that. There's no way I can do that. I should be able to do that, but...", whatever — keeps me from doing it. "I could do that, but..." — more head trash — is why I can't do it — an untrue story within myself

When we find ourselves coming up with excuses, with reasons to not do things, to not be better at things, to not grow — that's when ego is starting to hold us back, because ego is afraid of losing its place. What is ego in enrolment conversations? We're lone wolves in a lot of cases as men. But we know, from being on teams at least, that things work better when we're on a team, when we're in a pack, and when we grow the pack. So what exactly is ego in enrolment conversations? My ego will fight change because it's fighting for its life. The ego we've got, likes who it is. It doesn't want to change, because when it changes, it stops being who it is, becomes a different ego. When we grow, our ego grows with us. But the old one's gone, just like the old us, the old me, is gone when I grow. My current ego doesn't include enrolment as a key life skill. It doesn't help me to have the advantage of enrolment and everything that I do in life. Why would I be surprised if I don't do enrolment very well? Or is it true that I don't do enrolment well in anything that I do, because it just depends on what I'm enrolling, or who I'm enrolling.

When I think about my commitment to myself, the growth of myself, to my team, my division, my family, career, community, all the things we talk about in our mission statement. Is it important enough for me to make those changes, to be the bigger, stronger, better me, to have that new, bigger, stronger, better, more appropriate ego? It's on the other side of letting go my current "I", my current ego. It is very often about letting go, so we can perform against the mission of MDI: To cause greatness by entering men to live with excellence and, as mature masculine leaders create successful families, careers, and communities. That's why we're here. That's what we're representing to the world.

Some journal time again. How do you demonstrate the mission of MDI in your life today? Do you do things within the MDI context when you're at a meeting or doing things around MDI, that demonstrate that you're committed to the mission? Do you do things in the world that demonstrate you're committed to the mission? Go ahead, pause the video and answer the questions.

The next untrue story to get rid of: resistance to change and overcoming it. We're going to talk about whose resistance we're talking about, because there's my resistance, and there's other people's resistance. We're gonna talk about mine first, as a human being. There is a term in psychology called automaticity — that's a big word for habits. Good habits and bad habits. 40-80% of how we live our day is not influenced by new thinking or problem solving, it's our habits that determine what we're going to do during the day. There's a lot of neuroscience about why habits have that power, and I'm not gonna do them in this video with you — but I'd love to talk about them with you some other time, probably over a drink.

Human beings are creatures of habit. You probably heard that phrase before. If enrolling people ia a skill in anything isn't a current habit, you're not gonna do it. I'm not gonna do it. We won't even recognize the opportunity to enroll people. If it's not a habit that we've built into ourselves. Personal resistance to change is a matter of habit. It's bad habits that we need to change, and habits are all in our head.

Remember, I'm my first person that I enroll every day, whatever I'm gonna accomplish that day. So when we're having really good days, it's because we're enrolling ourselves to accomplish things, to make changes, to grow. It takes energy, so we've got to prep ourselves. We got to be ready for it and to seize opportunities when they show up. Our belies can be just like our habits. Our beliefs are things we hold to be true, the may or may not be true. They're usually based on bad experiences or things that have happened to us, growing up or experiencing life, but habits can change in a New York minute. You've all experienced that where you just decide, "I'm not gonna do this anymore." It takes some energy and maybe a little bit of work, but the habit can go very quickly. Once again, habits and beliefs, are all in your head, and they're what gets in the way of enrolment, whether it's with MDI or in anything else you do in the world.

Men, we're coming up on the end of this prep session. There are some things that we've got to talk about that you're gonna do to prepare for your third meeting. This first section is just an overview of that preparation. Make your journal entries. If you haven't made them yet, by now, you know to do this. Do a close review of what you've journaled with your study partner. Connect with your other team² members to the extent that you can. We've started doing team of two work, so journal the meetings that you've had, and journal the support you've asked or given to your team. That's the overview of what we're gonna do in prep for this third session.

Now some details. Team of two meetings that you've had, [you] should have had at least four of them by now, [and] more if possible. What have been the outcomes of those meetings? What changes did you have to make to have those meetings at all? What did you have to work through? What barriers or resistance did you experience in delivering those meetings, or even getting geared up to do those meetings? What have you learned from this experience of doing team of two meetings so far?

Journal the support you've asked for or the support you've given on your team². What is it that [you] asked for, and how did it work out? What did you give and how did that work out? What have you learned from doing this?

This is a key part of what we're gonna do in this third meeting that's coming up, but it's not only practicing team of two, it's getting used to the idea of utilizing your team to move forward with enrolment. That's why it's so important to do these prep videos and do all the journaling work. This is you preparing your operations manual for successful enrolment, not just in MDI, but in all phases of your life, and helping people make the decision to change.

We'll, see you in session three, we're looking forward to it. That's it for this round.

Week 7

Welcome to enrolment conversations, video 4, session 4, our final session: Enrolment, it's on, baby.

Remember, enrolment is not an event. It's a way of life.

So this week, we get together for our live session, we're gonna be covering your new way of life through enrolment. We're gonna talk about wants versus needs in enrolment. We're gonna talk about the strongest context always winning. We're gonna talk about the differences between enrolment and registration.

Now, we're gonna talk about successful enrolment. Finally, being a team sport. It's on, baby. So we're gonna pick up with some journaling.

First thing that we want you to do, with your journal, is describe the people, [who] want what we have here at MDI. Pause, write the answer, restart. You know how this works.

Next, describe the people who need what we have here at MDI. What are the differences between people who want what we have and people who need what we have?

Just some hints, things to consider (thinking about your five most recent and/or significant enrolment successes:)

Does urgency matter?
Does timing matter?
Does the impact matter?
Does the risk matter, just legality matter?
Does the relationship you have matter?
Does their context matter?

Think about all these things as you think about the people who want what we have, and the people that need what we have. Go back and do some rewriting, if you feel the need.

So now I want you to think about a context for enrolment for someone who's in denial. We talked about denial, but someone who's in denial about a want or need, that you can see, that I can see when I talk with them, when I interact with them, particularly if I have a relationship with them.

What is your enrolment context for someone who is not in denial about the one or the need, but just lacks motivation to act? What's your enrolment context for that person?

We talked about life sledgehammers, those horrendous things that, I mean, I'm laughing about it, but those horrendous things that can happen to us, or happen to a man, or a woman, but just can happen to us, that we call life sledgehammers, things that just knock us off our habits, not this off our beliefs, cause us to question a lot of things, cause them to question things.

What's your enrolment context when you meet someone or are interacting with someone in that situation?
Have you used empathy when dealing with men during enrolment conversations?

This could be a simple yes or no answer; but if you can expand on it a little bit, feel free to do that. Because empathy is an important part of connecting with people.

All right, strongest context always wins. We talked a lot about, while we were journaling, different contexts that we may hold in different situations. We just went through some of them.

Whenever we have a strong context, we're gonna do well in any conversation or any situation that we face. When we are doing enrolment with someone, getting them to consider a change to what they have been doing or what they haven't been doing. whatever that happens to be.

What is the difference between commitment to change and taking action?

I asked you that question. I asked you to journal that question, because that gets to the difference between enrolment and registration.

Always remember, first of all, there is a big difference between enrolment and registration. Enrolment is a conversation that results in a commitment to change, to making a change from wherever the current norm, behavior, method, whatever the person's doing or not doing, it's getting them to see that it changes something to do. It's something worth making.

Enrolment is about a way of being in the world. Now, that's not just for the person getting them to change the way they're going to be in the world, because that is what has to happen for us. If God don't want to change the way they're gonna be in the world, but it's also the way we are being in the world. That's what gives us strength in our context, how we are being. And enrolment is about creating the possibility of change. It's a way of being that suggests change is a good thing to pursue. And enrolment is not sales. Although, there is an element of enrolment in every successful sale, but as we talk about enrolment, about conversations, with empathy, they kept people to think about what they're doing, to develop a relationship with people, to get them to want to change what they're doing, it's not sales.

The difference between enrolment and registration. Registration is two things. It's a commitment to action. Remember, enrolment is a commitment to making a change. Registration is a commitment to action, and it's actually taking action on that commitment. It's doing something. Once you decide that you're going to do something. And it's having something to do. Registration is about doing something in the world, in the real world. It's not thinking about things, about feeling, about things. It doing something. Registration is about taking action to create a change. There are different ways that someone can make a change, they can take action around MDI.

Team meetings, division meetings, visitor events, doing a weekend, The Art Of Masculinity, Legacy Discovery, doing a community service event, with a division or with a team, going to Rhinos.

Take a moment here, and think of the other ways that you can get someone something to do, an MDI, once they've committed to making a change, getting them to actually do something, in or around MDI, it helps them understand you better, your men better, your team better, your division better, themselves better.

What can they do? How can they experience MDI? Just some reminders about enrolment conversations from our last sessions. It works most easily when we build a relationship with pleasant persistence.

Ways to support enrolment conversations. MCV08 First, change your listening. MCV09 Use [Socratic] questions to show interest in the man and understand his true situation. Listening by asking good questions and doing follow up questions is like a superpower. Your active and intentional listening helps a man, in the case of MDI, create a powerful reason to want to make a change. It helps him to create his commitment to change.

We already have a commitment to helping that man want to change, or in the case of something outside MDI, helping whoever it is we're talking with to want to make a commitment to change. We already have. It's important because men will only act on their own commitment to change. They're not gonna act on mine. They're not gonna act on yours. They've gotta want to make the change, or they won't ask.

MCV15 Anything that stands, we model what it's like to take a stand in our team of two meetings with whoever we're having a team of two meetings with. And by taking a stand, we know why we're there. We know what we want to accomplish. We know what we're looking for to help this man, or whoever, but in the case of MBI, to help this man want to make a change for himself. We can see how he's gonna benefit from that change.

[Witness] We were communicating it, not necessarily just in our words, but maybe primarily, in the energy we bring because of our context, in the way we behave, the way we connect, the way we empathize with the situation. That's how we take a stand.

Once he's committed to making a change, part of that stand is then guiding him to appropriate action for him to complete the commitment, to go from I'm ready to make a change to, I'm gonna do something, [and] this is what I'm gonna do. And then he actually does it. Taking a stand transfers your energy, your confidence, to him once he's made the commitment to change. It's a key way to support enrolment conversations.

Take a stand, be ready to go, know where you are in the world. Know the power that you bring to the conversation. Take a stand. Finally, successful enrolment is a team sport. It isn't just going out and doing things. It's the preparation that we do with the rest of our team. It's putting together a team for enrolment. It's practicing for enrolment conversations, and sneaking it through.

If we're not up for a conversation for enrolment, and we know we need to have one, or we're gonna have one, it's calling on the team that we're on, for their help in getting ready to have that enrolment conversation, and thinking through the things you might hear, and how you deal with them. We're gonna do some thinking about your enrolment team. You've been on a team² and with a partner for six weeks now — maybe a little longer.

List the ways it's helped you to be in relationships with those other men on your team. What have you learned about enrolment? How has it helped you, an understanding of your life? Based on what you've learned, which of the men that have been on your enrolment team in this course will help you to be an awesome at enrolling other people in your life. Someone you can keep going back to. What is it about them that causes you to write that about them? Write down who they are, write down, you know, what it is that causes you to say, Yeah, this man's on my team. Write it down.

Who else are you gonna bring on to your enrolment support team besides the men you've been going through this program with? Then from your Men's team, back in your division, then in other parts of MDI that you're connected with, that you know that they have some kind of strength, that either you left, or you want to leverage, meant to who you're gonna bring onto your enrolment support team.

Your first enrolment of yourself: who you're gonna put on your support team, that you're gonna have a support team. Be able to talk with them about why you want them to be on your team. You know, if you're familiar with the Hogue method of enrolment within MDI, for positions, or delegation, it's a whole conversation.

Commit to the date that you're gonna have completed your enrolment conversation, your enrolment support team conversations by. Will you make the date? Maybe. Will you miss the day? Maybe, but when you have a day, you're more likely to get things done. If you have some accountability, if you maintain your partner relationship or something like that, from this training, and you talk about what the date is, with that man on a regular basis, and the progress you're making in building your enrolment team is gonna happen. Enrolment is your personal context for enrolment, because enrolment is a critical life skill for everyone.

Certainly a critical life skill for men and men who are in MDI. It's a critical skill to getting things done, because we can always get more done, get it done better when we have help. We're not gonna get the help. We don't enroll.

So prepping for your final live meeting, you're gonna do your journal entries, as always. Close review with your study partner, connect with your other team members. Do your team of two journaling, you know, to do that. Do your team support journaling, do your journaling of untrue stories within yourself, what we called "head trash". That's the overview of everything you're gonna be working on.

For the team of two meetings you've had, at this point, you probably should have had at least eight of them, right? What have been the outcomes of those meetings? Journal about it:

What changes did you have to make, have them at all?
What barriers or resistance did you experience?
Did you have to take out the trash on (either your own or someone else's?)
What's the head trash you've taken out?
What have you learned from all this?

For the support you asked for or gave to other members of your team during the program:

What did you ask for?
How did it work?
What did you give it?
How did that work?
Did you have to confront the untrue stories within yourself, with the help of the rest of the team?
Did you help someone else with theirs?
What have you learned from that process?

The last thing. Like you, your facilitator leaders for your team in the enrolment training, me, everyone around MDI, wants to improve what we do. So, I want you to start thinking about what you like about this training. Once you change to make this training better, we're gonna be asking you to fill out a survey after training, but start thinking about it now, maybe even write some notes about it, so that you don't forget key points. We really want your feedback.

The next training is gonna be better from the things we learn from you as participants in this training.

See you in your live online team session. Thank you for playing full out this whole time with these video. But also, thank you for playing full out in these live sessions, particularly for playing all out in enrolment.

footnotes

1 : This is not always true: There is a dichotomy, between wanting things to change, and resisting change. A man can be firmly in one, or in the other.

2 : By "team", we are primarily referring to the multiple men in your biweekly sessions with whom you have been grouped for team work. However it also refers to your Men's Team. (Note that some sessions did not form teams nor did they distribute a roster to their participants.)

This page was written in the "embarrassingly readable" markup language RHTF, and was last updated on 2026 May 22.

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