Russ Hall on Promotion
Contents
journal work:
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"Week 1" Intro Video and Workbook
This is Russ Hall, your Vice President of Training. And welcome to Promotion Conversations Training.
This is your training program to help you get better at promotion, not just for a particular MDI event.
Promotion is not an event. It's a way of life.
(definition of "promotion")
Successful men know that
promotion 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. Promotion 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 Promotion — not just in MDI, but in life generally — because that's the way we really need to think of promotion 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 promotion and guide you to define your context and action plan for promotion — so that you trust yourself to execute promotion every day, and with that, produce concrete promotion 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 20th 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 promotion 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 Promotion 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 promoting yourself. Third section is teams of two, and then, finally, your Promotion 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 promotion communications, being on a team around promotion, 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 promotion. We call this "promotion 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 [Promotion Training] program depends on you doing the journaling. It's not us telling you, "this is how promotion works. This is what you do. One, two, three, A, B, C". We're learning our way of delivering promotion, 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.
Next set of questions, or first set of questions, why are you here? Why are you doing this promotion 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:
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What event caused you to attend your first MDI event?
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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?
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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?
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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?
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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)?
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What causes you to keep coming back to Men's work?
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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 promotion 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 promotion. Restart when you're ready.
What have you learned about Promotion from your answers to the foregoing questions?
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Next pause. What is a Promotion Conversation? Write down some notes, be prepared to deliver to your team. When we get into the first live session, what is a Promotion Conversation?
What is a Promotion Conversation?
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Is there more than one kind of Promotion Conversation? Pause and then restart if you haven't yet.
Is there more than one kind of Promotion Conversation?
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And finally, you know, I mentioned a couple of PowerPoints ago. There are different kinds of Promotion Conversations. If you can think of different kinds of Promotion Conversations, write them down, write down some notes about everyday Promotion Conversations, not just MDI stuff.
My notes about everyday Promotion Conversations (not just MDI stuff):
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Think about promotion in your life. And when you've done promotion, 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 promotion 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 promote? It's us. Every day, we've got to promote 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 promoting 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 promotion 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.
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This page was written in the "embarrassingly readable" markup language RHTF, and was last updated on 2026 Apr 23.
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