Speaker 1: If you are a corporate trainer or someone interested in becoming a corporate trainer, there are several essential habits that you will want to develop early on in your career in order to be successful. Hey, it's Jeff with yourlearningcareer.com. I've been in corporate learning and development for over 20 years and I've worked for a variety of companies both big and small, including Walt Disney World, IBM, UnitedHealthcare, and these habits that I'm going to share with you are some that I have developed over the years that have really contributed to my success and I want them to do the same for you. The number one habit that you want to establish early on in your career is to prepare, to practice your training presentation. Now, I know that sounds obvious, but I also know that you, like me, have probably been in training classes where it was obvious that the trainer did not prepare. You know, a lot of times as trainers, we think to ourselves, you know, we see the material, we say, oh, that's easy, I can wing it, I'll just show up, I'll be fine. And I've been guilty of that, but I will tell you, when I do that, I can tell you my presentations are just not very good. Maybe I've gotten away with it here and there, but I will tell you, I always know at the end of the day I could have done way better. Now, I always make it a habit, I practice, and that means I stand up. I get up in my office, in whatever room I'm in, maybe I'll even go to the actual training room, and that helps me in so many ways. First of all, it gets me familiar with the material, it gets me familiar with the presentation, and it also gets me familiar with the timing because that's another thing I've noticed, you know, with trainers who don't prepare, they tend to be the ones who are always behind in their presentation. So by getting up, actually talking it out loud, that is very key to being successful as a trainer. You've got to practice. Habit number two, set your stories. What do I mean by that? Well, this goes hand in hand with habit number one, and it's part of that preparation or practicing. And what I always do when I'm going through material and I'm practicing it, I look for opportunities to tell a story because as you probably already know, storytelling is a very powerful way to connect with your audience. Even when I'm teaching something really boring, like if you're teaching some kind of safety or compliance training, I look for stories that I can put in. For example, when I worked at Disney World, I had to teach a section on safety. You know, that can be very dry, but I used an example from my work where I used to work at one of the rides there, the Great Movie Ride, and I would tell a story of how I brought a family out of the ride to go watch the fireworks. And when I brought them out of the exit because I was telling them about the fireworks and I said, oh, you got to see them. Come on, let me show you where to go. So I walked the family outside and then all of a sudden we were surrounded by supervisors with walkie talkies and security, and they were kind of like pushing us, like telling us go, go, go, go, and like making us go over to this other area. And I was confused, I didn't know what was going on, and came to find out that I had inadvertently walked this family out into this fallout zone, like where it was a danger area of where ashes could hit you, right, from the fireworks. So the burning embers and things like that. So I had, I was trying to, of course, my intention was, I was trying to be courteous and show the family the fireworks, and I was thinking good service, but I did it at the expense of safety. And so when I tell that story, it gets a laugh because it's kind of funny, like oh, I can't believe I did that. But it also makes that point, it really hits home about the importance of safety and how even though, yes, Walt Disney World is known for great guest service and all of these other things, none of that comes before safety. So by telling a story like that, even in a dry topic, it really, really helps you when you start developing that habit of having those stories ready to go. Habit number three, stay up to date with your topic. And that, it doesn't matter what the topic is. You know, a lot of times you might be teaching a class where you're kind of on autopilot, right, because maybe it's a repetitive class, it's something you teach over and over again. And believe me, I know that, I've been there. But even when it's something that you're teaching over and over again, you want to keep in touch with what's going on. Like new employee orientation, for example. I used to teach that every single week. And you would think, you know, I was kind of on autopilot in some ways. But I also always paid attention to what was going on in the company and was there anything new that I would want to share with the new employees. So even though it was the same class every week, I was always still adjusting it. And I continue to do that. There are always updates. There are industry updates, there are company updates. You know, if you're a software trainer, there are always software updates. So you want to get into the habit of finding ways to keep yourself informed. Habit number four is to put yourself in the learner's shoes. You know, one thing that I have noticed and realized throughout my career is how attached I get to some of my training programs. And I'm sure you're the same way. You know, as the trainer or as the designer of the training, you know, for many of you, you're doing both. You get attached. Like you understand why you have certain activities in your training. You understand why you require certain pre-work. And so a lot of times when our participants come into class and they haven't done the pre-work or they didn't read the email that you sent out to everybody the week before, it can be very frustrating. But I always remind myself, and again, it's a habit that I've built up, and that is to put myself in the learner's shoes. And I always, you know, remind myself, you know, what is their situation? Where are they coming from? What is their work situation? Because most of the time, I'd say 99.9% of the time, if someone comes to your class unprepared or maybe they didn't read the email or whatever, it's not because they don't care. It's not because they're trying to be a troublemaker. It really almost always has to do with their other job responsibilities. And you know, for us as trainers, we can sometimes, we'll take it personal because it's our, you know, it's your class, right? So you have this ownership of it. But we have to remind ourselves that, hey, our learners, they're not trainers, right? You know, this is just one thing in their week, right? So put yourself in their shoes and then actually talking to them and getting their feedback. Those are some really good habits to keep up. Habit number five is to be an observer. Observe your learners while the training is going on. And what I mean by that is you need to pay attention to their body language. You need to pay attention to their facial expressions. You need to pay attention to the way they are answering questions. Are they answering questions? Because when you start to observe things, like if I'm teaching a class, when I'm noticing my entire class behaving in a certain way or they all seem to be jumping on a certain topic, it sends me signals of what I need to focus on. It sends me signals on things like, oh, maybe I need to give them an extra break. Then two, it tells me things with topics. You know, there are some topics where by observing my audience, I realize, oh, I don't need to spend as much time on this topic as normal, as I usually would. I can maybe move on to the next topic sooner. Or it might be the opposite, where I need to spend more time. So being observant and then also having the ability to flex on the fly. Even though I know we have all these other things on our plate as trainers, you definitely want to develop that habit of being able to observe and respond appropriately to what you are observing. Habit number six is to engage with your learners. Now, when I'm talking about engaging with your learners for this habit, I mean get in the habit of engaging with them before class, on breaks, at lunches. So in other words, not just doing the training engagement stuff that's built into the training. But I mean like, for example, when I used to teach a new employee orientation, I would greet, I would have classes of 50, 60, maybe even 70 people sometimes. And I made it a habit to greet people as they came in, but then I would also, as I was waiting to get started, I would walk around the room and I would just have little individual conversations with people and they wouldn't be super long. I would just kind of talk to them, ask them where they were from, ask them what they were going to be doing, that kind of thing. When I would engage with people on a personal level, outside of the training stuff, it really helped them to warm up to me and it also helped them to warm up to the class. Because you know how it is sometimes, like when you're running an activity and nobody wants to participate, or you're looking for volunteers, and I found that when I started making those little one-on-one personal connections, it's like people were, they were more on my side, so to speak, and they were much more willing to volunteer. So by having those interactions outside of the training realm, they really, really help out a lot. Habit number seven, develop yourself. Most of us become trainers because we like to help people. You know, we like to help them, we like to educate them, we like to motivate them, and that is awesome. But guess what? You know who else needs to be trained, who needs to be educated, who needs to be motivated? We do, right? Trainers need to be trained. So please do not forget about that. So the last habit that is very, very important is to make it a habit to develop yourself. Look for opportunities for your own development. Now what that looks like, it could be a bunch of different ways. You know, it could be a training class, it could be going and getting some more education, it could be a certification, it could be reading a book, it could be audio books in your car. You know, there's a bunch of different ways for you to get information. I know for me, my previous company, they had a tuition reimbursement program, and I took advantage of that. I used, they paid for me to get a master's degree, and that was a really great development opportunity for me because it built up some more skills that I wanted to build within educational technology and instructional design. And then, you know, I had a master's degree at the end of it which, you know, was something that's helped me with my career development as well. So you gotta look for those opportunities, and don't be afraid to go to your boss and ask for, you know, ask to go to a class or a conference. You know, there's a lot of different learning-related conferences that you can go to to develop yourself. I know I've been emphasizing the learner, the learner, the learner, and we do want to emphasize the learner, but don't forget about your own personal development as well, because that's just as important. Now, speaking of development, if you're not sure which skills you should be developing, you're gonna wanna check out this video next, and you should also take a look at my playlist that has all kinds of great corporate training-related videos in it. Check those out next. Give me a like if you found this helpful. I thank you for watching, and we will see you next time.