What's new at Sahara Consultancy? Audio Training Materials

Everybody has different preferences for the way they learn. Audio Training Materials particularly appeal to learners with an auditory preference. However in today's world when everyone is so accustomed to living in a world of noise, listening to music on ipods or MP3 players, listening to a CD in the car, listening to podcasts on the computer, we are used to having information readily available.
Add to this the 'credit crunch' that is knocking some training budgets it becomes obvious that training materials that are easily accessible, can be purchased once and passed around a staff group; don't take staff away from their desks for long periods of time have to be part of an organisations tools in training their staff.
Staff can listen to them at a team meeting or staff meeting and discuss the content, they can listen on their computers when they have some spare time or they can listen in their car on their way to meetings, using up unproductive time. Used well they become a really useful addition to training staff, budget cuts or not.

Diary of a trainer?

I was just thinking today how life takes us in different directions, the sliding doors idea - which direction should I choose and why have I choosen it? What has brought all this on you ask? Well I've just had an amazing excursion onto Friends Reunited - I know I'm a bit behind the times in only just having a look at it but the visit has brought lots of memories back but also some musings about how we get to where we are in life. I've been in education almost all of my working life, at the begining more by accident or maybe through the lack of career advice back in the 60's. If I hadn't been to the school I went to what would I be doing now. And I'm really not sure. I very clearly remember sitting in the hall of the teacher training college on the first day and being welcomed as an entrant to the teaching profession as this was when it hit me that that was what I'd 'signed up' to do, and I wasn't sure that was what I really want to do.
Having said that I really enjoy training and meeting many different people and my teaching qualification has opened plenty of doors.
What about you - how did you get to where you are today? Any interesting stories out there of choosing the 'fork in the road' getting off a stop too early from the train and life changing. It would be really interesting to collect these stories together.

From being left handed to being left brain dominent

It is sometimes said that if you are left handed then you use the opposite side of the brain to right handed people - this is obviously not true, it's just something else left handed people have to put up with!!!!.
As we know people are either left brain or right brain dominated thinkers. The left side of the brain deals with all the logical stuff, facts, language, numbers and sequence; the right side of the brain deals with the creative stuff, feelings, emotions, pictures, and imagination.
People who use the right side of the brain more than the left side tend to be more imaginative and intuitive. They see things as a whole and are interested in patterns, shapes and sizes. The right brain is associated with artistic ability like singing, painting and being creative.
Left brain dominated people may find their thought processes vague and difficult to follow, for they are quite opposite in the way that they think.
Left brain dominated people tend to be more logical and analytical in their thinking and are usually good at maths and word skills.

But this doesn't mean that a person who is left or right brain dominated doesn't use the other side of their brain. For most people the two sides of the brain work in tandem to enable them to function as well rounded personalities. The right brain absorbs new information in chunks, but it is the job of the left brain to sort it in an organised fashion.
This is the theory however my husband insists that my left brain is only the size of a pea, as I continually fail to be able to follow instructions. There does seem some truth in his theory I've just being trying to set the time and date on my new voice activated digital recorder - the name makes me confused - and have failed totally, even though I was following the instructions - the fact that they all seemed to read like -blah, blah, blah, perhaps meant I was destined to fail! (and I can't do flat packed furniture either!)

How are your left and right brain - anyone else out there that feels they have a really strong dominance?

Here at Sahara Consultancy we run Blue Sky Thinking courses to help participants to unleash the potential of right brain thinking - a lot of which can be lost or undeveloped in a formal education system. For someone who is a right brain dominant thinker it is something I really love to do. Permission to come up with silly ideas - could the day get any better?

Lefthandedness

Last Friday I was running a training programme with 9 participants - 4 of whom were left handed. I am also left handed - which meant left handers were in the majority. In all the years I have been running training courses this has only happened to me once before. If you are a right handed person reading this it will probably be lost on you. You haven't spent years with people saying to you - 'oh you're a left hander' - as if there is somehow something wrong with you or you are coping really well at whatever you are doing and need congratulating.

I have been considering put together something that highlights how this world is set up for right handed people!! Any left handers out there let me know how being left handed can be a pain - obvious things are scissors - I know you can buy lefthanded scissors. Doorplates are on the right of doors. It is the righthand door in double doors ithat opens - when I want to use my left hand!!

Let me know what you find awkward / difficult or just plain annoying.

There's a lot going on

Having recovered from Fridays training we are into a new week, and new exciting events to be planned. We are putting on 3 of our new courses in September and October. In September we have Success Unlimited a great course about developing your emotional intelligence and How to BE a Top Trainer is running again. We had a list of people who wanted to do it in May but couldn't make the date - so here's hoping they can make the September date; and in October we have an NLP for Managers courses.

Then in November we are off to Malaysia to run our flagship course Swim Out to Your Ship - 5 days in Penang, by the sea - well some-one has to do it. You can join us too. Have a look at our website for details, http://www.saharaconsultancyuk.com/ - come with us - you won't regret it - it will be the best week of your life - we work Monday - Friday, every morning, so you have time for reflection by the pool or on the beach or whilst you are taking in some of the amazing sights in Georgetown. And whilst we are there we are going to be running some Blue Sky Thinking events for HR/ Training Managers in Penang. So we won't have too much time to get a suntan. but we will at least be away from the English November weather.

So plenty to do.... better get cracking!!!!

Training in high heels!

I thought you might like to hear about the diary of a trainer. Many people think training is a sedentary occupation, that involves in a lot of sitting behind a desk. Trust me, you would be wrong. Training requires stamina on all levels.
On Friday I was faced with a beautiful sweeping staircase and told the room in which I was training was at the top. What a beautiful training venue: alas I also had two heavy boxes full of resources, a laptop, a PowerPoint projector and my handbag, which had all the accumulated clutter of a week inside it, and had foolishly decided high heels were the way to go.
On reaching the room and deciding whether I had the time to lie down in the corner before I started or whether I should get on with rearanging the furniture. I decided on getting the furniture in the right place and forgot the idea of having a lie down.
So with everything in place all I had to do was keep 10 people entertained and on track for the day!