How do you apply what you learn?

How do you apply what you learn? After you have invested your time (and perhaps your money) into attending a course, how do you apply what you have learned on the course? Are you like most people who file the notes away after the course with the intention of applying the lessons one day, or do you start right away by applying one lesson?

I got back from the Story Telling Champ Camp this morning. It was a marathon weekend. I left Connecticut on Friday evening, flew overnight to Vegas, attended two outstanding, remarkable and captivating days with Patricia Fripp, Darren LaCroix and Craig Valentine. Then flew overnight from Vegas to put in a full day at the office on Monday in Connecticut.

I know that if I put away my notes with the lessons that I learned over the weekend, I will probably not find time to ever review them. How often do you attend a seminar and then never get around to practising what you learned? To start getting benefit from the champ camp, I will implement at least one lesson in my speech at a Toastmaster club on Tuesday night. I will also keep my notes on my desk until I have had a chance to type them up.

OK - Enough said. I cannot hope to implement every lesson that I learned this weekend. There was just so much good information. But I will definitely implement as many of the lessons as I can. How will I do this you ask? One lesson at a time. I started today at the office by describing things in more detail. We no longer have "stuff" on my team. We now have detailed plans and documentation. One key to memorable story telling is to describe your characters and the settings. How can you describe the details of your characters and settings? Think about.