Last week I attended the annual Coachville Conference held in Chicago this year and this is my brief overview of the event.

Dave Buck is the CEO of Coachville and one of my former coaches (that's Dave and me in the photo).  When I hired Dave as my coach in 2000, I thought I was all done with teambuilding and that I wanted to be a "life coach".  Dave quickly saw that teambuilding was in my blood and kept encouraging me to revisit this area of my life.  I am forever grateful to Dave for his patience (I was difficult to coach, I think) and for helping me get on track with my life's work.

All this to say it was a great delight when Dave called to ask if I would lead a 90 minute workshop with all 250 attendees and, of course I agreed! My workshop was called "The Power of Games to Teach and Inspire". 

My workshop was designed to support the conference theme of "The Power of Winning".  My goal was to help the conference attendees experience and explore winning and losing in terms of the coaching profession. 

I led a series of activities including one from my Group Loop CD called "Race Car".  People formed into teams of 7 or 8 and then played three rounds of Race Car: 

1. Round 1 -- Teams play for fun.
2. Round 2 -- Room is divided into three regions and now you are trying to beat the teams in your region.
3. Round 3 -- Winners from the three regions come to the front of the room to compete for the "gold medal".  My friend Art Eyzaguirre video taped my workshop and you can view Round 3 of the Race Car game below (2 minutes long) by clicking on the link:

Download race_car.mov

If you can't view the video clip then you need to download Apple's "Quicktime Player" which is a free multimedia player for PC and Mac:

Dave Buck and I debriefed this activity with the group (that's Dave and me in the photo above).  Dave helped connect the game with the conference theme and participants reported significant insights from the game. 

On my first night at the conference I went to dinner with a group which included Bea Fields who was one of the key presenters at the event.  Bea is a wonderful person and I enjoyed getting to meet her.

On day two of the conference I had the opportunity to hear another great speaker - - Marshall Thurber who's topic was "Becoming A Positive Deviant" (that's Marshall and me in the picture).  Thurber had us play a game that demonstrated the qualities that enable positive deviants to be leaders in industry and community.  To lead a community you've got to stand out, Thurber told us.  He shared 7 Characteristics of Positive Deviants which you can read here.  Learn more about Thurber's Postive Deviant Network here.

One of the highlights of the conference was Dave Buck telling the story of how he came to be the CEO of Coachville.  Dave shared the struggles he and the company have gone through since the founder Thomas Leonard (one of my heroes) died.  Dave was funny and real and the story helped me remember that everything is a blessing. 

And finally, on my last night at the conference, there was a special screening of an important new movie entitled "Peaceful Warrior" which is based on the best selling book by Dan Millman entitled "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" (one of my all time favorites).  The movie is a must see and will first appear in theatres in limited release on June 2 with a major release starting in the fall of 2006. 

"What time is it?"

"Now."

"Where are you?"

"Here."