In a prior post, I shared the LifeLine activity (https://bit.ly/3vlASd5) as a way to help members share their personal origin stories from birth until now. Getting to know someone’s backstory is a great way to better understand who they are now and where they are going in the future.
Another version of the LifeLine activity is to zoom in on the origin story of someone’s business or professional career. Considering a big part of Forums is around a person’s professional growth, it helps to know more details about how their business got started or how they ended up in the position they are in now.
The process is the same for the Professional LifeLine activity:
BEFORE THE FORUM MEETING:
- Going all the way back to the start of your business or professional career, reflect on the pivotal moments that lead to where you, or your business, are today. At the moment the event happened, how would you label it in terms of it being a positive or negative event for you? And for each of those events, how serious was the positive or negative feeling on a scale of 0-10?
- On the LifeLine template found here > https://bit.ly/3LnH3mi , put a dot for each pivotal event. Positive events go above the line, and negative events go below the line. In less than four words, give a label to each dot to describe the event.
- In preparation for presenting your LifeLine to your Forum, collect any additional materials you might need to best tell your story. These materials could include photos, videos, books, papers, etc.
AT THE FORUM MEETING:
Use one or both of the “Deep Dive” time slots to have people present on their LifeLine. The whole process takes about 45 minutes following this outline:
- 12 Mins – Presenter shares their LifeLine and talks about each pivotal moment.
- 8 Mins – Q&A with the group to learn more about the pivotal moments.
- 1 Min – Solo reflection on what they see as the common themes and traits of the person’s LifeLine.
- 2 Mins Each – Each person shares out loud what they see as the common themes and traits of the person’s LifeLine.
- 2 Mins – The presenter shares their final thoughts and reflections on the feedback from the group.
AFTER THE FORUM MEETING:
- Have the presenter record the common themes and traits they heard from the group on their LifeLine.
- Place all of the LifeLines into a group folder to be looked back at if needed.
- For any future members who join the group, give them access to the LifeLine Folder to learn more about each member.
Typically Forums have one or two members present on their LifeLine each Forum in place of a Deep Dive. So in a Forum of eight members, it would take four to eight months to have every member present.