Growing up, I thought that once I graduated from college I'd be done with school. Alice Cooper's summer anthem School's Out would ring in my head. "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks." Don't get me wrong, I liked school, but there must be a limit. By the time I finished college, I should know all I needed for my career, and I wouldn't need to continue to study at night. Right? Yeah right!

In college I realized that I was only learning enough to get an entry level job and if I didn't want to stay in that position forever, I needed to continue learning to earn promotions or qualify for the next job up the corporate ladder. So I began reading technical journals, trade magazines, books, anything that applied to my field. When I made my career switch to sales and marketing after working with tv and computer equipment, my reading changed to sales philosophy/skills, ad design, marketing, resilience, and psychology. While all the reading is good, I've found that seminars are another important piece to the learning puzzle.

This year, I've attended three seminars, and I'll attend one more in a few weeks. Each one is different, and I've learned something at each one. My first was in February when I went to Kevin Hogan's Bootcamp in Las Vegas. Forty people gathered for three days to learn the latest in influence and persuasion that Kevin has discovered and shares with people. Kevin's style is a lecture format where he talks for about an hour, takes a short break and continues again. He starts at 9, breaks for lunch around noon for an hour, then ends the day around 5:30. It's very informal, and people can ask questions if some of the information is unclear. Kevin's a very personable and friendly man, who's willing to share what he knows. His information is the newest research in persuasion and influence. Kevin's Bootcamp is very intellectual.

Contrast this with the second one I attended, Tony Robbins Unleash the Power Within seminar. 3500 yelling screaming jumping people, power music, flashing lights,and a "rock star" all working to to get you into peak state. The audience is segmented by the price of their ticket, and those who paid the most get the closest seats to the stage. Tony is high energy. Once he takes the stage, the shortest continuous time he was on stage was 6 hours and the longest time was 14 hours (I think). Our days started at about 9 a.m. and typically ended around midnight. The only scheduled break was 60-90 minutes for dinner. His staff calls it "Tony Time" because once he starts, they don't know how long he'll go before stopping. I first read and heard Tony's information in 1993 and that was a couple years after it came out. In 2006, he's talking about the same information. However, what's missing in books is his energy and emotion. His seminar was about the information and the emotion. You don't mingle with Tony unless you are willing to pay for it.

The third seminar was a spiritual retreat called "Walk to Emmaus." The idea is for people to learn about the Christian faith through educational talks, worship, introspection, sharing, and singing. 25 of us lived together for 72 hours. On Thursday evening, the leaders took our watches, phones and any other time/communication devices. The rest of the weekend, we went and did what we were told. No hazing was involved! At times we wondered what was going on, and by the end of the weekend we had more questions but I understood why certain events happened as they did. This was a very thought-provoking and emotional event as we learned more about our faith. For Christians, I highly recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about their faith.

The final seminar is a 3-day Christian Outreach Convention in November that attracts 2000 people from around the U.S. From reading the brochure, there are 3 sets of concurrent educational sessions (with the choice of about 10 different topics during each session) daily along with a couple general sessions.

The four seminars have similarities and some differences. Two are small and two are large. Two were given by professional speakers, one was handled by everyday folks, and one is a mixture of both. Before going to any seminar, find out as much as possible so you may get as much out of it as possible. My wife, Debbie, went to a weekend small-group seminar and came home with mixed feelings. In some ways, Deb is a Type A personality, and likes to keep to the schedule. Her seminar ran behind right from the start and nothing was done to get it back on schedule which bugged her. Also because of her food allergies, she didn't find as much to eat that helped her maintain her energy level throughout the weekend. She did say that the information she got from it was very interesting and thought-provoking.

Alice Cooper sang that school's out, but from my experience, it's never out. So keep learning.