YPO/WPO
Young Presidents’ Organization
Since 2000, Brian has worked with Young Presidents’ Organization as a retreat and chapter event resource and trainer supporting YPOers and WPOers and their spouses.
Brian’s unique background as facilitator and coach and keynoter, combined with twelve years as a CEO and seven years as a YPO member, contributes to consistent ratings of nines and tens!
Testimonials by YPO/WPO members
Transformational Forum Testimonials
Randy Brunschwig
Forum Moderator, Colorado Chapter
Brian focuses in three areas:
Forum Retreats
Every YPO-WPO Forum is different. We have designed programs to fit the unique needs of forums comprised of YPO members, WPO members or a combination of both. The programs listed below are modules and more than one topic can often be covered in the course of a day-and-a-half or two-day retreat.
Programs for YPO Member Forums
YPO Members seek to be better leaders through education and are often in the prime of their business careers while raising families. Intense hours and travel often put pressure on marriages and parenting. The following programs track common questions and goals YPOers have. These programs are designed to help YPOers make a living and make a life.
Moving From Success to Fulfillment: I have realized success in my life both professionally and financially, yet I am wondering if there is more. I want to look at why I am not happier or don’t have more peace given all I have accomplished. I want to understand what the Four Core Needs are and how they relate to fulfillment.
How Much Is Enough?: I want to find a healthy balance between work and family. I want to get more of what’s really important and better meet my core needs. How do I reduce the collateral damage that can come with a high-achieving career?
Relationship Mastery: How do I bring passion and intimacy back into my marriage? I want to better understand the “bonding patterns” that drain connection and aliveness from my relationship. I want to learn about the seven principles of a great marriage and the research-based telltale signals of a marriage headed for divorce.
Grounded Leadership: I want to learn how to balance the four dimensions of a leader. I want to understand my “shadows” or ways I inflate or deflate and limit my effectiveness. How do I reduce my self-deception and blind spots to fully develop my leadership capability?
Programs for WPO Member Forums
WPO members are often contemplating or living as empty nesters. Many have sold some or all of their businesses and are contemplating what’s next in their careers and lives. WPO forum members often seek to combine play with work while on retreat. Here is a sample of programs designed for WPOers who are asking mid-life questions.
Moving From Success to Significance: I have achieved my career, business and financial goals (and then some!), now what? How do I create a road map for the next twenty years that provides meaning and allows me to make a contribution?
Passion and Purpose: How do I reclaim lost energy, tap unused talent and live on purpose using a mission to guide my life choices?
What’s My Legacy?: Having reached mid-life, now its time to get clear about what I will leave behind. I want to discover new ways to teach and mentor the next generation. How do I approach the process of transferring wealth to my children, grandchildren and charity?
Programs for Blended Forums
As the number of YPO graduates increase and WPO membership grows, many forums have a mix of YPO and WPO members. One of the challenges such forums face is determining if or when WPOers should leave a YPO forum to join or start a WPO forum. Resolving these unique issues helps renew and rejuvenate long-standing forum relationships that allow forums to continue to be the highlight of the YPO-WPO experience.
We use a mix of the YPO and WPO programs described above for the blended forums depending on the age, stage, goals and challenges of a given forum.
How Brian Approaches Retreats
Working alone or with a co-facilitator, Brian will design and book the retreat experience, or the forum can make the venue arrangements. Typical retreats last from one and a half to three days. Venues range from downtown hotels to a lodge in nature (preferred) or even traveling across wilderness areas.
Brian designs experiential retreats based on the needs and objectives of other forum members. While working on important issues, forums increase intimacy and emotional safety among participants. All of Brian’s retreats include some coaching on how to maintain the depth of connection and conversation in monthly meetings that follow the retreat.
The flow of Brian’s retreats follows a four-step process:
- Goal setting via review of pre-work members have done in advance, and building emotional safety among participants.
- Group exercises designed to strengthen the health and depth of the forum. Surface and resolve any conflicts among members that will prevent the group from going deeper.
- Individual exercises designed to facilitate personal growth and transformation in the context of a live personal dilemma or challenge.
- Integration and goal setting to equip the forum with the tools to sustain deeper connections and conversation at future forum meetings.
Chapter Events
Brian Gast is a dynamic keynoter and emcee who will create an action-packed, fun-filled chapter event or retreat for chapters seeking to build stronger community among their members and/or provide growth experiences for their members. These programs are perfect for chapters seeking to take the value of their chapter to the next level, chapters with a lot of new members coming in, or where attendance at chapter events has fallen and connections across chapter members has weakened.
Brian helps Education Chairs address the “YPO Member Paradox”: members seek peer support and input, but often struggle to be authentic and make deeper connections with fellow members—it’s too easy to play the “comparison game” among professional peers.
Brian has created Forum-like experiences at the chapter level and tapped selected member experience for the benefit of entire chapter. The result is story telling by members, to members with members on the stage and members in small, forum-like group settings.
Brian combines WPO resources with YPO chapter events to access wisdom and mentoring from well-known YPO graduates. Topics include The Six Absolutely, Positively Worst Mistakes YPOers Can Make and How to Avoid Them, and many more.
Trainings
Brian has extensive experience in conducting trainings for YPO members.
These include A Taste of Forum, Forum Training Program (FTP), Basic Moderator Training Program (MTP), Transformational Forum Training (TFT), and new training programs designed by YPO to take mature forums even deeper.
Brian custom-designs programs to launch new Forums from those that are in transition because they have lost or gained a significant number of members, are addressing conflict among members, or simply want to take their Forum experience to a safer, more intimate, higher value level.
Forum can grow stale with time. Brian has new ways of approaching updates and presentations that reinvigorate Forum experience and support the continuing evolution of a Forum.
Attention: Forum Officers:
Ask about my flexible, high-value training offerings that support your Moderators—up to a half-day of free training!
