A group of driven Nutripreneurs successfully completed the first week of the Nutritionist Entrepreneurship Program (NEP).
Consolidating our learnings for this week below:
The Art of Storytelling: We have all heard ample bedtime stories in our childhood which are full of emotions, imagination and a tiny bit of drama too. If our parents ever ended a story on a cliff hanger, we refused to fall asleep and demanded that they tell us what happens next. In fact, while reading this, one or more stories may have popped into your head. This only goes to prove that we humans remember and retain stories more than we do facts because stories stir up emotions. Our business/nutrition practice (or future business/future nutrition practice) also has a story and it is important that we learn how to tell our business story in a manner which is crisp, coherent, compelling and moving. We practiced and fine-tuned this skill at our morning sessions.
Theories and models of behavior change: Do you have a problematic client? One who doesn’t follow what you ask him/her to but thinks he/she does? Or one who has a serious lack of self-awareness? Or one who was very compliant initially but has now relapsed back to the old ways? The way to effectively help these clients is to first understand human behavior in depth and learn about different routes you could opt for when it comes to helping your clients make a behavior change. Below are some questions you could ask:
Do you understand your client’s problem completely?
Are they self-aware of their problem? If not, how might you lead them to self awareness? If yes, what’s your next step?
Is there a particular problematic behavior they tend to exhibit continually? If yes, how can you help them work around and eventually change this behavior?
We looked at some fascinating case studies and devised ways to help our clients out.
Motivational counseling: What’s the next step once you’ve identified the behavior problem(s)? Of course to help them. And one sure shot way of doing that is by using motivational counseling techniques. This most certainly sounds a lot simpler than it is which is precisely why we held mock counseling sessions so that we get ample practice in further sharpening this skill.
Public speaking: All right so thus far, we narrated stories, understood our clients’ problems in more depth and attempted to be good motivational counselors. This is where it gets tricky though. Instead of speaking one-on-one which most of us feel comfortable with, we had to transition to learning all about speaking to a big group of people. Getting over feelings of anxiety, worry, self-consciousness and yet being able to deliver a compelling talk is a tedious task. We worked on overcoming our fears and learned some really effective public speaking skills. We also gave an impromptu talk, for which we had only 10 minutes to prepare!
IMPACT challenge: Week 1
We Nutritionists aren’t just all talk. We practice what we preach and each of us took on the 6-week IMPACT challenge to further clean up our lifestyle and continue building upon healthy eating habits
That’s it! It was a learning infused Week 1 and all of us eagerly await the learnings and challenges that Week 2 will bring our way!
Best,
NEP Team