How to Run a Boot Camp Well

• 1). List the objectives for your boot camp. Start with the personal insights you want people to have, then move on to the specific skills you want them to acquire. For example, you may want them to realize fear doesn't make things impossible. You may also want them to learn how to rappel down a 100-foot wall.
  
  
• 2). Pair each personal insight with a specific skill you want students to master. Make sure to design your list of tasks and insights based on what you know people are capable of, not what will make them happy. Boot camps, to be effective, need to be stressful. The stress helps people "do without thinking," which is critical to their developmental process. They need to achieve something they thought impossible and then look back to figure out how they did it.
  
  
• 3). Design a schedule for your boot camp. For adults, you camp should be designed around a 12-to 14-hour day. Exhaustion and overstimulation are key to the boot camp process. People need to become comfortable doing what they are told without understanding why it is necessary and without thinking about whether or not it is possible.
  
  
• 4). Assemble a team to run your boot camp. They should be capable of performing all the tasks your students will undertake. They become continuous demonstrations of what is possible. They should fully support your plan. You should review your code of conduct with your team to ensure that what they do is legal, moral, ethical but remains consistent with the transformative objective of the boot camp.
  
  
• 5). Find a location for your boot camp. It should be isolated, safe and without distractions. The absence of phones may be one of the most critical aspects of boot camp. People need to stay focused on the tasks they are undertaking, the information they are receiving and the experiences you are providing.
  
  
• 6). Invite people to your boot camp. Ensure they bring the minimum number of objects possible. For a physical boot camp, you may want to have them bring one change of clothes per day, any required medications, two pairs of shoes, paper and pencil. Do not allow them to bring phones or video games or books. Ensure that your invitation specifies a code of conduct they must follow and reviews the consequences you will enforce for violating that code.
  
  
• 7). Show up at the assigned day and time, greet your students and start the boot camp. The first and second day of the boot camp should be very long and fairly stressful. You should ensure your students expend a great amount of physical and mental effort. Your boot camp should send people to bed too exhausted to think the first and second night.
  
  
• 8). Complete the remaining days of the boot camp. After the first two days, once people have achieved a few unexpected milestones, you'll find they can work just as hard and will pay just as much attention, without as much encouragement from you. What they are learning will have become important to them, and their fears of failure will have substantially evaporated.
  
  
• 9). Have a graduation ceremony and send your students home. The ceremony is important because it gives students a chance to think about who they were and what they were capable of when they came to camp, and what they have become. That moment of recognition is key to carrying their new skills and insights into their everyday life.