About
25 years of building
the next generation
of Thought Leaders
We build 5 key outcomes into each of our confidence building programs for young adults + teen confidence building programs.
We’re different. Our transformational confidence building programs for young adults and teen confidence building programs are uniquely designed to produce 5 key wins simultaneously: (1) Transformational (2) Team Building (3) Skill Building (4) Power for Everyone and (5) Vibrant Organizational Cultures.
With us, there’s no need to choose between transformation, team building, skill building or services that build a healthy organizational culture. Our events are polished, transformational, skill-building and profoundly team building. These set the foundation for a top organizational culture that attracts, retains and motivates todays top youth and adult talent.
Win-Win-Win-Win-Win: Each below winning outcome is baked into every Cream of the Crop Leaders’ transformational teen confidence building programs and all confidence building programs for young adults. We stand behind it. We’ve been designing and facilitating transformational trainings for over 25 years (some under a former company name).
Transformational learning is inside-out learning. Our learning credo is Learn by Doing™. We all learn best through active application and practice, not passive listening.
Our teen confidence building programs and confidence building programs for young adults are 90% interactive and feedback-rich: each participant leaves with ample personal feedback. These qualities create uber engagement. Transformational, yet relevant to everyday life. Learn about our Founder and curriculum designer.
We all long to belong. And, we all yearn to connect with others. We believe so strongly in the power of human connection that we’ve intentionally build team building into each of our teen confidence building programs and confidence building programs for young adults. Here’s why: Connection creates engagement. In turn, engagement deepens learning. Even more, connection and belonging are the fuel that motivates today’s youth.
Skill-building is King (and Queen!). Our goal is to leave participants with toolkit, not a pep talk about confidence. Graduates of our teen confidence building programs and confidence building programs for young adults can use the 12 confidence tools from this skill-building workshop when they need the tools most: when they’re time-pressed, under pressure – or suddenly in the spotlight.
During the workshop, participants apply our tools to a REAL scenario, and are encouraged to reinforce muscle-memory by applying these powerful skills immediately post-training. This is true skill-building.
OUR METHODS + CONTENT BUILD HEALTHY ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES
CONNECTION & BELONGING
We all long to belong, to sense that our contributions matter. It’s no different in the workplace. Therefore, belonging + connection are KEY to creating an youth based organization that thrives.
GROWTH MINDSET & HEALTHY RISK-TAKING
Growth mindsets are the fuel for building healthy futures. Also, in healthy organizational cultures, people speak up, lean in, stretch past self-imposed limitations – and aim BIG.
EMPOWERMENT + TOP YOUTH LEADERS
Top youth leaders result from genuine empowerment. After all, when do YOU perform best: When your power is encouraged, or when you’re expected to take direction and play small?
Cream of the Crop Leaders has provided the adult version of this workshop to leaders from these organizations:
kind words
“After all this time, I still feel the benefits of your Cream of the Crop Leaders’ training. I feel more assertive, confident and accomplished within myself. I feel solid.”
“I am so thankful and grateful that I did this course. It changed my life. Thank you so much for not only boosting my confidence but giving me a better and stronger outlook on myself and life.”
The development of confidence in my students was truly remarkable! Something that all people should do!
Confidence Building Programs
Power is Good
Power isn’t the problem.
Powerlessness is the problem.
One of my favorite studies shows that when a boss feels inadequate, the boss is more likely to be aggressive. This isn’t rocket science. You know this from watching playground bullies overcompensate for their feelings of inadequacy by pushing the quiet, defenseless kids around. Bullies aren’t powerful; they’re threatened.
And now the playground is the places our young adults and teens are entering: workplaces, colleges, schools, faith groups, clubs and all sorts of organizations.
But I have good news for you. The same study‡ shows that bullying goes down when a boss’s self-worth is boosted. So, as you see, aggression is driven by low internal power. Therefore, power isn’t the problem. Powerlessness is the problem.
After all, the word power comes from the Latin ‘posse’, which means ‘to be able’: to have personal agency. So, when I use the word power, I mean GOOD power, the kind that raises everyone up. And, really, that’s the only kind of power there is. Because if influence is forced, it’s an abuse of rank, not power. The best defense against these abuses is giving people real tools to anchor into their strongest, most powerful, authentic selves: these are equality generators. We’re all better off when everyone has agency, when everyone is empowered. Power to the People.
The word ‘power’ is misused in common parlance, such as ‘abuse of power’. Don’t get me wrong. Abuses of rank and inequality are ENORMOUS problems. Many governments, countries, companies, schools, faith groups and leaders abuse their rank. And today’s youth is onto this. Today’s top youth talent wants a workplace culture that welcomes their power, their input, their intelligence. They’re looking for organizations and employers who VALUE their voice and invite their diverse perspective.
Exciting research shows that a person’s sense of power improves executive functioning (the part of our brain that makes decisions), optimism, creativity, authenticity, the ability to self-regulate and performance in various domains. Acquiring power can also impel individuals to feel more goal-oriented, more likely to take action.
If you care about empowering others, I have a 10-second challenge for you. Close your eyes. Bring to mind a teenager or young leader you come in contact with in a organizational setting, and whose contributions you value. Now: Boost this young person’s power by sending her or him a 2-sentence email in which you copy at least one other organizational colleague. Your email could start with something like, “Today, I’m celebrating you and your contributions. One thing I appreciate about you is [fill it in].” By doing this, you’re boosting a teenager’s or young adult’s power AND creating a more vibrant organizational culture.
Power for Everyone™
Sioux
kind words
I absolutely loved this workshop!
This workshop was really helpful because I tend to get nervous! This workshop just took all of that away. Now I feel powerful, more confident.
This workshop helped me feel confident. It’s so much fun.
our founder
Sioux Messinger
Personal note from Sioux
As a transformational experience designer, I attempt to create experiences that matter by dovetailing these 5 qualities:
1. Transformational: Makes a big difference in one’s life
2. Connecting: Boosts authentic human connection
3. Heartwarming: Deeply resonant
4. Enormously interactive – and
5. Truthful.
When these happen, people do two things naturally: (1) stretch toward their full potential and (2) create authentic connections with others. In turn, organizations thrive.
More power to you,
Sioux
Vitae
As our Founder and transformational curriculum designer for all Cream of the Crop Leaders’ transformational workshops, Sioux Messinger has supported, coached and/or trained senior leaders from some of our world’s most preeminent organizations. Yet, what really sets Sioux apart is her unequivocal conviction in the equality of all people – and her commitment to help all human beings remember that their power is good. Power for Everyone™
Former group facilitator at Stanford University, Sioux was also Clinical Faculty in the School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at University of California San Francisco. | LinkedIn
Cream of the Crop Leaders has provided the adult version of this workshop to leaders from these organizations:
Confidence Building Programs
History
Long ago, our founder, Sioux Messinger, created the first adult version of this young adult and teen confidence workshop – and offered portions to her private clients. Later, and in her role as Clinical Faculty in the School of Medicine (Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco), Sioux offered a version of this course to young adult medical students and residents. While brilliant, many of these young adults lacked the skills to “pop” outside of themselves and share their gifts in a connected and radiant way. As a result, many were being passed over for the best residency positions and felt stalled early in their careers. Sioux found that just by teaching these young adults tools-of-the-trade for presenting with confidence, they reported feeling as confident as they were “pretending” to be. Of course, exciting new research backs some of this up.
These confidence building programs for young adults and teen confidence building programs were based upon the adult confidence course aka leadership presence, The Transformational Leadership Experience.
NEXT GEN Leaders: Time-tested teen confidence building programs + confidence building programs for young adults.
Confidence Building Programs
Power is good for participants – and good for the world.
“Power is essential for all living things. The word power comes from the Latin posse, meaning “to be able.” No human being can exist for long without some sense of his significance. S/he must be able to feel this “I count for something” and be able to live-out that felt significance.
It is the lack of this sense of significance, and the struggle for it, that underlies much violence. For violence has its breeding ground in impotence and apathy. The state of powerlessness…is the source of violence. Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness. Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant.”
Rollo May | Power + Innocence
Youth Leadership
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