Designing Transformative Experiences: A Toolkit for Leaders, Trainers, Teachers, and other Experience Designers Byline : Brad McLain, PhD

Offering a new lens on leadership and living, this research-based guide shows how to design experiences that can touch hearts, provoke minds, and change lives in powerful ways. Transformative experiences are life events that change our sense of self in important ways. How do they work? What elements do they require? How can we learn to design them intentionally? By embracing the research-based approach of ELVIS (the Experiential Learning Variables and Indicators System), this book details how to recast yourself as an Experience Design Leader, one that can provide those in your organization with the opportunities needed to reflect and grow as individuals. Beginning with the ELVIS Framework, you will gain deep foundational insight into how transformative experiences work. And then with the ELVIS Toolkit, which includes seven practical design elements, you will have the key to unlocking these powerful experiences for yourself and others. Whether you are new to the idea of designing experiences for others or are a seasoned veteran, ELVIS shows you how to tap into the psychology operating behind the most powerful and important experiences of our lives—those that shape who we are. "A new lens on leadership and living with a research-based guide for designing experiences that can touch hearts, provoke minds, and change lives in powerful ways. Transformative experiences are life events that change our sense-of-self in important ways. How do they work? What elements do they require? How can we learn to design them intentionally? By embracing the research-based approach of ELVIS (The Experiential Learning Variables and Indicators System), this book details how to re-cast yourself as an Experience Design Leader, one that can provide those in your organization with the opportunities needed to reflect and grow as individuals. Beginning with the ELVIS Framework, you will gain deep foundational insight into how transformative experiences work. And then with the ELVIS Toolkit, which includes seven practical design elements, you will have the key to unlocking these powerful experiences for yourself and others. Whether you are new to the idea of designing experiences for others or are a seasoned veteran, ELVIS shows you how to tap into the psychology operating behind the most powerful and important experiences of our lives-those which shape who we are"-- Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Introduction: The Nature of Transformative Experiences Part One. The ELVIS Framework 1. ELVIS Overview 2. This May Hurt a Bit: Seeking Discomfort Zone Experiences 3. Storifying Our Lives: Harnessing How We Translate Experience into Narrative 4. Identity Construction Deconstructed: How Our Sense of Self Drives Transformation Part Two. The ELVIS Toolkit 5. Transformative Experience Design Strategies 6. Risk: Strategies Using Risk’s Many Disguises and Hidden Transformative Powers 7. Control: Who Has It, How to Strategically Give It Away, and Why 8. Immersion: Multisensory and Imaginative Design Strategies 9. Social and Emotional Involvement: Collaboration and Isolation Pathways to Greater Experiential Depth and Discovery 10. Intellectual Challenge: Activating Curiosity and Problem Solving 11. Identity Matters: Integrating Our Uniqueness and Avoiding One-Size-Fits-All Traps 12. Meaning Making: Forging Personal Relevance and Designing to Support That Process 13. The Holistic ELVIS Conclusion: Endings Author’s Notes Acknowledgments Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T V W Z About the Author