What should I share during my forum update?

I was recently asked by a new forum member:  When we share our monthly updates, are we supposed to just pick one thing or several or one from each category (business, family, personal)?  Can you provide any guidance for how to choose?

My response:

• Don’t overthink it. Go with what’s deepest, most challenging, what carries the most emotional weight for you, what keeps you up at night (worry/fear) and/or gets you up in the morning (excitement/joy).
• Questions you might ask yourself to help prioritize how to use your limited update time:
  • Which of these issues are deepest and most significant for me?
  • If I would like to look back three years from now and say my forum has had a life-changing impact because they helped me with an issue, which issue(s) would you choose to share with the forum?
• Other questions that might help you select what to share:
  • What is the toughest relationship challenge (personal or professional) that you are facing now?
  • What is the toughest leadership challengeyou are facing now?
  • What is the greatest fearyou have now? What key transition is coming up in your life that you are most scared or uncertain about?
  • What is going on in your life right now that you have not spoken with anyone about? What are you hiding?
  • What are you complaining about, blaming others for,or notice yourself playing the villain, victim, or hero?
  • What are you not sharing because you don’t want to seem perfect? (You will feel like you are bragging about your good fortune.
  • What are you not sharing because you don’t want to seem imperfect? (You will feel inadequate compared to your forum mates or to others in your life.)
  • What is something that you don’t like about yourselfthat you are working on?
• You might end up focusing on one key issue or several, and they can be drawn from any and all parts of your life (business, family, personal).

Meeting with a potential new forum member: What do we discuss?

If you are considering adding a new member to your forum, it’s ideal for two or more members to meet the candidate for coffee.  The current members can then compare notes after the conversation.

Your meeting agenda can include:

• Sharing your forum’s constitution/norms, both to educate the candidate and to encourage their own questions about forum commitments and principles.
• Describing your forum’s typical meeting schedule (day, time, location) to see how that fits with the candidate’s schedule. Ask yourself whether the forum would be willing and able to adjust to accommodate the new member’s needs?
• Asking about the candidate’s previous experience as a member of a peer support group. What are the candidate’s objectives in joining?
• Without breaking forum confidentiality, sharing some themes and types of issues your forum has explored. Ask what topics the candidate would like to explore in forum.
• After explaining and committing to forum confidentiality, doing a short icebreaker exercise where the current members share a past experience or current challenge that might come up in forum, and the candidate shares some aspect of their life. This can help spark a conversation about how forum supports its members.

At the end of the meeting, be clear with the candidate about next steps, and when they can expect to hear about being invited to an upcoming forum meeting.