Foundations of Impact Practitioner Programme

The goal of the programme is for you to get a feeling and an understanding of The Three Principles as a foundation for the work you do so that you can do the work you want to do and also learn and develop as you go.

The programme is designed for:

Practitioners and aspiring practitioners:  If you have you experienced a life-changing shift through understanding The Three Principles and feel drawn to sharing that potential with others but find it difficult, complicated, feel a lack of clarity or confidence or don’t feel able to easily start, the Foundations of Impact Programme is designed to bridge that gap. We have had aspiring and existing therapists, coaches, consultants and trainers on our practitioner programmes. Many of the names you might recognise in the field are graduates of our practitioner programmes

Internal experts: If you are not a practitioner but you would like to bring a professional-level understanding of The Principles to your work, either by providing support to colleagues or through a more considered focus on your influence on the culture you work in. To date, we have trained internal experts from private and public businesses, government departments, the prison service, the NHS and education.

The seeds of our programmes go right back to the time Aaron spent at Pransky & Associates when we was designing practitioner programmes they offered to groups that wanted to be practitioners. It was this experience combined with his own training and development at Pransky & Associates that provided the basis of the One Thought Institute, the original One Thought practitioner training launched in 2010, a comprehensive practitioner training that became the basis for many existing programmes. Many of today's new generation of practitioners are graduates of that programme.

After running The Institute for six years, Aaron evolved and refined our practitioner training to provide a programme called the One Thought Foundations Programme. We didn’t want to offer bells and whistles. We wanted our training to focus only on the things that directly make up a good practitioner. In the constantly growing range of available trainings, we wanted to give people a grounded grasp of what they needed to be effective so they would have a foundation to draw on in order to meet the challenges they would inevitably face. The Foundations Programme allowed us to offer students a clearer understanding of where to look for their own answers in their life and their work.

The outcomes of the Foundations Programme were consistently beyond our expectations. We knew we were on the right track and we honed the programme each year we did it. It has been such a meaningful experience to run this programme and we have had the most fantastic heartfelt, passionate students. After three years of running The Foundations Programme, we saw the potential for another jump in evolution for what we can offer.

During lockdown, like many people, we had our normal routines wiped away. As a result, we spent a rich period of time living in a quieter place in our own minds. We noticed a shift in the depth of our work and in our vision for what we were doing that has been compelling and inspiring. A new vision for how we want to support and foster new practitioners has come out of this shift.

The simple goal of this programme is to clarify and understand the vital elements of working with The Principles so you have more confidence and a clearer sense for how to navigate yourself in your life and work. The goal is for you to know what you need and what you do not need.

Although this sounds like a simple goal, you would be surprised to hear how easy it is to get focussed on things that feel relevant but are not. For example there are things you might think need, but you don’t, like:

• Previous experience in a particular area in order to work in that area
• The way you speak
• To have nailed down a concept of The Principles
• The right way to say things
• The right way to do things (proposals, programmes, meetings, client sessions, formats etc)
• To have a long list of impressive teaching examples to share
• To have elaborate diagrams in order to be credible
• To do endless trainings to improve and develop and to feel capable and confident
• To have a certificate (yes you do get one, not that you need it)
• To do things as well as, or like, somebody else

What you do need:

• A deep feeling for this understanding for yourself, even if you can’t say it like other people
• Knowing what it means, and feels like, to listen to others, and yourself, deeply and neutrally
• To get comfortable in the face of insecurity
• Finding your own voice and trusting yourself
• To understand meaningfully what it means when people say ‘the feeling is your guide’
• The ability to be a forever student to your own potential for depth
• A sense of when you 'know' and when you are not clear enough
• We are often asked about credentials. Your impact with your clients is your credentials (Okay yes, you do get a certificate too)

With our new appreciation for the essence of what really matters we have evolved our approach to your learning in three key ways.

We are creating a space for us to learn together in a way that allows you to discover a deepening of understanding that happens outside of what you know. A deepening that cannot come from a desire to ‘gather’ ideas or capability. The retreats and meetings will be structured for mental space to digest, reflect, and have new thought occur. A chance for you to feel in real time what mental space and a quieter mind has to offer. 

We feel excited to be launching this programme with this distilled focus and exploratory orientation.

“New thought always appears in the gaps.”

Lila Turner

(Guest host for the 2025/265 Retreat to be confirmed shortly.)

(Guest speakers for the 2025/26 programme to be confirmed shortly.)