Rancho Grande Ent LLC - Colorado Springs Team Building

The full program is a weekend 'total immersion' experience.

Everyone takes the course together. This course is not really so physically demanding, but it is psychologically demanding as it truly must to be to really work. Each person will bring themselves to a comfort level that will allow them to honestly communicate to the others what their problems are as well as their strengths. The origins of the course are based on team building principles employed to train special operations groups such as IDF and US Special Forces. But we are not training you to be a commando, only showing you that you can think and perform like one.

Peyton Quinn: Author of the best selling book, Freedom from Fear. and the developer of the START program.

This program is a challenge but most everyone tells us that it was also "a hell of a lot of fun" as well and a great adventure in true self-discovery.

The START facility is located about 90 minutes west of the Colorado Springs Airport. We pick your people up at the airport and bring them to the center. The entire 40 acres of the START training center is surrounded by National Forest and a Federally designated Wilderness Creek runs through it.

The START Program: This is a program that can't be fully understood or appreciated until it is experienced. It is predicated on our all having the same innate biochemical systems. The vehicle for self-improvement and self-actualization is adrenal stress conditioning. This training develops some level of communication between the super conscious, self-aware mind and the "frog brain" or the lower, reptilian brain. This is because it is the non-self aware part of the brain (frog brain) that handles stressors.

What is a stressor ? A stressor is: An event or context that elevates adrenaline and triggers the stress response because it throws the body out of balance and forces it to respond; for example:

(1) Environmental stressors (loud noises, music that evokes bad memories, overcrowding, heat and humidity) (2) Daily stress events (e.g. traffic, lost keys, constant phone solicitors, etc) (3) Major life changes (e.g. divorce, loss of a coworker or leader, a take over by a larger corporation) (4) Workplace stressors (deadlines, reports, dealing with managers & supervisors, or the CEO )

A familiar example of the "Frog Brain" in action & a Stressor: Imagine you are teaching your kid to drive. You then see something that is alarming to you and your right foot stomps at a non-existent brake pedal on the passenger side of the car. Your self-aware mind knows there is no brake there. Hence, It was your "Frog Brain", which is not self-aware that did this. The stressor that elicited this was partly your 'not being in control of the car', and your previous driving experience that included adrenaline conditioned stress episodes.

THE RELEVANCE: A good deal of the non-productive behavior that employees engage in, in fact that everyone engages in, is directed by the "Frog Brain". But, this is the less than self-aware part of the brain. The adrenal release, even a slight adrenal release, engages the Frog Brain. Consequently, many of our behaviors are adrenaly conditioned into us without the engagement of our higher brain, that is our self-aware minds. This process is most often transparent to us, we just do not 'see it' happening. This is why we can engage in repeatedly non-productive behaviors, or even self-defeating behaviors because the self-aware mind is partially 'by passed'. The self-aware mind is where tactical judgment and the projection of consequences reside.

The Effect of an Adrenal Release on Learning and Memory: Things learned under an adrenal state are stored differently and in a different physical location in the brain than non-adrenal memories. This area of the brain is closer to the frog brain. This is the entire basis of PTSD too. Do you remember where you were when you heard that the spaceship Challenger crashed into the sea? Most likely you do as this was a mild adrenal event. But do you remember in any detail what happened the day before or the day after? Most likely not because these memories were stored in a non-adrenal state. They were thus 'ordinary memories' and thus less persistent memories too. Have you ever opened a box or trunk in an attic or some other place and when the fragrance inside escaped to your olfactory lobes it brought back a rather vivid memory? Perhaps even a memory that until you smelled that fragrance you were not consciously aware that you retained? All of this is part of the same whole. We can reprogram our responses to more productive ones once we understand and are aware of this process. Contact Peyton at:quinnp1@aol.COM