ABTI | Joseph Riggio International

Joseph Riggio

The Fast Track To Success

Join A Learning Community And Uplevel Your Performance

Virtually 100% of our clients want to improve their ability to get their outcomes more effectively, efficiently and more reliably every time.

Another simple way to think about this could be the idea of upleveling your performance, personally and/or professionally.

We've been working with clients internationally for more than a quarter of a century providing them with training programs, coaching, consulting, advising and mentoring. This work has been our professional "life blood" so to speak, and yet, we have found that one particular approach to improving performance trumps them all ... being a part of a Learning Community. 

If you desire taking your personal and professional performance to an elite level find and join a learning community today, because nothing else you can do will propel your growth as fast as being a full and active member of a learning community.

What Is A Learning Community, And Why Are They So Powerful?

Learning communities have been around since recorded history, usually led by an expert of some kind ... for example Aristotle tutoring Alexander the Great and his friends under Philip II of Macedon's orders. This group of friends and peers were guided in the classical studies to hone them into brilliant strategists and military generals with Aristotle's guidance shaping their thinking and imbuing the with knowledge. This concept continued through the classical age, and we can see many forms in the historical documents of the world ... from Buddha or Christ teaching their disciples, to the Renaissance Guilds training brilliant engineers, architects and artists like Michelangelo. A more common modern example are our schools, and especially those that use small group tutoring models to hone the intellect in specialized training in the professions like law and medicine. So the learning community model is well proven and practiced over thousands of years of human performance training and development.

The keys to a successful learning community are threefold ... 
  1. A closely connected cohort of learners
  2. Specific direction of the learning experience
  3. Participation and contribution by the learners 


A fourth element can be the oversight by an expert leader of the community, but if the community is well designed with committed learners who are willing to fully participate and contribute, the oversight by an expert is not required. 

The Power Of The Group

When these three, or four, elements are present the speed and efficacy of the learning experience is magnified tremendously. The primary reason we've found that being a part of a learning community enhances and in many cases exceeds every other approach we offer rests in the power of the group. Groups have a unique place in human experience. Humans are by nature social beings, and the group is the most fundamental form of social experience. Essentially, we are evolutionarily designed to function and perform in groups, going back to our primal hunter-gatherer origins. Our entire evolution as a species formed us into the apex social predator in every environment we entered, from the savannah to forests, plains and deserts, all the way to and including to the arctic tundra. We were able to achieve this dominance by virtue of our ability to form cooperative groups that drew out the best from the group's members in collective performance. Easy examples of this are the modern form of athletes who compete in team sports at a professional level, demonstrating elite performance together.

Within the group setting learning becomes possible that would not be available in solo pursuit. In part the reason that learning becomes enhanced within the group rests of the ability to observe and learn from others, including the remarkable function of mirror neurons that literally map the performances we observe onto our own neural processing. In addition within specifically designed learning communities the experiences of the individuals who are members bring out information and experience that exceeds that held by any single individual. We find specific examples of this occurring naturally when group members ask questions that others haven't considered, but in doing so expand the discussion for all the members who belong to the learning community. 

How To Find And Join A Learning Community

There are many learning communities available in the modern world. Some of these communities meet in person. some of them meet virtually, and many are now offering both combined live and online meeting opportunities. 

One of the primary considerations you need to determine to decide if a particular learning community will suit you begins with your ability to participate and your willingness to contribute. You need to be able to commit to participating to get value from the community for yourself, and we've found in our decades of organizing and overseeing learning communities that the members who contribute the most, get the most from the community.

A good starting point to ask yourself would be, "Can I participate fully in the community given the place and time the community meets and the medium in which that happens?" 

For instance, are you looking for a live, in-person group, one the meets exclusively virtually, or some combination of the two? 

You might also consider the time commitment required by the community.

Some learning communities meet regularly and expect full attendance and participation. An example of this kind of community would be one of our mastermind groups or group coaching programs.

Other communities are more asynchronous and more loosely structured with regard to the commitment expected from your participation. An example of this kind of group would be like the groups found in social media ... on Facebook or LinkedIn ... or our public community for professionals here, and the groups we organize that support members in our specific programs.

Another question that will affect your decision will be, "Do you want to join a perennial group that continues indefinitely, or a group that has a defined period of time that it will be for before disbanding?"

We've run both kind of learning communities, those that go on for an indefinite period of time, usually for as long as the members are interested and active, and also communities that are defined by a particular outcome and will run for a specified period of time before ending.

An example of the first kind of community, the one that runs as long as there are members who are interested and active, would be our general members group here, or any of the groups you'll find on many social media sites. Other examples of this kind of community are well known, from fraternal and soroal societies, and self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. 

Learning communities like our masterminds and, group coaching and live coaching-based training programs are examples of learning communities that last for a specified period of time, with a defined outcome for the members. These have proven extraordinarily effective at achieving the results and outcomes they set out to realize because of all the reasons laid out in this article. 

So What's Next? 

Our recommendation would be if you are interested in realizing and experiencing the freedom and fullness of your own personal creative expression that you consider becoming an active member of our open community here online. 

We post regularly about topics regarding performance improvement and elite performance, and the membership is completely free and without obligation. Then if you'd like you might want to consider going further and joining one of our ongoing memberships or programs an experience what it will be like to take a deep dive into being part of a learning community, and gaining the benefits available to you when you do. 

In the meantime feel free to leave a question or comment below, and get started being a part of something a bit bigger than the solo journey right now ...