This post is provided by guest blogger, Wendy Frushon Tsaninos, alumna University of St. Francis, MS Training and Development program

While many employees may sigh loudly, roll their eyes, or make a scrunchy face at the mere mention of training, there are those of us who break into a wide smile, raise our hands to volunteer, and say, “Yay!”   We just have a passion for this process. Here are some lighthearted ways in which natural-born trainers reveal themselves.

• You’re usually the one to read the instructions to the new board game and explain to others how to play. Only after the first full round do you start to relax, once everyone has demonstrated competency. You might even throw out a “How are you liking this so far?” to get a sense of what new training opportunities, er, board games would be fun for this group.
• Your family members recall that once you learned how to read, you wanted to teach everyone how to do it too. Siblings, cousins, even the family dog. The dog was ok with it until you learned how to ride a bike.
• When you are in line at the store and a cashier has to stop to figure out how to change the paper roll, ring in a special discount, or some other task, you have to hold yourself back from helping or grabbing the manual. After self-restraint has been achieved, you wonder about the training program that store has in place.
• Whenever your parents asked you “what you learned in school today,” you answered in Fitzpatrick levels. You shared your opinion of the topic first. Next, you explained what you learned and casually remarked about avoiding or taking more of the subject’s classes “once I get to high school.” You made sure to tell them how you will “never use geometry” or how you are “going to try inventing a better ___” based on the experiment in science class. A few of you might have even thrown in ROI – “and then I will become a millionaire with my new design!”
• You were way more savvy than the other kids since you knew how to identify your stakeholders at an early age. They had no clue about leveraging grandparent support for the family vacation or getting the school coach to advocate starting a new sports team. You then approached your parents and the principal with confidence…ready to go to Disney and be captain of the new badminton team.
• You believe in those stock photos of business people in which they appear excited about the training they’re receiving. You think that’s what actually happens in your training classes. You allow no rain on your training parade.
• When people like the dish you bring to a potluck, you don’t give them the recipe – you invite them over so you can show them how to make it.
• After working with “the new guy” for a day, you ask for his evaluation of your training and what you could’ve done better. You are annoyed by any one-word answers and vow to create more open-ended questions for the next person you train.
• You taught practical subjects to pretend participants in your imaginary classroom as a kid, so you could determine your success with post-training outcomes. You even held a graduation ceremony. Over in the other imaginary classroom, your sister was teaching her fake students about unicorn care. You’re a trainer and she’s a teacher now.
• You have children named Addie and Sam.