# Truett Black

Truett Black writes and teaches about corporate training, facilitation, and workplace learning. Black's book, *Training Zen*, focuses on building a career in corporate training and facilitation, and on designing and leading effective training sessions and meetings.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/truett-black/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/truettblack
- Topics: learning-and-development
- Based on 11 dated posts, latest 2026-10-07

## Summary

They are useful for thought leadership content regarding corporate training, facilitation, and workplace learning.

- Best for: L&D consultancies seeking a named co-author for a thought-leadership series on facilitation.
- Not for: Campaign requirements for guaranteed reach, conversion tracking, or performance claims about measurable outcomes.
- Check first: Confirm terms, availability, and willingness to take paid work, as they do not mention rates.

### Takeaways

- They write about the gap between being given a deck and knowing how to facilitate.
- They discuss deep service being a competitive advantage only when paired with humility.
- They offer personal examples of distinguishing adaptive stress from burnout.

## Main ideas

- **Service is a competitive advantage only while it stays humble**: Black argues that the drive to serve clients and colleagues—a common trait among people in learning and development, training, coaching, and organizational leadership—becomes a business advantage over time. But the advantage collapses when pride in personal accomplishments takes over. It depends on humility and a desire to keep learning and serving people the way they most need to be served.
- **Running a session is a craft most internal trainers were never taught**: Black's recurring diagnosis: people who lead training sessions, workshops, or internal meetings want to do them well, but most internal trainers have never been taught how. They are handed a topic or a deck and told to present. Although the subtitle of Training Zen is about building a career in training and facilitation, Black says much of the book guides readers in designing and delivering learning events and important internal meetings to maximize impact and value.
- **Adaptive stress develops people; the skill is telling it apart from burnout**: Black sees stress as useful when it fuels learning and development, particularly during cross-cultural adaptation. The post quotes a summary rather than offering advice in Black's own words: managers should distinguish adaptive stress that drives development from chronic stress that leads to burnout.
- **Do not publish until the work is ready, even when others push you to ship it**: Black presents sustained revision as a standard, not a delay. Training Zen took thousands of hours over a five-year span and dozens of rewrites. When friends asked why not just ship it, Black says they refused to publish until the manuscript was ready. The same standard shaped the proposal process, which took about 40 hours before Productivity Press accepted it.
- **Write for the parts readers actually use, not for completeness**: Black aims to make the book useful in whatever portion readers need, whether all 203 pages or only the relevant sections. The project changed shape along the way: a leadership-book idea became a training book after peers urged Black to write down what they shared with them. A suggested 30-page e-book grew to 150 pages, then 203 pages before cover, foreword, and index.

## Work to read

- [Training Zen manuscript: copyedited, formatted, and moving toward launch](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/truettblack_trainingzen-corporatetraining-learninganddevelopment-activity-7400756790851792897-s-wi)
- [Why Training Zen became a book—and the peers who pushed for it](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/truettblack_trainingzen-writing-learninganddevelopment-activity-7405863844767522816-cZM9)
- [Training Zen: a guide for people handed a deck and told to present](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/truettblack_trainingzen-facilitation-corporatetraining-activity-7455475534744174592-mKsn)
- [Deep service as a competitive advantage—and the role of humility](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/truettblack_deep-service-as-a-competitive-advantage-activity-7436676607777366017-3v22)
- [Adaptive stress and cross-cultural learning](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/truettblack_why-stressed-candidates-make-better-cross-cultural-activity-7373666573011648513-7B8Z)

## Brand relationships

- **Productivity Press** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Substack** (mention)

## Partnerships

Across five posts spanning September 2025 to April 2026, Truett Black’s commercial mentions are limited to their own book: *Training Zen*, published through Productivity Press, an imprint of Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, and available at Amazon and Routledge. They also point readers to a Substack and a blog post of their own writing. The posts do not mention sponsored content, paid partnerships, affiliate arrangements, rate cards or advertising disclosures, and they publish no official inquiry route for partnership or sponsorship requests. Ask whether they accept sponsorships or commercial collaborations and request their terms and preferred contact route.

## Alternatives

- Vikki Lange: For a co-authored thought-leadership series on training and facilitation for an L&D consultancy, Vikki Lange is a better choice when the consultancy’s client work focuses on sales performance and team alignment, and the deliverable needs an established proprietary method plus a keynote-style workshop. The posts show corporate training built around the Adaptive Sales Performance Method™ rooted in Everything DiSC® and the Awaken-Define-Strengthen™ framework, as well as a workshop, “The Voice You Leave Behind™,” delivered to 50 regional leaders with a Self-Leadership IQ assessment and a digital Implementation Guide. If the consultancy wants a partner who can anchor the series in a sales-performance and team-transformation programme rather than in facilitation craft itself, Vikki Lange fits.
- Nadya Ramos: For a co-authored thought-leadership series on training and facilitation for an L&D consultancy, Nadya Ramos is a better choice when the consultancy’s primary focus is book marketing and positioning, not facilitation craft. The posts argue that a book should be treated as an offer and a client-acquisition tool, and that most experts invest in publishing, then let the book fade because they did not build demand before launch. If the consultancy is launching its own book or wants a co-authored piece on using a book to attract clients, rather than on designing and delivering learning events, Nadya Ramos addresses that need directly.
- Dr. Francis Mbunya: For a co-authored thought-leadership series on training and facilitation for an L&D consultancy, Dr. Francis Mbunya is a better choice when the consultancy wants to focus on personal purpose, consistency and structured development rather than facilitation craft. The posts describe a 90-day journey to discover, develop and deploy purpose, and a book, Design to Succeed, launching with that framework. If the consultancy’s series is about helping people turn potential into visible evidence in a defined period, and a co-author with a current book launch and a purpose-coaching angle is useful, Dr. Francis Mbunya fits.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/