BYOB Beginner Group Session 2024 10 16

So someone so. Hello. Hello. How's it going?

Good, good.

Hi. There's like a color theme. Jason, you match. Monica, you match Jason's ball.

Yes.

Well.

Yes.

And you both have.

It was totally on purpose.

Yeah. And you match my October.

Yeah.

Well, besides that, what are we celebrating today?

I'll go first. My voice is coming back, which makes me happy. And we had a coaching session yesterday and I've started. With, with the work and like writing down my positive affirmations to break some of the negative thinking loops. So I'm happy that I already took action on what we said we were going to do.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. I'm thinking like, oh my God, was that just yesterday? Yesterday was a very long day. Well done. And Monica.

Last night I led a discussion for a women in data networking session and it went really well. The, the conversation was flowing and there was lots of questions and yeah, it was really good.

Awesome. Are these people who you could potentially get corporate gigs with their companies or could refer you coaching clients or.

So there is. There was one person that I'm gonna follow up on. She works in a smaller, like family owned company that might benefit from some training. So I, I'm going to give a follow up to her. But it was a small group.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nice.

Okay, good, good, good. Okay, awesome. Well, I wanted to start today off with like a little, a little training. Just very short and first and foremost, you know, I had a realization personally yesterday in a program that I'm in that like there's when, when you start a business, you know, like you push yourself outside of your comfort zone and you get comfortable there and then you push yourself out of your comfort zone again. You get comfortable there and then there's going to come a point where you have a new comfort zone and you're like, oh my God, I'm not breaking out of it. And for me, I realized one of the things that my comfort zone is now is letting my work speak for me rather than letting me speak for my work. Right. And this is something that I realize has been holding me back in some areas. But you know, as I realize stuff that's holding me back, I get to turn it around to you guys and be like, hey, don't ever get in this trap where you're like, oh, well, my work just speaks for itself. Right. Want to just set the context that you get to be the biggest cheerleader of what it is that you do. Right. You get to be the biggest believer that what you do actually changes lives, actually changes the Trajectory of companies actually impacts people in. In numerous ways. And there's nothing. There's nothing, like, braggy about it. There's nothing wrong with being your biggest fan. And while, yes, like, your work is always going to speak for itself, you know, it doesn't have to be the only one speaking for itself, right? You do your work and the impact that you have in the world a disservice by not banging the drum about it, by not talking about how cool it is all the time. Right? And one of the ways we do this is by creating distance in between following up on stuff. Right? So the skill I want to teach you today is. Is just a simple little thing. So someone says, oh, my God, that's so interesting. Like, I think I need to talk to you about that. Oh, you do? What? Oh, I. I think I should talk to you about that. Your next sentence is, oh, cool. Well, let's just schedule something right now. Open my calendar. Let's see, what do I have available? Do you want to talk next Tuesday? I have. I have 2pm and 4pm available. We can totally talk about this, right? We get shy in those moments, right? Because it's like, oh, like, we're having a fun, like, casual social interaction. You're saying you're interested in what I do. I don't want to seem pushy, you know, but if they're really curious, oftentimes when we're curious about something, we kind of, like, throw it out there. Oh, I'm so curious to hear more about that. And then if we don't get an invitation, we're like, oh, they don't want to work with me, right? Or, you know, we follow up and they're like, oh, yeah, I did want to talk about that. But, like, the feeling's gone. The desires kind of, like, deflated a little bit, right? We want to always strike while the iron is hot, Right? When I worked at Equinox, we had a rule that if an online lead came in, someone inquired about membership at the club, you didn't get to it within five minutes, it went to the next salesperson. You missed it, right? Because that's how quickly someone can lose their desire to join a gym, right? 10 minutes, 15 minutes pass. They don't even know who Jim is. I love that joke. Anyway, but I want you to practice this. I want you to catch yourself when. When people are like, oh, my God, that's so cool. I think I need to, like, talk to you about that, because I might need something like that. You know, worst case scenario. You talk about it and it's not the right fit or it's not something that they actually need right now. Right. But you've just given them so much information about what you do. They can go and become a referrer for you. They can be, like a huge advocate for what you do, because now they understand what you do, you know, and the worst they're going to say is, oh, you know, I'm really busy next week. I. I can't. Then, you know that they were just being polite. Any questions or any, any thoughts as I'm talking through this? I. I'm.

I'm with you. Like, in, in the spirit of this, I think it's great. Where I'm at right now in my journey is people are not yet asking me, like, oh, I need to talk to you about that. So that's not happening yet. So I think, I think it just. Where I'm at, I need to get to that place somehow where people are asking me, oh, I need to talk to you about that so that I can use this training. So that's just where I'm at.

Yeah. So, okay. So, I mean, that's super simple. It tells us exactly what we can work on today. Because it's how you describe, like, what you do with clients. Right? I help clients who are in this situation get to that situation. You do what? I need that. Right. So tell me, when people ask you, like, what do you do? How do you answer that question right now? No, and I'm not, not going to make fun of it or anything.

Yeah, well, like, nobody's asking me what I do, so. And I've gone back and forth, what, like. But basically where I'm at right now is I don't feel like I have a defined niche that I'm working in. So I would have a difficult time answering that question, to be honest, because I've vacillated back and forth between helping people with making career transitions, which. Which ultimately, like, doesn't feel right to me. I know we've talked about how, like, I have the credibility, but it doesn't feel right to me.

Okay.

When I'm talking about it, because it doesn't light me up.

Okay. That's really important to know. Yeah.

Right. Like, what I keep coming back to is that the, the experience that I have in the world of, like, overcoming, Like, my struggle with substance abuse is the thing that. And the person that I want to help is the person who does not identify as I have substance abuse problems. I want to get the person who's like, oh my God. Like I see this coming a mile away and I know I need to do something about it, but I don't want to go to AA or I don't want to go to rehab and I don't know where to go, but it's not working on my own. But I need somebody and insert me like that's, that's where I want to.

Be.

Because that would make me feel like I was serving. Like, like I want to, I want to help people prevent like breaking up their marriage. Marriages and getting the DWI and like destroying the job and all those types of things. Like that would mean real purpose for me.

Yeah.

And I know that's probably not the best business model, but that's what lights me up.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's no, like there's no one best business model. Right. You know, I mean there's there. Each business model has pros and cons. Right? Right. So like even the coaching model, like you have an. Usually it's a faster path to cash because you're only signing up one client at a time. Right. And you're able to do it for a higher ticket amount, typically depending on what your niche is and like, you know, how specific your niche is and, and how much need there is, you know, for something like this. You know, we're relying on a population that typically is in a lot of denial during that period of time to have some self awareness that they need to cut it out. Right. And for those people to have their head up and be looking around for help and to be able to identify you. Right. My, my concern about you doing like one on one coaching in that space is you're going to get a lot of people like, oh my God, my uncle needs you. And you're going to get referrals. People who aren't ready.

Yeah.

You know, not to say you can't create like a group. A group call that you do like once a month. Once a week. That is for people who are like aa. Shy.

Yeah. I love the term. So precarious.

Like curious. Yeah.

You know, sober curious for men. Even like even more. Yeah. Distilled. Like, because like what I want is like the SaaS sales rep, the, the CEO, the, the, the guy who's going to get drunk at his accounting Christmas party and it's going to wake up with a whole pile of regret and thinking I need to do something differently. But I don't know how. Like those are the people that I want to ultimately attract because you asked me my why yesterday? And there's, to me, there's almost like purpose in the pain that I experienced. If I can help other people avoid that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so, so create a sober, curious club. You know, I actually, so I don't often suggest that clients start with like a group thing, but in this case where you already don't have a whole lot of time, you know, it could be something that's really economical, time wise and it would be a really great market research opportunity for you to identify if these are folks who would be willing to invest in one on one coaching for this problem. Right. And it might even reveal to you what another problem is they all seem to have in common. That you could potentially say I coach on that.

Would you charge for it?

I might do it as a free call for the first couple times. You know, I would do it once and promote the fuck out of it and just, and just make it about, hey, listen, like I, I got sober, you know, and it was hard and I let, I let my, you know, substance abuse get to a certain point. And this depends on how much how open you want to be about this. Right. And I don't want anyone to have to go that far. And I know a lot of people are hesitant to like talk about AA or this, that and some people, some people just want to like explore what it would be like to be sober. And I want to just open up a space where it's safe for us to talk about. Right. So I am, I'm doing this call, it's on this date, it's for these people and you can register and I'm going to be sharing like tips and tricks on how, how you can like try out being sober and this and that and the other thing. And then afterwards, like I would promote it once and then see how it goes and then do it a couple more times and see how many people you're getting like running them as experiments. And then, and then you can do a big announcement like, oh my God, I've been having these amazing phone, these amazing calls with folks who want to try out being sober and they've been, they've been going amazing and I realized that there's need for a greater community. Right. And then I would lead into charging for it. Right, that sounds good. Yeah, I like that. You know, and down the line, I mean like this could, this could potentially be something that you create this community and it's like an accountability thing. I mean down the line you could have an app created for tracking. Those are fairly simple you could write a book, you could be a keynote speaker for stuff like this. You know, you could be a consultant for liquor companies that want to offer, you know, non alcoholic options of their stuff, you know, and how to market them, you know, or you could identify what's a common problem that a lot of these folks have that you could do some one on one coaching on, you know, and you can see if they're willing to, if they're willing to invest in that kind of help.

I love that.

Yeah. Yeah. And unfortunately for folks who struggle with addiction, the folks who are willing to invest in help before they've gotten sober are their friends and family and their loved ones to learn how to deal with the, the person who's in active addiction. So, you know, it's tricky. And you're also competing with, you know, like, what does their health insurance cover and things like that.

Right.

So. But yeah, I would try it that way, but you know, and I just want to, I want to pause and say it's really important for us to check in with ourselves and make sure that we feel super aligned to what we're doing. Right. And this is going to change. You're actually going to see a big announcement from me on Friday where I'm kind of changing some stuff and what I'm talking about, you know, because I realized that like what I feel aligned to is kind of shifted a little bit. Right. Not going to change anything for you guys, but this, it just happens. Right. But you're going to feel far more dedicated to building the business if you feel aligned. Right?

Yeah.

Cool.

Thank you.

I feel good.

Yeah, it does. Because I was struggling with like, I kind of. In the beginning, I feel like I was just picking something because I felt like I had to pick it.

Right.

And I didn't really sit with it.

Yeah, but like you kind of do, right. You have to pick something and like be with it for a second and be like, ah, this isn't it. I'm good. Yeah, yeah. You're not going to have that visceral reaction until you've been with it for a little bit sometimes. Right. Like if I were like, do you want to start a coaching business where you teach accountants how to square dance and get in touch with their spirit guides? Like, you know, you may be totally into that. You might be like, yeehaw, like, let's go. Or you're like, that sounds awful. Absolutely not. Yeah, yeah, I just made that up. That's really funny. Could you imagine that business? Okay, anyway, good enough. Jason.

Yeah, thank You.

Monica, any thoughts on this for yourself? Do you now want to teach accountants how to square dance and talk to their spirit?

I kind of do. I kind of do. Just, like, the whole alignment thing.

And.

I. I don't know I'm aligned to what I'm doing because I've been doing it my whole career. Do I like what I'm doing? So now I'm just, like, in my head, like, I don't know what's going on. Yeah.

Okay, so let's. Let's actually do, like, one of my most favorite morbid exercises. I want you each to write your own eulogy. Like the eulogy that someone's gonna say at your funeral, ideally. All right, so I'm going to take, like, three to four minutes and just write down, like, the. The Cliff Notes of what they're going to say about you. Things and. And not realistic. Like, ideally, like, if you were looking down on your funeral and there's like, a thousand people there, they're all sobbing their hearts up because they're so heartbroken that you're gone. What is it that they're saying about you and celebrating about you? So why don't we do this? We'll literally sit down right now, and we're going to do four minutes of writing. And just whatever comes to mind first. Don't overthink it. Don't try to be perfect about. Okay. Whatever you have is perfect. Okay, Monica, why don't you go first? What. What's going to be said at your funeral?

All right, so the first thing I wrote down was, I don't think that anybody would say anything about my work. It was like, my first realization. Okay, she was silly and made us all laugh. She helped me feel comfortable dancing because she didn't care how bad she was at dancing. Her ability to cook dinner using whatever odd ingredients were already in the house was impressive. She always came to events when she said she was going to. She wasn't a flake, and she cried all the time, and it was funny. And super bowl commercials were her kryptonite.

I got. I got a little choked up at that. But how. What. What does it make you feel.

That I actually do cry and everything?

Yeah. Yeah. Including your own writing? Yeah. You know. You know, something that I think about you every day is that you make every aspect of yourself something to celebrate. You know, you do, like, from. From your background, like, all. All the, like, fun things that you're interested in to how you like to express yourself with how you dress and how you do your Hair and how, you know, you love nerding out on the things that you find interesting. You make it all just a part of who you are. You don't try to hide any of it, you know, and I almost wonder if that's, that's the area that you work on with clients. It's less about them and this, I'm not trying to change your whole business here if you don't want to, but, you know, I could totally see this for you, that, like, you work with people who have always thought that they have to hide part of themselves, you know, and you show them that they don't. Like, they don't have to hide parts of themselves. They, they get to, like, make it part of who they are and celebrate it. And instead of being afraid of being rejected for it, they get to use it as a magnet to attract the right people to them.

That's interesting. I don't know if I'd be good at it because I am so empathetic.

And I'm just like, that's exactly.

All a mess.

No, but that's why you'd be good at it. Seriously. Seriously. It's interesting being an empath. Right. It's because we take on a lot of other people's emotions, so we have to have good boundaries with it. Right. But that's, that comes with practice. And honestly, like, you know, that's one of the things that you learn in a good coach training school is, is how to, like, have the emotions on behalf of your client, but, like, not put it on your client. Right.

Yeah. I've never taken any, like, formal coaching classes before.

Yeah. It might be something to explore. I think you'd be really good at it.

Okay.

Yeah. And if any would be good, like.

An HR person because of, I think because of that aspect.

Yeah.

Which I thought was odd, but now it kind of makes sense.

Yeah. I, I, I mean, yes. But also, I think, I think you'd be wasted in hr. I really do. Because I think you see potential in people that they can't see for themselves. And oftentimes HR is, you know, kind of handcuffed to what's better for the business, not necessarily what's better for the individual. Yeah. Right. And I think that's one of your superpowers, is you see what's possible for the individual in front of you. You can see that. Yeah. You know, because everything you talked about was you make people feel comfortable. Right. You make people feel comfortable just being who they are, you know, because you're so comfortable with who you are.

Well, that's what we see. Okay.

Yeah. But you know, but even the fact that you're like, not always, like you're open about that, it's part of who you share, you know, of yourself or what you share of yourself. So something to think about.

Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. And if, if nothing else, it can become part of the flavor that you do your work with. Right. You know, it can be like the quirks of the business. Each business has its own quirks. I love Pokemon. You, you guys are really, really love your Excel spreadsheets. You know, there's a way to make them work within each other. I don't know, like, that's a really bad example.

Oh yeah, that sounds exactly like a post out, right?

Yeah, exactly. But I mean, you know, it's. Especially if you're working with smaller businesses who are, you know, they might not want to, I don't know, like buying, buying from like a sales force or something, like might not feel totally like the right fit for them, you know, or, you know, enter in big company here that offers some kind of weird solution. You know, you get to come in and be like, hey, what are the quirks of the business? What are the quirks of the personalities here? What's going to work for you guys, you know? Yeah, right. For your clients who want to get into data analytics, like, why are they in the job that they're in right now? You know, teachers get to bring their personality to work. You know, if you're a server, you, you get to pretty much work at a restaurant that, that vibes with your personality as well. A lot of the fear is like, I don't know if I'm going to fit into a corporate structure. And you can be like, cool, like there are some weird ass corporate companies. Like, you know, what's, what's the thing that you don't want to lose in your personality if you were to switch into a more professional, more quote unquote professional role, you know, into a more corporate role. Let's find a company that's going to help you be who you are there. Right. You know, and of course, I'm spitballing here, that might not be a concern that your clients have, but those are just some examples of how you could add this element of who you are into your work. Right? Yeah.

That's interesting.

Yeah. So think on it, you know, feel it out. Like, think on it in your head, but also like in your body. Okay. Yeah. Any questions?

Not anything immediately, no.

All right, cool then. Jason.

Okay. I wrote Jason was far from perfect, but he loved his family with all his heart. He spent the second act of his life helping people pedal their demons and come out on top. In this room, there are people that have saved their marriages, built their businesses and careers, avoided trouble with the law, and many more things like this. He did this by helping his clients and friends get really honest. Jason was tough, but caring and believed in people's greatness before people believed in themselves. Jason's work healed families and set people free from bondage. At the end, Jason was a truth teller and a freedom fighter.

So what does it feel to read that? What does it feel like?

Like, when. When I talk about getting honest and finding freedom, I actually get, like, goosebumps, pimples. Because my. My experience was that I was not free. And that's the question that really changed everything for me. Like, when I went from, is it bad enough to stop? To am I free? And, like, I know there are people out there that are serving those sort of, like, masters that, whether they realize it or not, have control over them. And I just want them to feel what it feels like to be free.

Yeah. Yeah.

That means something to me.

Yeah. I mean, and I think that's a great, you know, under, you know, confirmation that there needs to be a little shift in what you're doing with clients. Right. Because, I mean, that's what you want to have said at your. At your funeral, you know, helping people find a new job. Sure. Like, but that's not the heart of it.

No. Yeah.

Cool. So, yeah. Sounds like there's a little redesign happening.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I can feel. I don't feel things in my body, like, sharply. Very. Like, sometimes it's hard. Like, you'll ask me those questions. How does it feel in your body? And I'm like, I don't know. That's how I normally feel, But I. I feel that in my body. Good.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, our. Here's an interesting bit. Like, we have neurons in our heart tissue and throughout our digestive tracts. Right. We have, like. We're taught that we just have neurons in our brains. That's not true. Right. We do a lot of thinking with our heart and with our guts. However, like, in school, we're taught to think with our heads. Right. Our hearts and our guts don't have grammar centers. Like, they don't have. They're not very logical. Right. But we know there. Right. And yet, like, how many times do you have, like, a gut instinct? And you're like, logically, I'm thinking this Other thing though. Yeah, but if you followed your gut instinct, you would have been spot on. Right. Even though you didn't have A, A, B, C, D, logical steps to come to this conclusion kind of reasoning. Yeah, right. You know, so it's, it's a practice to really start tuning into, you know, your heart center and to your gut and just, just do check ins. Like, is this feeling aligned? Is this actually what I want? You know what's, what's interesting when you do that is if you're sick, if you're having like digestive issues, you're going to have a really hard time getting in touch with your gut. This is also why like when you're sick, like your short term memory kind of struggles, right? Because a lot of it lives in our gut. Right? And if your gut is working to fight, you know, both, like what is it? 70% of our immune system exists in our gut as well. So if it's, if it's working on fighting shit, it's not working on thinking and remembering stuff. But it's also why like when we, when we send stuff from our heart, like we don't have words to it immediately. It's like this welling of feeling, but we can't, like we struggle for the words because it doesn't have a language center. Right. And we're taught that if you can't put words to it, it doesn't mean anything. Right. So our job then becomes like, feel the thing and be able to translate it. So we're going deep today. Any final thoughts on this?

This is helpful.

Good. Well, should we take it to open Q and A? What can I help on? What do you have questions on where are you getting stuck? I.

Had somebody sign up for a strategy call next week and it was somebody that a while back was like, I want the services, but I don't have money and I'll come back. And so they came back and in my head I'm like, do I treat the sales call any different at all?

Okay, okay. If they're like, nah, like let's just do this, then you're not gonna be like, no, no, no, no, let's get it. Yeah. If they're like, yeah, yeah, this is it, like I want to do this, then just follow their lead. But otherwise acknowledge that you've spoken before. Like, like I know we spoke a while ago, you know, and this is where you were thinking, do a little check in on that and say, do you want to, do you want to make sure this is the right fit? Now let's talk through to have your goals change. You know, what, you know, what obstacles are you seeing right now? You know, I, you know, I would, I would gauge it with them and see, like, where they're at.

Okay.

They're like, I'm like, I. I want to explore this again. Then I would just say, cool, let's just pretend we didn't talk before and let's go through it again. Okay. Yeah, that's fair.

All right. Yeah, that works.

Hopefully they haven't forgotten that they booked a call with you before.

No, because. Yeah, that's too funny. That's too funny. Yeah, no, she acknowledged it and said, okay, I'm back. Let's have this, you know, revisit the talk. So.

Okay, great. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, that kind of stuff, it depends on the person. It depends on what the conversation was previously. And, you know, yeah, I'll know how they start it. You know, okay, yeah, that's fair. But if, if, if they're like, yeah, like, I. I want to talk about this again. And, like, it's not a for sure, yes, but want to explore it, then I would. I would say, okay, let's pretend we didn't talk previously then, because I want to make sure I'm, you know, whatever it is that your goal is now and whatever obstacles there are now, I want to make sure I understand them all. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Congratulations. That's exciting.

Oh, thank you. I know. Like, somebody actually came back after they said they were going to. That's awesome.

No, it's funny. There are, like. I guarantee you there are people out there who are thinking about booking with you guys who never made you aware of it. And that's kind of annoying. But the fact that you've been so consistent. Monica, I guarantee you there are more people who are like, I need to book a call with her at some point. Right? Yeah. One of the questions that might be interesting to find out is especially if she signs up after she signs up, being like, well, I'm just curious, what was the moment that you decided you needed to do this?

Okay.

Because once you understand what that moment is for her, I. I imagine that's kind of like the no moment for a lot of people. Okay, Right.

Cool.

That's a good one. Yeah. Awesome. And let us know how it goes.

Of course we'll do. Yeah.

What other questions do we have? What.

What was the name of the movie that you talked to me about yesterday? I forgot to write it down.

Exit through the Gift Shop. Monica, I've told you to watch this before. Right.

I started it and. But I didn't finish it.

Okay.

It was very, very artistic.

It is pretty artistic, but worth finishing because the end is like, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, let me share my screen. You can see. Yeah, I think it. Yeah, it's on YouTube, of all places.

Okay.

Yeah. It's an hour and 26 minutes. Actually. I. Can you watch it for free? Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

Thank you.

Welcome. What other questions do we have? There isn't a question coming to mind. One thing that you said, Jason, that I want to circle back to. I know you're in the. In the midst of looking for a new job, but I want you. I want everyone in more situations where you're meeting new people. Because if you're not getting asked what you do, that means you're not talking to new people who don't know how to put you into context. Right. So one of the ways that I like doing, like, if you're learning how to network, one of the. The tools that I love are two of them. Meetup an Eventbrite. And actually, here, let me. I'm going to open up Eventbrite and show you guys what I do. Because you don't necessarily even have to go anywhere. You can do it all virtually. Okay. So event types, search events, online events. Oh, this is organizer. No, just kidding. Hold on. I don't want organizer. Okay. Search events. Okay. So what we want to do online, They've updated this since I've done this last. Okay. So online networking. Yeah. So real estate. And then of course, like, say, let's just see what there is sober online networking.

Oh.

And I think I'm limited because it's taking me to Cape Cod and that's online events. It's not as bad. These are really bad events. Okay. Okay. So I'm getting a lot of business building stuff because Eventbrite reads my cookies and it knows that that's the kind of stuff I want. But basically, you know, you can go on here, you can look for events in your area, you can look for online stuff. I would look for, like, networking with, you know, marketing folks or sales folks or people in engineering or people in audit. Might be a tough one, Monica, but like. In Internet security, you know, data security, things like that. And like anything that has you, like, just coming into contact with other human beings, even if they're not necessarily your ideal clients. Right. Because having those conversations, remember, everyone, you know, knows someone who could be your ideal client. Right. And it just is great practice for you to have a moment to introduce yourself and hopefully have that moment where they're like, oh my God, I think I need that, or I think I know someone who needs that. Right. And your first response is going to be amazing. Let's book a time to chat and you can do this in the chat of the zoom or. Cool. What's your info? I'll, I'll email you and we can, I can give you some instructions how to refer them. Right. We always want to get the ball in your court. Right. But I think, and also, you know, Jason, you could use this to potentially network for a new job as well. Right, Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, social media is this. Essentially it's hi, everyone, like, let's meet. Right. But it's not that conversation. It's just, it's more, there's more barriers to it, obviously. Right, right. More networking things that you can do where you're actually meeting other human beings. It's going to be really impactful.

Okay.

So. And I've gotten clients that way. Honestly, it's, it takes time and, and full transparency. You're gonna go to a couple networking events and they're gonna be awful. Okay. If that's your first one, don't get discouraged. You just kind of have to go to a bunch to see which ones are good. Right. I went to one where there were like only two people and one of them was just talking about how much she loves dolphins. But I felt trapped because I was like one of three people and you can't just like peace out of a three person meeting. And like, I love that she loves dolphins that much, but it wasn't, it wasn't helping anyone, so.

Right. So how do, how do you gauge what, what's like when you go into one of these networking things and you, when you walk away saying, like, that was a good one, what are the things that you're looking at?

So I'm looking at how many. Okay. So a few factors. Do you have a moment to connect with other people? Right. And it might be. So there's one networking event that I really loved. It was by like this business owner in Virginia who during the pandemic still wanted to network because she was a branding specialist. So she just got a bunch of people together and how she organized it was everyone, like you could apply to present, but before everyone present, someone presented. Everyone got to introduce themselves and they had like 45 seconds to introduce themselves to say what they did. Right. And then they got to make an ask of the community. Right. So like you Know someone was trying to book speaking events or if another person was looking for referrals, you know, you got to ask for that. Right. And then there was invitation to connect further, you know, in the chat. And then towards the end it was like a 10 minute talk from someone who's training on something or just talking about their business. Right. That was a really good one. Another good model is like you show up and you're asked a question, then you're sent into breakout groups. So that way you're like with like four or five other people and you're all getting to kind of have that connection, that moment where you're talking about a topic that might be relevant to your business, it might be relevant to the industry you're in, it might be more personal, but it gives you that opportunity to, to have that experience. And then another one is like almost like speed dating where you're in the group and it's like cool. I mean we're going to be putting you into rooms of two and you get like two minutes each to talk about like what you're up to and to learn about the other person and. And then you're moved on. Right. They're all different. And honestly like some I like better than others, but it's just my personal preference, you know, for you, you get to decide what works best for you. Right, right. What we don't want is like it's a networking event, but it's not really a networking event. It's like a trick into a sales webinar. Sometimes that's, that's what people can do and it's really gross. So. But you know, if it turns into that, you just leave.

Yeah, I got invited to a Mastermind group on LinkedIn that it felt like that.

Yeah.

Recently.

Who did you get invited by?

Can't remember her name. But the. It was. They wanted to set up a call and she prefaced it by saying like this isn't a sales call. We just wanna. I was like, it had sales call written all over it. I don't know, my senses went off.

Yeah, yeah. Trust your Spidey senses. Absolutely. Yeah. A lot of that's pretty gross. Is a side note. Side note because you're gonna see a lot of this coming up. The ftc. So if you're thinking about buying followers or if you have in the past, no shame. If you have. Okay, good. But if you're thinking about it, don't do it. The FTC on the 21st, a new rule goes into place where if you've bought followers and you're using that account to sell something, you can get whacked with a $51,000 fine. Yep. Because oftentimes people like connect credibility to how many followers you have because that's how people leverage it. Right. You're more credible the more followers you have. Right. And you're about to see a lot of creators either disclose, hey, I bought followers at one point. Sorry, I'm not proud of it. I think that's the most integrity based way to deal with it. I'm sorry, I'm not proud of it. Don't do it anymore. My community that I've created here is so special to me. And also, like, I, I want you to know, you know, the smart ones are doing it before the FTC rule goes into effect. The dumb ones will do it after they get in trouble. You'll also see a lot of creators getting hacked. Get what getting hacked? Their account got hacked and shut down.

Okay.

They shut down that account because it has fake followers on it. So. But this goes for paying for downloads on podcasts, this goes for followers, this goes for. I'm actually really curious if like Trump will get whacked for this because he lies about how many people come to his rallies and he's technically using his platforms to, to sell stuff and to get, get monetary gain. So it'll be really fascinating to see what happens. But just the 21st of this month. This month. Yeah. Okay.

Interesting.

Yeah, yeah. Using testimonials. If you're like, if say you have one business and you're starting a separate business, if you use testimonials from this business for that business, you'll get whacked for that as well. Of course, like coming up with fake testimonials. A lot of, a lot of online creators apparently, like take one testimonial and then pop it in chat GBT and ask chat GPT to come up with like different variations of that testimonial. And of course that's illegal, but now it's really illegal. So. Yeah, but it's interesting. I was talking to David Fryman about this and apparently like they have done. Economists have done studies on the fraud that happens in the online business space. And it's actually been just so damaging to our economy. And it has, it has, I think, led to like a rise in, in people having to declare bankruptcy and businesses going bankrupt and, and all this stuff. It's really, it's really vile what's been happening, but just want you guys to be fully aware of what's coming down the pipes, FTC wise. And it really doesn't matter if you're based in the US or not, because if you do business in the us, the ftc, through its connections with other governments can still whack you.

So it's good to know. Yeah, I wouldn't even know how to buy followers.

I know.

I was just thinking that too. I was like, I don't even know how to go about doing that.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. But like, pods, that's a very gray area. You know, if you're in an engagement pod, that could potentially be perceived as buying followers or buying engagement. So, yeah, I ran into this. LinkedIn gurus who are going to be shut down after this.

Yeah, I ran into this one woman who was everywhere and we had a call a couple of weeks ago and she told me she was only talking about the thing that she talks about for a month, and she has like 70, 80 comments on all of her posts. Like, and it's like, happened so fast. It's like she posts it and it's like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And she. She didn't outright come out and say that she's in an engagement pod, but I just don't know how else you get that kind of engagement.

You don't use the engagement pod. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's. Everyone wants a shortcut, right? I want a shortcut. I'm sure you guys want a shortcut. Yeah, sure, if we can find the shortcut, great. But unfortunately, some of the shortcuts, like, hey, they don't. They don't work. Like, the 70 to 80 comments she's getting, they're not ideal clients. And actually, she's hurting herself because it's training the algorithm to put her in front of more people who are desperate for engagement, not desperate for the thing that she's selling. Right. But also now it can get you into serious hot water if someone actually does buy from you. Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I don't know, but warn your friends. Tell everyone. We don't want anyone in our community getting hit. Yeah. So, yeah, I had another thought and it went away. Okay, well, then it. It'll come back if it's important, but any other questions before we wrap up for today?

Is there. Are you still doing those brave, brave biz labs after hours? Are those done?

They should be.

Yes.

But thank you for bringing it up because it's not in heartbeats. I will talk to my team about putting them back on. Thank you.

Is there one today or.

No, there's There wouldn't be one today. There would be one next week.

Next week.

Yeah. And I only say that because if you guys aren't. Wait, hold on. Yeah, this is. Yeah, let me. Let me just teach you from my experience, this is why you need to find the right OBM the first time, because switching.

What's an obm?

Online business manager.

Okay.

My first. So I hired my first OBM in 2021, and she really should have fired me as a client about six months in when she realized that, like, what I was asking for was not in her technical ability to provide. Instead of being like, yes, and then trying to figure it out, because she was trying to figure it out without knowing what she was doing. And I don't think she's a bad person, but I, you know, worked with her for longer than I should have, and she built a lot of systems that we just had to tear it down and then we had to rebuild everything. And it would have been so much better if we. I just built everything with the team that I have now rather than with the wrong person. So at the point where you're ever thinking about hiring an obm, I don't care if we're working together still or not. Call me. Call me and ask who you should work with at that time, because I will put you in touch with the right person. Because this. This where, like, things get missed. This is shifting from one system with one person to another system with another person. Right. So. And it's. Yeah, it's annoying and it's a pain in the butt and. Yeah. But anyway. Yes, to answer the question in a very long, sideways way, Brave Biz Labs after hours will still be going on and it'll be next week. And I think there was something else, scheduling wise, that we needed to change on it. Just stay tuned. It'll. It'll be on the calendar for next week at some point. Okay. All right, cool. Any other questions? Okay, cool. What are your main takeaways today?

That it's okay to be emotional and I need to figure out a way to make it my superpower.

Huh.

Mine are. There's a networking piece and then there's the piece about following, like, the heart centered knowingness that I'm, like, actually taking the time to explore and work through.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so important. It's so important. You know, neither one of you is like, I want to get rich quick. I mean, that would be nice, but that's not your only driving force. You. You want to do something that you like doing. Right. We can't jump over that part. Right? We can't jump over the emotion. Yeah. Beautiful. All right. Great work today. You know where to find me if you have any other questions, and I will see you on Friday.

Thank you.

Thank you.