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Create a Support Network

Lesson 29 from: Master Your People Skills

Vanessa Van Edwards

Create a Support Network

Lesson 29 from: Master Your People Skills

Vanessa Van Edwards

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Lesson Info

29. Create a Support Network

Lesson Info

Create a Support Network

(applause) Welcome to day 29, Awesome Club. I've been looking forward to this for the entire 28 days before this. I am so excited that we are. Today I'm gonna help you up your personal power, and this is all about building a support team and achieving your goals because we cannot do it alone. Sometimes we have trouble asking for help. Today is all about that, but first, I have a little warm up for you. I wanna know what are some of your biggest professional challenges? What are things that you deal with in your professional world that challenge you, obstacles, things you need to work on? I actually want everyone to very briefly answer this. I think, Jason, we started with you last time. Are you okay starting again? Sure. Sure. Focus. Focus. I like it. Direct; boldify; yeah. Confidence in myself, to move forward. I feel like I spend so much time creating for other people, that I don't give the time to myself to create my own stuff. Yeah, making the space and time to create for you. Ye...

ah. Yeah. Courage. Courage. Thinking of the best way to offer the thing that I do. Aah, phrasing, as well as packaging. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. Confidence. Confidence and courage, very closely aligned, yeah. Differentiating myself. My insecurities. Yeah, overcoming them, owning them. Yes. Yeah. Impatient. Impatient; tell me about that. I start something, and while I'm in the middle, I get bored with it and go start something new, and just leave it in the middle, and this just keeps on going and going. Impatience and follow through. Yeah, and to some extent, goes align with focus also too. Yeah. Productizing and delegation. Just being dedicated to it. Sticking with it, dedication. Yeah. Procrastination. Okay, (laughs) yes. Communicating that I need time doing something completely unrelated before I can figure out what the solution is. Hmm. That's the way that you process. Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. Consistency and interdependence. Interdependence, tell me about that. What does that mean? Realizing that taking help and delegating to other people, and together having a synergy to do a lot more than what you can do all by yourself. Believing in that every day is the hardest part. Yeah. Cool, that's what all about today is a lot, yeah. I think just effectively prioritizing what I do, to take the best advantage of my day. Yeah, absolutely. We should probably have a 30-day productivity course. Is that what I'm hearing, guys? We need to do (laughter) 30 days of productivity science and anti-procrastination 'cause that is a totally different bag of tricks (laughs). (audience agrees) Here is some of the stuff that we often hear, and this is exactly what you guys said: getting support; unbiased feedback; accountability for goals, which is all about follow-through and impatience; meeting like-minded people; asking for help; these are all things that we struggle with. Today, I hope that we can address some of those concerns. I also wanna point out that Awesome Clubs, which I haven't yet explained, and there's a lot of mystery around them, is that genius comes from combining strengths. Being a good people person, being a highly successful people person does not mean that you are the only one who has to have the strength. It's about combining strength, and that's where true genius and creativity comes into play. There's a story that I find so inspiring on this, so Mick Pearce is an architect in Africa, and there was a project, a competition, where architects from all over the world could submit plans for the Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe. They opened this up to architects, and they said, "Submit your plans "for this center, and we'll pick the best one. "We won't even look at credentials or anything. "If you have the best plan, we'll pick it." Mick Pearce, the beginning of his career, was like, "Okay, I wanna win this." He looked at all of his architecture books and tried to figure out exactly what he wanted to do, but he realized that maybe if he went outside of his typical realm, outside of his industry, he might be inspired. He started to talk to anthropologists and zoologists because one of the things in Zimbabwe is that it's very, very hot, and power, the power grid, is not reliable, so he had to think of building that would be able to stay cool and not use a lot of energy on the grid. He realized that termite hills are able to stay at 72.5 degrees, no matter what the temperature is outside. He was like, "How do they do this? "How do termites build a mound, a 3D mound, "to stay cool and stay hot "no matter what the temperature is outside?" He started to study mounds, termite mounds, and they actually use a very complex system of flaps in a mound; that's how they do it. They use small openings and holes throughout the hill, and they funnel in the cold air and the hot air. He built a plan, wrote up a plan, for the Eastgate Centre, based on a termite mound. His plan selected, and they actually built the Eastgate Centre based on the mechanics of a termite mound, in Zimbabwe. It's one of the lowest energy buildings they have in Africa. This came from not being the deepest expert in his field, but by combining strengths, by going outside of his normal realm, and going to people and going to subjects that he could depend on that were intelligent and see how he could leverage that strength. Support is also important from a science perspective. Srinivasan Pillay does a lot of research on the brain, and he found that the brain makes the best decisions when given information from multiple inputs. The brain actually likes to have multiple different perspectives, opinions, and inputs, to make a good decision. Our brain likes to have that. We don't think that usually. We think actually we want one source of information, and we directly make our decision, but actually, our brain likes to have lots of different sources. We know that we don't have all the information we need. We're better off going to get it and gather it. He also found that goals are more likely to be achieved when they are spoken aloud, when they are spoken to others, that when we want something, the more we say it, the more we talk about it, the more we ask for help, the more likely it is that that goal is going to be achieved. This, taking these scientific principles is skill number 31, Build Your Support. Highly successful people need to be supported too. It does not mean doing it alone. Combine intelligence, strength, and support to be your best self. How do we do that? We do that using what's called an Awesome Club. Some people like to think of this as a resource circle, a personal board of directors, or a mastermind. An Awesome Club is a very, very specific way of interacting with people and asking for support. It is science-based; it's what I use in my life to get accountability, feedback, and help from people who are in my industry and outside of my industry. The official definition: a close knit group of like-minded individuals who come together to offer support, help, and accountability. I put an asterisk on like-minded because like-minded does not mean they have to be the same as you. It does not mean you have to find someone else in your same industry. In fact, the more we vary that intelligence, the better. Like-minded means that you have similar values. You value support; you value growth; you value getting feedback. Again, it's not the same; it's attuned, not aligned. Why do we do Awesome Clubs? What, why, when, how is what we're gonna be doing. Why? The goals of Awesome Club: number one: it's a formal way to ask for support. Especially entrepreneurs, we have a lot of trouble asking for help. This is a way to formalize that, so you don't have to feel guilty about it. It's a way to get constructive criticism. Remember how I talked about, back in day six, The Art of Listening, where someone from one of my Awesome Clubs, in a loving way, told me, "You interrupt." That was one of the best pieces of feedback I have ever gotten. Some of the best support I get is from my Awesome Club because it is a formalized way to create a safe space and ask people I respect, "Okay, "I'm ready for the feedback." Also, for me, as a high neurotic, I know that I need to prepare mentally for those kinds of conversations. It's a way for me to mentally prepare for that feedback. It also gives us goal accountability. Even the most high conscientious among us, even if we have tons of goals, not speaking those goals aloud makes it hard for us to stay accountable to those goals. This is a way to get goal accountability. It's also a way to offer help. It's wonderful to help our peers. It feels great to be with like-minded individuals who we respect and say, "I've learned the hard way. "Let me share with you my mistakes, "so you don't have to make those mistakes." It's incredibly fulfilling to be able to offer help to people that you care about. Number five: harnessing the brilliance of a team, so combining intelligences. Maybe you are interpersonal and intrapersonal, but by getting someone's help who's analytical logical, they can help you break down a problem that you are able to see in that way because they just have a different kind of intelligence than you. Number six is whatever goal you have. Awesome Club is what you make it, and we're gonna see that there's a structure to it, a format that I would recommend you use, but you can tweak it to make it work for you. Whatever that sixth goal is, I want you to fill that in for you. Who? Who do you put on your supportive team? Who do you put in your Awesome Club? I recommend it should have two to eight members. I've been in a couple of different Awesome Clubs, some worked, and some didn't. Two is okay. For my low extroverts, you might wanna start with two. That feels a little bit more intimate. That's less overwhelming. That's totally fine. I've found that more than eight, the meeting lasts too long. It's a little bit too hard to keep track of everyone, and it ends up being a two or three hour meeting. Eight, for me, has been the most, but for you, you might wanna have more than that. Here's the other qualifications for your supportive team. First and foremost, they should be nourishing people. The very first day, I want you to flip back in your notebook and look at the people that you listed in your nourishing section. Those are the kind of people you wanna have in your supportive group. The people who you look forward to spending time with, who fulfill you, who you respect. Mutual respect is the big one. I don't, when I say mutual respect, I mean that they don't have to be smarter or more important or less important, it's that you both have a respect towards each other, where you want to hear the other person's opinion. Doesn't matter what industry they're in, that you know that whatever they say is going to be helpful in credible and intelligent. Valuable opinions and non-competitive. The last one, non-competitive, is important because in Awesome Clubs, it has to be a safe space, and if you have someone who's too similar to you, or is in your industry, it can feel like, "Uh-oh, am I giving away my secret sauce?" I want you to be really careful that it's not someone you have any competition with, so it stays a safe space. The last one, of course, is up to you. Maybe it is someone that you want to, you want only other high conscientious people, whatever that is for you. Maybe you want people who are local, whatever that is, I leave that blank for you to decide. Other thing about who. Here are the questions I want you to ask yourself when you're thinking about, "Who should I ask "to be in my Awesome Club?" just some things to get your juices flowing. What I want you to do is as I read these questions out loud, write down the first person who pops into your mind. Okay, don't overthink it, just write down that person. Who would it be helpful to get feedback from? Who can serve as a role model or peer mentor? Who can you learn with? Who will hold you accountable? Who do you want to help? Did anyone have names pop into their head right then, when I talked about that? What names popped in your head? If you wanna keep them anonymous, you absolutely can, but what kind of person popped into your head just then? Lisa, I saw you-- Somebody-- Yeah. Yeah. Mary, she's still in digital marketing, so gets it, but very different what she does. Very different, but you respect her opinion, a lot of mutual respect there. Yeah. Which question hit for you? I would want her feedback, and I would really like to help her too. Yeah. So-- Cool. Yeah. I love that, that mutual respect is right there already. Who's someone else who popped into your head, and which question was it that hit it for you? Yeah. One of my sisters is doing a certification program with me, so we'll be able to learn together. Fantastic. Who do you like to learn with? I love it; keep that goal accountability as you're going through a program. Who else had some people? Yeah. In my case, I think I have a person for who can you learn with, I do have an accountability partner, and we kind of discuss, and I do respect his opinion in some of this, but I find it difficult to have all five in the same person, so I kind of split it between a few people. Yeah. Then, they may not require my help at all, and then the peer mentor or role model is somebody different from who I wanna help. You can do a couple different Awesome Clubs with individuals, or you can have one. I find that one person rarely embodies all of them, but it helps you figure out who are the three or four people you might start with, to talk to? Yeah, and by the way, you might have a group or a person that you already kind of do something like this with, I hope you can think about adopting the structure that I'm gonna give to it, which helps make those meetings more productive. Maybe with your accountability partner, you can add in some new structure to it. Where? In your workbook, I have a little bit of a list of potential places for your Awesome Club, where you can think about where you wanna do it. Thrive locations, conference calls, video chat, you can do this in person, on the phone, or online. These do not have to be people in your city. I'm in one Awesome Club that's completely virtual, so we do Google Hangouts once a month. That's how we decided to do it. You can do it either in thrive locations for you, so places that you like; you can do it on conference calls; or video chat. For my low open low extraversion people, I want you to think very carefully about three things. First, please start small. Don't bite off more than you can chew. One other person, maybe three people, that's enough. I also think you should start informally. Informally means that you don't jump into, "Let's have an Awesome Club meeting." It means let's just have a coffee and talk about the idea of learning, talk about this course, and see if you're jiving. Start really informal, just with a couple coffees and say to them, "Hey, I'd love to have coffee "once a month, "or once every three months, would that work for you?" see how it feels to you before you set it formal because it takes you a little bit longer, and that's okay. Of course, for you, especially, picking thrive only locations. Maybe that's your home, maybe that's your favorite restaurant, maybe that's your favorite coffee shop, maybe that's on the phone, so that you have a little bit of space, whatever is a thrive location for you. The next question I get is when. You can do this whenever you want. I personally recommend monthly. I've found that that is a really good time to get enough done. Some people like weekly. They want a lot of accountability. I found that low conscientious people like to have it weekly, so they can have someone who's high conscientious help with their goals and their to-do list. Totally fine. I also have people who say, "Monthly is too much for me. "I travel too much; I just can't do it. "It needs to be every three months, "maybe once every six months. "It's a long meeting, but it's really in-depth. "I can take care of the to-do stuff in between." It's totally up to you, what you feel comfortable with. How? This is the most important part of Awesome Club, the method. I'm very excited to give this to you guys 'cause for me, it's absolutely changed my business. I mentioned earlier that I have stopped doing a lot of networking events and replaced that time in my week with Awesome Club because I found that at networking events, I was having good connections, but I wasn't in the place in my business where it was generating a lot of business for me. I really preferred to have accountability. I prefer to get constructive feedback and support, and so I counted out about the amount of hours I spend per week going to networking events, and I've been slowly subbing it out with Awesome Club meetings. For me, it has been a huge, huge business builder. Here is the method for Awesome Club. Every time you meet at Awesome Club, you're gonna ask five questions to each other. This structure is incredibly important. It keeps you on track. Otherwise, those personal board of director meetings, or mastermind meetings, they can sorta devolve into event sessions, and you don't know what happens or where they're going, sometimes one person can dominate the conversation, they don't mean to, but they just dominate the conversation, or passives get lost if they're afraid, they don't get heard at all, so adding this structure makes sure that you stay on task. It also formalizes asking for support. We talked about how hard it is to ask for support. This forces us to do it. First question, what are you working on? Really basic. What are you working on right now? Catch me up from the previous month. What's the big project for this month? Number two, what was your biggest success this month? We do not celebrate our wins enough. Never, we never do, we never take a moment to be like, "Wow, I've come a long way. "I hit that goal; that was awesome." I wanna formalize that you have a peer group of people who can be like, "Congratulations! "That is awesome; let's take a moment and celebrate you, "and celebrate how awesome this win was for you" because that helps us notice our progress. The brain loves progress. Remember how in the motivation hygiene theory we talked about progress is one of the things that our brains loves? It makes us happy and satisfied in our job? Celebrating our successes makes us feel like what we're doing is worth it. All that work we're putting in, we're actually hitting those goals. Third, what is your biggest obstacle right now? You can also say challenge, if you want. It might not be an obstacle. What's your biggest obstacle? What's your biggest challenge? It could be that you're working on the past month that you know is coming up. This is when you get to go into problem and solution mode. You can stay, typically, people do about a minute to five-minute updates on number one. They might do maybe three or four minutes on number two. These are pretty short. The longest one is what is your biggest obstacle? This is where you get constructive feedback. I need help with this, where you ask your peers, "Okay, how do I fix this "problem? Here's the challenge I'm facing," and you stay there for each person until you've sort of figured out what are the action steps? That is what comes next. What are one to three MAC goals before the next meeting? MAC is an acronym. MAC stands for, I have a MAC (Daddy) Goal Worksheet, measurable, attainable, and competent. Okay. I noticed in a couple Awesome Clubs, then we decided to change the format, that people would say really, really big goals that either weren't measurable, so they would be like, "I really wanna lose weight," and you could never really celebrate that because you never knew if it was enough or when you achieved it, so measurable. I wanna lose 10 pounds the first time I meet with you, by the next time we meet. I wanna get three new clients. I wanna get a client for over $5,000. I wanna get 100 more new newsletter subscribers, a measurable goal. It also needs to be attainable in a month, or three months. Whatever time you have for the next meeting, it needs to be make sure that you can actually achieve it, otherwise you set yourself up for failure. The last one is competent. Competent is does it fit with your big mission statement? The first time you meet with someone, I have a little worksheet for you in your extras. It's actually not in your workbook, it's just a purchased material that's a download. You can see what is the other person's professional mission statement and what is your professional mission statement? Right in the beginning, you already know what the big, their big legacy is, and so making sure that the goal fits in to their overall picture. One, two, three, four, what are your MAC goals for the next meeting? The last question, which is the most important, in my opinion, how can we help? How can we help each other do this? How can I help you do this? I find that women have the most trouble with this one. The first time I do Awesome Club with new women, they'll be like, "Oh, I'm fine. "I don't need any help; it's all good," and you have to answer that question. You must answer every single question because we have to get in the habit of asking for help. We're so unused to it. It literally is like lifting a new muscle in our brain, of trying to ask for help. The fifth one is how we end. What are the action steps for the next meeting? How do we achieve our goal? How do I help you achieve our goal? What I want you to do is we're gonna actually do this right now. Yeah. I had a question. For different kinds of goals, are you in different types of mastermind groups or different, for example, marketing mastermind could be with a completely different set of people, and then a weight loss-- Yeah, I have three. You could start with one, and it could be for everything. I have one that's digital, a lot of digital entrepreneurs who sell online information products, we help share information about how to teach best online, how to reach new students, it's very online learning oriented. I also have one that's all women, so we talk about a lot of just what it's like to be a woman in business. Then I have one that's one-on-one, where it's just someone we just deep dive with our businesses to support each other. It's totally up to you. Definitely start small, start with one, and see how it feels for you. We are gonna do Awesome Club right now. I want us to get into small groups. We're gonna do an Awesome Club. I'm gonna have two people on stage with me, doing Awesome Club, and at home, what I want you to do is I want you to go through all five questions, I'm gonna put this up for us right now, go through all five questions for yourself, and then I want you to make a list of four to five people who you could potentially ask to be in Awesome Club. I have in your workbook, as well as on my website, ScienceofPeople.com/awesome-club, a whole list, explanation, of how you can invite people to be in your Awesome Club. I want you to answer these yourself, and also listen to our answers up here on stage. You can turn to your partner. Who wants to do Awesome Club with me? Anyone wanna do it onstage? Yeah, come on up. Who else wants to do Awesome Club with me? Yeah, come on up. You guys are gonna be up here with me on stage, and I want you to slowly go through each question. Now, today we're gonna do it a little bit faster than you would normally do it, so we're not gonna deep dive as much, but I want you to each answer, take turns, one, one, two, two, three, three, four, four. Yeah, perfect. Come up and join me. Uh-oh! I, perfect. Come right here. (mumbling) (mumbles). Yes. All right, so number one, what are you working on right now? I can do my game. Perfect. It's a kid's game; it's for three and four-year-olds. It's a web app, right? Okay. It's an app, basically. Are you building it? Yeah, there's just three of us. I do all the graphics and animation. We have a guy doing the sound, and he organizes the project, and then we have one programmer who pulls it all together. All right, what are you working on, and then we're gonna do your biggest success. What am I working on? I'm actually a business consultant. I'm seeing a lot of crossovers with the personal and business side, for the people I'm helping. Okay. Now, I'm actually working on becoming a digital entrepreneur, where I'm helping on the personal side for overachievers, basically. Specifically, are you creating online products for them, or are you writing articles for them? Right now, I am trying to launch a blog, and that's where I'm starting, but yes, that's-- You're launching a blog, you're trying to create an app. Right. Right? Okay. Biggest success this month. That we actually released it, so we got it into the Apple store. You're in the Apple store right now? Yeah. What's its name? Crazy Mad House. All right. Congratulations! Yeah. That's a very, very big deal. How long have you been working on it? About eight months, but-- That's awesome. It's a part-time thing though, so it's not eight months every day, it's, 'cause I-- Sure, don't minimize your success. Got it. That is awesome no matter what. You launched an app. That is awesome. You launched an app, it's in the store right now, people can go get it. It's ready, yeah. That is a huge success. No minimizing allowed. Okay, got it. I love it. Biggest success this month. I've got 600 subscribers in the past one month, which was very exciting. 600 subscribers? Yes, from-- How did you do that? A few guest posts. That's how I've gotten it, but yeah, that's exciting for me. That's huge, that means, guest posts first of all, usually it's like new newsletter subscribers. The fact that you did guest posts and got 600 people from those guest posts means you're writing really, really, really good guest posts. I do have some editors who help me with it, but-- Don't minimize, don't minimize. Yes. Nope, no minimizing. You're gonna own that you got those 600. You wrote those guest posts. Own it. Okay. Okay, biggest challenge this month that's coming up. We have to add, it's not a, it's a curiosity adventure, it's a house, and kids go through the different rooms and click on things, so the biggest challenge is to add more rooms, 'cause it takes a lot of time. Yeah, and so building it out. Yes. Do you have to do all that, or do you have to hire help? No, we do all of it, so-- You do all of it? I'll do all the graphics and animations. In the next month, I need to do two more rooms, basically. 'Kay, that's your goal. That's your goal. That's my goal. Don't get there, so trying to get it all done 'cause if it's part-time, trying to find the time to do it. Right. Yeah, woo. 'Kay, biggest challenge. My biggest challenge is resources at this point because I'm trying to delegate. I cannot be writing, and I cannot be thinking about problems and generating revenue, and writing about marketing. It feels like too much, and I don't think I'll ever get anywhere, so my obstacle is finding resources to write, resources for marketing, resources for specific tasks-- Let's break that down. Let's action step for you here. If it's finding people to help delegate to, who's the first person you need to help? Is it an intern? Is it a writer? Is it a marketer? Is it an assistant? Who's the first-- The first thing I thought would be to take what's on my plate off, which is writing, so I would do the first draft, but they would clean up and polish it, so the why still stays consistent. Got it, so it's an editor. Right. You need an editor. Yeah, a content editor. A content editor, so that's gonna be going into your goal. Okay. Back to your goal. Two rooms, what does that mean, exactly? Each room has eight to 15 animations in it, so it's just the amount of time that it takes. Some of them go pretty quick, but others get kinda complicated. The complicated ones usually take a couple days, but some of the easier ones, I could do two in a day. It's just a matter of, and I do all the concepts for the animations, so I have to keep that in mind. I think of things that are fun and interesting for the kids and then some other stuff that's just sort of fluff. Yeah (laughs). Just kind of a basic animation with a sound. You have to do the concepts for the animations. Right. You have to do them for two rooms, and you said eight to 15 animations per room. Right. Oh, wow. In the next month? Wow. Right. 30 days? Yeah. All right. That's a lot. That's a lot; that's a lot. That is a lot. We're gonna ask how we can help in a second, so I want you to think about that. That is a lot. All right, goal for the next month. I think it might be what you just said. Yeah, finding the right resources, if possible, for all of my problems, but-- But is that measurable? Let's talk about what's measurable. Okay. Is it one person, or do you think you can find two people? I think even that is a lot, but what feels measurable to you, actually attainable? I think hiring an editor is definitely attainable. Agreed. Yeah, because I think I have a person in mind, and I kind of don't know yet what the quality is, but other than that, I think-- What's the action step? Action step is to talk to them and maybe give a sample of work to kind of assess whether we can work together or not. Perfect, so your action step is to email that one person with a sample of your work and ask them to clean it up to see if it's good enough, see if you can work together? Yeah. Fabulous, and in 30 days, to have that person working with you. Yeah. Editing your stuff. Yeah, and not having to worry about it. I love it. The last one is the hardest. How can we help you? How can people at home help you? I guess, I don't know, one thing that I was thinking is since we already have the game out there, it'd be, I don't know about you, well maybe you, if you got the game and-- Is it for parents and their kids? Yes. I want us to ask for help. Ask for help, to all the parents out there, for feedback. From people who actually got the game? Yeah. If they bought the game, if they worked through it, I'd like to know what kind of animations they liked the most, and if they have ideas for other animations that either their kids might like, or from the kids themselves. That's the funnest one, when the kids actually say what they-- What they like. What they think is fun. Here is Terry's offer for help. If you have a child, what age is your demographic? Three to five, but we found that even teenagers think it's pretty silly. Okay, (laughs) cool. (laughs). If you have a kid, we would love to hear your feedback. If you have ideas for animations for Terry or animations that your kids loved, where can they reach you? Twitter? I like email the best, personally. Email the best, that's fine. It's just, yeah, terry@terrybrown.com. Terry@terrybrown.com. We would love your feedback on it. Yeah. It's Crazy Mad House. Crazy Mad House. That's the name of the game in the Apple store. Perfect. How would you like to ask for help? Is this hard? Yeah, very, very hard to ask for help because... I know, I know it's hard, but I'm gonna force you to pick something, or I'm gonna make it really big, so you're better picking for yourself (laughs). (sighs) How can we help? I guess you could give me recommendations for content editors, and if there is somebody in the audience looking at it who's an editor, I would love to hear from you, and-- Perfect. This is the perfect one. You said you also need help with, what was the other one? Marketing? Marketing, that's right. Okay, so... Digital marketing, to be specific. Yes. Okay, we need marketing help, digital marketing help. If you know someone, or you offer marketing help, how can they reach you? At y-hedge-hacks. There we go. Perfect, guys, that was an awesome Awesome Club! I love it! Thanks so much. Yes. I like this Awesome Club. I like Awesome Club too. (laughter) I love Awesome Club; I look forward to it all week. Thank you guys. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Thank you. I know you guys probably aren't done yet. I know. You guys will have to continue afterwards. I made them run through it. If you could just rotate back to me. How did that feel, going through those answers? What did it feel like? My hands are sweaty. Your hands are sweaty? (laughter) Oh gosh. I have to say that you guys doing Awesome Club was tremendous. You hit all those answers, and I really pushed you on asking for help, and you did it. I know that your hands are sweaty, but you could get amazing help from the audience. They want to help you; we want to help you. I am, kudos to you on that. How else did it feel for people? Yeah. I loved it. The only challenge I have is the balance between active listening and giving feedback. I don't, can you talk on that a little bit? Yes, definitely. Typically, what I found works is that people will answer, and then if they want feedback, or there is feedback, before they move on to the next person, you could say, "Anyone have an thoughts on that? "Okay, we're done," and they sort of pass the baton, not the actual baton, but emotionally pass the baton to someone else. Usually, they do their answer, and then you open it up to the floor. Do their answer, meaning go through the five questions? I'm sorry, go through each one. Yes. Feedback. Next person. Go through number one, feedback, each person. Like that. One person doesn't go, one, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five. You can if you want to. Oh. We found, and we almost started doing that, I think that it's more helpful if you can bounce back and forth, otherwise the person feels like they're talking too much. I see, everybody does one. Yes. Then everybody, that's a great clarification. Alright, guys, yes. Okay. Yes. You don't have to do it that way, but otherwise, the person feels like they're talking too much, usually. They're like, "Okay, I'm working on this, "my biggest success," and they go through it too quickly, where if you have the bounce back, it's much more of a conversation. You take turns. I like that, great. Did you raise your hand? Do you have something to say? I think we are ready to move on with our Awesome Club. (laughter) You're ready to move on with your Awesome Club. I think there might be some Awesome Clubs here in this audience. The support that you guys have offered each other is so wonderful. For me, when I go home, I'm like, "They're there "for each other." (sighs) You guys are there for me too. You guys have sent some really supportive emails also, the last few days, and I appreciate that. How else did it feel? Yes. You were right on about it's very hard to ask for help. It's so hard. Oh my gosh, did everyone get to this question, or did not everyone get to this question? I know that. It is incredibly hard. You think, "Oh, that's no big deal," but we have to formalize that question because it makes your palms sweat, with trying to ask for help, but it is so important, and the relief you feel once you've asked for help and you've received it, talk about an oxytocin builder. All right, yeah. It was also cool to realize that they had solutions that immediately could help. Immediately. Like, "Oh, well, let's just jump on a call. "Let's help; let's talk about that," or, "Oh, I have a thing that I just created. "I'll send that to you." Yeah. It's like boom. It's that easy. Yeah. It's that easy. I love it, and by the way, doing that is also prepping your mind for the Franklin Effect. The more that you do that and ask for help, the more you'll see opportunities for other people to help you. In your workbook, I have something called the Awesome Club One Sheet. This is a purchased bonus, and what this is gonna help you your first time going through Awesome Club with a checklist, what to talk about, your action steps, your next steps, just to go through it the first time. I don't use that anymore, but the first time I did Awesome Club, I did. It was a way to sort of keep accountability for each team member. We have one more day, if you can believe it. Day 30: Your People Plan, what comes next? The next 30 days, how to build compassion, and goal success, on our last day. Here's my challenge for you today. I want you to start doing informal meetings with potential members. Informal meetings. You're thinking about someone, but you're not sure if they have the time, or if they're gonna be good for this or not, sit down and have a coffee with them, and see, are they in the right mindset? Do you enjoy talking to them? Do you respect their feedback? Send them the Awesome Club. ScienceofPeople.com/awesome-club. There's a whole explanation of what Awesome Club is, 'cause if you're like, "Hey, will you do this "Awesome Club with me?" and they're like, "What is an Awesome Club?" just send them this link, and I have a description of what it is, what the goals are, and the method, so they can actually see it themselves and mentally prepare, to see if they wanna do it. Go through the Awesome Club One Sheet together for your first meeting. Today, we have a lot of extra credit prompts in your workbook, but today, I wanna hear what is the most important thing you learned today? From your Awesome Club members, what did you learn? What was your aha moment, here in the audience? Just how psychologically connected the success is to what you're looking for, especially with this Awesome Club, you would think the steps were quite simple. If you just told somebody, "It's not a big deal "asking for a marketing resource," it's not that hard, but it's hard to ask. It's a favor, and that's the hardest part. I know, I'm forcing you into the Franklin Effect. Yeah. What else did you learn? Yeah. I've heard about different masterminds like this, but it's really helpful to have the structure to go through. Then, even specifically, to think about where, that they're at your thrive locations and not at something that's gonna freak you out, and you're not gonna be able to just be your authentic self. Right, or if you have a mastermind that's online or by phone, and you hate talking on the phone, or you hate chatting online, that's not the way that you connect, it's not gonna work for you because that's not the way that you think. Yeah, think about the location. Thank you for highlighting that. One more, yeah. I think it's just that realization that people really do wanna help, and especially if you're the kind of person that actually takes people's advice and does stuff with it, then it's just the best gift that you can give people, when they do give you help. Yeah, that's why we're here, I think, to ask for help, and get help, and help each other. I think that's why we're here. I wanna hear your aha moment, your most important thing you learned, on Twitter, @vvanedwards, and #peopleskills. The best answers of 30 Days will win my dating and entrepreneur course. We still had some great answers come in, so I'm looking forward to reading some more. Don't forget also, there's the workbook. As Vanessa was just saying, there's some exercises here for today's course that will not be as part of what we've just been covering, so you need to have this, and this is a bonus with purchase. Thank you very much for being with us on this segment. We look forward to seeing you again very soon. (applause)

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Attraction Murderers
Awesome Club One Sheet
High PQ Skills Answer Key
High PQ Skills Template
Love Language Worksheet
Monthly Action Plan
The Matrix
Your Ideal Worksheet
Skills Worksheet
Personality Matrix Cheat Sheets
Questions Every Couple Should Answer
Citation List
Personality Matrix One Pager
The 10 Questions
Superhero Activity List
Your Next Big Thing Worksheet
Killer Conversation Starters
Bonus Video: How to be a Master Conversationalist
Workbook - Master Your People Skills

Ratings and Reviews

Adam
 

This is the best course I have ever taken on anything, anywhere, ever. As an adult with Asperger’s, I have been studying social skills and nonverbal communication for a long time. All the books I’ve read and other courses like these I’ve watched prior to this one, didn’t even teach me half of what Vanessa has taught me in this course. Master Your People Skills has provided me with literally everything I have ever wanted to learn from inner confidence, charisma, making conversation, making a great first impression, being memorable, etc. Vanessa is such a charismatic, passionate, and knowledgable mentor, who has a real gift of taking her many years of research and hard work, and teaching it in a way that is easy and fun to learn. This course is the real deal, you will be a master after you are finished with it, and I would recommend it to anyone.

user-15eb6d
 

I have just finished day 13 and so far the course has been amazing every single day. Vanessa is a great teacher and I love how her work is down-to-earth, practical, very applicable and rooted in scientific research. It's not the usual "ra ra ra, I can turn you into a master people schmoozer-type courses" found elsewhere. Anyone that wants to improve themselves and have better relationships in all aspects of their lives, both professional and personal, should get this course. There is so much quality material in this course, I look forward to going over the videos and the workbook more than once in order to improve my own people skills. The course is worth every penny and much more! Thank you Vanessa!

Student Work

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