Lessons

Lesson Info

Build Your Power Circles

So what I want to do today is to jump in we're going to be really starting to talk about a lot of movement in the market today and especially looking at things that have to do with how we can really bring alive our offer's into the marketplace so we have been on a long journey together we can see from this amazing piece of art that was drawn by emily shepherd live for those of you who saw her do this drawing live it was amazing to me and one of the reasons why why I wanted to have a map is first of all as adult learners and this children learners we learned better when we can visualize the different steps and especially when we have some kind of an image that's a metaphor for what that piece is. One of the most common things that happens for new entrepreneurs is that you feel like you're carrying this gigantic cloud of questions and ideas and concerns that follow you along and it ends up feeling like this huge weight that you're always carrying on your back and so one of the ways that ...

is very effective at getting that weight off and getting it organized so you can take action but also so you can actually enjoy your life while you're living it is to break things down into different pieces, which is really what it is that we've done with this course where you know based on what stage of business you're in, what actually do you need to be focusing on now and what we are putting together in three days of time together is actually could be six months worth of work that we would do together if if I was your coach and I was working with you individually right? Because normally what we do is talk about the first step which is understanding yourself and your skills and your strength we'd have a conversation you go off you think about it you'd write note to get feedback from other people and then you'd come back and you get ready to do the next piece so just recognize that you know, even if you're seeing all these piece of information coming at you the reason why we want to organize it this way so that you know what's involved in the journey however it is impossible to do everything at once so first we started with understanding yourself then we talk specifically about defining your ideal client to me an ideal client is somebody who absolutely needs and wants your services and who makes you feel amazing when you work with them you feel excited you feel understood they feel excited they feel understood and I love the way that susan framed it yesterday where when they meet you or they come across your website they say where have you been? My home life and it's like meeting the perfect partner you know just man I have been looking for you on like susan was discussing yesterday the way that they're going to feel that is where you are clearly defining these are the kinds of people that I work with these air the specific characteristics we also talked about ecosystems and watering holes where two people live we all live within systems we have connections with each other and one of the things that's neat to me when we're engaging with our internet audience in addition to in studio is all of a sudden we begin to realize that ecosystems air right here all around us my friends that are tuning in that have maybe been clients family, friends my mom was watching with so cool she my mom's never seen anything like this with online education and she was so excited she was like, oh my gosh, that was so exciting you know which made me feel really good too but a lot of are you know a lot of the connections are being made we have joy akane gay who is a dear friend of mine who also has filipino roots and she was so excited she said, rodney, I love your project is there something that I could do to support your journey and so you guys were able to meet on twitter after class yesterday? I can't stress enough how that right there is how work begins toe happen sometimes we say okay, well, I'm just doing this class thing and there these people in the chat room people in the studio audience and then when I leave here that I'm going to do my real plan and go do my real networking the real networking that you're doing the ecosystem if you pay attention is being built right now and I have some of my dearest friends so my strongest peer mentors and teachers who I've met by being a student in class is that's where a lot of things happened, so keep those connections going we had is it dan and greg, our favorite duo which how cosmic is that they live twenty miles from each other in the uk? I mean, what are the odds of that? And they're going to have coffee and connect who knows right? It could just be an amazing, amazing connection so we live in ecosystems and pay attention to a right now we want to make those connections, which is actually specifically what we're going to be talking about today um watering holes is simply places it within an ecosystem where you can find a great amount of ideal clients in one place which is very efficient we talked about fear all throughout this process how could you understand at work with it have some tools for managing it then susan buyer did an amazing job I was sitting back here with a big grin on my face because susan's a dear friend of mine from phoenix so I know does amazing work but she had never really been exposed a lot to my ecosystem of nuance preneurs and I saw all of your heads bobbing you seem to be really engaged in that session I love the clarity and the passion that she has about saying your your market you're defining not by demographics or if people are from age twenty five to thirty five or even by gender it's really? What are the deep motivations that your your ideal clients have and how can you really customize your offers based on that? And I think one of the main points which you heard her say over and over including into my next session that had to do with testing and trying offers is that never assume that you know what your market wants or why they wanted you have to ask them and we love to make things up and just say, you know, I think my mark it wants this or no I want to do this cool offer, but if we don't directly engage and get in there words what they want then it becomes really hard and actually we take on a lot more risk right it's easier if you're designing things in connection with your ideal clients so then kyle durant came in who was another person I was so excited to introduce to the creative live audience who believe it or not can make business foundation legal stuff kind of fun like that's not an oxymoron on dh I saw again head shaking, I saw a lot of interaction from the internet where it seems like people were excited about addressing issues. The big shock and awe statement that was reverberating across the internet yesterday was that know your credit card statement is not enough if you get edited audited by the irs, you need to save your receipts, but you can actually take a picture of your paper receipts and as long as you, you know, maybe upload that to something like shoe box that's going to be enough and then so once you take a picture of it, then you can throw away your paper receipts. But I was having a lot of conversations with people about that little tiny things like that can make a huge difference when you put in your business foundation. So we talked about finance, legal foundation, protecting your ideas and assets learn really interesting things about intellectual property, and so what we're doing today is really to focus on really garnering this information and using it to move to begin to get out, talk to people and know exactly what we're selling and how to sell it so we're starting today with building your power circles, which tamir is a hugely important part of your businesses who do you have around you in order to do your work? And one of the mantra is that kyle and I off often say to each other that I've been saying to everybody these last two days as we all need each other, we all need each other, we all have strengths and skills, and when we have that thought, which puts us in fear that I have to do everything myself that's where often we fall apart, as opposed to saying, I'm really perplexed, and I need to go to my peer counsel to figure out how to answer my questions all of a sudden we feel supported, we feel strengthened and then when our peers are able to, then also asked for help, and we give it that's when we feel that reciprocity, which will be talking a lot about today, we're going to get into the sales process of ethical selling, of not hitting people over the head and and, you know, manipulating them into buying from us, but really setting up a very buyer friendly, open, clean, clear process that also allows you to say really awesome things like you know, e j, would you actually like to work with me? You know, I'd love for you to make a decision. You know, if you want to work with me as a coach, I think you're a perfect client for me. I would love to work with you. Do you think by next wednesday that you feel clear enough to make a decision about whether or not to move forward? We get so afraid sometimes of asking people to make a decision, and then we just get stuck with this whole bunch of people of things we think are gonna happen that never really happened, so we'll talk very specifically about that we'll look at marketing systems and then in terms of tying your plan together for those folks also who are on the internet hey, who have been working on little pieces and getting certain ideas? One of my basic philosophies as a coach is that we look strategically, it you know, what are all the different things that you need to work on, but we're going to look in the context of what actually do you need to get done in this next quarter and based on what you're doing this next quarter, which brooke is shaking her head because that was a big insight for brooke. Based on what you want to do in this next quarter than what air the particular to do items that you have we just really need to focus in one quarter at a time and then we'll talk about how we also create to do list for for the rest of the quarter but a lot of what we're wanting to do with ourselves is to create space create freedom we talk about leaving a corporate job teo in orderto the freedom of working for ourselves and then we carry these huge backpacks around of concern and worry and having to do everything all of the same time it's not effective and it really defeats the purpose of having some freedom and flexibility. So so what I want to do is just to review the homework that we have done so far in terms of working together for a day one and day two we talked on day one about naming your stage of business defining your ingredients your skills in your strengths writing down your fears so we can get used to them I gave a homework assignment to bounce on a yoga or pallotti's ball which is aimed at an excellent job and then on day two we focused on defining your initial market sample leveraging the work that susan talked to us about what is that particular market segment that you want to be working with sketching out one test so what is one particular thing that you contest in the marketplace with real people brainstorm at least three concrete offers and if that's a stretch that's cool do one right but if you have three ideas that can help you to choose and then identify two steps in your business foundation, one of the things that we didn't talk about yesterday is often when you are looking at doing this testing in trying you you really want to get a sense of debriefing so that you make sure that you learn lessons from it and there's some helpful questions to help you really understand what you are learning from the experience so things like what was my goal? You want to write that down before you actually conduct the test? Here's a specific information I'm looking for what were my results? What can I do next time to get a better result and this is a really important part of the learning process. What insight did I gain about myself about my market and what part of my plan do I need to update one of my favorite mentors in the world? Tim berry who's, the founder of palo alto software I call him the obi wan kenobi of business planning uh he's a wonderful man he has been in the business planning field for so long and he says that planning is a process and if we don't document our assumptions on an ongoing basis, we forget what those assumptions were so let's say something happens where you launch a product at the height of the market at a time where everybody has disposable income and you can think I'm a frickin genius man, I am the best business person in the world. Look at me. I went out there, I made stuff happen because I'm a genius, right? That may be true, you're probably our genius. However, if you don't recognize that there were market conditions that allowed that to happen, maybe some special connections or somebody really popular, you know, also, you know, blogged about whatever your offer is, then you don't know what it is to repeat. The same thing happens if you launch something at a time or it's really tough or you have a couple other competitors in the market that air launching something very similar, right at the same time. And then what we say to ourselves is, I'm a gigantic loser. What was I thinking? I don't know about business, nothing is working, this whole thing was a disaster. Wow, that is, first of all, very painful thing, very unkind thing to say to yourself, but it's also exceptionally unhelpful because you're not documenting and paying attention to what were the specific things that you could do better what were those market conditions how can you maybe planned to launch a different time? How can you make sure that you maybe hire a copywriter if that's not your strength when you put out an offer on dh then when you learn these things that's really where you contest in improve so these air some helpful questions toe always be thinking about when you're when you're testing in trying you're you're different offers one example that I love to use partly because they're some of my favorite people in the whole world r karmen and search gov and carmen was a client publicly a client so like mike, when people publicly say that I've been a coach, I can say who they are and carmen started as a client who had an amazing block that she found it which was called racial ish iss and it was a blogged about race and pop culture and carmen is bi racial and she was really interested in addressing race in a very different way than it had been addressed before in general it's a topic that many of us are afraid to talk about right like let's just avoid it let's just pretend or carmen's favorite thing just to say I'm color blind, I don't see color you know I have no idea that rodney's a dude and that you know he's filipino like I don't see anything which is kind of insane when you think about it, right especially we raise our kids to say you know don't see color in there saying wait a minute, you know? But brooke looks different than rodney than e j then mike so we are different, but carmen really wanted to talk about in an open way how can we talk about race and pop culture and the way that we discuss it in a way that's empowering? So when I worked with her, she was setting up her diversity, consulting business, getting things going she's very hardworking, very a success minded person. So she was getting spots on cnn really building her business, getting speaking engagements and in the meantime her husband surge was working in a cubicle he had a day job, but he's a martial artist and he always had a dream to open up a martial arts school so he actually got in a car accident and that was his catalytic event where he said, wait a minute, you know, nothing is guaranteed I'm just going to do it. I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to start my my martial arts school, which he started, which is called urban martial arts in brooklyn and so even though carmen had been working for a long time, her racial issues was her side hustle from her corporate job for a long time she worked on it she tested she tried she got the business model she was making money she quit her job thinking she was going to be doing that business and then once they had their first daughter sean who you see he pictured all of a sudden she realized you know what this may not be? The work that I want to do right now and what they both decided to do is for carmen to join surge in in making it a family business so that she could put all of her effort and energy into growing the school and they have been killing it you know, it's a martial arts school so not literally they don't kill people they train people to be very effective fighters they opened the school about five years ago so they actually just graduated there first black belts, which is a very exciting moment but it's an example of sometimes you don't know from where you're starting today exactly where you'll end up but for carmen's ingredients for those special skills and strength and experience that she had all that work that she did around race and diversity means that her school in urban martial arts is a place that people feel really good that come from different ethnic backgrounds they feel welcome they feel understood there's excellent communication between the students that come from different backgrounds and you can see where in retrospect it was necessary for each of them to go through all those different steps, so I just really wanted to remind everybody that the point is not creating a perfect plan and, you know, executing it and you must do it when I remember getting a phone call from carmen, and she was just, you know, a little bit, you know, I think a little bit afraid to tell me, you know, like, after all this work that we've done, you know, I think I might want to actually give up, you know, that part of my work? And I said, fantastic, who cares? Who cares? You're driving your own bus do what it is that you feel like you want to do that's one of the benefits of having a business, however, if both she and serge had not taken the time to slowly build things to test it in the market, to see what they wanted to do and be honest with themselves about what actually they wanted to create in their business, then they wouldn't be at the place where they are now, you know, they doubled their space there, there, you know, enrollments going through the roof, and they're doing really, really well, so just another reminder so you can give carmen and surges shout out at yuma martial arts should I know they love to hear from you if you are in new york in brooklyn and you want to take a killer class surge almost destroyed me when I took a class with him when I went there recently, so he's, very nice, but he's very serious when it comes to working out. So so what we're going to be talking about today to jump into our pier circles upside jumped ahead is really thinking about who are the people who we want tohave around us in order to learn and grow. So john d rockefeller said a friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship and this, I think, is really good way for us to start to talk about the criteria for how it is that we choose people that we want to have around us in our business. So sometimes we can have friends that are really, you know, dear friends, that we've known for a long time that our wonderful that fulfill a very specific role in our life, who may have no idea whatsoever what it is that we're doing in our business, they may think we're crazy, they may not think it's a good idea, and so sometimes those are not the kinds of people that you want to have in your specific, pure circles when it comes to running, you're business you definitely want to have them in your circles of friendships and family members and everything else to give you a happy, healthy life so I'm curious first as we jump into it if there's anybody from our internet audience first to had you know, thoughts and comments from what it is that we covered yesterday or also as we start to get in the topic of talking about our pier circles have done some thinking you know about like who should I actually have around me or our people concerned about you know, how do I choose or how did I get people to work with me? I just like to start too maybe cede that thought a little bit to see what some thoughts are that our internet audience has about building pure circles on dh then I'll get us kicked out here in the studio audience and we can check in with you in just a minute so any anything pop a zay was giving the introduction or do we need to let let the internet work a little bit to gather the answers just a come they're starting to come in but a comment from coach story who says yes, I've got a sounding board of those who are alive and even those who are in spirit um and jackie s I wish I could get in the e commerce club so people definitely looking for ways to find pierre's tio cool okay? And as a coach, as soon as I heard, especially with the air quotes, we love air quotes right here the e commerce club I think there's some interesting stuff in there because my assumption with maybe a little bit of that comment is there's an inner circle and there's an outer circle and I want to talk about that specifically, how do we think about folks? How do we think about ourselves when we're beginning to build some circles so I can't wait to pick that pick that one up? Okay, so the first thing is really thinking about who is in your circle and actually the way that I think about circles are in three, uh, three levels or kind of three concentric circles, so will draw a little diagram here, so we have you, which is also your biz, right? And then we have the first circle our peer mentors. Then we have technical mentors. Wei have what I call your high council of jedi knights in our star wars theme for anybody who's not seen star wars, my best friend in the world, misery at away has never seen a star wars film, so I recognize not everybody knows what it is ah high council of jedi knights within the star wars movie are a group of amazing jet I mentor, so these amazingly gifted teachers who in certain times within the different movies are gathered together in a circle and usually you have this young jett I this young warrior, this young hero who is coming into that circle and asking for advice, and so they get advice from these different people who give them very specific information that advice so the high council we'll talk about the high council criteria in just a second, we'll start with a peer mentors okay, so these are our three categories of pierre circles, so let's talk about the first one for the first one is your are your peer mentors. So the definition that I have for peer mentor is somebody who is at a similar or sometimes slightly ahead of you in terms of the stage that they're working on in their business, the kind of person who is very motivated, who's, working really hard, who is going to be very encouraging of you, but who also is going to push you it's, the kind of person who will give you honest advice, but we'll do it in such a way that is still respectful is not a person who will just totally tear down your ideas and say your stupid that's generally not, you know we can learn we can learn to take feedback to where that kind of bounces off of us, but generally peer mentors their main focus isn't being excellent themselves and in helping you to be as excellent as you could be so so let's let's talk about some of the criteria that some of you will have a specific examples of who would be good peer mentors for you and so as we look at some different examples of individual businesses and look at you as individuals the cool thing is we've done some testing of you already right we did the cognitive styles we did your strengths we talked about some of your ingredients so in some ways one of the starting points is saying if these air all my strengths than where the gaps right where the gaps in terms of people skill sets and types of people that I want to have around me so does anybody want to volunteer to do a little bit of brainstorming about your peer mentors I got so excited with my circles that I used almost all the whiteboard but there's a little bit of space here so who wants to go first rodney rodney awesome. Okay um probably one of the biggest I as you know, I come from a very large family so a lot of my peer mentors are actually family members like uh my cousin uh a u s o another cousin of mine jem who are pretty much considered like, you know best friends in some ways so jeff uh j m and so and then there's other people to you that I've met through the years but does pretty, you know, there's a tear that off the top of my head that really being peer mentors so tell me specifically and looking at each one of them I happen to know avery well, so I have insight as well, right? What specifically does abe bring to your life in terms of a balance of skills in terms of the type of person that he is that brings out your best he's very creative, like I am, but he he's actually overcome a lot of the features and he's actually he's doing all the things that I kind of want to do? Yeah, you know? And so we relate on so many different levels because we we dream the same way and we have the same ideas about creativity and seem ideas about media, video and just storytelling but he's he's doing it on a level where I'm not at yet where he's actually, you know, putting a lot of those things and he's creating things and he's pretty sea shipping things right where a lot of my my ideas are still in the dreaming and scheming stage, right? So it's, always really good to you from a peer mentor state for the two of us is we bounce ideas off each other all the time and he's you know he's been really good about you know, letting me though you know hey, I need a unity get these things out exactly yeah and in terms of what kind of ironic is that you one of the projects you've talked about shipping first is a kickstarter project abe has very specific skills when it comes to knowing how to design kickstarter projects I was sitting in arizona at my nephews graduation and I got a text from abe who said, oh my god, seth gordon just called me for advice about kickstarter, anybody you know, seth, god knows pretty much the coolest human being on the planet super smart, bestselling author, and he got wind of the fact that abe is actually in expert at understanding how to design kickstarter projects effectively. So it's pretty cool the fact that he's your cousin rightto have in your peer mentor sort of given what you're doing did you see? So write exactly what work ok, yeah, exactly happened teo is I was actually in the philippines at the time and he told me about it and I was I was tying, you know, because even in our family, people don't really understand what he does right? Or they don't know you're just going on and I was trying to explain teo, everybody else in the our friends and family hey, when such good and calls you up for advice that means you know you're doing something right it's kind of like you know if you happen to a catholic it's like the pope calls teo teo asked her you know? So tell me like what direction should I take my sermon next sunday? You know, like write whatever metaphor works that that's gonna how it feels so cool okay, so that's um specific expertise so there's creativity action taking storytelling kickstarter how about gems? Are there different types of particular skills? Yes he's also he's business he's very business minded as well. Okay, um he's actually in the mortgage industry and he's been in the mortician for a long time and we've talked about starting businesses together and he's just, uh I think it's just more pier because he he he's one of those guys that listens to laying six ziegler and you know, they listened still on this business people on we're always he's always asking me to go to these things and he's always looking for business opportunities and he's always pushing me teo to think that way teo to think outside of his where am is more creative gem is very much more business minded he's always kind of pushing me more torrance like okay, well abe's like yeah, follow your passion where gems more of like a let's look, we're gonna make money, how way it's helpful to have those kind of people around, especially if you're really a creative person that has lots of ideas, right, which we know is number one on your strengths profile, right? Is my idea generation okay, so let's, let's get a little bit of interaction to a some of us can help to think about for rodney, what might be some gaps and some missing, like skill sets or helpful people tohave around, and we'll just take it the small example right of for your particular project of the kickstarter project about filipino world war two veterans for folks that are on the internet, what ideas do you have about maybe and you fund to know, for those of you who have been participating, you've gotten to know rodney a little bit right through these last couple days and conversation, and also for our studio audience, where you really got to know him, like, what kinds of people do think would be really helpful to be surrounding rodney for as pure mentors? Mike, I was thinking, people who have successfully raised a good amount of funds on kickstarter, what you could just look at the, um, you know, just go back into history and just reach out to them and hey, I'm doing a movie, can I get you you know, fifteen or twenty minutes of your time just just ask some questions about what your key takeaways were or you know what you learned from the whole process or even what you learn from starting to shoot the video fantastic right? Because that's it like you want to do something and you want to be around people who have actually done it the difference to me between, say, a peer mentor in a high council of jedi knights member is you want to talk to the person maybe who successfully did the fundraising last year you might not want to talk to the person who did their first kickstarter project and then it turned into a twenty five billion dollar business and now they're like hanging out on the island with richard branson, right? And the reason why is because then sometimes we can fall into this weird state feeling like you know, oh smart famous rich person you know it's so cool that you've done that and we actually stay in the state the mental state of thinking you know, I just want to be you as opposed to when you have a peer mentor who you totally respected the fact that they did something but it still feels like you know what? This person is actually very similar to me, right? You know they've done some cool stuff and it kind of makes me feel good I'm motivated because I want to excel at that same level, but it doesn't feel like it's totally out of reach and as soon as you tell yourself like I'm not that good or I don't know how to do it that's often when it goes out of the realm of being a peer mentor and just somebody who's inspirational to you did you have some comments? I did had some specific advice of on mentors rodney people who are not in the industry but haven't awesome network of connectors and this advice is coming from somebody in the chat room named death tape who happens to be mr john jazz I love john you left him in the high council members for me john did a three day awesome class on marketing for creative lives yeah thanks for tuning in ok right so it's really important people who are not in the industry and use but who are you? Can I have some networking connectors? Gasam network thanks john. Yea, you know one of his things is storytelling but he might want to tap into somebody who would be able tio help or at least be willing to review his his copy all the persuasive copy and that sort of thing so from, you know and maybe also somebody kind of outside of the industry who can put a fresh perspective onto it and helped craft the the offer's you know some of the fantastic right? Right. So copy writing expertise vanessa what do you say? Just someone who's been able to monetize a documentary film which I don't think is the easiest thing in the world right? And maybe like all other um just like cultural workers in the philippines yes, definitely so that could be in the the watering hole that we were talking about that rodney went to for those who missed on the first day he's here in san francisco and he's always wanted to go to a special bookstore that's a filipina bookstore right next door was a centre for filipino world war two veterans which point rodney said it might dreaming or I'm actually in reality so people who are already connected with the filipino community could be one group that definitely has a very strong interest in having a story he made right so cultural workers from the philippines but also are, you know, filipino american uh however, like I was saying yesterday it could also be people who were excited by the story because all it shadows there's a swell like my husband's relatives, the navajo code talkers who could be amazing allies and advocates for the kind of work that you're doing. Yes, we've got some more advice for rodney three eighteen media says how about bloggers and journalists? They could definitely help raise your awareness very cool, right? Bloggers and journalists, and so again, we're running out of space here, which is okay, but us often, if you have people that are in your circle from the outset, who help you think about what is newsworthy about this, we talkabout persuasive copy, which is a hugely important part in getting people to, uh, actually participate in the kickstarter into fund it, right to make a donation, make a contribution, but journalists can often really say, what are the angles in this story that will help spread it out within the traditional media rolls, or who might be bloggers who were interested in doing it? And so when you begin to look at this and you have these different perspectives, one of the things I think is so important about it is making sure in your pure networks that you don't just have a whole bunch of people that think exactly like you do, and that could be a very dangerous thing. I think it can limit your creativity. There is somebody who I interviewed for my book, erica, and for some reason her name is escaping right now, looking up at the break and I'll bring it back. Sorry, erica, forgetting your last name, but she she she talks about a new intelligence, which is called connection a ll intelligence so cool it's like it's like emotional intelligence but it's really about connecting and networking she is a researcher at harvard and she's a gen y person and she is working with co author sir on a new book about connection all intelligence one of the things that she talks about is creating these spaces where we have like sparring sparring rooms tohave very wonderful open not like hitting each other at rooms but places where people from very different perspectives can come and have dialogue about things she says it's in these intersections of people who are very different so either that they come from different they have different backgrounds they have different skill sets they have different networks but they're also maybe going to be thinking about things a little bit differently so people that might come from different political orientations or people they're totally from the business world or people who have nothing to do with the business world that are just artists and creative entrepreneurs thes these air often people that could have very very powerful stories so as you begin to look at some of these examples one of the starting places is looking at where are the gaps in terms of information and expertise and skills that you need to be surrounded with right you can literally think about for a project about creating a council so when I think of peer mentors I think of them as definitely people who are ongoing connections with you that can help you grow in your business, but in particular, if you have a project where you know that for that project you want to identify some some particular people, then it can kind of be like this temporary council, and you can actually go to people and say, I'm working on this project, and I would love it if you have the time and energy to be on my pyramid, tor council and here's exactly what's going to be involved now, in terms of what time is involved, I always suggest making it as easy as possible, right? So it's not like let's hang out for three hours every wednesday on google hangout to talk about stuff and all kind of ramble my way through my thoughts for the project, you would say, I'm going to create the first project plan, I'm going to email it to you guys two days in advance, and, you know, whatever the frequency of meat up would be, I hold a google hangout and these air the specific questions that are going to be asking you about right that's. One way to engage your counsel on a particular project of which, you know for many of you as you're looking at what you're doing your example, brooke writers were exploring your market segment from yesterday for lesbian brides to see you know, what's the viability in the market and do you want to go focus in that direction that could be another great example very specifically looking for this this peer counsel on dso you want to think of specific times where you can meet and you know have a particular agenda to get divers feedback now what's different from that ongoing and also important part of your peer mentor network are just the kind of just in time and I call these like here text in your skype right now people right? You need to have people in your peer mentor circles like five minutes before you're about to go make a sales call or right before you're about to go give a big presentation where you say, oh my god, I'm totally freaking out you know I'm really scared and you need to have people who are going to be willing to answer the phone and give you feedback and advice in the moment that's not everybody and you can kind of you often define those people just by your actual experience right? Do you feel really comfortable with people you try at once they try it with you on dh then you move move forward together but but having a very specific idea of really who is on your peer mentor who is in your peer mentor circle is really important do we have chatter questions anything coming from folks either for rodney or just in general, in terms of the peer mentor circles. Yeah, we've had some examples of people's mentor circles and I think it's key that we've had people who had individuals who are moving from one circle to the next, depending on their relationship. At that time on then jennifer kent said that one of her peer mentors actually told her about creative live and she's, a successful photographer working with her has been has been great. So she's been learning a lot from her and she brought her to creative life. That's fantastic, right? That's? One of things your peer mentors do is say hey, come on, check this out. Come to this conference. Read this book, you know, follow this person. That's great. One other maybe yes. From kris. Kris with a k he's back with us, canton first, get to know accountants, lawyers, copywriters who have worked on projects similares to yours. Their perspectives could be golden that's. Awesome. Right. So if you happen to have some people who are, you know, in more that peer mentor circle you guys know that kyle is one of those people for me, right? That I can lean on to ask questions. This is interesting because this is part of what can begin to bring us a little bit into the technical mentor arena, and I and I think here's here's a little bit of the different, so let me explain what I see is a technical mentor so a peer mentor, somebody who is actively doing, you know, the thing that you're doing or something similar. So rodney, like you're talking about you and a burr sort of in similar types of businesses where his gym is doing his own thing within a different industry, but it's still appear because he's, really thinking about business and wants to collaborate. Ok, so, you know, piers really are peers, then there can be very specific times where you need the expertise sometimes paid of people who have very specific technical expertise for things that you're doing and here's, the fine line okay, is we can be super friendly with people. One of the core things about pierre circles and all circles is reciprocity where you're giving some and they're giving some but what happens when somebody is an accountant or a lawyer like kyle, right? And you're classifying him in your peer mentor circle, and then you call him saying, would you review this contract? And, kyle, what kind of accounting system you think I should have? And jane, like jane was saying yesterday, and kyle, could we maybe spend an hour to on the phone talking about, like, my business strategy? What? What could be problematic about that? It's the I get asked to pick, can I pick your brain? And people want free advice for me all the time? So it's been really hard because I tend to be kind of a sucker, I'm telling it to thirty thousand people on giveaway left so that I've actually had to come be really clear with myself about how much I'm willing to give and when I think, you know, I've had people say, can you come all the way out to my, like, faraway office and and give me free advice is like, well, what do I get out of it? You know? So so I've had to kind of craft a little bit of a response that isn't really canned, but more putting it down clearly, like what? What? I feel like I provide people that's valuable and what I can help you with and what I can't like, maybe it's not going to be two hours, but it might be fifteen minutes or, you know, because that's, what I that's how I get paid that's how you make so it's it's a tough thing so I don't really have a lot of people who I can pick their brain but I have a lot of people asking me so I need to find a new new peer mentors but action item for you right that's one of things well, so I'm a paranoid about doing that to other people right right and how to do it so okay, well I had to do it my way that's when I that's one of my action items on here is teo or it was from the homework to brainstorm at least one or three concrete offers one of them is going to be a pay pick your brain offer when because people have been and and I built my business on just doing tons of, you know, free stuff for the past two years. But you know, at a certain point when you have more coming in then you then you have time I think you know it's and it's a really kind of a tough thing to do to say no to people who you love. I know I know you've written about it marie for they just had a great video about it she had a great video laura roeder who is that? I think laura roeder dot com wrote a fantastic piece in fufu google copy. Blogger, pick your brain. Laura. Her last name is spelled r e d r I think she wrote a fantastic block post specifically about how you can go through. And she started out as a graphic designer. Wordpress designer? Yeah, wonderful enough. Good dot com. But, bernadette, you also wrote a really interesting one that sze very positive. It's not like, you know, snarky at all. And so it's it's helpful. But I'm too, and actually creating have a couple, like, sort of free, very specific things. Like once a month call, sort of like what you do rightfully that will reduce some of that. And I can still give away advice, like in my own on my own time. You know, I think it's perfect my andi. Some people even use, I think a clarity dot fm. Yes. If you instead of charging you, khun, donate money on a play hebrew just like a really good article. I just interviewed dan martell, who is canadian. Kris with a k is canadian too, with the sea but it's a really cool thing where you can basically rent out your expertise by the minute so you can sign up and it's cool, he has people on clarity fm like who's that shark tank do mark cuban, you know and really amazing people and a lot of it is, you know, you can place a call or put in a request and if the person has the availability and the resource will call you back depending upon whatever their hourly rate is, we'll just bill you by the minute. So it's a really cool idea and yet he has these amazing goals. I just had him in a podcast and he was saying, I think he wants to reach some crazy number like ten billion people know not ten billion that's more than everybody on earth. Ten million I told you, I'm a liberal arts major, but yeah, it was like a really big number or maybe was one billion I think there was a billion in there of some huge audacious goal that he has within the next ten years of really having couple number of users and in the metaphor that he gave was imagine that you are on your way to a job interview for, you know, a real estate company or something and you want to talk to the very best person the entire world and you have an app on your phone and you say clarity, you know, get me donald trump and like, you know, donald trump jumps on the line and you have your specific question that's answered right in that moment as your honor on your way to the interview it's kind of like I don't know star trek ish isn't it? You know when you think about it but the idea which is so cool is to think specifically about how are you actually accessing information in the peer mentor circle space to me the these are your this is your posse like I was saying right these air you're really like mme or your friends your crew people who you practice every day and it's actually very helpful sometimes if you're new it forming this peer mentor circle for you to all really talk about how can we make sure that we're not taking advantage of each other right? Like here the ground rules if I'm busy if I can't talk if I feel like we're starting to veer into me being a technical mentor and you being my client then like what's away we can talk about it now to make sure that we don't go into that arena right but your peer mentors air really those folks who are specifically there together because you want to be working together collaboratively to build your business I just wanted I love it when people are saying same things online that are being said here yes john dance actually also said clarity fm and he said he gets on there and he donates to charity water very cool so thank you for that job, right? So yes so you can choose to take the money for yourself as a business person or to donate it, which is which is really cool as well. I love that so so that's that's kind of that first circle so pure mentors itjust tohave that that reach of people I like toe I'm an extrovert okay case you haven't guessed an extrovert meaning I get very energized by being around large numbers of people for people who are more introverted, which means that when you're around a lot of people you're maintaining multiple relationships it exhausts you so an introvert might have a smaller peer mentor circle, right? Maybe an introvert circle might be two or three people where is an extrovert might have seven to eight, but this this particular part of your power circles are people who are going to push you to be your best who have complimentary expertise, who you can go to, you know, to ask specific questions and whose growth you can really be celebrating over time. I have two of my my peer mentor circle people I'm so proud of remains satay from I will teach you to be rich who's done some creative live work and cresskill abo who puts on the world domination summit and is an author you know both of them when when I first got to know them, I'm you know, significantly older, like I could be remains mother and occasionally like his own mama, ask him when he's going to get married and have children just to bother him. But, you know, when we meet and when I first connected with him, he was a college student at stanford, just writing his blogged. His first product was four dollars and ninety five cents. It was an e book, and he was kind of nervous about it. Like it was a big deal. When you first learned that out there for his four dollars and ninety five cents a book, he got hate mail. Like, how dare you charge this much for this information on him? Because he has a sense of humor and he likes to publish his hate mail. You know, he was very public about that, but watching what remained has done in his business to me has been astounding. And personally speaking, he is younger than me, so I can give him some maur kind of anti, like advice about certain life things. But for me, like remi has really moved up to more of a technical mentor. He has a multimillion dollar business. He was kind enough to spend some time with me at the end of two thousand eleven. Looking over, you know, and I was very thoughtful about this I said, you know, I know you've always offered to kind of give me advice do you have a knave or we can look at my business? So we looked at very specific product lines I told him my goals, my financial goals and he gave me very specific feedback at the end of the year, I gave a report back he didn't ask for it, but I said I sent him an email I said, here are the things that I did based on the advice here was my financial go, I think I missed it by, like, twelve thousand dollars, it was like, you know, but, you know, it was a pretty big goal, but it was a really you know, it was an example where I was thoughtful of the fact that even though we started out as buddies and peers, much like with chris keller boas, well, they've really been growing and expanding, they really encourage me to grow and expand within my arena, and so they're certain certain areas now where, you know, I would really consider them in certain elements to be technical mentors, right? So it doesn't mean that everything always stays exactly in that circle, one of the philosophies that you want to be always nurturing is you want people to grow right? You don't want to like let's all stay the same, and we all have to have the equal level of success, which could get awkward if one person does start to really take off, then how does how does how do you change that dynamic? I think in a healthy peer mentor circle perspective, you cheer that person on like rock on right now for where you are, I'm in a little different place, so maybe I'm gonna bring somebody else into my peer mentor circle, but then, you know, I'm excited for the fact that you're really growing in developing yeah, has any any of you ever experienced that? Has anybody in our internet audience ever had that experience of somebody that's been appear like, really just knocked it out of the park and ended up shifting into somebody who's, more like a technical mentor? You guys seeing that, vanessa? Well, I've experienced it personally where justin my marketing career is that involved, I happen to be really into social media, and so all the everything that's popping up with social media, like facebook ads, twitter ads, all of these things have gotten a lot of people asking me to help them and it's actually really complicated, depending on what you're trying to do with it takes a lot of time. So I kind of had to be like, I'm not the person to talk to you because I don't charge for these services and there's going to take a lot of time and, you know, I can kind of chat with you about my experience, and then you can go figure it out, but I I sorry, lepic, um, and so I've really had that experience a lot lately and then with the new with the business to a lot of people asking me how I'm doing certain things and really wanted to get into indeed conversations and, uh, having toe push back a little cool, right? So that that can start to feel its like, you start to feel like you're crossing this the pure mentor, technical mentor arena, right? Sometimes there can be this hard line where you feel like, wait a minute, this is not something that I'm being paid for. I mean, you might have the expertise, but you might not have the time as a business person that's where you have one or two decisions you say this is actually business opportunity that I had not thought about that could be a source of revenue if people are wanting to learn from me, how can I make an offer out of spending an hour with somebody or two hours doing a strategic consulting gig? And sometimes it's just enough of having an offer mike like you're talking about where you have a pick my brain session where you have the opportunity for people to pay a certain flat amount it's kind of fascinating to see what happens sometimes when you gracefully point people in that direction you know e j do you have like, you know, could I pick your brain and we spent an hour and you can say you know sure like I would love to let me send you to the page you know where I can you know where you can sign up for that kind of session you know and that we can get it scheduled on that pages where it says how much that that costs which cannot feel a little bit weird sometimes okay, why why does it feel weird what would feel awkward about that? I'm not talking like your best friend necessarily, but you know somebody makes they're asking assuming that they're going to get it for free okay when you do you don't want to sort of surprised him by saying, you know well here's how much this this costs but you sort of I think if you asked them first what specifically make them do a little bit of homework like that's one thing I did is turned it around on somebody one time and I and I asked them questions what are you trying to accomplish how much help do you need and then they kind of didn't want to answer those questions is that that kind of made me feel more comfortable limiting what what I could give them if they weren't willing to meet me halfway you know yeah exactly so that that that commute that could be one way of doing it up just when you start to dig in right of saying if they're not able to answer the questions or they start to get uncomfortable is you're setting that up but is there is there anything wrong with saying that I'm so glad you asked me I'm a coach that's what I do I love to work with you let me send you to my coaching paid so you can figure out how we can work together and you have one or two reactions like awesome that's so cool or like really you know like whatever you know like I was just going to ask you you know or sometimes it's funny people say like I know I totally don't want to ask for free advice you know but I love to sit down with you for an hour and get your ideas about how I can grow my business wait a minute so how exactly is that not free advice trying to kind of you know draw draw that connection part of that is us standing clearly in our power and really conserving our energy and being truthful and being an ethical business person, if that is your business, and it would, you know, that the key to everything is if you say yes, and then you end up going like, oh my god, what did I do that? Why did I do? I have so much I don't have time to meet with that person, right that's a totally different kind of feeling rather than when you actively meet somebody that you're excited about, that you love to mentor, where you're the one that volunteers and said, I love to talk to you, you know, I had so maybe who really helped me out where you feel like you own it? It is actually not cool, and it is not generous make a strong statement about this it's not cool and it's not generous to say yes to something that you do not want to do and to disguise it in philanthropy because you know what, you're going to show up resentful you're going to show up better that you're spending the time with a person and they're going to feel it, and you're not helping them if they are a business person to make some of these distinctions to figure out, right, when do I need to actually effectively work with technical mentors, you know, and pay people sometimes for their expertise vs who were the people who naturally I have been in communication with I've you know, done favors for that I like where you you know you almost organically decide that you want to help each other so there's not like you know a formula in a rule some of it is art and feeling for noticing these things but pay attention toe physically and emotionally how you feel when you begin to get in a situation where you say yes to somebody for giving advice where you feel like it's tipping into you being a technical mentor situation okay, so very often technical mentors are people where you do pay them money I joyfully took out my credit card for nancy duarte's visual story workshop I mean, I will tell the whole world I'm telling the whole world go it's a great class, you know that's an amazing class and experience that's worth me spending money even though nancy happens to be a friend in a high council of jedi knight member when it comes to actually participating in the class that her firm does, I'm going to go and I'm gonna joyfully pay that money because that's a core part of her business okay, so technical mentors khun b in specific areas of expertise in your business people who are amazing at what they do who are, you know designers or other coaches or, you know mom experts are men, experts whatever it iss it doesn't mean you always have to pay these folks sometimes you could just meet them and have great great conversations with them but one of the distinctions that I make between a technical mentor in the high council of jedi knight member is that, uh my criteria for high council of jedi knight member is somebody who does have tremendous expertise who was an absolute experts in their field and this is just for me each of you are going to make your own determinations but it would be somebody who conducts himself in their personal life in such a way that I would feel safe having them take care of my children so who are the most precious things in the entire world to me right? So a person that I would feel safe and I would trust with my children is somebody who is healthy somebody who loves children somebody who you know they don't have to have kids but they might you know enjoy being around them who is extremely trustworthy who's ethical and in all of these kinds of characteristics end up happening within the high council of jedi knights and it's one of those things sometimes people can either be elevated in your mind too high council or they can be sort of demoted in your counsel I know sometimes I've had people who are heroes who I admired I thought they were wonderful and then I learned that they were, like, really horrible to people that work for them and it's like, so depressing I don't tell me I don't want to know but, you know, it's like that the high council are really people who you can trust like the way they live their lives are totally in harmony with your particular values. Were you? Well, we were sitting here chuckling over here because because not only did john jan say money, pam, when you were talking about the generosity, um, versus feeling yeah, authorities resentful. Yeah, but then he said, we haven't ever gotten any money out of pam that's true, you know what I sent down with joy to so yeah, you know yeah. That's that's totally soul send you a check on I swear, not my onda that something's coming up for me that like it's not like if I give you an hour, I get an hour it's it's like what feels good? I mean, there's there's people who sometimes just for some reason just in their email, like, I you know, they've never done anything and they're like, oh, I'm going on a road trip with like, my dad and I'll give them ninety minutes of my time it's it's literally like what feels good you know you know it's not it's not. I'm going to give you this and because I know that you do marketing and maybe you can help me with this or it's it's it's just like what feels right here, that's just me exactly. I love that I love that criteria and it's just the really important thing I think to recognizes you know, are you clear? You clear about your own boundaries? Everybody has a different capacity for how much time they have to spend collaborative with folks just as peers. And so you have to know what that is. And I find over time that it does become this this the sense that you get of, like, how can I be effective? It's? Not like, okay, I give you an hour, you give me an hour or I wrote a blurb for you. You right up her back that can get extremely awkward guy kawasaki when we did the secrets of silicon valley talk here, a creative live a couple weeks ago talked about something he says in his book, which is a wonderful a phrase that comes from robert's baldini, who wrote what you write in power, influence the tire persuasion, okay, and it's a wonderful it's, a wonderful line that I recognize now that I've heard from guy but he's such a generous person is always behind the scenes in helping other people all the time he's been so instrumental for me have really giving me support but when I would thank him and say you know thank you so much for publishing that bob post he'll say back the key term which is it's my pleasure I'm sure you would do the same for me right a lot of that it's really wonderful because you know in some ways it does kind of say you know and the key is guy never uses it him and had been a manipulative sense I never feel like I'm strong armed and okay you know it's like mafia you know naggar in and you have to do something for me but it establishes that reciprocity which I think is a core part of healthy kind of connection that we have with each other and it makes me always feel like I would love to do something how can I help the other person right what other ways that I can I can really be helping them but it has to be really based on free will so so what I'm wondering you know one of the things that that could be another difficulty in terms of developing these circles is really in the first time that you meet somebody have you ever met like technical mentors or high council of jedi knight members for the first time do any of you feel awkward about that? Yeah mike rodney what way I first met you even though we've known you know introduced over over twitter and yeah when I when I first met you here you're a creative lives yeah so so what what was going through your head what was maybe making you a little bit nervous it's just different you know and I just felt like, you know, our interaction we have online is you know, not not so much but it's enough where we think we know each other but sort of meeting somebody in person I think part of twos also cameras cameras in our face yeah but it's uh intimidating I guess is the word you can feel a little awkward and intimidated just last night I'm here in the bay area and I was a gathering in silicon valley and I saw across the room somebody who is my hero who is david kelly who's, the founder of idea which is an amazing design firm his very instrumental in d school which is a cool design school in stanford I have just like I just love it I love design I love everything that they do and I saw him across the room and I was like, I have to introduce myself and I was felt really awkward because I could see that you know, other people were also wanting to talk to him but what I did, you know, his first I kind of got in closer proximity so that I could go say hello and this is one really important thing that we can do and then weaken play a little bit, we'll do a little bit of role playing around it, okay? One of the things that could be very effective is too, you know, is to just start really basically to introduce yourself. So I said, you know, david, my name is pamela slim. I am so delighted to meet you. I have been a huge fan of your work for a really long time now I might have said I love you inadvertently I don't know if it slipped out, but just keeping it simple like that to start, you know, just, you know, introducing myself, you know, pam slam, I didn't say I'm an author and I'm a speaker and I'm doing this, and that is just, you know, pamela slim, I'm so delighted to meet you. I'm a huge fan of your work, I think that's fantastic. I am the first in line to be a fan girl right there, people who I totally admire, and I want them to know how much I admire them, okay, the thing is, is that great to start? I had a a piece of information that I thought he would be interested in that wouldn't just be me gushing about how great he was because after about thirty seconds it gets really awkward for you and also for the person if it's like I love you, everything you've ever done, you're amazing you're wonderful and then what? What is that person going to say? So my dad in the has a volunteer project he's done for the last twenty years in port costa in his town here in the bay area, which is restoring one hundred year old school of the port cost to school I'm writing about this story my new book it's an amazing amazing venture and as fate would have it idea staff had to retreat at the port cost to school. I was amazed when my dad told me about that and I knew they'd love it because it was a really cool, you know, handcrafted design thing, which I know was really they would they would be interested in. So that was the kind of shared connection that I chose to talk about with him and knowing that he's somebody who is so interested in design and craftsmanship I said, you know, I was really delighted that your staff actually had an offside retreat he hadn't he wasn't aware of it, but it was kind of established a little bit of shared connection after that I just kind of created space in order for us to naturally go away we ended up chatting for a couple minutes he was asking about the school andan I said you know what you know what's going on with you are you still actively involved in your business and then he talked a little bit about how you know d school at stanford was really growing but the key when you're talking to people who you consider high council members people who are super busy who have maybe a lot of people going after them is just tow have that short connection to have some kind of shared established thing which shows that something I truly believe we are all equal we are all equal it is the fundamental way that were designed as human beings nobody is higher or lower were not made that way we create these artificial structures in our head that says we are but fundamentally nobody is better than anybody else some people are simply more experienced right so you want to approach that person as a just less experienced equal but give them the space where if you have a good connection and you can't talk then that happens okay mike what what is your experience when you raised your hand in terms of meeting it's funny it doesn't happen as often anymore but there's a couple people like the two of them at world domination summit one was daniel report and one was nation moodley just doesn't mean there's really powerful incredible you know both you know, business coaches are authors and um you know and is being being in front of them and but then after a while you know it's things sort of normalizing like oh yeah you're human just like me and you know you put your pants on one leg at a time but there there there there is that initial space where you're almost your breath is early there and you have to breathe into it and yeah it is it just it just makes you feel nervous and you don't want the other person to feel nervous but you also don't want yourself to feel you know, to feel awkward so I think you know if we khun break it up into a little bit of a I'm not a formula that kind of a way to think about it um actually one of the other people I met last night was porter gale who is doing a creative life class yeah on her second action yes her second one right summits while focus in life isn't helping people build network so I don't know where this your network is your network yes your net worth is your network yes so she was lovely and delightful and I know that a lot of other specific nation go sign up for her courts if you haven't already hit you like that yeah so you know basically when you have the intro you know and again don't I'm not writing a script for everybody but here's just a little you know way to understand so high my name is um you know, gloat love fan stuff right it's great if you want to say don't be shy I think you're amazing I love everything you've ever written you're amazing in a short way right and then maybe there's one little piece of question for them often about their work you know? So what what brings you here or what what are you working on? Not so much well here's what I am and here all my ideas but you know what's what's going on for you so something some question about them jim collins said that we want to be interested people not interesting people and sometimes when when we're tryingto appear to have it all together and you know to be to be really smart so that you know really smart people like us we end up just babbling on and on about ourselves where is if you turn it back and you actually asked questions for them you know are you what are you working on these days? Okay, you get one of two responses either they'll engage in conversation if you're more like a you know cocktail party gathering where you have time or they'll be like nothing really at which point exit stage left or right gracefully give space for them teo to move on and you'll notice that either you know sometimes you make a good connection and you're going to want to keep talking to each other in the conversation continues but it's a way of really demonstrating respect and it's a way of not getting caught in things I have done many times in my life which is to stay too long and end up babbling on and on about myself it's awful I think for one of my definition of collaboration is really you know, working with others in order to be sharing ideas and, you know, developing skills and strengths but you're building something useful together one of the things to remember about your power circles like within your high council of jedi knights let's say for seth godin, for example, who happens to be a jedi knight for many people I know he is for me um if his ideas don't spread, if people don't take the ideas in his books and do something with him he doesn't he isn't able to express his art, he isn't able to share what he does. So when you take an idea of somebody who you consider to be a really amazing mentor and you do something amazing with it, we're actually participating with them in a collaboration that helps to spread their ideas you become part of their circle in their ecosystem guy kawasaki said once that we were at a panel at south by southwest and somebody said, well, it seems like just everything is based on who you know, you know? And that was that club question who I forget who it was, who asked that like, I want to be inside the club of the internet, marketing people or whatever that that phrase wass he said, it's, not who you know, its who knows you, what work are you doing in the world that is so cool that somebody who is very much a master of their craft is going to get excited by what you're doing it's? Not just that, you know, that we're not just like collecting a bunch of business cards and trying, you know, it just it feels so awful if you're just considering connections that you have with people to be like all part of your grand scheme to have influence mean, yuck that's horrible you create your magic, you create your art in such a way that super cool people who are interested in the same things they're going to say, oh my god, like that person is awesome! I totally want to get to know that person and that's again where you can start to feel your own power because you are gifted, you're an equal, you just have a little bit less experience right that's kind of how we can stay connected to it let me take the internet and then I'll take you we have so much great feedback coming in here I'm not even sure where to start that some examples of people who have met mentors were people that they admired and rs five twelve says I wish I had this formula when I introduced myself to blake mycoskie and she was not too graceful e I feel her pain we're also sorry and let's see, I just there's so many um a lot of challenges around networking at south by southwest yeah and duct tape says uh mr john jansen says that you're so right pam ironically, a lot of speakers get that get put on that pedestal and they wish they would rather be treated as an equal yes and again, this is great to hear I know I've been a conferences before and been humble meeting folks, you know? And so it's definitely see no somebody who's meeting somebody and their drink spelled on their shoes and theo more stories definitely somewhere shows jane what I really liked what you just said about about about helping those people who are your your jet I nights minor all virtual I'm afraid, but which is ok, but I actually gave copies of seth's book away on my newsletter by asking people to submit like a hundred word thing on what difference, they want to make or whatever, and I felt a little bit weird cause I didn't want to be like riding on his coat tails of his book, and so I liked what you just said about that because it makes me feel better about doing that because I had eight copies. What am I gonna do? Do it right? And I don't want to just give him away. I wanted to help people, you know, who really wanted the book, and then I encourage them, tio, give it to somebody else. When they were done right, it was fun. But I felt funny about about I encourage you to feel completely awesome about doing that. Because that's exactly the reason why he sells his books and big batches, not to mention because it helps book sales, but that's exactly what he says is give him away to other people, spread the word. There is no greater compliment that you, khun given author to take there their information and do something with it, apply it right, take action on it. Spread the word. I mean, that is, like that's, total joy for people who are authors that's what we want. So, yeah, I think that's a really, really important important thing, too realize, so I can't stress enough the importance of really approaching people as an equal of don't belittle yourself watch the thought that you have in your head when you're walking up to somebody saying, you know I'm not worthy your and people do that I've done that stumbling over words like you know, I know you're really busy and you probably don't want to talk to me and I'm really not it's not really that big a person and you know, I only have like two hundred people on my mailing list and you know in the meantime they're like oh my gosh, this is awkward as opposed to hi my name is jane and I totally love your work I think you're amazing what what do you working on these days equal equal? You've expressed the fact that you really adore them but you want to get b ond the fan adoration pretty quickly I did say I love you once teo say frank who is a really cool internet dude that makes videos and the first time I met him he spoke in phoenix at a conference and I was I was like waiting so I was the very first person in line, you know, after he spoke and I think I said, oh my god it's so nice to meet you I love everything about you I think I love you I think I said that and then I just kind of slunk away within the next time I met him, you know, at least we had had that kind of connection, so whatever, you know, like, don't be embarrassed about that if you love somebody, let them know that it feels good, but just don't keep going on and on quickly shift into having a conversation. We'll have a couple minutes left, yet I wanted to read this one thing from three eighteen media who says networking is not my forte, but becoming friends and helping someone out is much more natural and beneficial, so thinking about it that way is just really helpful for people. Exactly right? It is about friendship and collaboration and networking. Exactly. So I think from a very pragmatic perspective, one of the things to get housing tuesay, nazi bolt see about it. Our new words is to begin to define for yourself at this particular stage of business. Who do you want tohave in your peer mentor circles? What if some of the criteria of the kinds of people the kind of expertise tapering the kind of people they are, they're going to push you to be your best? Who are your next set of technical mentors? When you go into a new stage of business, you need to learn from new people I get excited when my clients say I've learned everything I can from you pam now I'm ready to go learn from some other people that means I'm doing my job I'm helping my my client's grow out of my own expertise and then for high council of jedi knights start tio maybe you know, do a little visual board it sounds kind of creepy he doesn't you know little stalker ish but you know, put up some images or, you know, have a shelf that's dedicated to people who really inspire you or begin to really pay attention to who are people who I really really want to start to follow their work and become a student of them if there's one thing I've learned in starting out from not knowing anybody not even knowing what a blogged wass is that often when you do take that approach your high council of jenna tonight members that are just famous authors all of a sudden become your friends through time you know with with sometimes years of development in cultivation than they can actually become real mentors and friends but it doesn't have to happen all at once and all of the same time so develop your circles pay attention and nobody gets to be in the circle unless it feels like a really reciprocal kind of relationship