Making Meaningful Connections in the Virtual Space

Making Meaningful Connections in the Virtual Space: Embracing Online Interactions with Kassy LaBorie – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgIeIy5nH7U

Transcript:
(00:00) we have an opportunity to do things we’ve never done before and I very much believe that we can take what was good about meeting in person because let’s be honest it wasn’t always a hundred percent great you know I I like to say we found ways to make it weird over lunch and in the hallways and around the water coolers right so and then you know we went online and and we found a lot of ways to make that real weird you know so but there were a lot of good things too and certainly there’s a lot of good things
(00:28) about being in person so can we just take the good from both get rid of the bad from both and let’s make a new world moving forward hello everyone and welcome to the flow over fear podcast where it is our mission to help you to rise above fear and realize your ultimate potential in leadership and life I’m your host Adam Hill and it is my goal to share with you the human side of high performance my guests share their experience with fear anxiety struggle Challenge and most importantly despite all of it how they
(01:04) Rose above it to achieve incredible results so if you’re ready to rise up let’s get started hello everyone and welcome to flow over fear I am so glad you’re here thanks for joining us I have a an amazing guest today and we’re going to talk about all things virtual uh her name is Cassie labori and she is a professional speaker she’s an author and the original virtual training hero on a mission to rid the world of boring slide reading lectures and passive virtual participants what uh she’s the founder of Prince and
(01:40) principal consultant at Cassie libory Consulting certifying l d professionals to become virtual trainers designers and producers around the globe each day she has served as the Director of virtual training services at Dale Carnegie and Associates Associates and is responsible for building an online training platform that scaled to four million dollars in just four years Cassie is the author of two books including interact and engage 75 plus activities for virtual training meetings and webinars of which she’s the
(02:11) co-author and her producing virtual training meetings and webinars thanks for joining me Cassie I’m so glad you’re here thank you it’s fun to listen to All That right it’s amazing and I love reading those I love reading people’s bios at first and and um and I know it sounds you know when I when I read it it’s like okay well I’m I’m reading but I want to make sure I get everybody’s uh uh everybody’s awesomeness in there because it truly is something I mean to hear your amazing accomplishments before
(02:42) getting started and this is is I think something we want to get into and I’d love to dive into how you got started in all of this because you’re in the space that has popped up and just exploded over the last few years for a number of reasons obviously but you’ve been in it for a very long time um in that virtual space so can you kind of I’d love to hear your backstory yeah what’s what where how did you get into it where did you how did you grow up and and what um what brought you into this
(03:08) industry well I think it’s a fake RuPaul for deciding to partner with WebEx in the late 90s WebEx did a Super Bowl Halftime uh you know commercial or Super Bowl maybe it wasn’t half time it was a commercial and they partnered with uh with RuPaul and said meetings have got to be a real drag you know and like and the other one was done we’ve got to start meeting like this and I used to live in San Francisco I’m now in Western New York but I was driving down the 101 freeway in San Francisco and I saw that
(03:40) that sign with RuPaul and it was the late 90s and I thought I want to work there you know they gave me the boa and the beach ball and I was on my way I was a Microsoft trainer at the time so I was already used to teaching people how to use software and you know during that time in the Silicon Valley it’s like cool Silicon Valley job you know I didn’t know that it was going to become you know what would form the basis for my whole career you know I did not know that at all and working as a trainer working in learning in development you
(04:12) know it was people like to hire you because you know the thing and I didn’t know the thing I got hired because I thought I’m going to learn the thing and it’s going to be cool and I just remember going well what is this and when I got in there I realized pretty quickly this is going to be something that’s probably going to change the way that we work and I had no idea in the late 90s that it would also become sort of a force of change for how we live as well you know and it just was so so amazing to think about it and go back
(04:41) to that because really honestly at that time it was like cool new software let me show you how to use it you know right yeah well it’s amazing I mean because it seems like you’ve gone through a number of transformations in that having started in 1999 and seeing that first ad but there was other things that happened in the tech industry within those next couple years uh how did that affect you working in that in that uh industry well you know for so long I even though there’s big things that happened it was
(05:10) not until March of 2020 that everyone really went all in on it we we had before that people paying attention at certain levels but they still weren’t ready for it and you could argue that people are still not totally ready for it they’re just they’ve been more forced into it sure but but you know I mean in 99 you know 9 11 had not happened yet and I was actually driving to work talking to my colleagues who are on the East Coast I was on West Coast time at that time and I was driving in the morning and that was happening and I
(05:41) remember all of us gathering in the offices at WebEx and going wow the the work that we do is probably going to become more important right now yeah yeah and it did uh you know but then we got back to normal uh regarding how we meet and how we travel right at that time and then you know people kept on not listening I mean honestly so I spent my whole career going hey guys listen to me this can be great this can be a great way to work too and this can because I work in Learning and Development we can do training like this
(06:13) it’ll be okay everyone’s like yeah yeah yeah maybe we’ll listen we should or somebody forced us it really wasn’t until you know the lockdowns that all of a sudden everyone’s like oh we have to do this and also you know I should point out that my mother finally understood clearly what I do for work oh yeah she didn’t understand until then if you make websites right and like no no I don’t right yeah well I mean I mean that that was probably the most uh you know obviously the most instrumental
(06:44) transformation in the last few years was was was coveted in the lockdowns how uh but even since then you see outspoken people um like Elon Musk or or others that are saying no no we got to bring everybody back into the office um do you see that do you see that Trend coming back or do you see us going or do you see some kind of equilibrium being struck and how does that how does how are you uh approaching this next evolution oh I definitely want to be on on like leading the mission or the message that it’s going to be okay we have an
(07:17) opportunity to do things we’ve never done before and I very much believe that we can take what was good about meeting in person because let’s be honest it wasn’t always a hundred percent great right I like to say we found ways to make it weird over lunch and in the hallways and around the water coolers right so and then you know we went online and we found a lot of ways to make that real weird you know so but there were a lot of good things too and certainly there’s a lot of good things about being in person so can we just
(07:47) take the good from both get rid of the bad from both and let’s make a new world moving forward and I think that what you see with people who want to go back in the office is that they’re just not there yet they they um they’re leaning back on their Laurels you know what they know to be true and they haven’t yet discovered what that you know secret thing is going to be if it’s secret you know they still have to keep working on it and I think they need examples you know and what I when I want to help
(08:16) people realize is listen we just need to get more intentional about why we do meet in person because we have this opportunity now we have a lot of wonderful technology that lets people gather we’re able to expand our reach and um let people meet together in ways that they decide are going to be best for what they need to do and so let’s let’s just use that and not say just because we are in person it is better than and just because we are online it is a 70 experience right it’s really mindset right you talk
(08:49) about your mindset as as you approach fear and I think that’s what it is people are afraid of not being successful and so let me go back on what I know I can do to make it work and that wasn’t in the online days so do you think that’s the root of of the fear of everybody with regard to going to Virtual is just it’s a fear of failure is that where it all kind of stems from I I think that maybe not all of it but some I mean I’ve been asking long before I needed to ask I would ask people what what are you worried about
(09:20) like hi I’m here to help you learn Zoom or WebEx or teams or whatever you’re using what are you worried about and it is it falls under two categories and it still does to this day that the first one is I am afraid I will not engage my audience and then the second one is I am afraid of this technology breaking and I don’t know how to fix it in some form it’s those two things it’s the people and the tech and then you know that translates to I don’t think I’m going to be able to get my teams to work together to be
(09:53) productive you know to be able to collaborate so that I can have a successful business um yeah so I don’t know is all of it fear I I don’t know but it’s certainly a lot of it is based in the concern that we’re not going to do well I’m gonna look bad I’m gonna perform poorly um I just can’t do this yeah how many how many trainers have I worked with where this is what happens hey everyone hey guys welcome to class can you see my slides okay one person can great all of you can we’re gonna just get through this if we
(10:30) were in person I would have had lunch brought in but because we’re online I just cut all the activities um I’ll just read through my slides I know you don’t really want to be here so let’s just get this done yeah it sounds like all of them yeah and I don’t know another way they don’t know how to make it work and when we went online in March of 2020 we we had to do everything online book clubs my kid graduated high school online I know wow I know so and I only have one by the way that was my one shot
(11:07) I’m mad well it brings up an interesting point too I mean that that yeah I mean I mean I’m looking at all of the benefits of of going virtual I mean we sent from from our company you know we had a we had 150 employees some of them were essential some some were manufacturing some of them you know were driving trucks and things like that so they had to keep going out in the world but for many of us those that were in the office we went we went home and ultimately made the decision to keep those people at
(11:37) home uh for the most part but that was met by and and I just had this conversation with another guest uh chess Chesley Lundy um uh who who did a generational study and like it was it was a very generational thing where you know the younger generation kind of took to it really quick and generally speaking I mean there were kind of mixtures in both but uh but you know there was a lot of you know pushback in saying now we we just we can’t work that way we can’t work that way how do we overcome that uh and and and to the point is is there are
(12:12) there activities like a graduation that you know we we need to have in person and how do we discern between the two like what we need and what we don’t yeah yeah I mean a lot of it is driven by what is available and what the circumstances are you know and so to be interesting as we see people deciding what’s going to be best about being in person and how do I go about being intentional um but the biggest thing from what I have seen with people is that they just don’t know how to use whatever technology it is that’s Gathering people
(12:43) together it doesn’t know how to really use it and so if we can I have a I have a principle if you will it’s called I do this I say you got to learn the tech like learn the heck out of the tech and then use the tech and then guess what get over the tech it’s like it’s all attacked but we have to somehow just get rid of it at the same time it’s like when we first all went to cell phones or mobile phones they were novel and then they were you know I don’t think that will ever work and then that’s you know where look
(13:19) where we are now we got used to it we’d call people for no reason just because we had a new phone and now they’re you know I’m surprised they’re not embedded on us at this point yeah like I mean the whole cell phone thing it’s interesting that that I mean we still call them phones because that’s just one single activity that this pocket device does for us it’s not a phone anymore it’s like what is it I don’t know what I don’t want to know oh yeah we don’t want to know it’s
(13:46) it’s it’s our it’s our mind control device right um yeah it’s a big part of it we have to get people comfortable with the text so there needs to be this mindset shift that Tech is not in the way and then we need to be willing to play with it and use it in in all the ways in in everything you know like I’ve done so many baby showers and birthday parties and uh retirement parties those are all done before the lockdown you know and helping people get comfortable in that way um finding ways to truly connect with
(14:18) each other in in ways that are meaningful help the technology to get out of the way you know to to get in the proverbial back seat if you will you know like what was important is that we met and we connected and we we did that like my daughter’s graduation was amazing actually it it wasn’t what we thought it was going to be as she was growing up but it enabled we have family in Canada and across all of the US and they were all there and I don’t think all of them would have been able to come if we were doing it in
(14:48) person it would have just been a few so it was really special yeah so so there’s there’s good and bad that comes from it obviously so the good is you know yeah you have more accessibility um and then then but um and and as far as so so kind of going back to when this kind of started to take off there was there were a couple of events that that triggered the movement so to speak so obviously the Super Bowl ad with RuPaul kind of got you into the um got you into the the game a little bit but you mentioned 911
(15:20) too obviously that shut down Transportation so we had to do more virtually can you kind of tell us a little bit about how that iteration went how we uh how we moved more toward digital and and how that evolved through the course of the next say 20 years or so yeah it’s a it’s it was a sort of slow you know it never went as fast as it did until just recently you know it was more like here’s another technology we can use like in the way that we became more open to not having to have a physical signature I think DocuSign slowly came
(15:52) about and you know just sort of getting more used to having electronic copies of things and when people started to realize that you know we had because we had the economic turn happen in the mid 2000s as well right right that is another place because then you start looking at an online version of things as a as a budget concern because of how expensive travel is not only to do the travel but to be out of work are off the clock at the time that you need to do the travel so time lost right so that that happened as well and I think people
(16:29) just started seeing we can be we can be effective like this if we if we try right but but then right but it wasn’t until we had to that people said okay we’re really gonna do it it was always just some of the companies it was a lot you know I mean I shouldn’t say something it was a lot but but they weren’t all in it’d be like one division in the giant company that had decided we’re really going to go for this yeah it takes time and and every single organization that I have worked with
(16:57) every single Learning and Development team they they would start off as okay they’re making us do this can we be effective we’d go through the whole process of learning the technology bonding and connecting with each other and then getting better at it and then on the other side of it we’d have some experiences that we both loved and didn’t love but then once we got on the other side of that whole story people started to really understand and Define work-life balance and and what it meant to not be
(17:30) commuting and to not be uh for lack of a better word wasting time going to work and instead spending time on quality work because what this would enable us to do yeah when you’re over there you kind of don’t want to go back to I have to sit in the car for an hour and then do that on the way back too I don’t want that’s two hours for the whole day right that alone is probably one of the biggest changes I’m sure that you saw it with with your company and what was happening we did yeah I mean there was
(18:09) there was certainly this this I mean certainly for me I was commuting each an hour each way and so were many of my uh our employees and um and so so taking that I mean gave us two hours of our day back I mean I found just in that process a I’m sleeping better you know I’m I’m I’m already more productive I can already take control of my own schedule I can be more present with my family yeah and I think those were those were the positives that that came out of it and not everybody saw it that way which was the interesting thing
(18:40) it was like you know more more time you know I think everything kind of seemed like it Amplified right I mean like the if there was if there was a bad situation at home that Amplified if there was bad so so not that technology caused that but but it certainly led to Greater visibility into that it seemed like right yeah sure yeah because not everybody has an equal setup or equal access and it’s difficult and some people go to work to get away from whatever else might be happening in their lives so yeah there’s
(19:13) considerations that we have to to take and put into place for people and help them I mean it didn’t happen overnight for me that I would be comfortable working online you know my my journey is more about learning how to make the technology work and then realizing that life can be lived like this too and I don’t in any way live my whole life online you know I do it’s just like all the different things I allowed to supplement and give me access to um yeah well that leads to an interesting question too is you know you
(19:46) mentioned that it took you some time to get accustomed to working online what what how did that develop for you what would that look like and how long did it take you to get comfortable with that argue that there’s things I’m still doing to get comfortable but it was it was less about working online and more about working from my own space that I had to put together you know and and I saw it happening so much when all of us went home because many of us were working on Corner Corners in the dining room table right
(20:16) right and what I had to to do and I had that in the beginning too because I was working for WebEx and I lived in an apartment in San Francisco and commuted an hour into WebEx office where we were telling people that they should work online but none of us were the irony oh that’s great the irony I know yeah but I mean it wasn’t even his thing you know it was not we didn’t have any part of our lives really online that much in in the late 90s I mean the Facebook didn’t catch on until about it was 2004. so I
(20:45) still had five years until we were gonna have personal life online more we were still in I think Myspace was 2003 yeah yeah so he was even thinking of it and so when my team moved from San Jose California up to Sacramento California they offered because I wasn’t going to move to SAC when you live in San Francisco you’re not going to move into Sacramento right I love Zach I went to high school instead but oh yeah uh but I I wasn’t gonna move and so I was like well I guess am I do I no longer have a job are
(21:17) you asking me to move and I’d been there several years and they said no you can keep your job and I got to go home at that point so I was in the corner in the living room we had to make a space and that whole thing of just learning what it was going to be like and then you know then my my little one came along and so I’m figuring out like I couldn’t watch her at the same time that I’m running online sessions so then now how’s the child care going to work and what’s that going to look like and
(21:43) it’s different and things uh so just learning the space and and and learning the boundaries because the beautiful thing about quote going to work is that you leave the house at a certain time and you make a physical transition that is very clear to I have now arrived at the place where I will do the thing but when you’re at home and I would say early on in my working from home career if that’s a career I I did not have clear boundaries and I was working all the time yeah and I had to that’s a great point
(22:17) that I had to learn to set the space you know now I have a space where we have I actually don’t have guest rooms in my home because my husband and I both work from home and so each of our guest rooms are offices and I think about that sometimes because my sister-in-law was here last weekend I’m like did you want to sleep in the screen room I can make the futon you know I I have like this house that has bedrooms but no they’re not bedrooms they’re offices because we need a door right yeah that’s that’s
(22:42) such a great point about the the boundaries um because I know that we run into or I’ve run into that a lot where it’s just I’m at home and I find myself working constantly on some things when I need to get stuff done yeah and maybe I neglect some of the home stuff maybe I neglect some of the family stuff um do you run into that a lot and how do you how do we manage the boundaries how do we get over those boundaries I think everyone has a different approach I certainly do run into it and I think people are all different you know in the
(23:10) way that they manage their schedule but we do need to find a way that works for each of us in our in in the unique way that we are a person in the world and you know like like my husband is very specific and he keeps spreadsheets of everything he’s a he’s a researcher and a data analyst and so he’s always like I’m gonna leave uh my I’m gonna log off my computer an hour early today but I will work an extra hour later on tonight you know he’s very specific about how he goes about it uh and also because of the respect for
(23:41) his employer too there’s that but I I’m a little different in that I might say okay I’m not going to work the afternoon but I don’t even actually maybe out loud say that but then I’ll know oh Sunday I’m working all afternoon because I have a deadline and so for me like I stopped living in the world of Monday through Friday and it became about what am I working on and how do I get that done and the work was not the part that suffered for me until I learned how to balance it better it was actually having the part
(24:12) where I wasn’t working that suffered like actually taking a vacation because we still carry our computers with us and I’ll still work every single time we take a vacation yeah such a I mean it’s a powerful point I think that’s a lot of where the fear of of some of the leaders that I’ve heard of came from like like people who are sending their their employees home it’s like how do we keep track of if they’re working or not and and nobody thought of the idea of like well what if they’re
(24:40) working too hard yeah we don’t stop working because we don’t know how you know like how many times have I been like I need to go prepare dinner I’ll and then I’ll try okay I’ll do it like I’ll do it at two o’clock I’ll chop everything at two o’clock and then I’ll stop working you know at 5 30 which normally would have been 4 30 but I’m not I work for myself so I’m not keeping hours like that in my life anyway because I don’t work well like that right right my four last two player I
(25:05) was like listen if you want to hire me I can’t be the nine to five person I can definitely do 40 hours but they probably won’t be nine to five Monday through Friday yeah I’ll probably like be more than 40 but you know anyway so for me though it’s like making sure that I would get things done because like I might have what happens to me very often and I just this just happened because I did some chili recently I will do all the shopping and then I won’t end work early enough to go in there and put it
(25:30) all together and make it and then we’ll end up with takeout you know yeah I’m guilty guilty of that too it’s like yeah I mean it’s true you have like these ideas like wake up in the morning and like you look at your you look at your to-do list you’re like yep I can do all of this and it’s like your eyes are bigger than your stomach and then and then yeah it just doesn’t doesn’t happen um your headphones are not to be too hard on myself too yeah like like let’s look at what is being accomplished and I
(25:58) had to become a little more strategic in planning out what am I working on getting done and what does done look like because maybe I have a bit more of a creative mind and so maybe I’m just like making things bigger and adding on to it all the time and so I had to learn to say what am I working on what does it look like when it’s done and and then to honor that too and to celebrate that and learn to establish these boundaries which I don’t know that I could ever give a talk on establishing boundaries at home yeah
(26:28) because I’m not sure that I do well I work all the time in a happy third way but you know yeah well yeah I mean as long as you’re fulfilled right and that’s I mean what we’re going for so it I mean and I know that there’s a lot of so that this change happened to us rather quickly I mean a lot of people were sent home we were working like at our dining room tables that like you were saying and and so yeah obviously that injected a lot of fear into our into our lives I mean leaders were afraid for a lot of variety
(26:56) of reasons you know people were afraid and and I know that now the quality of our meetings uh off and often we we gauge that on like whether we’re on Zoom or not or what have you how how do we make or how do we how do we uh offset that fear that we’re having about virtual about going virtual I think it depends on what kind of fears we have but I think such a big part of it again is just learning to manage the technology and being able to truly connect with people and the the biggest successes for me have to spend when
(27:31) we’ve had fun together uh I took a a course that this local chocolatier was offering and ahead of time I went and picked up the chocolate they made it available and so we each had our own little box and they were numbered and they gave us a little handout too and then we got together on zoom and zoom was just us on camera and talking but we had this physical box of chocolates and our map that we were going through because they were all from different parts of the world and we were talking about how you would pair them
(28:03) with different drinks or food and things and we were having to like eat the little piece and then in the chat you know where we would talk about what did you taste you know it was amazing so I’m putting the zoom out in the back ground there and focusing on the chocolate and what we could sense from that yeah having fun interactions like that but yeah at the same time you’re using the tool in a way that’s quite innovative is the biggest thing that’s helping people lose any kind of fear or worry
(28:36) that they have about it because I think all of us are just wanting to be whatever version of normal might be for us we just want to connect with each other in ways that aren’t weird and awkward you know so true can we do things that would make it not awkward and so that’s what I try to help people do when I gather people in my classes and when I am helping them learn the tool I try to have you know fun things that help us connect and then we look at the Fun within the context of how that’s helping our lives
(29:14) through technology because technology is a barrier right it’s overwhelming and it can be a barrier so how can we remove that and then we can get to the other things because other things could be causing the fear right other things right but I don’t know that that that fear you probably have that fear long before it was ever online absolutely yeah I mean there’s there’s social fear there’s there’s there’s fear of of social situations all these kinds of things and and they kind of come up a
(29:41) little more on you know I think maybe they amplify when we change the platform we’re on but it sounds like what you’re saying is don’t make the platform the thing don’t make Zoom the thing like maybe make the chocolate box the thing yes or make something out is that is that what I’m hearing that right yeah I think that’s a good way to put that you know like for example people ask me how do I get my participants to come on camera after having a big conversation of why they even want that you know and I I
(30:12) understand why people want it I do because we want human connection it’s why right the camera is an interesting we could have a whole probably a couple of hours on just that alone but something that I’ve really been experiencing experimenting with of late is it so easy to change these backgrounds now in all the tools and so I have people answer the question that I’m posing by changing the background and what happens is it’s actually not about you on your camera like could you move over so I can see
(30:43) you know um you can see what I like what do you collect you can see what I collect right there you know I’m out of the way now but you had to be on camera to reveal that and this is not a virtual background it’s real life but um I’ll do it with like if the most recent example is so I’m taking an assessment like maybe commonly the disc assessment and so I would send people the four results as virtual background and then change your virtual background to indicate your result and now I have a visual and I purposefully made all four
(31:14) of them different colors so that when you’re looking at these teams or Zoom or WebEx Windows of a bunch of smiling hopefully faces I now see the callers and it’s really easy for us to indicate who’s you know who’s in what category for that moment wow so that’s that and that’s powerful because now you’re using the tool as as not just a platform on how we’re going to see each other but you’re even integrating the platform into the end of the talk into the into the engagement
(31:46) yes I love that part of it yeah yeah you do it in a networking event too where I have I made several different backgrounds on where are you in your journey are you just beginning testing the waters ready to take off you know and there are three different colors and we change the background and then I open up the breakout rooms and people can network with who they’d like to network with just like if you were walking around a room in in person and you had a name tag that indicated something about you you know so now the
(32:17) virtual background is is working like that providing a visual and it’s fun too you know yeah yeah that’s so that’s so cool so in this in in these past few years I mean obviously there’s been a lot of changes certainly in your industry and what you’ve been doing um and and what if what have been your the biggest lessons that you’ve learned since 20 since 2019 since 2020 when we when that whole shift started happening uh lessons about living online and working online yeah yeah generally some
(32:51) things never change I mean it’s interesting uh you know just even this week showing people about The annotation tools that are available you’ll be like I didn’t know this existed response since the 90s you know I I that’s the the lesson in that I suppose is just don’t assume that people know everything about how to be online you know I I um I need to stop being surprised by that you don’t want to pause on that because it’s so big but again it just the more that we can use these tools and
(33:26) get over it it really is so learn the tech use the tech and get over it then you can get to all the other stuff that we have to do and we’ve been trying to help each other do to connect as human beings but yeah we keep blaming the technology you know like I gave a talk a couple years ago it was in 2021 at a conference called devlearn uh we did it online this particular one back to being in person now but uh the name of the talk they let me be a little cheeky it was uh the reason you hate your virtual training is because of
(33:59) what you’re doing in your virtual training I remember getting the feedback they said she was a little mean I’m like oh I’m really not me and I didn’t mean it like that but um you hate that people arrive late but you just opened it right at the top of the hour and I had Tech problems and now I’m late you know or or I know you’re gonna have Tech problems and so I don’t want to be part of that so I’m going to arrive late yes you know manage that right um you’re mad that nobody’s asking any
(34:35) questions yet you lectured the entire time and never checked in with us so we’re not listening to you to have any questions you know so it’s a little cheeky I don’t mean to be mean but I think we just don’t realize we blame the technology for choices that we’ve made um and so if we can get back to what we know we need to do and need to open things early and let people come and get situated you know would you ever just open the doors when you go in person to an event right at that moment that you need to
(35:08) start talking right yeah I mean it’s it’s such an important point I mean that we’re we’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole it sounds like when we’re when we’re trying to interpret everybody’s engagement by trying to have a virtual meeting in the same way we’d have an in-person meeting yeah yeah and then we’re comparing our virtual stuff to I think movies and TV and multimedia where people do just watch things in a moment and and what goes into making all that work is so much production and so much
(35:40) performance ahead of time so that there is that one button that you can press yeah but but there’s it’s it’s it’s not being in person and it’s not a movie it’s something else and it needs more planning and a little more care than we maybe bring to it right yeah so how do we not make it so awkward I mean there’s those awkward moments that we have right I mean where it’s like you we talk over each other we say I’m sorry then there’s an awkward silence awkward pause how do we how do
(36:08) we avoid those awkward moments or live with them uh you know either yeah I have fun so my in the first part of it is learning the check so that go ahead and use it right because otherwise you just sit there and talk and wonder what’s happening and then that of itself is awkward can you all see me awkward right you’re on me you’re on mute and then the second principle that I have is uh what did I just say or do that I could have let you say or do and um how that will play out is for example if I just tell you the world
(36:45) according to me and then go what questions do you have like hey guess what I’ve got I’ve got a process I’d like to share with you here’s my process let me read it to you and tell you all my stories about it here’s some pretty slides with it you guys stay muted don’t chat because it bothers me I have a mission I’m talking and then at the end okay I’m ready who’s ready to talk about all my great stuff nobody yeah right what if we said while um let’s let’s use the chat and I’m gonna share these a
(37:16) couple of visuals and what if I told a brief story to set up the process and then what if I showed the process after the very brief story that was very witty and then you got to look at the process and I said why don’t you Circle parts or type your name next to parts that you’d like to speak more about or learn more about or maybe you can relate to and I have you be part of driving which way we go and deciding what you’d like to talk about so I high level it I let you deep dive and choose and I’m paying
(37:49) attention to the chat I’m paying attention to The annotation tools that I just learned about that I could use and then from there I’m listening to you and I now it’s not me begging you to come off mute it’s me managing who’s going to come off Newt first so that you could share your question and in your story and how you relate to that and then I can help guide you to how you could put that into practice for yourself and then we segue into the next moment so I’m letting it be more about
(38:16) the audience than About Me by um capitalizing if you will on the tools because I can’t do that in person I can’t have you draw what you want or type your name on the areas of the handout that you want me to cover all in real time very easily I have to have some kind of technology to do that and it’s pretty cool to do that yeah that that is that is cool that’s a that’s an interesting perspective that never really heard before because you know now in this new format we have the ability to the audience has the ability
(38:46) to share those things that’s yeah so that’s that’s really impactful and like you gotta you gotta control it a little you got to be able to respond to it but then you also have to let go within within that control let go if you will like another thing I like to do is I’ll pull up the agenda like I have a I have a talk the five keys for successful virtual training and then I go which key are you most interested in here’s the five and then they vote and then I go we’re gonna go in the order of the most votes
(39:17) received you know and that doesn’t mean you have to leave at this last one though maybe I’ll reverse the order and spend at least amount of time on that one you know whatever it is but then I have to be prepared to speak out of order if I’m going to run that presentation which I do and I’ve color coded each of the five keys so that it’s easy for me to hop around in the presentation but I let them choose and drive what they want to spend the most amount of time on yeah you know and you know how you can
(39:46) do that you can shift because sometimes people don’t choose it because you know they don’t they don’t they know them they know enough about it and so you know you’ve got the handouts and you can still provide the the resources but spend the bulk of the discussion and the the time together live on the things they want most yeah that’s that’s big that’s a great advice and as far as um how what what kind of tools do you recommend that that can help Drive engagement I mean is are there any
(40:19) specific tools that we’re not using that we should be using more out there to help drive that engagement do you mean like um like apps like like I like do you want to hear from me like make sure you use this app it’s really cool yeah like yeah I mean I guess I yeah I guess from somebody who’s naive on the subject or or maybe I’m doing it the wrong way it’s like yeah let’s get on a zoom call and and but is there is there any uh yeah is there anything that that that that’s out there that we’re
(40:47) just not you know that we’re not using enough of to to build that engagement no there’s so many actually Adam in fact as soon as I tell you this by the time you release this it’ll be another one and I’ll call you and be like wait can you add there’s so much Tech it’s hard to keep up with it but I’ll tell you like if we were just to focus in on zoom zoom has so much cool stuff going on right now that’s kind of buried in there I just discovered this this week and I’ve been using Zoom every day for years
(41:10) you can create Advanced polls in Zoom they call them Advanced because they’re beyond just to use multiple choice stuff you can set up a multiple choice poll and then align that to a breakout room and so you launched the poll they answer and then when you close the poll it says Hey I’ve created the breakouts room rooms for you based on their answers so if I wanted to group The D’s the I’s the S’s and the C’s together the tool has already done it for me it’s like you know giving them
(41:39) assignment do that and then I can re-org them okay Dee’s talk to the s’s eyes talk to the C’s I’m mixing you up now and there’s another feature in there where you can broadcast your voice and I’m I always do it like I pretend like I’m the announcer at Rydell High from Greece and so I pressed that button and I go ding ding ding please change groups now you know I love it and they they come back and they’re like you are talking to us this is God oh my gosh I can see the implications yeah so good there’s so
(42:12) many tools I’m really excited about the mental mint meters and the um miros I love Miro too it’s really fun the way you can move things around and create this endless Board of activities it’s really cool um mentally meters really fun for just involving both an online and an in-person audience and recently I discovered one called aha slides and I like it because you can actually upload a phone excuse me an image from your phone and it will populate my slide right away oh wow there’s also fear in that a
(42:41) little bit because like what are they going to upload but if you had them like my friend used it and that’s where I got this idea she had them doing something at the tables they were working with something like a Lego kind of thing and then once they built it they took a picture of their team’s result and and then it populated on her slide oh wow and then the cool thing too I was in a really big like football sized room at a conference last year and you know you always have the table that’s way out
(43:06) and you’re like table 25 what did what what did you guys say well that aha slide if you took the picture you could press the picture and have it call that slide and then they can pick up their phone and they can basically FaceTime and the FaceTime will appear on your slides oh wow yeah audio too it’s amazing to me I can’t wait to try that at the next conference but there’s all sorts of tools and I would say that like looking at the tool you have teams has really fun stuff going on in it with translations you can upload your slides
(43:33) now in teams and it will automatically translate it into another language oh wow okay that’s cool that’s that’s really cool yeah we we use we primarily use teams within our our company so we’re very familiar with that and yeah no that that’s there there’s so much that we just haven’t even explored out there because we just don’t we don’t look at it we use this we use these tools we and and we just kind of say oh we have to be on it all day long and and yeah it’s boring and so I’d like to go
(44:02) to other people’s sessions because I don’t think of that like miro’s been out there for a while and I just I saw it and it looks pretty but I just haven’t used it and this week I’ve got a trainer that’s showing me all this stuff and now I’m like you realize you just made me the biggest Miro fan right right she’s got us dragging little thumbs up icons to things and little and there’s a funny face a myth or myth or fact and when you take these little icons and we can move them all around and I’m just
(44:32) sort of like I’m obsessed with putting everything as a myth because the myth icon is very cute so getting ideas from other people and looking at what your tool can actually do the Microsoft teams whiteboard has a pen that looks like glitter they call it the glitter pen oh really I don’t even use teams but I download because I work for myself but when I use it with my clients I downloaded the app and I’ve drawn pictures that I include in my handouts using the glitter pen that’s fantastic I’m totally gonna use
(45:07) that now in uh everybody’s like buying the glue if you’re a team’s user find the glitter pen on your whiteboard that’s so great so uh so how do we uh uh and then I guess the the the other question I would have in regard to this I think one of the ways fear shows up now that we’re having all of these online meetings um how do we get over that Zoom fatigue as the users how do we how do we get past that because I know a lot of us are just on it all day long it’s just it’s overwhelming yeah when they talk about
(45:39) the fatigue is actually staring into a video conference camera fatigue it’s more realistic so you know allowing people to turn off their cameras and uh taking breaks and I know there’s been a movement now with the way we schedule meetings to make sure that there’s breaks in between meetings and start scheduling them for 40 minutes instead of an hour you know and maybe start them at quarter after and let people go and then you’ve got at least a 20 minute in between so so people need to take time and maybe even
(46:10) schedule in that time to be away from that screen you know I’m doing a lot of things in my training where I’m having people uh go off camera for certain times and come back on when they’re speaking and then I’ll actually ask them to do things off camera like take notes for the next five minutes you know we did it in our session together the other day which is how we know each other right we’re in a training together and she was having us take notes and look away from the camera at that point and
(46:37) just allowing people to be imperfect you know we don’t we’re not we’re not newscasters with makeup around us and and producers you know presenters are I suppose but you know not not the rest of us just going to work every day so allow us to be normal and to go off camera at times that’s that’s such great advice especially especially now um you know we we come from an environment where many of us were working we did have scheduled breaks we were you know we had to take those 15-minute breaks we had to take
(47:08) lunch and and a lot of times we’re just not doing that anymore right and I love the advice of yeah scheduling those meetings for 40 minutes or or what have you that’s that’s that’s really great and I’d love to you know kind of spend these you know next few minutes just kind of kind of getting to know a little bit on on it from from your level what’s uh um you know what piece of advice has been like the most impactful for you that you’ve learned throughout your career in your life
(47:35) ah and my whole life advice um I and I’m going to be talking a little bit more about this actually in a presentation tomorrow so this is kind of timely uh you know the advice that you know like to make sure that you know your worth that you’re good enough it’s a big one yes I and and like what comes along with that is don’t be jealous of other people because you have worth two and uh I I don’t know if it was somebody who told me at some point I remember who it was but I’ve been practicing it whenever I
(48:09) feel any kind of Envy or jealousy of what somebody else may doing may be doing I will use that as a cue or a gift I in the moment it does not feel like a gift but I try to actively not react because I’ve already reacted and then I’ll note it a good friend of mine just released a book that I wish I would have written I’m super jealous those are the best books dang it and then I’m like can I go away and I’m like all mad for a day you know and then I’m like why am I mad so the gift of it is why am I mad
(48:44) and then I start to examine that and then I take a and the opportunity to really look at that and then go well what’s missing from what I need and then I can look at okay well maybe I just need to do something that will make me feel good too that’s along those lines because obviously I got mad because I want that so what can I do my friend who wrote that book she wrote it on uh virtual training and immersive learning and so now I’ve got all these really cool ideas because I picked up her book she’s
(49:13) amazing and I love the book Cindy huggett pick up her book facilitating in this immersive world it’s amazing I’ve learned some things from her and I’ve started implementing them into new projects that I’m doing including the speech I was telling you about that I’m writing some of that augmented reality and she’s giving me ideas from that and then people in my circle so now I’m just like I’m obsessed with your book and I love that you wrote it because you gave me all these cool ideas for what I could
(49:39) do in my life and so back to your original question the advice of you know knowing your worth I’ve taken it and said okay you know know your worth don’t be jealous and I’m like okay trying to learn my worth always jealous and you know using those things and turning it into okay why am I like that what can I do that would be good yeah I love the abundance mentality I love supporting my friends that are doing things but I mean it doesn’t come very easy sure so right that’s the longest answer
(50:06) but no that that was great and that what I love about it is it was it was authentic and vulnerable because you know you’re touching on something a lot of people experience and I experienced this which is you know this feeling of of of you know that that that that uh imperfection you know and just desire to be perfect and that growth happens with discomfort and so that mindfulness of like leaning into it and knowing what’s making you uncomfortable that’s such a huge path for growth it is I think it’s
(50:36) trying to be like when people too like because I guess we get afraid that people are gonna be mean to us or give us bad feedback and that’s probably coming from their own jealousy that they’re not managing you know and and if I can remember that you know everyone always says that don’t worry about people saying that that’s their own problem but you know but then to flip it around and go well that was me when I gave that and I would never give the bad feedback but the jealousy thing that happens is probably more about them than
(51:03) it is you you they always say that yeah and it isn’t what your healer believe yeah so reworking it and just turning it around like the other side of it and saying all right I gotta use this I’m going to make an active effort and it may take me a few days Adam like I don’t always go I’m jealous and I’m really mad okay I’ll turn that around turn this up it’s usually a couple of days of whining to my husband and you know of course of course yeah our spouses are just the most wonderful people for Ruby
(51:34) putting up with us on those points I know I know I didn’t say well I I I I I I I uh I know you’ve uh you’ve written a couple of books you’re you’re doing speaking and things like that too which is which is amazing what is what is next for you Cassie what are you where are you working on now the most fun thing that I’m working on right now and I’d love to share it if your audience wants to try it out you know how you can in the world go and take a quiz like which Harry Potter house do I belong to
(52:08) do you know what you belong to I don’t know I think my kids have told me at one point but I don’t remember an updated quiz that’s right but I developed uh that answer for uh virtual training and virtual presenters and so I’m like what’s your virtual training superpower oh wow and I have a quiz that will tell you that answer and speaking of that story about the uh what my friend did to inspire me that project I’ve been working on the quiz uh what I included in the quiz was some augmented reality
(52:47) that allows you to take a selfie with your superpower and then you can sort of post that around and be proud of it you know and people are really responding to that and so I’ll share that link with you if your audience would be interesting interested in also finding out their superpower the thing that happens besides the selfie is that you learn about what you do well when you are delivering an online session and I also give you an activity from my book that is aligned to your style so you can try a brand new activity and see how it
(53:20) how it feels for you to do that that’s fantastic and people find is that is that on your website yes as well yes actually are there resources it’s it’ll be called the virtual training quiz or the superhero quiz we’re still deciding the best name that’s how new this is and that’s at cassieconsulting.
(53:39) com is that right that’s right yeah so so look for that quiz there um and and that that kind of brings up what what is what role is AI playing I mean I know this is the new technology that we’re seeing and there’s a lot of you know controversy around it currently but is it is it playing a role within the virtual training space and things like that Learning and Development is going wild it uh primarily I’m seeing it come out in so many ways but right now we’re seeing it uh in the world of ideation
(54:07) and you know Learning and Development we write so much we write training materials and articles and so getting started on that and like for example I was designing a new Escape game for virtual training and I was just sort of stuck I want to send people out to a website and do this whole thing and I got kind of stuck so I went over to chat GPT which just was available for me then and I said what would be a good Escape like a series of escapions what would be a good theme for an escape game on a website and then it gave me you
(54:37) know a bunch of ideas and then I gave it follow-on questions to drive it more specifically which is what you know we all know it should do but ideation is where we’re seeing that but with a whole lot of checks and balances in place uh sure but but for writing and for writers who need to get going on something is where I’m seeing most people using it yeah that’s awesome well yeah it’s it’s a I mean it’s a brand new technology but it’s so powerful I’m hearing so much about it it’s just it’s it’s it’s making
(55:07) its way into this and I know that it’s going to uh uh make an impact on on the virtual training space too and you have been a I mean you’re you’re a tremendous leader in this space you are dry a driving force to Bringing joy and fun and excitement and and passion to you know virtual training and and our new virtual world so thank you for doing what you’re doing and I think what that’s doing is is is taking something that has been you know been a source of fear for a lot of people and bringing
(55:38) into the norm so thank you for doing what you’re doing well thank you for all that you do too helping us thank you face that fear and turn it into something so positive well thank you and um and where can where can people find you you have your website cassieconsulting.com anywhere else uh people can find you um I am fairly active on LinkedIn that’s my favorite place to post the latest and greatest things that are happening and uh all the different ideas that we keep sharing and figuring out because as
(56:08) technology changes you know I make a video about it and I probably we got to use this Advanced polling thing what are your ideas groups so LinkedIn seems to be the primary place where that happens along with my website as you mentioned awesome and Linkedin is is just your name Cassie labori yes awesome well uh thank you so so much for joining me today um and uh and I hope to talk to you soon and I can’t wait to see where where you go from here on the stage and in Virtual life and uh and everywhere in between uh
(56:38) thank you for joining me Cassie and to everyone else out there thank you for tuning in we’ll see you next time hey everyone Thanks for tuning in to the flow over fear podcast if you’d like to learn more about getting into flow and learn the foundations of flow I have a free video series on my website at www.adamcliffordill.
(57:00) com called the foundations of flow feel free to go there and download it and start your journey to Rising above fear and achieving greater flow in your life if you like this episode and I’m guessing you did if you stuck around for this long then please do me a favor and hit the Subscribe button and you will receive notifications when I have new interviews new Recaps and new trainings that pop up on YouTube thanks again for joining us