Lessons

Lesson Info

Detox Your Life

Today we are talking about detoxing your life. This is the day where we make space for all the new learning that we're about to do and here are my three goals for today. First, how to say no. I think one of the hardest things is setting boundaries and saying no because we're taught, especially if you're a creative or entrepreneur that you say yes to everything. Right? You have to say yes or you're gonna miss a big opportunity. So today we're gonna talk about saying yes to the right opportunities and how to nicely, politely, and gracefully say no to ones that don't fit you. Then we're talking about dealing with toxic people, minimizing toxicity, maximizing nourishment. And lastly I want to make space and clarity for you to be your best self. Now today I have to ask permission for something. I have to ask permission to reboot and reset. Since I'm teaching a totally different way of interacting I'm gonna be talking about some very new ways of dealing with your calendar, of dealing with pe...

ople, and so I wanna ask permission that we can reset. Today is a day that we reset and reboot everything that we've learned so we can start fresh. Is that alright? Do I have your permission? Yes? Yes at home. Yes. I hope that you said yes. Okay so let's start off with a warm-up. So every day for the next 30 days we are going to do a warm-up exercise just to get our juices flowing, get in the mindset. So today our warm-up, we are going to answer two different questions. First, how do you think you come across? Okay now this is, I see scared faces. Fear my expression. I see it. It's okay. We're gonna do it together. Alright. So let's start with the first question and I want everyone to answer this and you can only give me one word. So when someone first meets you and at home I want you to write this down in your workbook, in our monster workbook. I want you to write down what is the one word that you think exemplifies what other people think when they first meet you? What do they feel? What do they think? Alright who's brave enough to start? And everyone's gonna give me an answer. So yes. Friendly. Friendly. I love it. Someone else. What's the first word? Apologize for my handwriting. Yes. Warm. Warm, yeah. Who else? Confident, powerful. You get one. I like confident. (laughs) Okay, confident. Confident, yes. Alright, who else? And please don't give me a word that's hard to spell. Okay guys? Right? Spelling is not my strong suit. Yes. Genuine. Genuine, I got it. Alright what else? Yes. Nice. Nice. We're gonna get that one up. Alright I like it. Nice. What else? Quiet. Quiet. And I heard another one. Geeky. Geeky, okay. Quiet, geeky, I know we're missing some. Who's left? Energetic. Energetic. Kim, how about you? Calm. Calm and make sure to use the mic. Energetic, calm. I like that we had an energetic and a calm. I like that. Relaxed. Relaxed and? Weird. Weird. Alright. Relaxed and weird. Who else are we missing? We get everyone? Yeah, Jason. Loud. Loud. Alright. I like how we have a loud and we have a quiet. I love that. I like that we have an energetic and a calm. I love the differences in the room. So now the second question which might be hard in a different way. Did I miss anyone by the way? Oh yes. Awkward. Awkward. You're not awkward, you're lovely. Okay yes. Unconfident? Okay. We have awkward and unconfident. I didn't miss anyone did I? Okay now the second question which might be a little harder. Which is how do you want to come across? So when you first meet someone and they walk into a room, you give them your hand to shake, what do you want them to feel and think? What's the one word? And again in your notebook at home you can actually write down two or three if you want. What you think happens and what you want to happen. So what do we want? What's on this side? Yeah. Confident. Confident. Yes. What was your word? Nice. Nice. Okay we're gonna elevate that one. What else? Yes. Smart. Smart. What was your word? Calm. Alright. I like that change. Okay. What else? Who wants to level up? Yeah, Jason? Helpful. Helpful. And yours was loud, right? Yep. Alright. Helpful. Which is a very different energy than loud. Yeah. Resourceful. Resourceful. And you thought awkward right? Okay, resourceful. Yes, I saw a hand up back there. Yeah. Present. Present. What was your word before? Warm. Warm. Wow so presence and warmth are very similar but slightly different. I like that. Okay. Present. What else? Warm. Warm, okay I like it. Yeah. Valuable. Valuable. And that's very close to resourceful but slightly different. Valuable. What else? We have a couple more that we gotta get. Brave. Brave. And Lacey, what was yours before? Energetic. Brave, okay I love it. What a strong word. Okay what else? Yes. Skilled. Skilled. And what was your word before? Weird. Alright, okay, I like it. And we talked about intelligence right? And so skills, all about harnessing the intelligence that is authentic to you. Absolutely love it. What else? Mine is similar to skill. That's competent. Competent. What was your word before, Ally? Well it was friendly. Friendly sort of towards the pleaser side. Too anxious to help. Okay. So appeasing. So I still want to be helpful but I want that assumed rather than that anxiety side of helpful. Got it. So helpful competent, not neccessarily helpful nice or people pleaser. Yeah. Helpful confident verses helpful, yeah. I love it. Yeah. I'd like to be interesting. Interesting. And what was your word before? Genuine. Genuine, okay. What else do we have? Did we get everyone? No, we're missing some people. What else? We get everyone? Intruiging. Intruiging. And what was your word before? Relaxed. Okay so that's definitely a level up, right? Intruiging is a difference kind of level up. Yeah? So creative, which I already am but because I'm quiet I want the creativity to come out more. Absolutely. So a lot of these words are things we already are. These aren't things that we aren't. They're just things that people don't see that we want them to see. So I love that. Creative. Did I miss anyone? Did I get everyone? Okay. So the goal of this course is to make these the same. The goal of this course is that who you want to be and who you are to other people is exactly the same. That's purposeful interactions and today we're making space so that they can be the same. What I like to make this likeness to is like on a plane. When you first get on a plane they tell you in the safety demonstration make sure to put on your oxygen mask before you help those around you. And that is exactly what today is about. A lot of people skills books and courses they talk about constantly interacting with other people. They don't talk about how you need to do that first. You have to be able to take care of your own needs and your own boundaries if you're going to connect with people. Otherwise you're too full of your own stuff to be able to connect with other people's stuff. So today is about clearing the way. It is impossible to turn people skills on all the time with everyone. Right? If you are constantly on and trying to connect with every person you meet, you'll be exhausted. Not only is it impossible, it's not realistic. It's also not authentic. You should only wanna connect with people who you genuinely find nourishing. So I don't wanna teach you to connect with clients who aren't your ideal clients. I don't wanna teach you to connect with people with friends who aren't fulfilling to you. I want you to only learn how to connect with people who are genuinely good for you or people that you want to connect with. Let's talk about some of the science. So whenever I have a blue slide up you know that I'm talking about the science. So Dr. Thomas Lewis did a lovely study. What he did is he looked at people in nursing homes and he wanted to see was there a difference between people who are in nursing homes who have a lot of connections and a lot of strong friendships and those who don't have a lot of strong connections and friendships? What was the difference in their quality of life at the end of age? And what he found was that those with close relationships in nursing homes had higher cognitive abilities than their peers. They thought faster. They can solve more mental puzzles. Their brains actually worked on a higher level the more connections that they had with their peers. They felt like their brain was more stimulated. And this one really shocked me. They were three times less likely to go to the hospital. So their connections filled them in another way and that's why it's so important for us to build the right kind of connections. When we have fulfilling relationships it fills not only our heart but our brain and our body as well. So I also think that this study is fascinating and what they did was they wanted to see brain differences in people who are lonely and don't have a lot of connections and people who have a lot of connections. And what they found was is that people who report more feelings of loneliness who don't have connections that fulfill them register rewards less in the brain. Rewards that don't even have to do with people. So they could win a prize or get a higher salary and they would register that less in the brain. So they actually felt pleasure less strongly when you don't have people in your life to share it with. So this not only affects our health, our body, our brain, but it also affects our happiness levels and how we register rewards in all areas. So it is totally worth it, right? Building connection is totally worth it. So let's start with people. I'm gonna talk about people today. I'm gonna talk about places. People. I wanna know who are the nourishing people in your life. So think of the people and they can be business relationships, social or romantic, who fulfill you. They inspire you. You look forward to hanging out with them. You can't wait to make time in your schedule to see them. It could also be a nourishing business relationship. They're the clients who you meet with who you would, don't tell them, would work for free. They're that awesome. I won't tell them. You just love working with them. You love helping them. I wanna know why those relationships fulfill you. So let me hear about a couple of nourishing relationships in your life. Who has a nourishing relationship? Yeah. My husband Chris. And why is he nourishing to you? Because it's easy to be vulnerable. He's a safe place for you. Yes. He lets you be vulnerable. I love it. How about someone else? A nourishing relationship. We have to have more nourishing, yes, Jason. I have a friend, his name is Mike and he's just always really helpful and always really open. So transparent and he's there for you. I love it. Does anyone have nourishing business relationship? Yeah, Maggie. One of my main clients, Brendan is so energetic, present, connected and always excited and I work for him but he's always asking about me and encouraging me to do more things. So it feels like a mutually beneficial relationship. So he feeds you as much as you're helping him. I love it. So those are the relationships that I wanna have more of. Let's talk about the other side. Let's talk a little bit about the toxic relationships. At home I have a space in your workbook for you to write down who are the nourishing people and why? And that why is really important. So the toxic people in our life. We probably know who these are. These are the people who drain you. They might take advantage of you. You kind of dread seeing them. They reach out to me. They're a client or a friend. You're like do I have to? It's that kind of attitude. They're the people who you really don't want to give your energy to. Now in this course I wanna protect everyone's friends. So you can call them, I always call anonymous people nons. You can say my friend non so we can protect the innocent. So does someone have a toxic relationship they're willing to talk about? I have a business relationship and the person always comes to the meetings unprepared. So I know that we're gonna waste a significant portion of the meeting time with that person getting up to speed and I just uh. Dread it. I do. And that takes advantage of your time. Very disrespectful. Anyone else have a toxic relationship that they are willing to talk about with us and why? I had a client. We did a wedding a couple of months back and I had a feeling when we were going through the process but I ended up getting it and it's just one of those things that same thing over and over again you send them emails. You send them instructions, clear. But they're still gonna end up doing what they feel like doing and you're like oh what was I thinking when I did it? So they did not follow your boundaries? Yes. You were very clear and they just ignored them. That is the worst. Anyone else have a toxic relationship they're willing to talk about and why? Can also be an older relationship that maybe you've gotten rid of that you were finally able to set a boundary on. For me, I know, yeah, go ahead. I had a friend initially we met, we felt very warm we connected and then from there onwards whether it was loaning money, whether it was giving him rides, I mean he just felt that he was bound to get those things. And finally one day he lost my number and I was so glad he did. (audience laughing) Luckily he didn't know where I worked and lived so I was so glad that he lost the number. End the relationship. Yeah took advantage of it. And that does happen sometimes where you meet someone you're not quite sure. And that actually purposely brings me into the next question which what are the patterns? The reason why I wanna look at nourishing and toxic people is cause I do wanna set boundaries today on those people in your life but I also wanna do this as prevention for the future. So if you look at the nourishing and toxic people who are in your life now or who have been in your life and look at the patterns are they people who don't respect your boundaries as we talked about? Are they people who take advantage of your time or don't respect your time? Are they people who you just don't enjoy spending time with? That's how you know when you first meet someone if you want to go down the path to connection with them. The path to connection, it takes energy. It takes authenticity. You have to be vulnerable. So you don't wanna do that with everyone. And so knowing the patterns of toxic verses nourishing is how we know. So does anyone see any patterns of maybe something they've learned in the past where they know if they meet someone that might or might not be what they wanna connect with? There's a certain type of client that I know as soon as I meet them that it's just not gonna work out. It's not gonna work. They're usually emotionally needy. They need a lot of confidence sort of building. Some of that's okay but if it's like I'm doing all the confidence-building it's not gonna work out. So I use a phrase, I like that you brought this up, called 80-20 clients where it is that 20% of my clients cause 80% of my headaches. So when you meet an 80 client that means they're gonna cause 80% of your headaches you start to recognize the pattern. So what I want you to do is use this workbook that when you meet someone, especially a client, who fits into you think that 80 rule, start writing down what are the patterns here? So that next time that client comes along you can go ah. This is an 80 client. I do not want them to be worth 80% of my headaches. And either patterns you'll see it also can be on the nourishing side. Yeah. I notice with friends and sometimes even family members that when I start feeling the sense of obligation to have to see them that's when I'm like there's something not right. I like to know that I wanna be there and that they wanna be there with me and that's when it feels good. Okay so I love it. This is the red flags. So what are some other red flags that we have when meeting with someone? So red flag is that gut intuition. Lacey, yeah. That nudge. I know every time I'm like why? Why did I do that? Two months ago I heard myself and I was like nope, we'll be fine. I'm gonna do it. Okay. I love it. So not only having that nudge, but listening to that nudge. So here's what I want you to do. When you feel that nudge I want you to go back to this section of your book and I want you to write down why you feel that nudge and when. Because after awhile you're gonna start to see patterns. You're gonna start to see huh, gosh this has come up over and over again with this kind of client or with this person and that's when you can see the pattern and go okay, I'm gonna stop it before it starts. Cause sometimes we don't remember to pay attention to our patterns and so committing them to writing as we talked about is a great way to actually see it in black and white in front of us. So I want us to get in the habit of constantly checking in with our people patterns of what's nourishing and what's toxic. Alright we're gonna do more on the nourishing and toxic in a little bit but first I wanna talk about places. Now I've been talking about people skills for years. But it wasn't until two years ago on my 27th birthday if you do the math I figured out that there was another aspect of people skills that was kind of unexpected and it was this idea of places and context for relationships. So there are three different kind of contexts or places when you're talking about people. There are places that we thrive. Where we meet people, we're like yeah, we're rocking and we love it. It could be one on one if you're an introvert. It could be a big networking event where you feel like you can walk in and just own the room. For you it could be a barbecue or a date night. These are the places that we thrive with people. We feel very comfortable there. Then there are the neutral places where it depends on the mood that you're in. It depends on who's around, not quite sure it can flip. And then there's the places where you feel like you're just surviving. You go and the idea of trying to make connection is totally out the window because the place, the location is too overwhelming. Now for my introverts, and I am a situational introvert. There are certain situations that make me feel incredibly uncomfortable. You will understand this. For some of my extroverts, maybe you're like does anyone feel that way where you're like I thrive everywhere? What are you talking about? Does anyone feel that way? Do I have any extreme extroverts in the room? Alright okay. Occasionally. If you're at home, if you're an extreme extrovert, we love you. You get to be only on this side of the column. But it's good for extroverts to understand where introverts are coming from. Sometimes for extroverts who are like I don't understand how she wouldn't love this party this section is really important for you to understand the introverts in your life. So let me give you an example. This actually starts with a confession. So my confession is that cool places make me feel really uncool. Actually I'm staying in a hotel here for this Creative Live course and I walked up to the hotel with all my luggage. I had so many prop bags and there was a bouncer to get into my hotel and I was like oh my God. This place is way too cool for me to stay here. I do not do well with bouncers, really loud music, concerts, night clubs. I just feel like the most awkward, uncool person in the room. So I learned this when a very nice friend said I want to throw you a birthday party. Let's go to this really hot bar downtown and we'll invite all of our friends and it will be a great birthday party. And she said this and it was one of the nicest things she could have offered and my stomach dropped. I was like I might be busy that night. It's like my birthday. I don't know if I should do it. I was like let me think about it. So I waited a couple of days and I realized I was really excited to see all my friends. What I was dreading was the location and the reason for that is because the way that I connect with people, my unique brand of charisma is deep and meaningful conversations. I love people. I love to study people. So all I wanna do is ask them questions and catch up with them and talk to them. In a loud bar or nightclub, you can't really talk. You can only yell in someone's ear. So for me, I get incredibly awkward because I can't do actually what I love to do with people. So I called her back and I was like look. I know this sounds crazy but I would much rather have everyone over to my house and everyone brings a bottle of wine and we all order pizza. For me, that is a way more fun way to interact. So before we even start this course, I wanna make sure that I pick the places and in your mind you know the places that are most nourishing for you. So here are a couple ways that I made nourishing. I have bacon and beer parties with my friends. We do pinot and pasta parties where everyone brings their favorite kind of pinot and pasta. They're not cool but they're cool. We do out of your element parties. I don't know if you can see. This is me out of my element as I am not brunette in this where everyone has to come in one item of clothing that is out of their element. So I make cool my own cool. For me, and I want you to fill out your chart in your workbook. I have a list of about 50 places. 50 different people situations that you could get into and I want you to put those into your chart. So for example, I thrive at dinner parties, movie nights, and barbecues. Love it. Neutral for me is talking on the phone. I don't always love talking on the phone. It's only okay. I can't read body language and we all know I love reading body language. Conferences and networking events are okay from the right frame of mind. Survive events for me are nightclubs, bars, and concerts. So what is it for you? Let's starts with thrive. Where are some places that you thrive? That you love going to? In the audience at home I want you to start filling out your chart with that big list of places. Thrive locations. Yeah. Anything physical where you're playing games. So I had park, hiking, casino, bowling. I love it. So games, getting out there, playing. That's where you thrive. I love that. I also love hiking as well. Any other? Yeah. That's actually along the same lines I was gonna say cause I just took us disc golfing a year and a half ago and I've been making really great friends who are just out there you know two or three, four of you. So you have nice conversation back and forth. And you're doing something active so that keeps your brain engaged and everything else. You can engage with the golf but also a little bit of talking. I love it. So that's a place where you thrive. Other place that I list on there is learning environments. I also love learning environments. I love classrooms, either being the teacher or sitting as a student. That's a really comfortable way that I feel to interact cause we're exploring things. Other places where we thrive? Yeah. Cafe and restaurants like sit down places. Sit down places. So where you're having intimate conversations. I love it. Cafes, restaurants. Quiet, noisy, does it matter? Quiet preferred but I think that also has to do with who's there. If it's a loud place that I don't know anybody then it's in the survival mode. It goes in survival mode. Yeah. Alright so what I want you to do is fill out your workbook with the thrive locations and then I also want you to think of specific thrive locations near your home. So for example, I have coffee shops and restaurants that I love because I know they're not that loud. I love the waiters. I love the menu. So I am my best self cause I can focus fully on the connection and the person. So I also want you to list specific places that you thrive in around you where you love to have meetings, where you love to hang out, where you love to play golf. So that you can have that list ready. Neutral's a harder one. Does anyone have any that kind of are flippers? I liked how you talk about loud restaurants can flip into survive. Does anyone have something that it really depends on the person or the moment or the mood you're in? Yeah. I definitely, there's a lot in the neutral with small groups of people but I have to know everybody there. So a busy restaurant is horrible if I don't know some of the people. I'll just get really quiet. But if I know the three or four people there it gets totally great. I love it. So it flips depending. I have to know them, yeah. You have to know them. That can help you make decisions on whether or not you wanna say yes to something or not. Yeah. Networking events. If I know a few people then I feel I can get introductions and there's an easier way into the conversation than just standing in the corner. Standing in the corner pretending to check your phone. You're like oh my god I have so many important texts to send right now. I just hate this networking event. Oh I better check my messages and you know someone their phone is off and they're checking their messages. Yes I totally feel you on that. How about some survive locations? Are there places where you're just like no way. That is a no go for me. For me that is obviously night clubs, bars, and concerts. Anyone have any other survive locations? Yeah. I hate talking on the phone. Okay so phone moves to survive for you. Is video conferencing better? Yeah. Way better. In person is better and emails are better. Yes. Okay that's a really good thing to know about yourself. I love it. And your friends and your business colleagues that would be a really good thing for them to know about you as well. I saw another hand go up. Yeah. For me I realize it's like offices and conference rooms. If I'm visiting a client, I'd much rather talk on the phone or meet outside their office. Have you always known that about yourself? No I just realize that whenever I've gone to meet someone in an office the meeting hasn't gone well. And you just realized that? Yeah. Okay so this is the perfect example of when you're sitting with a client and they say hey where do you wanna meet? You always wanna pick the most convenient coffee location for them, right? But you definitely wanna be out of their office. I love it. And you wanna pick maybe coffee places that you really like. That have a lot of tables or a little alcove that are quiet. Sometimes I've met in Starbucks where I didn't pre-look at the location online and there's no tables. You get there and you're like we'll just sit at the bar awkwardly next to each other and talk like this. So I love that realization. Any other survive events? Yeah. Something like a theme park or a big company picnic where there's like volleyball going on or something. Volleyball is horrible because I'm like I'm here and the ball's there. But even with theme parks I don't want to go on the rollercoasters. I am great to sit and wait for everybody else to go. But people don't think I'm great with it and then it's awkward. But it's like no, I would much rather sit here and I am happy. So it just becomes this awkward thing. So that's fascinating that sort of triggers for you kind of awkwardness and I totally get what you're talking about. Anytime someone's dancing on a bar I'm like this is not my place. This is not my place. I gotta go. So I totally get that because it instantly puts you and we're gonna talk about fear mode a little bit later where you just instantly go into low grade fear and it's impossible to connect with people and build relationships when you're in that low grade fear. I love it. Okay. So I actually have inspiration Lacey doesn't even know I'm gonna ask her this. So Lacey's inspiration on this. A few months ago she told me that she was going to slow down on networking events to make space for other things. I was wondering if you would share that story with the audience. Yeah. I'm super busy and I realized that going to networking events gave me less time to dedicate to people who were paying me money to do a service for them. I also realized that networking event is my total survival. I don't like it. My question up there on the board previously was what do you want? And that's it. Constantly at a networking event I'm like what do you want from me? Why are you talking to me? Like I'm relationship girl, right? So that's not a relationship. It's what can you get from me and that doesn't feel genuine or real or authentic and those aren't the clients or the colleagues that I have. So it's just not a match. What I think is empowering about that is you realized that and you decided I am not going to do it anymore. And so that's why I wanted to end on this and we're about to go into the action steps for how to apply this. Is that we can actually take control and this is PQ law number three. We can take control of how you spend your time and who you spend it with. And people who are incredibly good influencers and charismatic, they know who they wanna spend time with and how they wanna spend their time. And that means being like you know what? I don't love networking events or I don't like talking on the phone. I'm not very good that way. I'm going to try to not do it anymore. Now of course there's a couple times where you're gonna have to go to those events and we're gonna talk about that. But when you can you can take control of who you spend your time with and how you spend it. So that's broken down into three different steps which I wanna teach you. That is boundaries, refueling and blocking. Ready? Greg McKeown is the author of Essentialism and I want us to be essentialists. In this course you are going to be an essentialist in things that are important to you and I love this quote. When we say no we make space to focus on what's essential. As Lacey talked about, when she goes to networking events it drains her. So when she tries to meet with a client or goes home to do client work, she's totally zapped from spending all that extra energy in a place that isn't her place. And so when we make space for what's essential we become more creative. We become more successful. We have better conversations. So how to set boundaries. This is a big one. People always when I talk about boundaries and saying no people get kinda nervous. But I promise this is a really easy way to do it. So first I wanna get really clear on where we wanna set our boundaries. What are some of the survive events, meetings and activities you need to cancel? So if you could pull out that calendar that we've been looking at. At home I want you to pull out your calendar that you transferred with your 30 days of activities. People activities that are coming up. I want you to look at that calendar and I want you to think about what are some survive events you have coming up? Is there anything on the calendar right now? Do you have phone calls? Does someone have some networking events? Do you have any theme parks for visiting that are some survive events coming up? Anyone have any that they can see in the next 30 days? Yes. Yeah I have this like a coffee meeting with someone that I met at a networking event and she wants to know more about me and tell me more about her and I don't really want to go. I hear you, okay. I love it. So what are some requests you wanna say no to? You don't want to get to know and we can talk about if you actually wanna do that or not. And what are the toxic people you want to distance yourself from? So go back to that toxic slide that we talked about. Are there some people, are there some business relationships, social relationships, that you don't want to have in your life? I know this is a really hard one to call people out on on camera. But is there some relationships that you want to clarify or maybe take a step back from that anyone is willing to share? Yes. I actually have a question and to share. Yes. What if it's someone who is in my husband's life but I'm also involved so how would you? Okay I love it. Step three we're gonna talk about what to do with people you cannot say no to. Right? People who are family members, not that we ever, ever have family members that we wouldn't like to spend time with. Family members, mutual friends, or husband friends. I like it. And then did you have, oh that's the person? Yes. Okay, alright. So on your calendar we have these days. Here's what I want us to do. Here is how to say no and here is your script for saying no. I'm gonna give you a lot of scripts in this course. You don't have to worry about what you have to say. Let me break down the script for you first. Always start grateful when you're about to say no. So thank you so much for inviting me. Let's pretend that it's a invitation to someone's group that they want you to be a part of. Thank you so much for inviting me. Always start grateful. Second, use simple, direct language. But I won't be able to join the group. The third step is the most important. You do not need to say why. This baffles a lot of people. They think that if they're gonna say no they have to give all these explanations and reasons and justifications why they have to do it. You do not need to say why. You have every right to politely and directly say no. You don't have to defend, debate, or explain your feelings. So you started grateful. Use simple direct language. Number four, offer an alternative. This could be anything. This could be but I would love to get coffee with you. It could be but I'll send the group to someone who I think would really like it. It could be but invite me next month. Offering alternatives sort of softens that blow. Again it could be anything that you're comfortable with. And lastly, stick with it and that is the hardest one because you might get pushback from that. But sticking with it will teach people, especially toxic people who aren't very good with boundaries that you stick to your boundaries. The first time is always the hardest but after you do it once they know ah, when she says no, she means no. So let's see how this works in action. Somebody's asking what if the person you work with, it is the person you work with that you have to work with but you say you don't have really control on staying or going or saying no. So first what you can do is minimize to survive. Right? So if you know that it's a networking event or let's say that you're an introvert. You don't like group settings and they wanna work with you on something. Maybe you make sure you do it one on one. So it's minimizing the amount of survive that happens there. Minimizing the amount of toxicity and step three, which we're getting to, which I'm gonna talk about, which is called blocking. Yes, I love it. Alright so here's a script. Here's how that works in action now that I broke down the script. So this actually happened to me a few weeks ago. I got invited to a birthday party and she was like great birthday party. It's gonna be at 10:30 p.m. Meet outside. We'll wait in line together. We'll get in. I was like 10:30 p.m. is my bedtime, friend. That is when I am in bed reading. I can't meet somewhere at 10:30. So here's what I said, using that exact script. Thank you so much for the invite. I won't be able to make it. I would love to take you out for brunch for your birthday instead. When is good for you? This was met with absolutely no resistance. It's very direct. It's very simple. Once you stick to the script, you don't feel like you have to defend or debate your feelings. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to bookmark this in your book like I've done. Add a little tab to it. And anytime someone sends you a text, an email, or a phone call where you have to do this, all I want you to do is pull out your script and fill in the blanks, okay? Because sometimes when we say no it gets our emotions going. We're like I feel so guilty. I have to say yes. I want you to stick to the script. Alright let's practice. I wanna actually practice this in action. So I want you to turn to your partner and someone gets to come up on stage with me cause I think that we're an odd man out. I want us to practice this with your partner. So if you have an event coming up that you wanna say no to or the type of event or request you get a lot but you have to say no to. So either if you have one coming up or if you have something that comes up a lot in your life and at home, I want you to write out the script that frequently comes up in your life. So if you often get free requests for bookings. If people often ask you to take you to coffee but you're just too busy. If you have a birthday party that you always just can't go to, I want you to write out that script in this exact format. So let's practice it. I wanna hear it. I'm gonna walk around and hear how we're doing. So start grateful. Be direct. Don't defend and alternative. Oh come on guys. Alright so stand right here. I might need to cheat and look. Oh you wanna switch places with me? You can look. And you match my slide. Awesome. Alright so what's your event? Tell me. I get asked a lot of times to do small photo shoots. I'm gonna make it business related. I love it. A lot of times I just don't wanna take on. Alright so hey Maggie, could you just shoot my kid's birthday party? I would just love it. I would just love it. So thank you so much for asking me. I just don't do family photo shoots or family birthday parties. Alternative? Could you recommend someone who does? Oh yeah. I have a list of photographers that do those. I love it. You start grateful so they're like okay at least she appreciates the referral cause they might book you later for a wedding. And then really simple, direct. I loved it. And the alternative was I have a great list of photographers for you to talk to. I actually just did this a couple days ago and the client was like thank you so much. That was really nice of you to refer. Because setting a boundary people are like oh good. She's really easy to work with and then they keep you in mind for a future event. I love it. High five. Oh I'm sorry, you finishing your boundaries? Set your boundaries. Do it. You can do it. I don't mean to rush you. Alright. Sorry it was long guys. So I heard some really good ones and Maggie came up and practiced with me and it was great because she said I get a lot of requests to shoot small events. But I just don't do that kind of shooting. She said I'm sorry. Thank you so much for asking. I don't do small events. And her alternative was but I have a great list of referral photographers who love this kind of work. And the reason why this is important is cause A, it makes your request direct. But also they might come back to you later to ask to shoot a wedding and if you have a very polite email back with great referrals that means they respect you. They can't work with you but they might be able to come back to you. Any other interesting learning when that happened just now? Or interesting experiences? I have a question. What if it's an acquaintance who's asking you to do something but you know that you don't really wanna ever do anything with that person? So you don't wanna offer an alternative of a different coffee. Do you just? Then the alternative is let's keep in touch on Twitter. (audience laughing) That is the alternative. We'll see you on Twitter. See you on Facebook. I'll watch your posts. Is that why you're in this situation? Because you offered an alternative? You said alright I'll have coffee with you so now you can't get out of the coffee? So the next step up is let's keep in touch on social media. I love seeing your posts. And at the very worst, if there is no alternative, it's thanks so much for the invite. Have a great weekend. That's the end. You don't actually go to the last step because there is no alternative that you're comfortable with. Then it's a well-wisher. You start grateful and you end grateful. I had an interesting, it was a little bit of an insight actually. I coach classes. I love coaching the classes. Not a big fan of the small talk afterwards. Cause I feel like I'm giving all this energy. You're exhausted. It's probably a similar situation when you are coaching things like this, right? Totally. You're just drained at the end. You love talking but you're just drained. So what's something that you can do after a class to minimize that from happening? I think two things. One is I can either sort of take a quick break and then come back and just dedicate to the small talk or the second one is I say okay I'm gonna do this for about five minutes or so and then sort of move on to okay now I have to close up the place or whatever it is that I need to do so that there is some time there cause it needs to be done. I love it. That's a great way. You can use this in action really quickly. So either you can go to the bathroom, take a break and kinda let the room clear out a little bit or you can come back and be like thanks so much for talking to me afterwards. I have to clean up afterwards. Can you email me about this question? That happens incredibly quickly and you just went through all four steps. Alright let's say that you're in a moment and someone says I would love to take you out to coffee or can you come to my event next month? Or can you speak at my conference? Whatever it is that happens. Either on the phone or an email in person. If you need some time to think through what those steps are, let's say you can't remember what those steps were from the workbook, this is my favorite phrase and it will buy you some time so you can calm yourself down and gather your thoughts a little which is let me check a few things and get back to you. So if you don't feel ready to do those four steps right on the spot you can always do this one as a way to calm yourself down and center what your thoughts are. Yes. I have to add. So I'm really, I'm like a total people pleaser. Like a recovering one. I make myself, even if I'm going to say yes, I make myself wait 24 hours before I will commit to anything. That has saved me so many times. Okay so I love it. I wanna put an asterisk on that last slide there that if you know that you tend to say yes to thing because you might have a people pleasing tendency that you always wait 24 hours or an hour or you never reply to email. Actually whenever I get an email that's a little bit emotional I do not let myself reply within the same day. Because I want to give it time to marinate overnight so that I have a much better response. Kind of a sister to that. I love it. If you know that you say yes to things to wait a little extra longer. Add a little asterisk to that in your workbook please. Refueling. So refueling is when you have those events that you cannot say no to. So let's say that you have a mutual friend or you have a client that you're working with or a colleague where you just can't say no. You actually have to go on the coffee or do the thing or meet with the person. That's where we have to learn to refuel. To fill up our tank. So first, where do you get your energy? What are the activities that refuel you? And here are the three different categories. There's social, so they're nourishing people and activities. There's physical, exercise, sleep, hobbies. And there's mental, reading, writing, visualization, spirituality exercises. What are the activities that refuel you when you need a little bit more energy? It's different for everyone. So I would love to hear it from you guys. What are some things that refuel you? People. People. What kind of people? Positive, inspirational type of people who are doing something with their life and it's exciting to listen to their stories. So that gets you going. Anyone else have a refuel? How about activities? For example, when I have a big networking event that I have to go to I play tennis and I hike. I hike six days a week usually in Portland even in the rain and the mud. I love it. It's because it refuels me. I know that if I need a little bit of mental space alone that gets me in the right mindset to be a good people person when I'm connecting cause I'm not always on. A lot of people think that I'm always extroverted but I'm a situational introvert. Anyone else have activities that they like? That they refuel on? Yeah. Beach hike with my dog. Beach hike with your dog. Dogs, pets are a great way to refuel. Any other ones? Anyone journal or do visualization exercises? Yeah tell me about that. I journal and it's just a great way to get all of the different thoughts and ideas in a place where I can see them. I love it. Yeah visualization and journaling is a great way to get worries out of your head and on to paper. So here's what I want you to do. On your calendar if you have some events coming up that fall into the survive or the neutral category I want you to set aside some refueling time before or after to get you in the right mindset because those are maybe events that you can't get off of your calendar which is totally fine. So I want you to set aside time to refuel before or after them. I also want to teach you something that I use which is one of my favorite tools called calendar blocking. So this is a way for you to take control of your calendar, of how you interact with people. Again this is all resetting for the skills that we're about to learn. First, at the beginning of every week or the beginning of every month depending on how far you plan out I want you to look at how you can minimize your survive events. So is there any event that you actually could cancel or not go to? With what's left, cause there's some that you're not gonna be able to cancel, I want you to block out time for them. So for example, for me, Monday afternoon and Friday afternoon are for survive events and coffees. So there's a couple meetings that I just cannot cancel or phone calls. I reserve Monday afternoons and Thursday afternoons. I block that out for those calls. So I make sure that every Monday and Thursday morning I am hiking or playing tennis and Monday or Thursday nights I try to have girls' nights. I try to have dinner with friends. So that way I don't dread the day. I actually know that I have something to refuel me before and after. Then I want you to block the survive events with refuel time before and after as we talked about and I want you to maximize the nourishing activities, people and events. So at the beginning of every week, the beginning of every month, I challenge you to have at least three on the calendar that you can look forward to. And the reason that we do this is cause A, you look forward to the week. You begin to say I have more control over my schedule. It's easier to make decisions about your schedule. So a lot of people tell me that when they're trying to figure out how to deal with people they're not sure what to say yes or no to. This is a much easier way to say yes or no because you know when you wanna meet with them and how you wanna meet with them. It also gives you more control over how you're spending your time and lastly you have time and space and energy for the real nourishing people. So that when you meet that really important client or you have a really important pitch you have the energy for it because you've refueled or blocked out your calendar for it. I'm excited to see how your calendars shape up in the next 30 days. So in action, this is with everything. Setting up meetings, planning events, attending parties, building your calendar, and meeting new people. Remember how we talked about toxic and nourishing people patterns? Again every time you meet someone new I want you to start looking for those patterns. Is this someone who you think will be an 80 client? Or is this someone you think will actually fulfill you and be a really great relationship? Here's what we have coming up. Looking at the next two days. I'm excited. We're starting the path to connection. So we are starting at the very bottom of the path to connection which is our hook. Our first impression. What those first few seconds, those first few minutes of being someone is all about. Now we've reset. We've cleared the space. How do we make that great first impression? And we're gonna do that with harnessing charisma and captivating your audience. So in the next segment we're gonna talk about mastering your presence. Actually someone mentioned presence over here. We're gonna talk about mastering your presence. We're gonna talk about the science of charisma. What makes someone charismatic? And we're gonna talk about developing your personal mission statement which is one of my favorite things to do. That's how I like to start off the course. On day four we're gonna talk about making an awesome first impression, captivating a room, and commanding authentic attention. Not all attention is created equal and so I wanna make sure that we're capturing what's authentic and what's genuine. Our challenge for today, after every segment I'm gonna offer you a challenge and the reason why these are so important is cause it puts your learning into action. So I want you to set a boundary by saying no to at least one request or meeting. This can be on email. It could be phone. It could be text. I want you to practice setting a boundary. I also want you to get at least three nourishing activities on your calendar in the next 30 days. Something that you can really look forward to with people. And lastly I want you to schedule in your calendar to watch this again at the new year. At the new year it's the first of the year and I want you to put yourself first. Think about what kind of boundaries do you wanna set for yourself for the year? Who in your life is fulfilling you and who is not fulfilling you? And what are the commitments you have for the next year you really wanna do and how can you be your best self for them? So the last thing I wanna talk about is what we learned today. I wanna invite J.K. to be up here with me to do what we learned today. J.K. what did you learn today? Do you have any toxic people in your life? I'm afraid I do but I think I always actually have the bigger fear that I'm the more toxic influence in their life. No seriously. You're not the toxic person. But isn't that something that I think a lot of people fear? Because it is something that I certainly I do stress about. I must be honest. So day 25 we're talking about human vampires. People who suck the life out of us. I will be talking about what if you're a difficult person? What if you're the human vampire? But I assure you that you're not. We will be talking about that just in case. Well human vampires have come up actually in a number of courses we've had recently. So it's something that I think I'm getting familiar with. Yeah they're everywhere. So what was the most important thing? I wanna hear from three different people. What was the most important thing you learned today? What was your aha moment? Yes. I love the blocking your survival times like for Monday and Friday. I love having that and then with the refuel on one of the sides. I think it's just really gonna take my anticipation of that survival mode down a notch and know that I've put things into place to get through it easier. So that's huge for me. Yes taking the anticipation of those nerves for those events. And by the way at home, I want you to tweet me what the most important thing you learned today is at the event and remember the people who do it for all 30 days the best answers are gonna win my dating an entrepreneur course. So I actually wanna hear from you at home all 30 days we're gonna be tweeting the most important things you know. Okay two more people. I wanna hear from you. Yes. I loved the script for how to say no. I feel so much more relaxed already knowing that I know exactly how to do it in a way that will feel good for me. I can't wait to hear your first no later. Hopefully it's not with me. Hopefully I'm not like please come up here and you're like actually, simple, direct, grateful. No thanks. That would be okay though. That would be okay. One more. Another aha moment or important thing you learned. Yeah, Lace. The pattern among toxic people. It's so obvious and I didn't really see it at all.