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Breaking Barriers That Hold Us Back

Porter gail is an amazing speaker entrepreneur networker marketer she's been the she was the head of marketing for virgin america for years and years and she is just an amazing, amazing person that I am glad to call a friend porter come on up great tio way back that I was able to be your host for this workshop we were together last time and I'm just glad to be back again. How are you feeling this morning? Oh, my gosh. Well, it's an honor to be here as a lot of you probably know I did do a course with creative live a couple of months back and I was so touched by all the e mails I received from people around the world after the class. So thank you. I can't wait to work with this group of students. So thanks for having me. Absolutely. Well, I think with that I'm going to hand this over to you and let you take it away. Supporter thank you very much. Great. Thanks. Um, wow. Welcome. You know, it's funny as you guys were doing your intros I related tio every single person I've had career cha...

nges I've taken time off, I've tried to figure out how to bring my network to the next level, so I know we're going to have a very, very rich discussion today before we start, I want to show you a quick little video for the book and talk a little bit about why I wrote the book and what I hope we accomplished today and then we're going to dive right in I have an action packed day for you, so I hope you'll have fun one really important thing to remember no question is a bad question I want this to be interactive you guys can speak up just raise your hand or even talk this is about all of us it's about the people that are watching online it's about you it's not just about the me it's about the wii and how you can raise the bar and live more creatively more prosperity, more happiness, more connections so let's make it a great session. All right, so we're going to start with the video this is a little video trailer that I knew for them in our new economy connections are powerful currency it's through relationships that we achieve our goals find new perspective or opportunities and we lean on them for support and yet there's only one bank account we seem to check it's time we re examine our portfolio because in today's world your network is your net worth what lessons can we learn by studying? The people who buy this new definition are incredibly wealthy. What air the networking secrets of master entrepreneurs marketers, executives and artists what tools did they use to bring value to themselves and others? Whether you're embarking on a new career or working towards a goal building the right network will get you there and far beyond are you ready for a rich life? Porter gail shows you how with your network is your network available everywhere books are sold great, so that gives you a little idea about what's in the book but first of all, I know a couple of you have read the book because elena am I saying it right? Alina alina even did a block post on it already, so I know you've read it and teresa, you read it because you sent me an email of the six of you just show of hands who's read the book and who has it? Okay, well good, we've got a couple of people that haven't that's good a part of heart sylvie and all right, so it looks like three and a half for excellent. Well, it doesn't matter if you've read it or you haven't we're going to be going through the content and learning more about it. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about our agenda and what we're going to do for day one so we're going to start off the first thing we're going to do is we're going to talk a lot about barrier breaking and you may be thinking what does that have to do with networking? Well you will soon find that my belief about networking is that it's not just about handing out business cards it's not going to random events that it's really about being the best that you can be so just like they do preproduction on these shows they don't happen like overnight you have to do a little bit of pre production on your networking and think about what are you trying to accomplish? What are your goals what's your passion what's your purpose when you do that you're gonna have a lot more success you're going to be more focused so we're going to be talking about barrier breaking at ten o'clock we're going to do an amazing skype call with jeff pulver jeff is interviewed in the book he is a co founder of vonage he also has another startup but what's amazing is over the last year he actually has lost ninety three pounds so we're going to hear about how that's changed his life so this is going to be a great example of barrier breaking and how changing aspects of your life can open up so many new doors after that there are going to be some exercises right and I will share a lot about my personal experience and some of the things that I've learned over the years so you guys are going to get to know me real well um and then I will be asking you all to share in the more honest and open we are with each other the more progress you're going to make okay after that we have an amazing skype call with rob minkoff rob was the director of the lion king but the disney classic he also directed all the stuart little films it's a great animator he's working on a new film right now with robert downey jr so we're going to talk to him about mentoring and how being focused on his goals has helped him achieve success he's just a wonderful person so I think you're going to enjoy that call we'll take a little break because at a certain point you're going to want to check your e mails then we're going to come on back after the break we are going to do an exercise called the final test for those of you that watched my course before this is a revised version of the final test the last one was done for businesses this final test is for the individual so you can figure out how to define your road map your passions in your person I see some head nodding so I think a couple of you've already done your final test you have your final test in your pocket all right good then we will take a break for lunch then as rest mentioned in the intro giving back and helping others it's the secret sauce to networking, we're going to spend some time on that and talk about why, if you are focused on bringing value to your relationships, you're going to have a lot more success, a lot more productivity. Then we're going to have another skype call. I tell you, this is going to be a fun day, michael soucy, another film director. He actually had a career transition hey started an advertising he decided to get into film. I recently chatted with him when I interviewed him for the book, but when I saw him in person the last time he was actually couch surfing, he was trying tio direct, a new film he wanted to remake the documentary grey gardens he was down to, you know, nickels and dimes hanging out in people's couches, but he's stayed focused lo and behold, he directed the film for hbo, jessica laying and drew barrymore ended up best being in the film. It was emmy award winning with that project, he went on to direct the vow, which raised millions and millions and millions of dollars. So we're going to hear about his success story, holly transition careers, how he stayed focused and how to get through those pivot points when things are challenging. After that, we'll wrap up will be doing a little bit of exercises, and then we will be shaking it up. We'll be talking about what are some of the strategies and tactics you can use to build your network different things that you, khun d'oh, that I have another fabulous interview plan for you? I believe a couple of you were saying that you wanted to raise the bar and talk about meeting new people and other people will. Brian kramer is going to be joining us live here in the studio. Brian has a campaign going on right now called ninety days to ellen, he is trying to have lunch with ellen did generous, and he is going to share all the social media tactics that's he's been using to try to get that lunch. There's also a great charity component, he's trying to raise money for feed america. How did I meet him? He read the book, he sent me an email saying, hey, I read your book, I think what you're doing is great, nice and well, tell me more, tell me more, he's, a social media expert, so he will be here with us, we'll be talking to him and talking about trying to get ninety days to alan he's on day sixty three, so we're going to see if we can help them then we're going to just do a couple more exercises and we will wrap up the day and we'll start focusing on day two. So any questions about our agenda today? You guys ready? Ready? All right, you're ready to go? All right. Now, if you're like me at all, I've spent many of nights where I'm sitting there and I'm looking at retirement calculators online. Have you ever done that? You're plugging in all the variables, right? It's like, am I going to be okay? And I gotta make it hot. Gosh, look at that. I have got an eighty percent chance of making my retirement funds. Does this sound familiar? Well, a couple of years ago, I was sitting at my job at virgin america, and I realized that things had gotten so great. I had one of those moments where that feeling of lightness and happiness rethinking everything is really just in alignment and it's all really good if you had that. Yeah, yeah, I thought what is going on? And I realized it wasn't about money. It wasn't about my bank account, it was about my relationships and that my relationships and being open to connections had really changed my life. I was at one of those points where your social life is full. My career opportunities were full, and I realized a lot of it was that over the years, I have about twenty to twenty five years experience, like some of you in the audience, that my behavior had changed dramatically and that that change allowed me to have richer and more fulfilling relationships. So ultimately, I wrote your network is your net worth to share those learnings with people? And so I actually feel a little bit emotional today, because this is like my dream to be able to share my ideas and thoughts with you all. So we're going to talk about that and talk about why I strongly believe that if you have solid, authentic relations ships that are passion and value based, you will have more success, more happiness and rope, more productivity. So I'm hoping those are things that you guys are all interested in now. I talked about this concept a lot. I advise quite a few start ups right now, and george john is a ceo of a company that I advise, and what I did during the book was I interviewed probably one hundred people about the concept and about their networks, and I was talking to george, and I said, you know, what do you think about this idea that your network is your net worth? And he said, well, you know, I hadn't really thought about it in those terms, but then he started charging back his first job was somebody that he had met in college, his first company that he sold, he sold it to people they had met through his network. He now has a company called rocket fuel, which has grown to about four hundred employees in the last four years. Most of the people that he recruits in context through his network, right, his funding that he received for the company, context from his network, time and time and time again in your life. If you look back at how you find career opportunities, how you find friendships, how you meet people that you date often, a lot of these things are through our network, into our relationship. So he said to me, said, I think the value of my network has eclipsed the value of my assets by millions of dollars he went on to say that he really had tried to just keep helping people, and what has happened is that all of the help in that he's done it's come back ten fold, so again, helping other people, making sure that your relationships are strong, incredibly important, so we're going to talk about stories like this as I mentioned earlier, I do have a belief that networking is more about who you are as a person, it's not just about who you know now of the six of you and also all of you online watching how many of you have thought of networking is schmoozing or negative? Two okay, all right hander coming up a little stronger, right? Well, I will admit, twenty years ago, when I was first working, I was in new york, the thought of going to a party completely overwhelmed me, I thought, well, you know, I need to have somebody with me I need a wing woman with me, I can't do it alone, you know what I used to do in the past? And I'll admit it is that a glass of wine or two was my ice breaker for from making sure that I could network it's, not necessarily the best route to go, but I learned that over the years, but I was uncomfortable, I had feelings on thoughts that maybe I wasn't smart enough or I wasn't pretty enough there's a story that we tell ourselves in our head that isn't necessarily true. This is part of barrier breaking, getting through that and moving into the new conversation, so we're going to talk about that, so what I want you guys to think about is how to fight mediocrity in your life, how to be the best you can be now david when I was chatting with you before in the breakfast area you had said that you were taking a break you were recharging and I love that you also said that you wanted this to be a year that you get fit right so that is again being the best you could be the healthier and fit or that you are both men tickly mentally and physically the better it is in the easier it's going to be free to connect with people so even things like that physical fitness I know teresa you do a lot of yoga so everything is open game this is not about business cards and egg rolls at a cocktail party, right? Okay, so what? I want you guys to think about there's a great quote by young about the privilege of a lifetime is being who you really are it's being authentic it's being true to yourself, it's listening to that inner voice and saying I hear you I want to keep moving forward and I want to live with faith not fear I've certainly had career opportunities and jobs in the past right that I feel stifled I don't feel as creative as I want to be I don't feel that I'm growing you gotta listen to these things because the more you live true to your authentic calling, the happier and more productive and the better your relationships are going to be okay so we are going to start now we're going to start moving into some of the work barrier breaking does that scare you or does it excite you okay barrier breaking well a lot of what I'm going to do in the book for those of you that have read the book I might actually have you share the stories with me you might remember some of them but the book is about sixty percent stories and about forty percent exercise and how to so I want to just share a couple of the egg samples of stories so that you know kind of what barrier breaking is on then we're going to dive in and I'm going to ask you to do the hard work today it's whatever you feel comfortable sharing and also I'm going to ask our studio our online audience to share to we want to do barrier breaking around the globe so you may have recognized that you have this little pad of paper and everybody has their pad of paper this is like your journal I want you to actually consider it like homework I want you to take notes and after these two days I want youto leave here I want you to be at home with a networking plan it's going to have action steps it's gonna have your vision is gonna have your purpose it's going to be a road map so that you can better connect with people so we're ready to do that ready all right. So barrier breaking so sue hell is a ceo now of a company and one thing that I want you to really think about is that the way the world works in terms of jobs has completely changed in the past it was more of a corporate ladder right people would climb up the ladder now it's definitely more of a flat horizontal people have multiple careers it's not uncommon for people to have six or seven careers today's in turn can be tomorrow ceo right? So a lot of what's important is respecting people it's about not being high article in terms of titles and realizing that every single person can change your life so so hell when he was in college he had basically had the assumption that he was going to follow a certain path he was going to go toe college he was going to graduate he was going to go to graduate school he's going to become an engineer he was going to work at intel some way we're like that and one day he read an article about kevin rose one of the founders of dig and hey said wow that's what I want to do I want to start creating things I want to start making things I want to join the tech industry you know I want to get closer to san francisco so he realized that he had set his own barriers where he had thought this is what my plan is going to be this is what my life is going to be and all of a sudden he started to open up his thinking he realized that he could be doing greater things and so he ended up getting an internship at a company called slide at the internship he decided to test if hard work would be recognized so he worked very very hard for about three months and sure enough one of the gentleman that was that slide was a co founder of paypal and he started recognizing the work that he was doing with one of his associates and a relationship was formed ultimately that internship changed his life he too started he decided to start his own business at twenty two he left college he ended up starting his own company called mixed panel it's here in sanford cisco and now he has about twenty employees and he's got a profitable but full business said is doing online analytics all because he started thinking bigger he started realizing I don't need to go the traditional path I can create my own thing I could set my own goals and I'm going to work hard to get there so a great example of the relationship said he built while interning ship not letting age be a barrier not thinking he needed to have fifteen years of experience to be a ceo he went out there and did it, so use this as an example think of what are the barriers that you might be holding yourself back with? I have found time and time again, we usually our own self credit, were usually our worst enemy, right? How many times have you started something? And maybe you haven't just continued because you're like, oh, I can't do that, or I need to do this for maybe my family or for my daughter, for bills, we need to be realistic, but let's, think big, another example of this that's in the book and again, I'll be sharing lots of stories that are in the book but allow a lot of these people I've met on twitter, which is quite amazing in itself that I've made so many relationships through social networks. How that all happened for me was that at virgin america, we were using tons of social media back in two thousand seven, two thousand eight, and at a certain point I started seeing tweets by this gentleman mark, and I was very impressed by what he was doing. He was trying to help the homeless by tweeting the stories about different people that he was meeting, so ultimately, when I wrote the book, I called him up and I said, you know, I really like to hear more about how you're helping your network using social media and he said, well, my story is actually a little bit more extreme than that he had worked in broadcast and during the recession he had lost his job has happened a couple of times and I can relate to that I will talk about losing my job in the past and what happened was that mark he admittedly and it's in the book he was struggling with alcohol and drug addiction and he ended up when he lost his house he ended up homeless. He was in hollywood there's the kodak theater it's no longer name the kodak theater goes kodak's gone but it is that theater he was homeless in front of that theater and you know how we survived it's a quiz for the two of you that have read them look, remember that? Yeah, people paying to take pictures of his lizard you are exactly right. Yeah, I feel like you're gonna be my plant in the audience. You for every answer that you get right way money here today so you're exactly right he basically would allow people to take photographs of him with his iguana that he had named dog sitting on his shoulder and that's how he survived until he ended up finding a church that took him in he dealt with his barrier of addiction and he realized that if he started helping people helping other homeless people, that he would stay focused and that he was able to keep his life on track by giving back and by helping others. So another example of identifying the barriers and making change. Now some of your barriers may not be a cz extremist, sis I will admit one of mine and I talk about it in the book was was the drinking I had to put that down, and so seventeen years ago, I put that down, that was a big change that I made, and it changed my life. Your changes may be smaller, they maybe things where it's just saying I have value, I can had conversation, I can add to this relationship and being more confident, so small barriers, big barriers, we're going to talk about all of them today, another thing that we're going to do is in the book at the end, I have three people that have done all the exercises in their samples, so I'm going to refer back to nic, becky and gen quite a bit, and the reason that we're doing this is because I think sometimes if you see sample exercises it's easier to start thinking about your own thoughts and feelings and your own exercises, so I'm going to tell you a little bit about these three folks nick is twenty six years old he actually lives in oregon and he was an intern for me on virgin america he kept sending me e mails nonstop saying I want to work for you I want to work for you I want to work for you and finally said, come on, you could work for me and so he actually ran our social media department until we had money to hire someone didn't amazing job he's now up embedded in nike for a company called sprinkler so nick it's done all of the exercises he's single with no kids and he really is trying to build his hope his online in his personal brand, he's focused a lot on his clients, but he hasn't focused on his own brand his own identity he'd like to prepare for career advancement and he also has been struggling to get past some barriers such as he never finished college and he kept thinking to himself, I can't do it because I didn't do college well I still believe in college, but a lot of people are doing amazing things without college, so we can't let those ideas hold us back. Becky is forty two she's married, she has five children she lives in travers city, michigan, and I met becky through a friend of mine in l a I was really impressed with their because she's run all of these marathons she's run like twenty races or thirty races I thought that's incredible and when I met her she had just published a book and her book was called I'm married to a millionaire so why am I in therapy right the point was is that for her it wasn't about the money she really had to figure out her own identity she had to look at some of her own barriers some of that was revolved around body issues and now what she's doing is she is starting a small bit his business and she has a group called sexy moms running club and she's making active where for women that are size ten to sixteen so again finding out how to build her network how to start her small business it's great and again another very different than nick very different but also someone who's barrier breaking and trying to bring their life to the next level jen is divorced she's forty one and she lives up in you kaya she is really trying to network to plan for the future she wants more income stream she has her own business she's very active in the ecological space in the green community some of the barriers she just moved to a new place now I'm sure a lot of you have moved to new cities I did have a hypothesis it may be true it may be false but that in the past it took about two years to feel really comfortable in a place, maybe longer because of technology now you can connect more rapidly, you confined the groups to join the events to go to you can find places to get connected online at a faster rate so jen, becky and nick, they won't be here with us, but we'll be talking about them and maybe we'll try to get them on the phone during a break in and let them know that they're inspiring us. So I want you to start thinking this is we're going to start getting out your pens and start thinking a little bit, but old conversation new conversation is an exercise that we're going to be talking about after our call with jeff and I used to do this with brands, and you'll find that a lot of the exercises in the book I basically have adapted from working with companies for twenty to twenty five years. Companies like coach snapple, virgin america and often brands would go through a phase where they wanted to reposition they wanted to change the conversation around their product around their experience. So I remember being in meeting after meeting after meeting where we would say what's the old conversation about this product, maybe it was coach handbags where the old conversation was that it actually was my grandmother's handbag, and now we want it to be stylish and updated old conversation new conversation I want you to think about it with yourself now for example maggie you were in a different industry right? And so your old conversation may have to do that I can on ly be an ex industry this is where my training iss and your new conversation could have to do with I have the skills that are adaptable to new professions and I can add value to these relationships so looking at how do we shift are thinking this is incredibly important because there is a lot of research that positive thinking and rate reframing your mindset can actually start to create behavior change so if you think that you can't do a lot or you think that you're not worth it you think that you can't do it it's not gonna happen if you change that and you move forward where you say I'm going to do this in my new conversation amazing things can happen so I just want to show you a couple of them so that you can think about it I'm not smart enough I don't have the right background people won't like me I'm overwhelmed I'm sure some of you have felt that way before if you have kids or families or multiple events that you're organizing around the globe that one I see you're shaking your head yes I'm overwhelmed how do we move past that old conversation and focus on the new conversation I'm a great conversationalist, people like being around me, I have insights and ideas that could help others. I'm worthy of making new conversations and connections, and I can add value very, very different mindset, moving from the old conversation to the new conversation. So as I share in the book, a lot of people have called me and said, I can't believe how honest you were in the book trees. I think you send me an email or something like that, like, wow, you really shared a lot. You're being very authentic, I think that you have to do that to break through, right? So here's an example, my old conversation. I remember about twenty years ago, I was dating a reporter in new york it's very smart, a bookworm, and he had a book club, and I remember thinking to myself during that time, I'm not smart enough to hang with them there. There is so much better read than I am, what can I add to this conversation? And I would get totally anxiety ridden whenever the book club would be there and I'd be like, I'm leaving the house, I'm not going to be there, and so I would just avoid it now. With lots of growth and experience and part of it is aging, I recognize that if you haven't read a book you know what the best thing is to say tell me why you like it, right? It is very easy to move from that old conversation of not being smart enough to wow, I can learn and I could be inspired, you know, let me into this and so lots of old conversations in my past where I've had to shift them and this is a a constant process it's a constant aspect of our lives that we need to work on just sound familiar to anybody. Yeah, it's anyone want to share an old conversation online? We have michelle in our v a who says, according to this, I'm an interim probably has to go no, no, you know what? I'm so glad you brought this up because there's a great book, first of all right now called quiet that susan kane has written and introverts extroverts, I think there's networking ways that can work for both types of people in personalities. The rial trick is is to make sure that your authentic that you're talking about things that you are passionate about and you care about, so if you're an introvert that's okay just recognize ways that you can feel comfortable, so we'll talk about that so I don't want you to do deep personality changes. I want you to be honest with yourself, but find the places that you're comfortable chatting about. Ok, any anyone want to share? One old conversation? One of the things I can chairs I've spent my life well since I was sixteen behind my camera kind of hiding behind my camera and my four by five and covered up, and one of the things that I tell myself is that I just wasn't seen I can't be seen. Uh huh. So so I'm going to hide behind my camera and just put myself out there visually, through through imagery, but I'm going to protect myself, right? That's great. Yeah, and so your new conversation, I didn't have messages no more, you know the cameras and put down I still use it when I need tio, but it's about having those personal relationships that you were talking about that air so valuable that I've always valued and now being able to really connect with people without that instrument. That's great, then amazing! It must have been pretty freeing to get to that point of feeling that right? I had a similar thing, but mine was it was a filmmaker also, and I remember when I went to film school, I thought I'm not technology logically oriented I wouldn't be able to shoot or do sound and you know what I found is if you read the book and you know the working poor do it s so there's a lot of things like cooking if you look at the rest of you could learn how to do it so again not setting these preconceived notions of being open so that's very exciting teresa and a perfect example so I am going toe have you guys doing a little bit of these exercise? It sounds like we have one from online. Another example from gina heart her old conversation is I am too young and inexperienced but the new conversation says I have a fresh and creative perspective that can add value to the professional world I love it and you know, I cannot stress enough that today's in turn is tomorrow ceo because especially here in the bay area I mean, I know we have people from all over the world tuning in, but I see so many amazing successful people just creating change and I actually I was at lunch the other day with the venture capitalists and he said that most of the time the big winds are from people that are outside of industries because they have a fresh perspective airbnb, you know, really interesting company that's growing like gangbusters uber that's reinventing kind of the taxi in the car the people that started those companies were not nurtured inside those businesses, they had fresh ideas, fresh thinking, and so, you know, what's exciting is thinking about the new ideas that you can bring to a new industry it's amazing and so great thinking really good examples. So thank you for that you have another one or you, we've got we've got people coming in let's see needy says that they have old conversation, I won't get a job as I have no qualifications new conversation, I have a network and creativity and I bring a fresh perspective. Yeah, great, great! So we're going to talk a lot about that about the job search and also how you can learn from every experience. So giving you again with nick, jen and becky some of our examples, nick, I'm not the best student I didn't finish college nick is one of the most gregarious, outgoing extroverts I've ever met. He drives a vw bus, he waves that people that are sitting at the bus stop, you know, if he had ah, you know, tacos in the back of the truck, he'd be handing them out that's his personality, but he really felt that that was going to hold him back, and over the last couple of years it's been amazing to see his transformation he's gotten very into px nine ninety p ninety x fitness program he's lost weight he's gained confidence he's taken on a bigger role with nike where he's now teaching social media and he's realized that if he's authentic and he believes in himself that great things are going toe come to him so old conversation new conversation becky I'm not happy with my body and I want to hide in the corner a little bit of the same thing that tree so you were talking about about hiding behind the camera again this happens time and time again where we have these barriers that are self inflicted in the book I share a story of a very successful philanthropist who used to be scared of public speaking and he had to face that fear and get through it to be where he is today so we're all very similar sometimes we just don't talk about these things in these issues, right? So becky, her new conversation is that she's strong she's confident and she's run over thirty marathons it's amazing right? She travels around with women and inspires them toe work out, but she's needed to shift her behavior what's great is that she is really driven by trying to create a healthy life for her five kids she wants to be around she doesn't want to be a mom that's just sitting on the couch on so she's really building a new life for herself jen I'm overwhelmed and worried that my interests are too diversified wow if I can't relate to that when I've been a filmmaker I'm a writer I love marketing I love people I love yoga sometimes it's good just to take a step back and to focus and to say what are the three main things that I'm really interested in and what are the things that I want to dio jen has shifted her conversation and she's realized that if she focuses she always gets the work done and she can make an impact so she's really changed in that conversation she's getting involved in her community and she's doing things differently so what we're going to do is they're going to be some goals and exercises that we're going to be going through and I'll talk about this a little bit but I just want to ask you guys any more examples of old conversation new conversation we do have some more coming in online if you want to read some of them let's do a couple excellent so david g barnes old they just don't understand what I'm talking about and new find what they can understand and build on it right? Right let's see yes and girl old europeans view my cornucopia of ideas as bulk and arrogance new I'm exotic I love it I love it that's great too all right so here's what we're going to do first I want to just recap, I know that at the beginning you told russ, you're networking goals, but I want to make sure we have clarity of your goals today, then I'll have each one of you share one old conversation in one new conversation. We're going to be doing our call of jeff in about fifteen minutes, so we've got plenty of time for exercises, so I want to make sure that I heard correctly what some of your goals are so recapping from the intro. So, maggie, you are looking to do a career transition, which I relate to. I have transition careers at least four or five times, and so I'm exactly like you in that stage, you are moving from a financial industry where you'd like to get more into the tech industry. Well, you're in a perfect place, their way contacts. And so for all of us watching today and for the group let's, think about how we can help maggie, because networking again is about the we not just the me anything you want to add on your networking goals. Well, I mean, I was thinking about it as I was describing tio, what my goals were that there were a couple of old conversations embedded in that description like, I don't have the right experience, I don't know the right people whereas, you know, the reality is when I talked to people in the technology industry like, well, you've managed people, you've done this, you have gotten things done so there's certainly a lot of things that I can do, regardless of the industry, and I think as it relates to my network, I have, well, lots of friends in the tech industry, I just need to build bridges to those right connections, you know, so it's like, um, yeah, there's something there, but I'm not quite sure what the new conversation would be, ok, great. So these are all really good nuggets that I'm going to want you guys to get down in your journals and so don't be scared to just, like, write some notes on those thoughts, but we're going to help you figure out how to make those warm introductions. Another thing that I'm gonna want you to think about is writing down what some of your skills are the skill sets because I'm sure, like your friends are saying, because they're going to see the true you, right? You probably have a lot more skills and a lot more to bring to the table, then you're giving yourself credit for so let's, bring that out and really recognize what you're bringing to the table teresa, what I heard is that you are both you're still doing a lot of your great photography work but you want to get out from behind the camera you've got a new creative business that you're starting it's a creative consulting company creative consulting your life okay, I'd love to hear more about that and tell us your networking goals for your new business well, I think first of all, as I'm as I'm transitioning into my new career, my new calling is learning to figure out who I am without the camera, which has been a year long process which you know a little bit about and asking those powerful questions who am I now at this stage in my life but kids in college on thank you for waiting so you've got two girls that are college girls in college I just left a relationship that wasn't serving me after thirteen years and so who am I tze will been my biggest powerful question at this of this year, right? And so with that and asking those questions that which has been my barrier um and creating a new story about the negative thoughts of who I am I'm not a good enough photographer I can't keep up with technology I'm not interested in keeping up with technology, having this great gift of being able to be a photographer for twenty five years and now sing it go into a direction that doesn't really work for me right still still love it, but also there's all these different doors that are opening I know it's so exciting teresa and again, this is in the book a little bit, but the's pivot points. Maggie, you're in a pivot point. David teresa, a lot of you are in a pivot point times that is when you can experience the most incredible change and growth where you just you move through all sorts of clutter in your life and it's like, wow, I had no idea this was possible here in my arm just stood up. I am so excited to see how you can move that vision forward, and you've already done some barrier breaking. You've looked at, you know, relationships that you use the phrase it wasn't serving new, you're making changes, that's great work, so I'm really excited that you're here. David, what I heard was that you were fortunate enough that you had a business that you recently sold and that you wanted to take a little time off kind of re examine what you were interested in work on kind of your fitness and also kind of family situations it sounds like and that in the past you were in technology and social media, is that a good recast correctly? I wasn't social no social media for about the last fifteen years, often on and I started a couple of companies in the last one I did sell um and therefore I'm in a pretty good spot right now but when I realized an old conversation myself was I really blog's of people writing great insights about industry and um I would tell myself I don't I'm not I'm not smart enough I don't have the right insight to write these kinds of things yeah but it's ridiculous guys went m I t and I actually have been working in industry for fifteen twenty years now and so I'd like to have a new car sales which is I am an expert as well and it could be a thought leader myself yes I love it and and again I feel like I've paid you guys to be here with you but we're going to talk about that because the same thing when I left my position at virgin america you know I was worried how was I going to keep my my credibility up and so I actually started blogging at that point and I had set a goal of blogging for the huffington post in my first block posts that I finally got published for them I was so thrilled and amazed and then once you have one done you're like I can do this right there's also a story that's in the book I interviewed a woman named ali brown who is an entrepreneurial coach and she has tons of awards and the entrepreneur space and I said, allie, how did you get all these ward's this is incredible like you really seen us expert in terms of helping women entrepreneurs and she said, how did I get the awards? I went online, I googled them and I filled out the application s o you know, raising ourself as an expert, a lot of it is just doing the work and saying my thoughts and my ideas are worth it. So lots of exciting stuff for you to david leslie tell me more you're here at creative live and I love that you guys are taking classes tell me more about what you're trying to accomplish with building your network, so I over the years I've developed quite a big network through all the companies that I've worked at both big and small in my own business, and I started blogging a few months ago when I was in a pivot point like these guys are in right now is between jobs it didn't really know what to do, and my husband said, you know, you have so many things that you tell people about what you've learned in your career it's really interesting stuff you should share it and so I started blogging and what I really realized that was important about the blogging was that it was keeping me connected with my network up and so what what I really want to do as far as my networking goals is to really continue to have this very vibrant a live network, this community of people around me that I give two and give back to me a ce faras inspiration and thoughts and ideas because, you know, I have conversations with people who work in other companies that help me with my job that I'm doing now or I give them ideas about businesses you're starting and it's really a matter of how tonight create a community that makes a difference that we mattered we did something that changed how things were done in our industry or that made a difference or that I've been able to inspire the people in my network to do great things and because I get so much benefit and meaning when I see other people succeed, it really makes me happy me it just makes me happy so how can I make more of that that's great and, you know, what's amazing is that we have the technology now I mean, if you think about it social media, it really has just grown in the last five or six years where we didn't have that infrastructure where we could find people with common interests and find people that are interested in the same things so you can build communities such more rapidly in the past, so innovation mama today in your sight it probably is crashing right now because everyone is looking at it. So good luck with all that traffic that's coming in, and I can't wait to look at your site later. Um carrie, tell me more about you and some of your goals. What I heard was that you know, you're here at creative live and that you wanted to find out more about the courses tell me how long you've been here in what you're trying to accomplish. Well, I've been with creative lives since january of this, a year and it's been really exciting the last few months as we moved into the beautiful new studios that we're filming in here today. When I started here, I think we're about five of us, so to see the company growth has been just a really amazing thing to be a part of, I think, for me, I'm in a an internal pivot point, you know, I think I think too much about what a network means and I already have one, so I just need to see it. It doesn't have to be really more than what it is. I need to understand how to better execute what's existing I kind of learned how to grow that, and I'm very much a people. Person I like to interact with people face to face so for me to go through and set up all the social media channels I'm a little overwhelmed by that and also I kind of feel that for me how do I balance face to face contact but also have a social media presence? So I'm really excited that that's also going to be a part of what we're going to be focusing on today so I think just kind of you know being here to learn and grow and just be a part of this our own community that we're having here today is really exciting and the community at large just tow be together you know, a good deal together good so all of you that are watching let's think about ways that we can help carry achieve some of her goals we are going to be talking about social media one thing that you're going to find and I hope that this is a sense of relief is that I believe less is more actually so it's important to figure out what you're trying to do so that you can focus in and I would probably advise not to do all the social media sites you figure out which one works for what you're trying to accomplish that's why it's so important to go through this goal setting and figure out what your purpose is what your passion is what you're trying to do because if you overwhelm yourself with all the networks and I know that you were david involved with a network social media network in the past, so you know how much time it can take to be involved, we need to make sure that we're out there meeting people in person to. We don't want to just be behind the mouse or behind the keyboard, right? So let's, talk about that more later on elena, I want to hear a little bit more about the events and again thrilled that you're here, especially because you read the book. How did you hear about the book, anyway, I actually saw your first creative life class, and then I went to your website and I told you a little bit about the story from there, finding here on business you've worked with and it all just came full circle. And so when I saw the opportunity to be here, I thought I have to apply. Yeah, and I got accepted, and that was great. So you watch the first class and here on this is a great networking app which we can talk about later on too but it's basically really symbolic of where we're moving in the future that networking is changing and it is an app that feeds off of your linked in data and it basically if you check in on it so when you came here in l a but when you came up to san francisco if you checked in on it people that are also in your network that are connected on the app it might say, hey teresa is two blocks away why don't you call her so that you can connect? So I want you to think about how that's going to change networking even just two or three years from now once you go to an airport you know what's going to happen the data is going to be pushed out to you, right? You're not going to miss those connections? How many times have you talked to a friend it's like I can't believe you were at that concert? I was there too I wish I would have known well data technology, automation all of that is bringing information forward so really exciting that you learned about that and that you've connected with that company and it's also started by a young entrepreneur, so that was exciting to see you also mentioned that you're doing networking events could you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah, I've been an entrepreneur for about seven years and soon after starting my first business, I also started a networking group and so that's been going for almost seven years as well and out of that grew the women's business conference that I started and this year's a third year, and we've also had events in different cities around the country, so it's been really great connecting with women and just business people in general as I've been traveling, and so for me, my networking goal and my old and new conversation or kind of tied to each other in that I feel comfortable creating events where people like me get together and we gather and we connect and things were really low pressure and they get good feedback, but for me, my old conversation is very similar to nick's like I didn't finish college, I don't have the experience who am I to go reach out to? So and so and so my new conversation is I have the experience I had the network, I have the connection loves you make all this happen, I love it, I love it well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you a little bit more about jeff pulver, who we're going to be doing a skype call within about five minutes on deny also, I'm going to ask after you guys hear about him, maybe there's some questions that we're going to want to get from the audience before jeff comes on. He is a fascinating person and he is in the book, so let me tell you a little bit about jeff. The way that I met jeff is like how I met most of my friends on twitter, which I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign that I made so many connections on twitter, but when I was at virgin america, he sent me a tweet about how much he loved the airline and when he lives in new york and he said, you know, I'm going to be in san francisco, can I come have a tour of the airline and what I loved about that is here he was he was proactive, he said, this is something I like. I want to see more about it, I want to come by, I said, sure, so I showed him operations control. I introduced him to the ceo. This was a passion of hiss and a friendship started. Jeff also is a blogger, and then at this point before I met him, he was starting to develop a conference call the pound one forty conference it's a big kind of conference about twitter and social media. And so his first one was in l a at the kodak theater, and I was lucky enough to participate in that conference, and we became friends, and I thought he is such an outgoing, wonderful person. I recognized just how special he was when we were working on a project with virgin galactic. We were trying to raise funds to help children learn more about space and technology. I was doing a very special event that had a high ticket price, and I called jeff and I said, would you like to come to this event? He said, well, I can't I'm busy, but I would like to fund the ticket for ah high school principal and send them in my place. Is that okay? So a very, very generous spirit. Jeff story in the book is lovely. He talks about when he was a young boy. His uncle taught him about the ham radio. Anyone remember him? Radio. So a couple of you are too young to remember the ham radio, but he describes the ham radio as the first social network and so he would spend. Hours and hours in his room he no turning the dials and talking to people on the ham radio and so that's where he started getting interested in computers and connecting and it was this passion but he kept following his expected path which was more of, you know, kind of this going down the career path and he took a position at cantor fitzgerald. I'm sure some of you remember the name it was the firm that was in the world trade center and at one point he was at a meeting at cantor fitzgerald and they're orange chart was up on the wall and you thought, why isn't my name on the orc chart and a couple of the people said you know that we're leading that it said I thought you fired him I thought you fired him and he realized his job has been had been eliminated so jeff was fired from that position he decided to follow his passion which was more about connecting and networks and computers and he co founded a company called vonage vonage had rapid growth in the voice over I p space he ended up selling it for about I believe it was fifty seven million dollars so that's his his story in the book he followed his dream in his passion the emotional part of it and it still is is pretty jolting is that he sold it on september tenth, one day before the world trade center. And so he recognized at this point that his life he had been given all of these opportunities because he had been fired. And he really wants to keep living that way in terms of generosity and giving back over the last couple of, well, the last three hundred sixty five days, I've been watching jeff story online, and I've been a moh amazed because he has been rallying a community around him. He sent an email recently saying that he was trying to decide if he should do the stomach surgery or if he should exercise. And a friend of his said, start exercising and so he has lost ninety three pounds he's going to tell us about that. But he did it with a network of people and he's been sharing it on a very public level what his routine is about, hey also just did it one armed pushup at his conference in new york. So we're going to talk about that.