The Fabulous Learning Nerds

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They are the Fabulous Learning Nerds! Cause if you're tired of the old ways of getting it done, you've got the Fabulous Learning Nerds! Scott, Dan, and Zeta are making it fun! The best ideas that you've ever heard! So everybody spread the word! Gonna keep you with learning, the Fabulous Learning Nerds!
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Fabulous Learning Nerds! Oh yeah!
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Hey everybody, welcome back to another amazing episode of your fabulous learning nerds. I'm Scott Schuette, your host and with me as he is every stinking week, just about Dan
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Coonrod everybody.
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Dan the man.
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Oh yeah.
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Dan.
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Scott!
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What's up man? How you doing?
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I feel good. I feel good. I feel good. I feel good. I feel good.
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I feel good. I feel good.
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I feel good.
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I feel good, sir. We are heading into the holiday season. Actually, the holiday season started a while ago. But yeah, no, I'm doing okay. We're doing all right. How about yourself,
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sir?
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You said you're heading into the holiday season, but we've already had Halloween. What other holidays happen after Halloween? My wife loves Christmas.
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So there are many people who love this time of year, the magical time of year. And I will tell you, I think I told you last time we got together that as soon as everything spooky went down, everything festive went up. Which was the right thing to do, but extremely tiring. That's all I can say. Like, I don't know if I'd want to do that again, but I probably will. In your heart, in all of our hearts,
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if we call Halloween festive, it can be festive year round. Why use that word to only mean Christmas? Just saying, expand, grow.
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From a growth mindset point of view, I think it's fantastic, I think it's great, it's cool. I'm sporting my new glasses today, which are cool. Yeah, I know, yeah. I had- The glasses are great. They help you see, which is good. At my age, I have to have glasses, which is kinda scary. But I also found out, like, okay, so my first pair of glasses, so I got the ones with the little nose pegs, you know, and they were digging into my nose and I kept going back. I think I went back like six different times and I said, I look like a chipmunk. Please fix this. And they just finally said, you need those glasses with the plastic frame about the little nose clamps. And I said, yes. And they gave me a brand new pair. And yeah. They are comfy and I can see, which is a bonus. So seeing is a good thing. That is good. I recommend it to most people.
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Yeah.
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Comfy and not being able to see.
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Not a good thing. No.
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Yeah.
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You know who else is comfy and also can see? That's right. The dust is of design. Everybody, Zeta is in the house. Z-Girl!
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Scott, how you doing?
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Oh man, I'm doing good, thanks a lot. How's the week been? It's been good, it's been good. Revving up for Thanksgiving, thinking about all the different kinds of food that we're going to be having, so looking forward to that. And they're called nose pads, by the way, those little eyeglass things that are on your nose. That's an error on my part.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
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I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And they're called nose pads, by the way.
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So little eyeglass things that are on your nose. That is a that's an error on my part. That's a learning on my part. This is a learning podcast. So that's good, everybody. Those are called what are they called again?
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Z-Girl?
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Nose pads. So what happened? What is the technical term then for people like me that look like the chipmunk with the little nose pad things in their nose?
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Ah, chipmunks.
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Yeah.
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Alvin Simon, Theodore.
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Theodore. Yeah.
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Dude, dude. Oh, my gosh.
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Totally awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so getting ready for Turkey Day. And the older I get, the more I like it, the more I like this holiday. Unless you're doing all the stuff, if you are one of those people that loves to cook and entertain and bring everybody in and kill yourself for a day like I do for another holiday we talked about. Great, fantastic, that is not me. I just wanna show up, I wanna chill, I wanna watch football, I wanna eat, and I wanna drink, and then I wanna go home, and I wanna just enjoy time with my friends and my family, and that's just so awesome. We should do that more often.
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Oh yeah, like I have Thanksgiving planned as well as Friendsgiving. So where you get together with family
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and then decompress
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with your friends. We should totally have a nerds giving and have all the nerds come in. Love it. And have a nerds giving. Love that. Be thankful for the learning. I know someone I would totally have at nerds giving. You have to ensure that you invite this person to nerds giving. I am sure she would show up. She's a friend of the show. She's just an amazing human being and quite frankly everybody, she's a virtual training superhero. Everybody Cassie's in the house.
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How's it going?
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It's great. Imagine that I'm dropping from the, like, some place very high and I'm doing the superhero land, you know?
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Yeah, I just did that.
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Did you grow up on that show? Were you a Linda Carter fan growing up or is it just me? Am I the only one?
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No, I did and also had the, can I say it?
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Underwear. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. That's awesome. Yes. We have just like half the audience are going under what? Go look it up. Have your AI assistant look it up for you. Listen,
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the Wonder Woman ones are the best ones and even the boys had those. I had Optimus Prime
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Yeah, pretty much. That's amazing.
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Thank you for that.
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Cassie, for the one or two people who don't know who you are, could you give a brief overview of who you are, what you do, and what makes you so awesome? Oh my gosh, thank you.
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My name is Cassie LaVori, and I do virtual training superhero things. No, I help people not hate living online, working online, and doing virtual training. And I've been working in the learning and development field for the last 25 years, but now I'm kind of expanding more into remote work in general and just how to be effective when we are connecting using all these digital tools that are available to us today.
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Yes, and you are amazing at it, and I don't speak lightly of that. Folks, if you need help with your virtual training, Cassie is the person to go to. At the end of the show, we'll have, she'll know how to get a hold of her, but she's great. I've been to summer classes, everybody, that is new to virtual training, and you gotta go talk to the wizard, you gotta go talk to Cassie about it. Thank you so much.
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But you're doing some new things,
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and I'm super excited about it. And without further ado, everybody, let's go ahead and dive into our topic of the week. This week we're going to be talking about journey into keynoting, which I find really, really awesome because you know what? There are a lot of people, myself included, the talkers in the learning and development field, those people who get up in front of people and train or sit behind a computer and train or training people on how to train. I think a lot of us think about this, right? So, hey, I'd love to be on a stage in front of thousands of people telling a story in an attempt to make everybody better. That's my thing. I would love that. Not everybody's into that, but a lot of us are. And I got to be honest, I don't even know what I'd talk about. I don't know where I'd start. So Cassie, let's start from the get, right? You're successful at what you do, you're awesome at what you do, and now you're gonna go ahead and expand into keynoting. What was your inspiration? What started you on this journey? Let us know.
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Oh my gosh.
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Well, so many different things led to the path that I'm currently on today. Very excited to be on today and still learning as I'm exploring where I'm at. It's super exciting. And let me first say that I've done keynotes before. And I've always felt like they weren't right. And it's not any kind of feedback that I got. It's not anything that anyone said to me. It's completely what I said to myself and how I felt about it and what I wanted it to be. And so, Scott, to your point, like partly it's not exactly that I have this dream that I wanna be in front of thousands of people telling a story. It's not exactly that for me. It is more about where am I going and what do I want for my future. And it's almost like a revisiting of where I was when I was in high school and then college and trying to figure out, you know, what do I want to be when I grow up? And I actually landed on a path, not ended on it, landed on a path of theater. And that led me down public speaking. I have a degree in public speaking with an emphasis in theater Because I decided I wanted to have a job Auditioning No, but I didn't I don't love auditioning, you know, I didn't really love the actor life style but I did love performance and that's how I ended up in public speaking and communication speech communication as a degree and then Finding learning and development and coming into it as a trainer. Not as an instructional designer, but as a trainer. And the performance side of it. And it was really interesting in the early part of my career trying to get a job because I wanted to be the one talking. And they're like, well, what are you going to talk about? And I'm like, whatever you want me to talk about. I am here to help talk about things, you know, and it was a little difficult in the beginning to get a job. So I had to, I became a technical trainer. I got a job at, you know, working as a Microsoft trainer and then I got good at that and people then said to me, and then I went to WebEx, right, after Microsoft does WebEx, and it's like, okay, we get how to click and where to click and what to do, but how do we be like that? And I'm like, well, that's what I wanted to do to begin with, but you didn't want to hire me to talk about that, you know? So now I'm on that path. So that's the very early, early origins of it, but then we fast forward to the events surrounding March 2020, and it's
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another push towards something different for me. I absolutely love the, I wanted to be, you know, an actor, but I also wanted to have a job. 100% that resonates. I just wanted to play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, so I became a trainer so I could pay the bills.
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I mean, you know, we need the game master too, Daniel.
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Come on.
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I know, but still, I totally get that. I totally get that.
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Yeah, it's neat, isn't it?
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It's the performance side of things, right? Just because you know something doesn't mean you know how to share it with people. And there's something to that. You know, it's interesting to me, I'm going down a tiny tangent because I'm thinking about, there's a lot of emphasis around hiring and thinking about, at least in the network, in the learning and development network, people are instructional designers and we have all the instructional designers should do all the things, which is quite overwhelming for all of them, by the way. And by the way, to all of you, thank you for all that you do. And thank you for learning all the things and making all the things, because then I can talk about the things that you've made.
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Thank you.
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But companies will hire the trainers and then they'll hire the developers, but it's like they don't necessarily think about the instructional designers in between, because I've always felt like the designers are like my script writers. And not all of the actors are great at improv. And if you compare that to what we see in corporate learning and development, you have a lot of trainers that are subject matter experts that are basically operating on improv. And we should pay more attention to the instructional designers who've written thoughtful scripts that can actually move in theater and audience, but in learning and development, you know, people to be able to do their jobs and apply the skills. So I have a whole lot of respect for all the roles, but I come at it from that performance side.
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You are so right, because I feel like, oh, you have design in your title, that means that you make pretty things. And it's so much more nuanced than that. And I feel that the people that are super successful are the people that touch a lot of things, have experience in the facilitation world, have experience in the design world, have experience in the leadership world. If you start to bring all those things together, those people are great. It's identifying what niche is going to be yours and what you're going to lean on. What I like about what you do and in those sessions that I've sat in with you, that I've had the pleasure of sitting with you, is that you bring something, you bring a lot of flair to whatever it is that those other people are doing, if that makes any sense, right? So, like, here's my niche. Here's, you know, okay, here's how you make a cake, but here's how you make it better, right? And so I think that that's really important, and really, I'm glad you brought that up about your journey.
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I just kind of thought it was a flaw for me that I was, like, unwilling to do all the things. I am a person who likes to focus and do what I'm good at doing, and I don't want to have to do the things I don't like doing, or that I know I'm not going to be good at. And I thought that it was a bad thing for the longest time, but I realize now I think it's it's best for me and it's best for all involved that I'm focused on what I'm good at doing. And then I actively make it a practice to to lift up others around me that I know are better at doing the things that I that I'm not as good at doing. That is awesome. That's that's the teamwork that I think that kind of like leans a little bit back on the theater roots. I mean, you need people backstage, you need people that do the set design, you need people that do the script, you need the people that are on stage doing the monologue. Like, going back to that same idea, what is a keynote speaker? Like, are they the person doing the monologue on the stage? Are they the introduction to the stage? Yeah, well, you know, if you look at just the traditional word of what a key note speaker does, is it sets the key, the main note, for whatever we're doing. If it's a conference or the meeting, and if it's the opening keynote, you're setting the tone. It's the note. If it's the closing keynote, then you're wrapping it up and sending them on. And so it's meant to be the overarching, or the bookend, if you will. And I don't know that it needs to be a monologue. There's certainly a lot of people who make it that way. And maybe there's an expectation that it is that. But if we go back to in March of 2020, I have a 25-year career as a workshop facilitator, presenter, and trainer. And I certify people to be virtual trainers. And I've done this for organizations before I worked for myself internally, internally facing and then with clients externally facing too. But now that I work for myself, I'm teaching all sorts of learning and development teams how to be more effective at their virtual learning strategies. And so I am in that world and have been in that world. And so you take it into March 2020, you can imagine my business is going along the same and I'm like, you're all finally listening. Hi, it's so good to have you here. You know, and so business is very, very overwhelmingly busy for those couple of years and even up until now. But what's beginning to happen now that we're three years from that, three years plus, people know how to be online now and there's a whole bunch of other people coming up and finally doing that, where it used to just be a handful of us. Now there's a lot of people, and I'll be in meetings and somebody will say, well, why should we work with you when we just met so-and-so who's doing it also? And it's like, that's a great question. And then, you know, well, when did they learn it? And when did they start doing it? And, you know, those all those kinds of questions come up. And I'm not a person who wants to feel any kind of negative around any of that. But I am also a human being who's like, oh, no. Everyone's doing what I have done and built my business around now. And it was really easy for me before because no one else really was. There are a handful of us. But now it's like everyone, we know how to be online. So what am I going to do? Where am I headed? And yeah, where am I going to go? And what do I have to say? And I'm like, I've been doing this for 25 years. Well, so what? What am I going to do with that? And that is like, well, you know what? And a way to lift up and honor what I believe in about other, what others are doing. I want, you know, people come to me now and they're like, I followed you for years and I'm going to do this too. And you know, part of me would go, no, it's just mine. But then I'm like, that's not realistic. You know, that's not realistic, right? Yeah, it's not. And I don't even want to be that person. What I want to be is a person who says, I'm so happy that you're finally here. How can I help? And to be confident enough and say, here's where I'm headed, and I'd like to hand that torch. And that is what led me to, well, what would then, Scott, back to you in the beginning, what is my message and story? If it is no longer this is how you do this. Where is the keynote message, which is the bigger, broader message? And and and Zayda, I went on that journey. What is the difference between a keynote and a workshop? Keynote sets the tone, right? Keynote is it sets the resonating vibe of the entirety rather than just the skills.
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Yeah.
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Yeah. And then I went on a journey to discover more of that after starting to understand that. And that's what led me to Michael and Amy Port and Andrew Davis. Andrew Davis and Michael Port wrote a book called The Referrable Speaker. And I read that book like in two days cover to cover because it had all of the answers I've been looking for. So thank you, Michael and Andrew. And I immediately went to the, they teach in-person classes, and I immediately signed up and I spent a whole year on a journey earning what I'm going to call my master's degree in getting to the keynote stage and differentiating what it is to deliver a workshop versus delivering a keynote. And, and what they say in their book, and I give a hundred percent credit to them for that because I've learned it and believe in it I think it's just wonderful and I think that it's nuanced also this is nuanced but as a general something that really spoke to me in that book they say a trainer a facilitator a workshop leader teaches people how to think. Ooh, love that.
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Kevin, that's awesome.
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What am I gonna do differently?
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What am I, how am I thinking about my world differently? And now you could see there would be nuances in there that of course trainers teach people to think differently too so they can do things. And the best keynotes give us something that we can do right away. So it's gonna overlap at times, but generally speaking, when you think about it from that angle. Another thing that they helped me to understand and I'm implementing and working through is that trainers have the answer. Visionary thinkers, the best keynote speakers, are posing questions and they have some ideas of things, but they don't claim to have the answer.
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I love that. As somebody who's been an instructional designer for years now, it's only as I've gotten deep into the craft where I've started to find a similar difference between informing and inspiring people. Like, hey, I'm going to build content and it's going to teach everybody and it's going to be awesome and it's going to be great. But if I don't build content that inspires people to connect with the content, inspires people to connect with the things I'm informing them, then it's just going to fall on deaf ears or it's just going to be a checkbox. And so to hear in the training world that difference between, hey, trainers inform and keynote speakers are asking questions, these deep, meaningful and moving questions. Like, that's great. I love that.
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It's one way to look at it. I do want to say it's one way to look at it. And I'm not, I don't want to say, because I don't believe in the absolutes that like trainers do not get people to think differently and keynote speakers can't have us do things. But for me, it really landed as a trainer. And especially because I have a background as a technical trainer first. I'm teaching people where to click and then well then then what? You're happy, okay. What does all that mean? So I started asking myself those questions. What does it mean if I want to move away from helping people manage a whiteboard, A, learn that there is one, and B, then, you know, why I should use it. What then am I going to do? And so that was the journey that I went on as I dove into writing my very first in this form keynote speech that is more on the visionary thinking side of things. And I'm still learning that. I mean, I pause as I say it because I'm like, is my speech that yet? You know, I think I'm working on it. I want it to be. And through this whole process, it's just a subtitle here or a sub, I don't know, extra thing, I have another speech that's in me that I'm going to begin writing in January and going through the process. And that whole speech is not connected to working remotely, but rather something much more deeply personal and highly vulnerable about this whole process of what I've learned about myself in taking this big leap because this was very difficult for me. A whole lot of stuff came up and I was not who I know I can be this last year.
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I became a giant baby. I'm gonna challenge you on that because I know what moment you're talking about.
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More than one of them, Scott. You saw maybe one of them.
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I saw one and I reacted quickly to the one. The thing that I would challenge you on is you allowed yourself to be vulnerable in a place where you were learning. One of the things that's really great about people like yourselves that have a growth mindset, we just want to get better. We're going to get better. I'm going to go ahead and dive into something that I'm pretty sure is the right thing for me. Maybe I'm going to learn some stuff and you get to that point of, oh, I'm uncomfortable and I, cause you're a master at your craft. You understand what's going on. Like when you show up each and every time, when you show up, the people are going to get the A plus out of Cassie each and every time and you could do it in your sleep, right? So now you're challenging yourself to go out and do something that's outside of your comfort zone.
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Oh yeah.
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But that's where growth happens.
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It was terrible. I was terrible to myself though. It is. It's like, yay, that's where growth happens and I hate it.
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I get that.
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I was terrible to myself.
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You were.
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I alienated friends and family. I'm in therapy. I'm like, I was terrible to myself.
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I did not allow myself to fail.
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I mean, I did. I forced myself to, but I was so mean to me.
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But you know what? Oh. What I need to say is that what the audience doesn't know is that you were vulnerable in a very public space about I'm challenged by this. Hundreds of people came out and showed love to you and you should feel amazing about that. Right? If one person, by the way, if just one person in your moment of vulnerability shows up and says, you know what, you got this, I believe you, that's great. But no, not Cassie. Cassie had about 100 people show up. Why? Because in their moment of vulnerability, you were there saying, you got this, this virtual thing, you got it. I know you don't know what's going on and everybody's afraid of the thing that's going around, but you can do this. And so that's what I did. Exactly. Yeah. So feel great about that. And I know you've got over the hump. So talk a little bit about that, that part of your journey. Like you had the vulnerability, people show up, they support you, supports you, you struggle your way through it. Then what, what happens next?
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It's just so much easier to be on the other side of, Hey, y'all, you got this. It is so much easier to be that person because I was very vulnerable. It started in December 2022. And actually, I still have moments of it, but it was high vulnerability state all the way through the end of August on a consistent basis. Everything that I was doing. That's how long it went. You saw one moment on that that I decided I'm going to try to post about it. And you know, there was, there's, Brene Brown talks a lot about like, you know, when, when you do you guys, do you like feeling vulnerable? Most people say no. But then when you say when you see others feel vulnerable, do you think that they're brave? When you when you when you see others being vulnerable, are they brave? 100%. But when you're in it, you don't feel it at all. Like it's just bizarre land for me. I'm exploring it further and I will be. The future keynote is around this. It's around this, I am a 25-year learning and development veteran, leader, and I am the worst learner on the face of this earth. I would disagree. I would totally disagree. We've got Dan in the room for sure. Yeah, and me. So you're good. It's okay. I mean, I'm bad at the learning process. I have learned it, but I'm bad to myself
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I got through school basically on on intuition so I mean Worst learner I feel like that's a pretty pretty tall mountain, but I'm up there in one of our earlier episodes
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We talked about this thing called the imposter syndrome, and I think it's pretty prevalent in our field. And I think you were talking, Vulnerable, about this idea of, I think we set really high expectations because of the desire that we have to create impact. And this last week, personally, for me, like I really struggled with what I'm doing and am I adding impact? And when I see the lack of impact on the things that I'm doing, I'm like, I just want to scream and pull whatever hair is left on my head out. No, no, no. In that process, there's learning and you get to a good spot. Like today, I had a breakthrough this morning about what I needed to do and get to a good spot and, you know, the world is a reflection of how we feel about it. I'm convinced of that. And when you get to that good spot and you have that breakthrough, people show up and people showed up today. It was amazing.
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That is amazing.
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My coach has said in the moment,
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there's all kinds of prep work and this isn't the only thing you do. But in the moment that you are going live in front of an audience. Don't focus on being good. Focus on being helpful.
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Because then you're on the audience,
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right?
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I've had the
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fortune and luck in my my career
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to have worn a lot of hats in learning and development. And I've been a trainer and I've been somebody who's taught trainers and instructional designer. But as a trainer, every time before I get to go in front of a group of people, I'm nervous. Even looking down the barrel of 15 years, I'm going to stand in front of a class, I'm going to be nervous. And when I tell other people how to be a trainer, all of them, all of them ask, when do I stop feeling nervous? And I'm like, that's the neat part. You don't. You never will. You'll always be nervous. And the first time you step in front of people, you'll always be nervous that first time you open your mouth, because you're going to make mistakes. And you're like, oh, no, if I'm quiet, maybe I won't make mistakes. And while that's true, you also won't get anything done. And so it takes a lot of bravery to not just be a trainer and be in like a classroom with a group of people who you will see maybe a few times over the course of their journey, but to expand that, to step in front of thousands of people and not just try is to inspire them. I can't imagine what the butterflies in my stomach would just be clawing. That's all I can imagine. A whole lot of prep work, Dan.
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Yeah. So much prep and so much research. I spent a solid three months writing a 50-minute speech. And I've rewritten it. When I went to perform and rehearse that it's been rewritten. I performed it recently. I delivered it recently and I'm rewriting it. So, you know, there's just a lot of research that goes into, for me, it has been and for anyone who is focused on it, they do the same. So that by the time, what I'm trying to say is that by the time I get up in front of it, I just can't wait. I have this cool stuff I can't wait to share with you. I can't wait to see what you think. That's the place that I will rehearse and prep to and get to. That's awesome. How'd you come up with your topic? Like for me, I feel like that's the hardest thing.
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It is the hardest thing.
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Writing a book. Like, hey, everybody should write a book. We all have a book inside of us. Great.
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What's it about? No idea.
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So how did you come up with that? How do you form it? There's so many things you could talk about, right?
0:31:05
Well, like everybody, I mean, like everyone has a different process for this and not in through the this is also why I took this training list last year and they guided us through writing this and coming up with the way that they define it at at this place I went heroic public speaking it's called I love them they define it as what's your big idea what's your big idea and we went through weeks and weeks of forming that and coming up with that. And it is not easy. I would say that it was probably, you know, the hardest part in some ways, because that's the thing, like you got to be able to say it. What's what's your big idea? What's the main thing that you're trying to say? And you got to know who your audience is. And then you've got to know what their pain points are. What are they challenged by? And another interesting question that really helped me is, what do they wish the world looked like? You know, what could the world be like? And so, you know, if we, I'll talk about my own experience, because I do believe everyone arrives at this differently and everyone has a different way. I came in with an idea of, listen, I know that I've helped people for the last 20-something years not hate being online. So what does that mean?
0:32:26
What does that mean?
0:32:28
And I went through what's missing, a big brainstorm and research for myself on what is wrong and what could it be like and what do I know it could be like and what do they wish that they could do differently. and informing all of that and then brainstorming through and going back and forth and back and forth. Like this is the intensity that I was in. And you can see the moments of my idea is nothing. No one's gonna care, constantly coming up, right? But ultimately what I've landed on, and you've seen me share this, and it's what my current keynote is about. It's currently called Irresistibly Remote, The Power of Connection, One Online Meeting at a time. And what I came up with is, this is my big idea. Being online is certainly equal to, and in some cases, better than being in person. That's an amazing topic given by an amazing person
0:33:30
and it's needed, very much needed. So I applaud you for that. Like, I think we've all learned a heck of a lot in the last few years about the online experience and what's important and what's not important. And, oh, man, I don't want to soot or thunder because I bet all these things are in there and I can't wait to see it.
0:33:52
It's great. But I mean, like I do want to like I'll give you one little bit more on that, though, like the idea that like because a lot of people. So here's the challenge. You know, a lot of people, we have been online, we know. And there's so much research today showing how productive we are. And leaders know that we are productive, too. It is not why they're bringing us back in the offices. The problem is not productivity. The problem is human connection. We're not entering into these digital landscapes, believing that we can truly impact one another and connect with one another like we used to when we were together in real life. We see this as the fake life. A lot of people do. I mean I'm not going to say the whole world does, but it's a problem that still happens. We come to the online meeting going, well if we were in person we'd do this and make it what we can. We'll do our best, which is like 70% of what would otherwise be 100% perfect in person. And so my keynote questions this mindset. What if we saw, when we connected online, completely equal to whatever we thought in person was? And by the way, what did you think in person was really, what was it really like? And was it in fact, a hundred percent? Was it perfect? And what happens if you remove that idea that being online is less than? What happens if it's not? What can you then do? And what will your world then potentially look like? And so I go through asking those kinds of questions and providing insights and ideas on experiences that I've had when people have changed their mindset around that. And that's where I landed on the keynote. So it's like Zeta, when you asked me, you know, where were we like it was click here, click there. Wasn't that cool? Yes.
0:35:54
And it is now.
0:35:55
Way beyond the clicking, because the clicking is going to be required. Yeah, it will be required. Absolutely. It's actually absolutely 100% necessary. But what if you came into this moment and said, this is exactly the same as if I was connecting with you in person? I love that. I think we can move to that point. I think we could see that we can connect on a global level, like we're in the same room. And if we have that mindset, if we have that level of expectation, like, what can we do with that? Yeah, well, what can we make room for? And it's like, the tech keeps changing every single second. You talked about AI in the beginning. What's I have no idea. There is no way to predict what's coming. But you know what we can do? We can make space for it. We can get rid of old thinking. We can get rid of holding on to let's get back on the office so we can get back to normal. No, no, no, no, no, no. I want to go forward. That's what's coming. Cause I don't know that I understand it all yet. I want to definitely see what's next.
0:36:57
Yeah.
0:36:58
I want to see what's around that bend. The one great thing about everything you're talking about is it's,
0:37:01
it's, it has to be intentional. And I'm sure you talk about that. So if we're going to, if we're going to actually go forward with the things that I know that you're talking about in your keynote, there has to be intentionality around it.
0:37:19
Oh yeah.
0:37:20
It's actually my ending line. I say we get to move forward with intention.
0:37:25
If we're not intentional about it, probably not going to be what we want, in my humble
0:37:30
opinion. Yeah. Probably won't get there.
0:37:33
Yeah. We're getting to a point where we need to start wrapping up, but I really want to make space for you intentionally to talk about some things that you've learned, right? So all of us that are sitting here listening to Cassie and we're in trance, like, please sign me up for your keynote. We'll get to that in a minute.
0:37:50
Yeah.
0:37:51
What did you learn in this process, and what are you continuing to learn? If you could share that with us, that would be great.
0:37:57
I've learned that I really can get past this imposter syndrome. I've learned that I really can build confidence. I can make mistakes And it is all very much worth it and I've said those words as a trainer Reading my instructionally designed guide. Yeah, I've said them I've know and I have lived them before but I have really lived them now and I think that this has always been in me and it has been probably the thing I have always wanted to do and now I'm really living it and really having to go through that just absolute terror to get to the other side and I'm still in it in a lot of ways. But I can do it and that's a big learning for me and that my way of thinking of the world is on me. Nobody else is doing it. No one else is telling me yes or no. It's me and what I make of my life.
0:38:51
Awesome.
0:38:52
It's on me. Any advice that you would give, like maybe one or two pieces of advice for people that are like, I'm so excited I got to hear this and my mind is just spinning, right? What do I do?
0:39:04
I think I'd love to be able to take my own advice
0:39:09
that I'm about to provide.
0:39:10
So please know that as I give this advice, I wholeheartedly mean it and wish I could live by it too, but don't be so hard on yourself. Just, it'll be okay. And it is wonderful to share it with others. Scott, you mentioned how many people gathered around. I don't think that I'm unique in that way. People love to support each other and they see themselves in you when you share your challenges. They do not see the, they don't feel as connected to or inspired by your perfect stuff. They feel more connected to the struggles. I think it helps bring us together, our humanity together. You know, it's more interesting. So don't be so hard on yourselves. We're all in it.
0:39:58
Awesome advice, awesome.
0:40:00
Yeah.
0:40:01
Yeah.
0:40:05
Cassie, thank you. Thank you so, so much. Thanks for being a friend of the show. Thanks for your inspirational journey. I'm just super, super stoked and super glad that you could be part of our Friendsgiving today. Our Nerdsgiving today. Excuse me. Could you do us a favor? Could you let our audience know how they could connect with you?
0:40:28
You can get a hold of me at CassieSpeaks.com. It's a brand new website that I'm continuing to build out and I am quite active on LinkedIn under my first and last name.
0:40:39
Fantastic. We'll keep those links in the show notes. Everybody reach out to Cassie, check her out. If you need help with virtual training, you can always sign up there or go to Cassie Speaks and check out what she's got to say. If your organization needs help in this remote connecting, like probably no better person in the world that you would want to connect with and hire than Cassie. She's awesome. She's amazing. Thank you so much. Daniel-san. Yes, Scott. Could you do me a favor and let our audience know how they could connect
0:41:08
with us? Absolutely. All right, party people, if you haven't done it already, email us at nerds at thelearningnerds.com. Email us any questions you might have. Tell us about a time when you have been nervous to stand in front of others, or maybe just times when you've been extra vulnerable and good things have come of it. If you're on Facebook, you can find us at Learning Nerds. For all of our Instagram peeps, fablearningnerds. And lastly, for more information about us, what we do and updates, www.thelerningnerds.com. Scott.
0:41:45
Thanks Dan. Hey everybody, do me a favor. Could you go ahead and hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, share this amazing episode out with your friends. Great stuff. Do me a special favor, if you could go to iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review whether you liked it or not but leave us a review because that way we can get better that way we can share more of this awesome stuff with more of the likes of you with that I'm Scott I'm Dan I'm Zeta I'm Cassie and we're your fabulous learning nerds and we are happy Dan I'm Zeta I'm Cassie and we're your fabulous learning nerds and we are happy nerdsgiving everybody