March 13, 2024

Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

My mission is to teach empathetic leaders how to design group experiences that spark engagement, increase trust, and foster deep connections so nobody feels left out. I’m working with many people who are trainers, facilitators, consultants, managers, basically anybody who leads a group and wants to get more out of it.

Last year, I started to introduce myself as a “recovering shy guy,” a people-loving introvert, and a deep connector. When you hear all of that for the first time, it doesn’t make a lot of sense: Why would someone claim to be shy if they train people to speak in front of groups where they need to be the center of attention?

Growing up, I was a timid kid. I would often have great ideas in class, but I lacked the courage to raise my hand and speak up. Looking back, I now realize that having had this experience is one of my superpowers. I don’t want people to feel excluded because I know exactly how that feels.

Now, when designing a training, workshop, or experience, it is crucial to recognize that not everyone feels comfortable immediately raising their hand and contributing. Some individuals may require more time for reflection and introspection before sharing their answers. Fortunately, there are various ways we can design sessions to ensure inclusion for all participants, whether offline or online.

When I work with teams, my goal is to create a space where everyone feels like their voice matters so that they dare to have hard and vulnerable conversations with each other.

Usually, these conversations are most effective when people are in the same room and technology is turned off. I personally encourage my participants to put their phones on silent mode and place them in a customized “cell phone sleeping bag,” which is just a padded envelope.

As much as I love being away from technology and sitting inside a canoe in the Canadian wilderness or around a campfire making s’mores with my family and friends, I can also geek out on all things tech. I have a Bachelor of Engineering in audiovisual media and worked in video production for a long time, so during the pandemic, I had the unique opportunity to bring both of these passions together and help people recreate “magical human moments” on Zoom.

What do you find to be the most rewarding thing about being a trainer?

The part I love the most about helping people is when they learn something new and immediately apply it. For instance, understanding how to begin a session with engagement rather than saying, “Let’s just wait until everybody’s here,” and delaying the actual learning process.

Every now and then, someone who has taken my training program forwards me their feedback survey from a workshop they conducted. Seeing the second-degree impact is incredibly rewarding. I enjoy hearing about my clients receiving amazing testimonials from their participants. It’s better than someone just sitting there and absorbing all that knowledge without taking any action.

What is the most challenging thing about being a trainer? 

Last week, someone messaged me after attending a 3-part training on virtual engagement strategies. They mentioned that the problem was having too many takeaways.

One aspect that I still need to work on is avoiding overwhelming people with too much content, where they struggle to turn it into action. Anyone who has developed a training or a course knows how easy it is to overload the session with excessive information. So, I am still reminding myself to pause often and consider whether my information is genuinely relevant and helpful to people at that moment.

I enjoy sessions where I can perfectly balance content and conversations. I often learn something from the participants, as there is a wealth of wisdom in the room. It’s not just me who has knowledge and experiences to share.

What are some of your top tips for starting, running, and growing a business like yours?

One lesson I’ve learned the hard way is the importance of building out loud.

Early in my career with the video marketing business, we spent over a year writing video scripts, shooting videos with funny characters and wigs, applying all of our editing magic and then, when we launched it…. crickets! We only sold three courses.

At that time, we were convinced that by simply putting the course on our website, people would find and buy it, and our bank account would magically fill up with money while we slept. But true “passive income” simply doesn’t exist.

What I do now is the complete opposite.

Before creating a new product or course, you must have conversations with your audience to understand their real problems and how they talk about them. This information will guide your work and ensure that your solutions are connected to how people actually want to solve their problems.

I often touch upon intangible aspects such as trust and connection, so it’s important to ensure my offers resonate with their perspectives. These are things that you can’t necessarily measure. I very often have to build a Trojan horse. I have to figure out the problem and what people actually want. So, figuring that out before I do anything is really useful.

In terms of growing the business, one of the strengths I’ve cultivated is letting go of perfectionism. This has become my way out of feeling overwhelmed and stuck. I now love to send out unfinished ideas and see if they resonate with my audience before I dive deeper.

Instead of writing my book in secret, I now share a weekly email with almost 1,000 subscribers who have promised to share feedback about what resonates and what misses the mark. All of their input is helping me shape something truly useful and valuable, plus I am building a community that is ready to purchase, review and recommend my book.

Where can people find you and your business? 

You can find more about me and my business on my website and send me a video message through my contact form. Or follow and connect with me on Linkedin, YouTube or Instagram. I can’t wait to get to know you.