Do You Have A Great Idea In Designing Workshop But You’re Procrastinating?

Cathy: Have you ever had a great idea for a workshop but you kept procrastinating and struggling with it maybe because it meant so much to you, you’re afraid you wouldn’t get it right?
This is Reid Mihalko from http://reidaboutsex.com/

Reid: Cathy Vartuli from https://theintimacydojo.com/ and I’m wearing my sex geek summer camp t-shirt which means this is business advice for sex educators and workshop facilitators.

Cathy: So if you’re struggling with I….I know that sometimes the things that matter the most to me that I really want to get out there often feel the hardest to articulate and put down because it just it means so much and I want to get it really right and sometimes I never teach that or never do it because I’m kind of stuck in that. It kind of feels overwhelming my brain freezes and it’s….still things that matter the most that when we do them can really touch other people because we’re inspired by them. We really care about them and if we’re struggling with them probably other people do too. And one of the things I…..you’re going to be offering design studio in September right before Catalyst and one of the things…..are they going to be able to leave that with a…..a program a workshop design?

Reid: No, the whole intention is you can create an entire workshop from idea to promotional copy in three days which I mean that makes perfect sense to me and see it overwhelming

Cathy: Well I’ve seen you doing it in an hour like

Reid: Yeah.

Cathy: some was like I need this workshop and you’re like promo copy everything done and brilliant and really good.

Reid: And again like so….so the piece that you’re saying about like you get you’re so inspired and you’re overwhelmed you can’t get…..get it out

Cathy: Yes

Reid: and design the workshop. In my experience helping other educators and workshop nerds come up with workshops, what that effect is? Is I think you know too much for your own good and you’re trying to like it’s like a hair of a cat hair ball so big

Cathy: Oh

Reid: you can’t cough it up because it won’t come out. So what you have….oh, this is a gross analogy.

Cathy: It really is.

Reid: You have to kind of chop up the hairball inside and then spit out the little pieces.

Cathy: It’s a bad analogy

Reid: It’s a bad analogy

Cathy: but now it stuck forever.

Reid: But now it stuck. So let’s just go with it then. If….if it’s….it’s all trying to come out at once what….what’s really happening is you don’t have oh my god I figured about, you don’t have the little tool to cut up the hairball and I do that weekend is the hairball cutting up

Cathy: I’m so sorry everyone.

Reid: tool for everyone and a

Cathy: Can I tweet that?
Reid: You can you can totally tweet that but…..but so here’s the deal, there is a way when you look at workshop design from the perspective of what helps people learn when you give them information; what helps you as a facilitator deliver the information; and then what helps not just people learn but people remember and….and follow through? So and there’s a couple other things that we….you do but like until somebody has taught you a way to…to design a workshop, you’re just kind of doing it you just pulling it out of your butt.

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: Or you’re copying somebody else’s way of….of teaching a workshop.

Cathy: Which may not be authentic.

Reid: It might not be authentic because it’s not your self-expression but chances are the format that they’re that you’re watching them use there’s more stuff inside how you get to that particular thing like so the….the Safer Sex Elevator Speech. There’s a reason it’s designed the way that it is designed. It’s not just seven steps but there’s a reason there’s not fifteen steps and I can explain why all those things are there and….and give you ideas on how to create which is os….ostensibly is a framework. So the Elevator Speech helps people remember how to have a safer sex conversation. That module now I can teach somebody why it’s important to have a safer sex talk; why we don’t have them like what holds people back

Cathy: And how….actually how?

Reid: and then and then the framework is how to have it?

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: So what holds us back, why it’s important and how you could think of that as its own process or framework for teaching somebody something and then I can teach you the Safer Sex Elevator Speech in 15 or 20 minutes and then if I have a 90-minute workshop slot I can do three of those and then you know take a break and then do three more of those if I needed to like so now it’s like “oh, so now I have I have a 90-minute workshop of those kinds of modules if I needed it to be like that.”

Cathy: And you can modify what you what you put together depending on the audience. You have worksheets already hidden ready to go.

Reid: Yeah and out of all that, if I have nine modules I wouldn’t recommend nine by the way and there are reasons and I’ll tell you that if you come to the weekend but the….but then you have each module accomplishes something.

Cathy: And actually it’s not a weekend. In this case it’s during the week.

Reid: Yeah. It’s….it’s

Cathy: It’s

Reid: it will a three-day. It’s a three-day

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: event. I just think in weekends but….but if you go to http://reidaboutsex.com/designstudio it….it’s happening right this year it’s happening right before Catalyst Con

Cathy: In LA

Reid: So, yeah in LA and so it’s what is it is it Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday?

Cathy: I believe so it is.

Reid: Yeah, Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. Go, just go to the link. So again if you have those six modules and each module fulfils on something then that six bullet points and those six bullet points become

Cathy: Your copy

Reid: the beginning of the copy that you write. So there’s a way for you to design an entire to get the hairball out in pieces that you can then assemble so that it’s not just this overwhelming idea but at the end you’ve written the copy that is your promotional copy for the weekend but it’s also the cheat sheet for you for the workshop. So you don’t have to remember well, I….I don’t. You don’t have to remember the workshop and what you’re teaching. It’s just before you teach read your own copy and you’re like “oh! This is the….this is the workshop.” It’s all hidden in the copy for you. You just need to teach modules. So that’s….that’s how you do that’s basically how you do it and then we’ll spend the weekend walking everybody through it so you can practice how to do it so that when you leave not only will you have your workshop but you’ll be able to reproduce those results hopefully ideally I think works for a lot of people over and over again. Here

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: that’s design studio.

Cathy: Three days investment lifetime of amazing workshops that impact people beautifully or easy to promote

Reid: And you will never look at hair balls from cats again the same way.

Cathy: Ever

Reid: Done. There you go.

Cathy: Hope to see you there!