Hi! It’s Holly Hierman. And today I’d like to share with you some of my best practices, my best tips, on how you can get the most out of attending a live event.
Now if you’re anything like me that means that you invest in your business knowledge. You invest in your personal development and if your business is something of value, then that’s something that you probably do at least a couple of times a year. It’s that you’ll invest the money to attend live seminars that could go on for one to even three or four days long. So, here are some of my best tips for you:
Now, you’ve spent the money, you’ve invested the time. Right? So, you’ve carved out that few days in order to attend this event. Not only that, but you’ve also spent the money on the tickets to attend, and you’ve invested in possibly travel. That could be a plane ticket. It could be a rental car. It could be hotel. So, you’ve made this enormous investment into yourself and into your business. So, congratulations!
But time and time again I see where things can fall short, and just being in this industry for so long, and also having been one to put on live trainings in the past, then I feel like I can shed a little bit of light on how you can get the most out of your experience of attending these events.
So, the very first tip that I have for you is to take copious notes; really, really great detailed notes. And the only way that you can do that is to be paying attention. Right? So, I’m gonna give you a recommendation here. Now, some events will provide for you a notebook or something where you can take notes on. There’s something magical that happens when you put pen to paper or pencil to paper. That actual act of writing things out……It does something in your brain much different then possibly typing or even just taking a recording (video or audio recording) of the message. Your brain will start to work on the material a little bit differently and it will start to commit to memory as well. So, I’m gonna say that again. The very first thing that you need to make sure that you do is take copious notes. Take a lot of notes, as much as you can. And that is really gonna help enhance your learning experience.
Along with that, the cool thing that happens in events like this is that your brain starts to fire on all different cylinders and you start to think about so many ways that you can be implementing. And this thing pops into your head, and that thing pops into your head. And all of the sudden you’re like, “Oh, I need to be doing this!” and “Oh, I need to send a text message to so and so.” or “Oh, I need to send this email right now.” Or, “I need to get back to that Facebook message that I forgot about!”. All these things start pulling on our attention because you’re in a creative environment and all of the sudden you start having all these amazing ideas of things to do.
Now, I’m going to encourage you to resist the temptation to do those things right then and there. I know it sounds crazy, and for my first several seminars I attended…..actually what I did the whole time was, every time somebody had a nugget of information that I wanted to share with someone… I was texting it, and I was emailing it, and I was just like sending off, and people would come up with new projects and ideas and then I would send off an email to my assistant and say, “Hey, research this” and so the entire time I’m thinking, “I’m being super productive” because not only am I getting all these great ideas, but I’m immediately delegating. Right? But what happens when you turn your attention to your phone, when you turn your attention to your email, or even if you have your computer in front of you? What happens?
Your brain can only do one thing at a time. So all of the sudden, all your attention is going to focus in to sending that email or sending that text message and you’re not gonna hear anything else that’s going on on the stage. And so, like I said before, you’ve invested all this time and all this money to be at this event, then make sure you’re actually there. Not just in body, but also in mind.
So, here’s what I do. I learned this tip from one of my biggest mentors, Chalene Johnson. Keep the first couple pages of your notebook just for action items. So whenever you get a thought like, “oh, I need to do this”, or “I need to schedule time to do that”, jot it down real quick, but then “boom!” back to your notes. Back to exactly what the speaker is talking about at that moment. That’s gonna help you out tremendously. That way when you go home you don’t have to sift through 30 pages of notes to figure out “what do I need to do?”. You’ll already have your action items in the front of your notebook, ready to go, and that way you just attack that list when you get home. So, that’s gonna help you out tremendously!
Now, you probably caught it as I was talking about this just a moment ago, but I’m going to urge you: Stay off of your phone. Stay off of your computer. Do not do anything that is gonna take your attention away. I know a lot people think that “Oh no, I’m multi-tasking”, but the more and more research shows that multi-tasking is a myth. You can’t actually multi-task. Your brain can only single-handedly focus on one thing at a time. Therefore, you need to make sure that you are focused and in the moment on what that person is teaching right in front of you. So, you know, it bothers me so much….I just attended a leadership conference, of all things, where the highest paid and the highest ranking individuals of all the company that I represent was in the room, and literally every third person was on their computer or on their phone, and not taking notes. I’m talking about on Facebook or on other websites, or surfing and I just kept thinking, “What a waste!”. I wonder if anybody has ever told them what a value it is to actually be in the room with these amazing leaders and amazing mentors that have great golden nuggets for us, and they’re trying to help us, but we’re tuned out and might as well have been watching television. In my opinion.
You might be thinking, “but, I’m doing something”, yes, but you can do that later. There’s only gonna be one shot where you’re gonna be in that room with that person. I liken it to this: If you spend the money to go to a movie are you gonna sit there a watch another movie on your phone, or are you gonna actually watch the movie that’s on the screen? Right? I’ve had lots of people in the past tell me, “Oh, you know oh can’t really make it but just catch me up when you get back.”, I’m like: “pscht! Catch you up?” That would be like trying to regurgitate an entire movie and tell you about all the graphics, and all the dialogue, and all the back-story and trying to remember everything verbatim……it’s just not possible.
So, you can’t recreate that instance. You just can’t! You can’t recreate it, even if it’s delivered to you on video after the fact, even if it’s delivered to you in slides after the fact. I guarantee you that your time to do the work and to get that knowledge is right then and there, in that moment. All right?
So those are the 3 tips I have for you. A couple more.
Sit up and sit forward. This is gonna tell your body that you are ready to learn. This is gonna tell your body that you are ready to receive. So, posture has a lot to do with it as well. So if, you’re kind of hanging out in your chair and you’re, “ah”. What are the signals that you’re sending to your brain? That you’re tired. That you maybe don’t want to be there. So, sit up. Sit forward and be ready to learn.
So, that’s the information that I have for you today. I really hope that it helps. I don’t want this to be you, because you know what? I know that I have attended events in the past where literally I thought that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, but I have gotten ten-fold the results on the events that I’ve attended, and I probably go to a minimum of 4-8 a year. That’s not an exaggeration; Live events where it’s full weekends or long term commitments and the best way that I can tell you to get the most out of this is to be present, to stay off of your electronics, to keep those first few pages of your notebook ready to write down your action items that way when you get home you can get to work.
Like I said, You’ve made the investment, you might as well be in the room if you’re going to be there and soak it all in. And that way when you get back home you can just pour that in to the people that mean the most to you, and you can teach them what you’ve learned. But there’s no way for you to do that if you are zoned out and tuned out.
And one final thing. Be on time. And if there’s anything that you’re going to skip, skip the fun stuff. Skip the parties. Skip if they have work-outs. Skip the fun stuff. If there’s anything that you really, really need to skip, skip that stuff. What you need to be present and in the room for is the training, because that’s the stuff that’s gonna take your business to the next level.
So, I just wanna say thanks a lot. In network marketing we really thrive on live events. There’s something magical that happens when you attend a life event. There’s no way to explain it. There’s no way to replace it and it really is making an investment in yourself. So, I just encourage you to definitely be focused, be present and then you’ll be able to deliver the best results upon your return.
Thank you so much. Have a great day! Bye-bye!
