Okay, what I am here on this course for is to learn about communication skills. And all of us know that the best way to learn anything is to teach it. So this is the first time that computer science department is taking part in this kind of an experiment if you like, where previously communication skills used to be taught to about 700 people in the convocation hall and it was taught for about half a semester. And as you can imagine, it did not work out very well. It was not interactive. Communication is about communicating and unless you communicate, how do you know whether you have learnt anything and how do you learn anything? Like those of you I have seen a good number here who have taken the embedded systems course. Unless you actually programmed the machines, you have not really learnt anything. So in the communication skills course unless you tried to communicate and been criticized by friends and colleagues and stuff like that, you do not really know where you are. So the way the faculty here have managed to sort this problem out is by having one hour where they give you the gyan in the HSS 699, the faculty, evidence seti, Parthasarthi and everybody. And the other remaining two hours with your department is meant for us to do a tutorial. Means more interactivity because the class size is smaller. I do not see how much smaller it is. But more interactivity and assignments and access sizes and all that we can do here. For the P P N P requirement of the course, I think we will go ahead with the same thing for now which is 80 percent attendance. If you are here, that means kind of you are on the job. So we will take attendance every week. Now what I wanted to ask is that would you prefer to come as it is at the moment for 2 1 hour slots in the morning or would you prefer to come for 1 2 hour slots say on a Thursday between 5 and 7. So how many people here will not be able to come to that 2 hour slot on a Thursday, will not be able to come. Hands up. How many? How many? A good number right. Any more? How many for whom that 5 to 7 slot on a Thursday is not convenient? 15 percent of the class right. What do you have that time? Out of interest? Okay. Anybody else? Yeah. Seminar meeting. Seminar meeting. Any others? Okay. Embedded systems. Embedded systems. What time? 5 to 6.30 is it? Okay. Anybody else? Seminar meeting. So then it makes sense to continue with this slot but what we might do is we might choose to divide the class up or whatever we will decide at the end of this week as to how best to do it. Yeah. How about Wednesday evening actually? 5 to 7 on a Wednesday evening. Okay. How many cannot do Wednesday evening? How many cannot do Tuesday evening? Okay. So you are stuck with this slot we will continue here for now and the only reason is that if we plan to have outside speakers this morning slot is a bit inconvenient. So on occasion we might shift it especially if we have outsiders speaking to us on say the Thursday evening slot 5 to 7 if we have outside speakers because this morning slot might not be very practical for some people. Anyway we will take it from there. So the way we are given certain amount of flexibility in how we want to play this part of the course. We have the choice of having a totally different parallel program to what HSS guys are doing or we can actually we are advised to just keep about 80% of the course the same and have 20% variations and all that. So what I am planning to do today and in the next session on Thursday is to individually ask each of you to tell us what you expect from this course individually right. That is if you like our requirements specification. So anyway so we have almost resolved these issues here okay and this is a tutorial as I said we have a certain amount of flexibility what do we plan to do with this flexibility that we have right. There are some very important skills which are not being covered which we feel are very important and especially for computer science people things like visual communication right graphical and visual communication. Because a lot of what we are doing is manifesting itself through a computer screen through various means like that to know how to use visual communication, how to use graphics, how to use fonts, how to use color for instance, how not to use right. People do not realize that there is a very very strong grammar and semantics of how to use color. Using the wrong color for a particular application can be a fatal thing right and we also want to talk about things like social networks right social networking and things like that the etiquette and how to use the social networking like Facebook, Twitter and all these kind of things. We want to talk a bit more about unconventional communication skills we will come down to that. We want to cover things that you might not have thought of right like body language and stuff like that. I will come to that there is a very interesting TED talk on body language by one lady called Amy I cannot remember her last name but it is very interesting what she says. She says that when you are in a position of dominance what do you do typically how do you manifest dominance in say a relationship or in an interaction and stuff like that. Can you give me some ideas what is a body language? He seen the TED talk you seen it right very effective. So he says that dominance is normally expressed by spreading yourself out in the animal kingdom right animals when they want to threaten you or ward you off what do they do they expand themselves either they expand the body or they expand the space which they cover right a snake will spread its hood tiger already the lion already has its mane right or some animals come out like that birds also put up the wings and put a weak show of size right and what happens when someone is showing submission not you when you want to show bicharanas I submit what do you do you contract you do this you do this you do this right you cross your legs fold your arms that is a very defensive kind of right do not attack me kind of thing what do the dog do it goes on its back and exposes its vulnerable parts right and the interesting thesis there is that if you adopt a dominant kind of posture you start thinking in a dominant way also right. So these are small small things which are very relevant to us in fact communication is about so what we are going to cover on much of the course especially the HSS part is quite rightly technical communication right report writing note taking English how to manage your language and stuff like that we shall all we shall also have that on this course right but we will try and inspire it from real life examples outside and stuff that you are doing like for instance we hope for instance to have you go away. So I will be giving you homework right we do not want to use the class in a lecture mode I do not want to stand up here and lecture to you guys because that has no sense right you have to learn communication by actually exercising it so this will be interactive and what we will be doing is giving you some work to do offline as homework you come prepared to class and what we will do is that in the class we will reserve it for discussions right. So what we might do is we might split the class up into two parts and take them as a smaller batch depending on the requirements of the topic that we are teaching they are roughly about 100 and one people in this class 105 I do not know we will split you up into two groups and according to that we will proceed right. So before we start so what we are going to do incidentally today I will come to that can anybody site here incidentally some instances that they have experienced of really good communication in any kind of context some really impressive instances of communication in any context any volunteers just some stories some instances and stuff like that really effective it can be a teacher it can be a manager it can be an employee it can be a parent a relative where you have seen a very effective instance of communication it can be a paper that you have read it can be an article it can be a book any volunteers. So that was communication skills where he is saying that actually the communication skill there was a listening skill how to listen right actually a lot of communication is about how to listen people do not realize that people say that communication means I should talk and impose and effect and you know communication is often a situation requires that you just listen intelligently and listening is also very difficult art right how to listen often you will also find that if you have a problem right just explaining that problem to somebody else helps you solve that problem. So what has happened in the process you are communicating not only with yourself in this process but with somebody else in trying to articulate your problem you have actually solved the problem this is very important insight in trying to articulate a problem you have solved it I was going through a maths problem with my daughter yesterday right she had a very simple problem but which made you think there is a little cistern there is a there are two pipes and one pipe will fill the cistern in 24 minutes and the other pipe will fill it in 32 minutes you have done this problem before right and the question is in how much time should I turn the first yeah I want to turn the first pipe off in 16 minutes how much time will you take to fill the cistern right. So actually it made me think a little bit not done these things for a long time and I realized that most of the problem here right most of the problem in this was actually articulating the problem as a formula in communicating to yourself what the problem is in identifying the problem once you identified it then you number crunch you do some manipulation and you got the answer. So a lot of our lives as engineers and people out there is spent in communication communicating with ourselves firstly communicating with other people communicating with groups trying to sort of understand interpersonal dynamics and making things happen right. Typically professor Fatak when we used to be the school of IT used to exot each student in our department that look your job is to go out there and become leaders either technology leaders or business leaders or what have you you guys should be leaders when you get out and at the end of your m tech you should have at least a patent or a paper in a good quality publication that is the least that we demand of you right and we are hoping that you guys will go out there and become leaders and ideally start companies not go and work for anybody if possible right.  Often an entire deal can be made or broken just on the way you have communicated many years ago right I will give my own example I went to Cambridge for an interview I was quite young that time and bit brash and there is one one aircraft which had flown at that time called the Gossamer Condor it was a pedal powered aircraft this is many many thirty years ago or more and in the interview I was asked I told the interviewer very crusty old English gentleman you know must be having his biases and all that that you must have heard about the Gossamer you might have heard about this aircraft which has just flown right and that is it I failed at that point I did not get through in that in that interview I said you might have known now this was a nervous student you know just trying to sort of share an idea by saying you might have known it is indicating that perhaps he did not know right perhaps he did not know and he got very irritated and then I could see that he just clamped up I could see it in his face that he clamped up and I have lost it right you are trying to convince somebody in an interview to take you on in this job right what is the body language that you should have there will be other guys hundred guys equally bright as you how will you ensure that you get the job you are trying to convince a guy to close on a deal on a business deal or an intellectual property agreement some kind of agreement right what are the kind of skills that you need to bring to bear in your body language in your the language that you use to interact with them or in your emails to them before you have the meeting right. So, I am hoping that we will be able to touch upon the importance of communication in many many different contexts and I want to also be driven by you guys right you should tell us also as to what you want out of this course. So, the way we plan to do it I will tell you right now ok. So, amongst the guest speakers we have a friend called Sudarshan Dheer who is a very very distinguished graphic designer right if we have time we will bring him on and have you seen the Hindustan Petroleum logo have you seen the UTI logo the unit trust India many many important logos like that are designed by him and for him designing a logo is a major major task he says logo is like a mantra right when you see a logo it elicits emotion inside you. So, whatever that company stands for is captured inside that logo and that is a very powerful form of communication it is like the mantra it is like a beach mantra he said you know. So, he gives a lot of importance to corporate image the visual language of the logo the colors that you use the way you kind of design it and stuff like that. So, it will be useful for you to speak to people like this to see how differently people think to sensitize you to visual communication. Sameer Sasaraput the colleague here will also take a module here on visual communication using graphics and videos we want you to make a small video which we look at at the end of the course right. He will teach you the language of how to make a video and how to use graphics like fonts colors things like that in your your presentations. Like for instance they are people who make a power point presentation which is full of so much noise visual noise colors designs this that and the other that the message that you want to put there gets lost in the process right you guys need to be told about this how to present how not to present what kind of language to use how to even dress many people do not realize you cannot go to an interview in Chappal and Bushert you know right you can if you want to create a certain impression in some places that might work right, but not in all places and plus trying to overdo yourself by having boot, tie you know suit and look you know artificially over smart and all that that might also not be right if you go to an interview with say Google or something like that right because what is the company looking for it is looking for guys who are mavericks who are very bright good programmers this that and the other is not looking for a totally conventional guy you know who will just do what he is told right that is also communication the way you dress the way you carry yourself ok. So what are the skills so few of the skills right are there in your HSS 699 course program the note taking report writing English and so on later writing how to write a scientific paper how to prepare a presentation and so on we will also go into things like visual communication graphics how to use color fonts and all that kind of things we will also try and address some scenarios right how to prepare for an interview how to sell an idea whether it is to your guide to your colleagues or to a venture capitalist and things like that how to talk to a stranger right how to negotiate there is a very interesting course I went to when I was in industry on just selling how to sell and then I realized that that applies to everything in life because you are constantly trying to sell something either whether it is a course whether it is an idea to a seminar student or a m tech student or whatever it is trying to convince them that this is the right way to go how do you convince you do not say that do this there will be a resistance right a good way to be to find out what the person wants to do and see if they can be a marriage between what the person wants to do and what you want them to do right that is also an instance of communication ok. So, we will go into bits of that other skills how to complain right this seems like a very superficial or silly thing but it is not how to complain see always remember that you have this attitude you can see only what you want right how can you not understand he is so unreasonable but do not you realize that everybody is reasonable right he feels he is absolutely reasonable right but he sees things totally in a different way from his perspective and you think you are absolutely reasonable and you refuse to see each other's point of view and there is a conflict there right. So, why do not you presume that everybody has a reasonable point of view and then come to some agreement right things like this how to request something you know if you request something in the wrong way you do not get it one master of this is my daughter from the very very young age right I have learned this very very formidable negotiation skill I have still to win with her like for instance papa yeh chah yeh nahi milega acha yeh nahi milega to kya milega yeh milega right nahi milega yeh milega right acha nahi kyu nahi aaj nahi milega acha to kab milega right. So, she pins you down that at this point you are not going to give it but at some future point weaker assertion you kind of get manipulated into giving that kind of thing manipulated or negotiated. So, now I have realized that you cannot win at negotiation you go to say this is it and not argue about it otherwise you get. So, negotiation is a very important skill like for instance if you are trying to sell somebody an idea right one way to do it is hey this is the idea take it or leave it. Now, if it is very important to you and he says I leave it then you lost what do I do now where do I go there is nobody else I can go to and so on right. So, how do you convince? So, you will say you do not want to do this why get behind the persons reasons because they might have a very reasonable point of view as to why they do not want to do it and then bring them to your point of view as to and then come to some kind of a compromise right that is what selling is about negotiation is about and all these kind of things verbal and non-verbal communication diction and delivery sensitivity to language all these things will come out poison body language speech and drama right often I get a student who wants to do something and they come with some ideas are very bright and I know that and he has got the answers and I know that, but the way he talks to me kind of is totally confused. In fact, one of the most important skills that you guys learn in your seminar and your report writing and so on is how to articulate your ideas how to be a bit more confident and I often wonder hey if this guy was just a bit more loud and confident and believed in himself a bit more he would go so much more far, but this has to come from within and it has to be pointed out to you and public speaking. So, that will also happen as we go along and the lost manual of communication skills this is a former student of ours who is left us now Akshar his name is and we are discussing the communication skills course and he came up with all sorts of ideas and so we discussed that should we put this into the course and stuff like that how to say no you come up with this situation many times you have done some homework and your friend wants to copy now it is a very nice idea and you do not want to share it how do you say no or someone wants to make you do something that you really do not want to do how do you say no it is very difficult how to understand people and how to understand yourself. So, we have a few guest lecturers in this thing one is they coincidentally have the name Prakash. So, we have a Prakash Vedya here who is with Professor Fadak and we will cover with him skills that I want to learn how to proofread. Proofread has its own language understanding language understanding English and how to proofread a document. So, we will go through that like for instance you will go away and see a TED talk as homework you will make a summary of what you saw in the TED talk and then you start correcting your script and show you the language with which you can indicate the corrections in your script. At my age still I have not learnt it is a very important skill like I have never learnt to type and I have never learnt this, but I also recognize it is a very important skill to have you should learn it like if someone gives you a document tomorrow you guys are going to be managers lots of documents are going to come to you. So, you will want to correct them and give them back there is actually a language for correction how many of the how many of you know this the proofreading language 1 or 2. So, it will be a good exercise how to manage people it will come out in this thing how to exercise authority and how not to exercise authority. So, if you read Confucius and all these guys the good king leads from behind what is that mean you do not lead people you do not manage them by saying do this and do that. You lead them by understanding who they are what they want out of life and guiding them towards that direction basically which also suits the group how to deal with the plagiarism. So, there is a big dose of ethics on this typically unfortunately our educational system is such the pressures are so high cut pastes has become like a kind of standard mantra everywhere. Anytime I see a students report where the language is very good my heart sinks right it is come to that because I know that there is some good word here. If I see something it does not mean that you go and put errors in your thing to kind of disorient your guide, but just remember this is a good opportunity where without fear of failure you can try an alternative way to being. Honesty and earnestness is something whose value is absolutely you know underestimated in this country right because most of the time we are actually users of other people's IP. Most of the time we are users of other people's intellectual property we do not have a culture here of creating intellectual property ourselves unfortunately because there is not enough new products being developed in this country there not enough new software that is changing very fast right, but what one thing that you find abroad where a lot of new products and services are being created is a very very strong emphasis on intellectual property and the protection of it. That is why at IIT we have a very very strong movement on open source software open source everything basically. Do not use MATLAB use Sylab use LibreOffice wherever you can use Linux wherever you can because once you go out into industry these softwares cost a hell of a lot of money right. We can save a lot of money in this country in foreign exchange by having open source software so that is a big big mantra here. How to deal with request for unfair help like say you are on a course and your friend is a TA and kind of you know you want to make things easier life is so difficult right cannot I just ask him for some help and this and that, but in the process what happens you know you do not learn and you are here to learn and copying and kind of you know getting help kind of robs you of the opportunity of struggle and the struggle is where the learning actually happens right.  So, this is a great gymnasium here to build up your strength and it is like going to a gym and getting some other guy to do your exercise you know right. This is the place to make your mistakes to you know flex your intellectual muscles and get things done and struggle right that is where everything comes from.  How do you insure that they get that you? How to maintain trust in a group? How to build long lasting relationships? This is what Akshar had come up with last time. Other issues how to deal with failures right. So, these will be side effects hopefully of the things that we do here. How to get rid of guilt or regret about things that went wrong and cannot be fixed now right. These are all elements why am I going into this? This is communication skills course. The reason is because this is the only place perhaps in your curriculum where we can tackle out of the box thinking or things that other things might not deal with and these are very relevant right and we bog down ourselves a lot by these kind of things right. How to get rid of guilt and regret about things which went wrong like things that you should have learnt and exam maya nai kia or something else personal relationship or something like that is bugging you all the time and it is affecting your work right and at your age there all those kind of things right which are bugging you a lot relationships and things like that. How do you not let it screw you up basically? How to get rid of things that keep on eating you right. Once you got experience and you been through this mill then you can manage your emotions and all that much better but I hope that we will go into little bit of this also.  Let us finish it right but it is I mean these things are absolutely pointless if you see and once you go beyond it you see what a pointless thing it is. How will I know if I need help right and this is what your the faculty advisor ought to be doing with you guys. Anger management and building the compassion and empathy. So, I will share a few of these slides with them and kind of who is the faculty advisor by the way? Uday Khedkar. How often do you get to meet him? Never twice. I think we need to meet you guys more often because I am also guilty of that whenever the faculty advisor the few meetings that we had made a big big difference and I feel that we need to engage you on a regular basis. So, now what I am going to do is this is the part where I will introduce you to few of the people there is the Prakash Bediya you met here. The TAs on the course are Piyush Ankith right at the back is Avishak here okay. Lohit. Lohit is a lead TA I think you all grown to love him know and love him on the embedded systems course if you have not been there then I am sure you kind of know him from the other options that you have. But what we are going to do now pardon? Yeah. So, what we are going to do we have only till 9.30 now and I wanted to video every single one of you right and what we wanted you to share with us is your name your role number where you come from the faculty who you will be working with in your seminar or whatever and what you come to IIT for or what you and what you want out of this course this is most important. What do you want out of this course? This is if you like my requirement specification this class and the next class I just want to video you guys. So, I will have some interaction at the beginning of the class then I want each of you to speak for 30 seconds about this name role number where you come from right what brings you your faculty advisor I mean in your MTP or seminar right why you came to IIT and what you want from this course and we are going to respond to that in the sense that I want to take all this input into account when we actually roll out this course. So, most important thing is what you want from this course and try and make it interesting or try and make it a bit more just say I want to learn communication skills right make it a bit more specific and individual right you must be each of you must be having something that you want to crack right something that you want to resolve I want to know what that is and let us see if you can address those things on this course and make it meaningful to everybody. So, we do not want to blindly ape what the HSS department is going to do we have the option here of really personalizing this programming and making it meaningful for everybody right. So, I would like to do that and we will do whatever is required to achieve that right. So, here is a request shall we go by roll number 0 0 1 first who is 0 0 1 fine. So, I think the most fair thing is that we go by roll number we are videoing you and you all been invited to write your name and roll number right on a thing this is not like a convict that you just keep on holding it here and right this is just to at the beginning keep it there. So, I know who is video clip that is. So, when Sachin he edits the videos and breaks the into bits we know who you are it makes a job easier you do not have to hold it there all the time hold it at the beginning then you can right. So, we want to know who you are faculty advisor where you come from what you came to IIT for we know that kind of but what you want out of this course is more important to us and then we will try and give you that. So, much of this class the remaining part and the next class will be in this board there will be a bit of introductory lecture at the at the beginning of the next class based on the input we have got and then we will do this and then in the next week we will go into the actual the course itself. So, what time do you have to leave 30 seconds is all that you have. So, we will take the first three may be right and this is your rehearsal for next time on Thursday morning. Hi my name is Mandar Joshi I was born brought up in Nagpur I am here at IIT to learn more about machine learning and hopefully to publish at a top conference in this semester I am working with Professor Samayen Chakraborty on a query intent and interpretation. About this course since I hope to publish at a top conference I hope to learn more about writing a good paper and also about oral presentation skills. Hi my name is Naman Mishra I am from Muradabad UP I am currently working under Professor Prasottam Gulgarani for my seminar and I came to IIT for getting some more specialization computer science and also for getting good placement. What I want from this course is good presentation skills mainly and how to face a large crowd and present yourself. Myself Vinit Kumar Gupta I am from Jaipur Rajasthan I came to IIT for machine learning and DIP. I want to learn I want to learn I want to improve my presentation skill and communication skill from this course. I am doing my seminar under Sarachandran. Hello everyone my name is Vivek and I am from Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh and I am doing my seminar under Sunitha Ma'am I came here mainly because I was interested in machine learning and I want to learn better presentation skills to reach a wide audience from this course. We will record this over the next few classes maybe not just the next class because I mean just to do this in the entire class would be a bit misplaced. So this gives you a flavor I can be reached at my computer science department well email address and Loit will inform you about any changes or adaptations that take place. So now we next meet at 9.30 in this place on Thursday slot 4A 4C that is okay fine yeah please retain those sheets that you have you'll need them next time thanks.


I want to talk about the book The Prosperous Coach by Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler. The reason is because I have been recommended this book by so many clients over the years. And I'm going to share my screen real quick here. As you can see, I bought the book seven years ago, actually. And I have tried to read the book several times over those years, and I just couldn't get through it. So I am about to review a book I haven't read. If you disagree with that strategy, please go ahead and stop this video. But I have read the beginning of the book, and I have listened to several book summaries of this. And I have listened to several of my clients describe what they learned from the book. So I feel like I'm qualified in that regard, but I have not read the book, so please don't yell at me too badly. But I want to, before I stop the screen share, I want to show you something here. Look at how much the book costs. $38 for the Kindle version, meaning the, let's see, all formats actually. The hardcover is how much? $70 for the hardcover. The paperback is new from 114. And the, yeah, this is, I think this is the paperback. It's $40, and the Kindle version is $38. So the prosperous coach are the authors who wrote a book about the prosperous coach and charging $38 for the Kindle version, which is almost unheard of. Most Kindle books are fine, $10, 15, maybe even $20, maybe $30 at the most I've seen, but $30 almost $40 and then the paper, the hardcover 100, whatever. Okay, anyway, I just showed you. So, and just to give you some context, my Kindle books are $5. Okay, because I want people to read, I want people to get it to read the book. And anyway, I just have so much deep disagreement about the book strategy that I want to I want to share that with you. So first of all, I guess maybe I'll start with what's good about the book strategy as far as I know, based on all the book summaries I listened to. First of all, I think the the the actual authors are probably quite good people. I'm not a fan of the authors, which is why I am. I felt like I needed to make this video I'm not, I'm not attacking the authors, but I am attacking the book. And I, and ironically, I don't think the authors themselves follow the book strategies very much and I'll describe why I think that's the case I think the authors themselves follow my strategy. I doubt that they follow the book strategy so, and I have evidence for that. Okay. And secondly, is that the authors seem to be good people as far as I can tell from their online videos and what I heard from those of you who have worked with them. And secondly, I like that the authors basically say, let's get rid of the people pleasing type of sales where you kind of go into a room and you're schmoozing and you're like, you're just trying to like get on people's good side so you can pitch them your thing. The irony is that what they're teaching is not so far from that but I'll get to that. Secondly, and then the second thing is what I like is they say to coach people. I guess I like three things one is stop the people pleasing schmoozing. Second one is to give as many people the experience of coaching as possible the prosperous coach mean it's not only applicable to coaches it's also applicable to any service provider anybody whom you can give some sample of your service to so I like that they say give as many sample sessions as as possible. I have a different strategy on that called the tapering strategy which you know I'll link to below this video. The third thing I like is that they say when you're when you're coaching a client be willing to tell them what nobody else is willing to tell them. So be willing to say the hard things that they need to hear that maybe no one else in their life is willing to say it. But that's your responsibility as a coach or service provider just be on being honest with them about their blind spots, and about their resistances and about maybe parts of them that are, you know, harming, you know, perhaps other people. So I like that I like those three points. And then the rest I don't like. Okay, so let me let me tell you this. First of all, the prosperous coach is a bait and switch, because the title suggests Oh, I'm going to make money. And that's by by reading this book and of course you spend more money on this book than you do on most books. And what the, what the main strategy is, is to go around in your life, and please correct me if I'm wrong. Okay, those of you who have actually read the book, comment below and yell at me and says George, just stop it and read the book already I couldn't because I just, I'm like reading the book I'm like, this is ridiculous.  Okay, so here we go. So what I'm hearing. Okay, correct me.  And here's what they suggest I know a lot of people are not doing exactly this but they suggest a two hour free session. Yes, they want you to go around in your life, looking at everybody to see if they're open for your coaching, and the person who seems to be open to this kind of thing, you invite them into a free session for for 90 minutes to two hours, more if you can be Chandler as this is more than two hours if you can. So that at the end of those two hours they have fully been exhausted and worn down by your charm, and the guilt of being reciprocating back to you and they'll sign up for your high ticket offer. Correct me if I'm wrong on this. Right. That's exactly what's happening that's the dynamic. You wear someone down with your charm and with your energy for two hours so that they feel guilty at the end and feel like well, I probably should do something for this person because they just spent two hours with me, intensively coaching me. So that's the that's the main complaint I have is it sounds so altruistic to say oh I'm going around giving two hour long free sessions to a lot of people to help people to help them. First of all, do they even want your help. I mean that's the question is that the invitation stage that they're saying to invite people to say, would you like some help with that. You know as I just I find it so annoying I'm sorry, they ask people to say would you like some help with that, whatever issue that they're having oh work issue relationship issue leadership issue. You know, spiritual issue would you like some help with that. When you say so would you like some help with that to somebody usually like oh do you need help carrying the groceries, do you need help getting across the street, do you need help, you know answering a question whether. But would you like some help with that or the suggesting of the help is is is just a veiled attempt at sales. And I just find it so annoying that this is, this is inauthentic selling it's like would you like some help with that. I hope you'll do is experience my thing and I'm so altruistic I'm giving away all these sessions, which there's a problem I find on both sides is the in on it in authenticity of the selling. And on the other side there's the horrible boundaries issue that the service provider ends up having with like, I'm just happily giving away these two hour sessions. And like, I have no, no, no attachment. Really, really, do you really have no attachment to whether someone says yes or no, after spending two hours of intensive coaching with them for free. Do you really have no attachment is that honest and is that is that realistic. No, it's not realistic. Right like, like, for if I spent two hours with you. You know, anybody if I send two hours and like sincerely intentionally coaching them for two hours or even hour and a half or even an hour. I am pretty tired, and I can't do a whole lot more of, you know, heavy brain work for the rest of the day I don't know about you. Maybe that's just my introversion maybe prosperous coach is great for extroverts, who just have so much energy after two hours that they can, they can still do a lot more. Maybe, maybe that's the case. Maybe that's the. That's the takeaway here is the prosperous coach strategy is not great for those of us who are more energetically sensitive and it's like two hours intensive service for vision for someone for free. It's like I'm pretty much done for the day. And you want me to do that as often as possible. Really. I'll tell you there's much better ways to spend those two hours of intensive energy, right, which I'll talk about soon. But let me just first say the person if I receive two hours of coaching from you. I'm going to feel beholden to you I'm going to feel in debt. I'm going to say, Well, I guess, I mean, even if I don't like your coaching that much to be honest with you I'll be like, Well, what can I do for you. You know, it's like I feel like I have to get back in some way because I'm a gracious human being like most of the people you coach for free are going to be who who goes. Yeah, it's who is that transactional really who is that transactional say great you're going to offer me two hours of free coaching no strings attached. Great, let's do it. All right no strings attached. I don't like it so much. Goodbye. We're still going to be friends. It's just strains the relationship it's like oh yeah, I gave that guy that gal that person two hours and then they just didn't want my coaching. It strains your relationship. It strains the friendship it strains the connection. Let's be honest about this. That's not just, it's not a transactional thing it's a relationship that's happening there. And then on the other side of the service provider. Okay. The service provider is spending to 90 minutes two hours plus. And at the end. It's like there's this awkward moment of, okay, you know what they suggest is that if that if it weren't really well then you set up another meeting to talk about your services. It's like okay that wasn't the exploratory call no no the two hours is supposed to be pure altruistic service providing. I mean I talk about authentic service all the time and I just, I sniff out I just sniff. There's something wrong with this. Right so it's like, you're supposed to provide two hours coaching you know altruistically and then, if at the end it was such a wonderful conversation. You know what if you're interested in having more of this. It's like, Oh, the whole time you weren't trying to help me Oh would you like some help with that. That wasn't. No, when you say help you mean a part of a sales process Oh I understand now. Come on people like am I the only one seeing something wrong with this like I'm that's why I couldn't read the book I'm like really. This is not graceful human relationship this is, this is incredible that that this is selling so well, I mean I couldn't believe it so. So okay so after two hours. You know, wonderful conversation I'm supposed to say, So if you want more let's let's have another call where we'll talk about my services. At that point like I said the person feels beholden to you and like okay sure let's let's talk about it because I feel like I should give you something back okay and in that proposal conversation you propose what they seem to suggest correct me if I'm wrong. It's a high ticket coaching package. Nada. Well, you know this is working out why don't we just, you know why don't you just, we'll do it month by month you know $150 an hour month by month we'll just go as we can know that's not what they suggest. Again, I haven't read the book, but what I heard from all these book summaries is that the author suggests a high ticket coaching package and it makes sense to me why that would be the strategy because you, you go around spending two hours for free with a bunch of people. Most of them are going to say yes. And so of course you need like one out of 10 or one out of five to say yes to make it worth your time to say yes to expensive coaching package to make it worth your time. And I've already said before. I wrote a, I've made a video recently about how much did you spend on coaching. And I think it's much better for the relationship between a customer a client and service provider for it to start with smaller amounts of spending before there's larger amounts of spending, because there needs to be experience of the service being provided, rather than signing up. Okay, I had a two hour with you. Next thing I do is sign up for $5,000 $2,000 package. I think it's not. I think I don't think it's wise for that relationship. I don't think it bodes well for many of that in that situation, you probably have been in that kind of situation to you have a great conversation you sign up for an expensive coaching. That wasn't so great. Maybe I should have started with their online course or their, you know, month by month or they're a single to three, three hour, you know, three session package or something like that. So, um, let me let me now I start to wrap up by by saying why I don't think the authors themselves. Well, first of all, are the authors themselves practicing this strategy. Well, I don't know. Let me let me talk about rich lit then second let me first talk about Steve Chandler. They're the two authors. Steve Chandler might be I don't know. But I think if Steve practices this, he's talking to executives. He's talking to leaders he has such by the time they wrote this book Steve Chandler had already has such a great reputation in the coaching world that he doesn't I'm sure he is spending two hours with some random person at the grocery store. Right. He's spending two hours because people are coming to him, and then he's probably vetting among the 10 people who want my time today. I'm going to pick this person this leader of this organization who probably, you know money is not an issue. And so he spent Steve probably spends a two hours fine, two or three hours or whatever a weekend with this leader of an organization and then by the end, the leader is paying paying I don't know, paying him $10,000 a month for coaching. And that's really worth Steve's time I'm sure. But most of us are not talking to leaders of organizations for whom they respect us so much they would pay us 5000 a month, 10,000 a month or over 5 or 10,000 total. Right. Most of us are talking to giving these two hour sessions to friends of ours and colleagues of ours who probably for whom money is an issue. So that's that's Steve. Let me talk about Rich Litvin here. Several years after this book came out. Rich Litvin made a YouTube video, which I will link to below. That's called the Prosperous Coach 2.0. All right. Let's let's let's hear me out here. He made a video called the Prosperous Coach 2.0. So I did watch that video in its entirety. And what he's saying is he goes, you know, in that book, I made the mistake. No, no, let me not say I made the mistake. I had recommended, you know, like he was back. He said mistake.  So maybe that wasn't a mistake.  But I had recommended that people spend two hours, you know, in a, in a, in a sample session. And now I'm going to recommend something different. The Prosperous Coach 2.0 says, don't spend two hours with people right off the bat. He says, instead, you should have a 15 minute conversation first to see if they're, they're the right fit. Hold on, hold on, Rich. You're now telling people what everyone has already been saying all along that the first conversation, the first sample conversation shouldn't be two hours. It should be more like 15 minutes or half an hour. Watch it. Google or go to YouTube, search the Prosperous Coach 2.0 Rich Litvin and watch that video. You'll be like, really? Wow. He backed back. Like, he has now told millions of people to spend two hours with all these people. How much time has been spent. And now you spend, no, no, no, sorry, 15 minutes. 15 minutes. To vet someone before, I don't know, it's like to vet someone before you go to the proposal phase or maybe, maybe then do the two hours. I'm not, I'm not remembering exactly now what that is. So please correct me. But I think he says 15 minutes, and then you go directly to talking about the service so that you're not spending two hours with people anymore. And, and finally, I'll say this. Both authors, Steve and Rich, as far as I can tell publicly, are applying my strategy to my strategy. And here's here's what here's the alternative to the Prosperous Coach. Okay. Instead of doing the Prosperous Coach, follow what I'm teaching you, because that's what the authors are doing too. And what is that authentic content marketing.  And that that's so that's what my, okay, if you if you still care about sample sessions right if you sample sessions are great I'll give you two alternatives one, the tapering strategy for getting clients. You'll find that and you'll find my blog post I think that's a much smarter strategy for doing sample sessions, the tapering strategy. And the secondly, instead of if you don't want to do tapering strategy, which you can read about later. You should give sample sessions and record them with people willing to be recorded and do 15 to 30 minute sample sessions so that you can put them on YouTube, just like the authors do, just like what I talk about authentic content and how much content as possible on the internet, including samples of what you do, and also just your talks, and your interviews, and just, you know, defining things describing your experiences, you know, sharing your skills on on on the internet and then people contact you and they'll come to you asking for for your service, and then you can have a 15 minutes or half an hour, or find you want to spend an hour with them, but they're inquiring with you they're already expressing interest in possibly hiring you. So far as we can tell publicly the authors are doing what I what I teach privately if they're doing the prosperous coach method, they're qualified to do so because they're they're getting executives and wealthy people coming to them for those two hours of free coaching that's different than most of us. So it's like instead of spending the two hours with one person at a time. Imagine you've spent those two the same two hours. The same two hours you spend creating a piece of content. Guess what. Now that piece of content serves dozens of people, or probably hundreds of people over the years. And if some of us are lucky that any piece of content may serve thousands of people over the years, which then some of those people will come to you and say hey no I really found that helpful. Look at your services. So, I hope this is helpful. Again, for someone who didn't read the book, tell me if I got it right or not. Those of you did beat it. And if you, I am always open to disagreements, I'm always open to your corrections, because I'm, I'm always learning. So please do share below and if, if by the way if the book has done you wonder that you really had used the strategy and got a lot of clients. Let us know too. Because like I said, it may, it I'm sure it worked for some people that's why the book is so popular. But I just think for most of us, there's better use of our time, including apparently what the authors are doing themselves with all those content marketing so I hope this will save a lot of time and angst from a lot of you. And I look forward to seeing your comments below. Thanks for joining me for this.


For more videos on People's Juggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Well, this has been a great opportunity for us to come back into the United Nations and the United Nations atmosphere where, as you know, last year during the pandemic there weren't General Assembly meetings. This time we were able to come with our new Foreign Minister, Felix Blasencia representing the government of President Maduro. President Maduro gave a very important speech, a taped speech during the General Assembly where he laid out Venezuela's visions for the time and also we were able to connect with a lot of the countries that we don't usually, you know, haven't been able to sit with because of these difficulties of the pandemic but it's very important for Venezuela to strengthen its ties with other countries, in particular countries that are farther away geographically from us like countries in Asia and Africa and in particular this year we had a very special meeting with 18 countries sat together to talk about the defense of the United Nations Charter. This is very key because we feel that today the Charter and the principles and values, the principle of non-intervention into internal affairs of every country, these principles are being challenged by policies from some of the members that are trying to impose their will on others. So it's a very important moment that 18 countries have taken the opportunity to say that they want to defend those principles, they want to maintain them, they want to make sure that they are not trampled upon, no matter how strong the country, you know, is that's trying to vulnerable these rights. It's important that we all get together and we defend those principles because those are the principles that can guarantee the country sovereignty and that also can guarantee world peace. If we don't if we don't respect the Charter then we might as well, you know, forget about the whole international architecture. It's key that we come out and express our defense of the Charter. We also came back a week ago from the CELAC meeting in Mexico, which is also very important in regional terms. We find that CELAC is the alternative to the Organization of American States because it's an organization that really is concerned about the issues of Latin American Caribbean countries and not the imposition from countries that do not have our same vision or same interests. We want to strengthen the CELAC architecture. We want to make sure that we can, you know, as we face very crucial problems together in the next foreseeable future, problems like climate change, still problems addressing the pandemic, it is important that we do it together in an organization that has, that where we are treated as equals when we're not, you know, paid against one another but rather with a clear objective of cooperation between countries. There's a very important process going on because Venezuelan, the Venezuelan government has always been open to the dialogue with the opposition but there have been parts of the opposition that until now have decided not to say it but rather promote unconstitutional ways into getting into the government, promote violence. So finally President Maduro has, I believe it's his achievement of President Maduro, his consistency in maintaining openness to dialogue that has led to this moment where we are now sitting, the Bolivarian government of Venezuela, the only government of Venezuela with the unity platform which is part of that opposition but it's precisely that part of the opposition that had opted against elections, that had opted for violence. So it's a new moment that we hopefully can all as a country, you know, make use of it to strengthen our political process to leave any, any attempts at disruption that is not based on democracy, on politics and on constitutional order. I think, you know, we already have had two meetings, there's an ongoing meeting that right now and hopefully we'll have some progress. I think from the last meetings it was very important that we had a unified position both government and opposition with regards to Venezuela's claim to the Ezequiel territory in, which is in the border of Uruguayana. And also we had an important agreement in establishing a mechanism for social, part of the table to deal with social concerns for the Venezuelan people, that is the main concern. And we also hope that in this dialogue we can address the unilateral measures that are being imposed on Venezuela and that we can lift them and make sure that, you know, our people are not affected by these measures that have, you know, been creating hardships for all of the Venezuelan people regardless of their political position or regardless of, you know, what they, how they see internal politics. What we're looking for for these elections is a renewal, again, for constitutional mandates for governors and governors, mayors and the assemblies that correspond. I think it's important because, like you said, this group of the opposition is willing to participate. There's going to be international observers, international presence that also will be accompanying this and will once again prove like every time that Venezuela's democratic system is trustworthy and it reflects what the people want. I think the most important thing regardless of the outcomes, regardless of who wins, is that you're going to see, we're going to see more participation. I think people are going to be happy that their options are being represented in the ballot and not, you know, in outside adventures that are, you know, put everybody's lives at risk. What we understand that is, you know, the policy against Venezuela has not changed substantially with regards to lifting of the sanctions, although the aggression or the constant imposing of new sanctions has diminished under this administration. We know that a lot of these, you know, the interests of the United States with Venezuela depends on internal politics of the United States as well. Internal movements, internal disputes, for example, in states like Florida where the Venezuelan policy does have repercussions. I think this is an opportunity and, you know, if we have anything to say for the United States government to take this opportunity to return to diplomacy, to return to a relationship where the two countries can speak to one another with mutual respect rather than having these illegal measures being imposed on the Venezuelan people because they are affecting the great majority of the Venezuelan people in their everyday life. We hope, and like President Maduro has said, our hand is open for dialogue. We hope that this opportunity is taken, whether it be through dialogues, the dialogue in Mexico or elsewhere. What is important is that we avoid this confrontation and we return to diplomacy. The Venezuelan people have not severed ties with the people of the United States. We may not have formal relations, but the fact that we're here, for example, in the South Bronx shows that the people-to-people relationship still exists and is still very strong. And what we want is that that relationship can turn into a respectful relationship between the two governments. you