Exclusive series for 🧭 Exploring Introvert insiders
Can you create a masterclass in 8 weeks?
(behind the scenes)
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WEEK 1 CONTENT: deciding what the masterclass is about
A short walkthrough my (physical and digital) notebooks
We'll talk about how I use notebooks to support reflection as an introvert
! The videos this week have been postponed !
! The next video has been postponed !
Things don't always go according to plan and that's okay 😉
Exploring and finding the main direction of the masterclass
A big lesson that I learned for finding focus in projects and how it helped me to become unstuck
Read this week's summary
WEEK 2 TECH: building the landing page and automation sequence
Build part of the landing page with me
See some drag and drop action (perfect for not-so-techy-people-like-me) and witness an “oopsy” moment live when I realize I don't have all the text for the page yet…
Lessons from this years attempt at tech
Tech can be daunting! Building habits can be too... We'll talk about 2 lessons that helped me to stop procrastination with tech and what you can learn from them about no-discipline habits.
Read this week's summary
WEEK 3 PROMO: (gently) spreading the word about the masterclass
A sneak peek at my content timetable
Did I bite off more than I can chew..?
Taking small steps despite my fear of visibility
From thinking I'm not "the right type" of person to being visible my way
Read this week's summary
BONUS VIDEO: Why 8 weeks?
WEEK 4 BUILD: creating the masterclass
A sneak peek at my slides and my writing process
This was the most difficult thing when creating this masterclass
Read this week's summary
It's masterclass time!
Join the masterclass:
"Successfully planning your day for introverts: Learn what to focus on for a no-discipline approach to habits, no matter how busy or overwhelmed you are"
EVALUATION AND FOLLOW UP
Results, evaluation and lessons learned
Thank you and what's next
Read this week's summary
Week 1 Highlights summary
Hi there 🧭 EI insider,
Wow, we’re already at the end of week 1 of the insider series!
This week you could peek behind the curtain of how I organize my ideas to come up with the content of the upcoming masterclass “Successfully planning your day for introverts”
In addition to insider video’s, I’m also adding a highlight summary every week.
Feel free to watch the video’s and recap with this highlight summary or skip the video’s all together and check in only for the highlights at the end of the week.
Here are the highlights of week 1.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Reflecting is essential for introverts
- When things don’t go according to plan
- Creating habits to support your natural process as an introvert
- The biggest mistake when it comes to finding focus
- Turn “overthinking” into your superpower
- What’s coming next
FULL SUMMARY
Reflecting is essential for introverts
Earlier this week, we took a short walkthrough my physical and digital notebooks.
If you’re an introvert, you may recognize that you like to take a bit of time to think things through. One thing that most introverts have in common is that they like to observe first, then go away and think - you might do some additional research - and then come back and share what you’ve found.
Most introverts don’t really like it when they’re put on the spot and forced to give their opinion right away. (I still remember the cold sweats when I was working in an office and got called on during the department meetings with the question: “What do you think about that?” 😶)
This is a little bit different for extroverts who, in general, like to immediately share their first thoughts and brainstorm new ideas on the spot.
Reflecting and taking time to process often gets a bad rep (You’ve probably heard comments like this: “Why don’t you show yourself a bit more?” or ”Don’t overthink things too much”).
A lot of the time you may think that you’re not assertive enough or that you need to be able to think quicker.
But being able to reflect is an essential part of an introvert’s natural process and it’s how we formulate our thoughts and ideas.
Creating habits to support your natural process as an introvert
Creating habits that support reflection is one of the things that have changed the way my clients work and that has boosted their confidence and effectiveness at work.
For me, my notebooks are tools that help me to deliberately create moments for reflection.
I use a combination of physical and digital notebooks. I also combine writing and audio (I’ve embraced the “crazy lady on the bus syndrome” well… anywhere but in the actual bus 😉).
Over time, these notebooks have naturally organized themselves into a flow that helps me to take a project from idea to completion (like building this masterclass in 8 weeks).
When things don’t go according to plan
Things don’t always go according to plan… and that’s okay! Afterall, life happens. Give yourself space to get through whatever is happening. Focusing on pillar habits that help you process and prepare can also be helpful. One of my process and prepare habits is writing 😊
The biggest mistake when it comes to finding focus
A lot of people struggle with finding focus and I used to struggle with this too.
Here’s an important realization that shifted things for me: I realized that most project roughly go through 3 stages: exploration, connecting the dots and execution.
When it comes to finding focus, I noticed that the biggest mistake that people make is that they’re constantly worried about not taking enough action.
As a result, they force themselves to always be in execution mode and forget (or rush) the earlier stages: exploration and connecting the dots.
When you realize that exploration is what leads to connecting the dots and that naturally leads to execution, it becomes so much easier to get your projects to completion.
Turn “overthinking” into your superpower
When introverts rush the exploration process and are constantly trying to be in execution phase, you’re more likely to overthink and doubt yourself if you’ve made the right choice (or if you’re even capable of being a functional human being).
In general, introverts are very good at keeping an eye on all the details and one of the reasons you’re good at that is because your mind can hold on to A LOT of details for A LONG time.
Who here hasn’t thought through a 1000 different scenario’s of how a particular interaction might go?
Make no mistake, there’s a lot of mental calculation that goes into that and what feels like a negative can actually be a superpower.
I believe that what we commonly think of as “overthinking” is just “thinking” in a lot of the cases. If you know how to focus your “overthinking skills” you can do things you never thought you could while actually feeling good about doing them.
What’s coming next
On November 19th will be the live masterclass “Successfully planning your day for introverts: Learn 3 key ideas to focus on for a no-discipline approach to habits, no matter how busy or overwhelmed you are”
Sign up now to get the complete masterclass bundle:
- A seat at the live masterclass on 19 November 2024 at 12:00 CET (check your local time on Worldtimebuddy.com)
- Access to the masterclass recording until January 2025
- The full transcript of the masterclass
- The summary ebook “Succesfully planning your day for introverts”
But, wait a minute, if you want to sign up for the masterclass, we’ll need a sign up page, right? Yep, and that will be up next week in the insider series.
You’ll get to see how I built part of the landing page and you’ll hear about some of the lessons around tech that I’ve taking on board for this masterclass.
Talk soon,
Mariella
Week 2 Highlights summary
Hello 🧭 EI insider!
In week 2 of the insider series you peeked behind the curtain of the tech-side of things for the upcoming masterclass: “Successfully planning your day for introverts”
We built part of the landing page together and we talked about 2 shifts that helped me to go from spending too much time and energy on unimportant things to putting up a page like this in just a few hours.
(Spoiler alert, the same lesson applies to habits. You can read about that in this summary and we’ll talk more about it on the masterclass).
In addition to insider videos, I’m also sending you a highlight summary every week. Feel free to watch the videos and recap with this summary or skip the videos all together and check in only for the highlights at the end of the week.
Here are the highlights of week 2.
HIGHLIGHTS
- What I learned from teaching 9 masterclasses in 9 months
- I’m half and half when it comes to tech
- Lesson #1: It’s not that hard
- How lesson #1 relates to habits
- Lesson #2: Shifting your focus to “what’s the role?”
- How lesson #2 relates to habits
FULL SUMMARY
What I learned from teaching 9 masterclasses in 9 months
In 2022, I decided that I wanted to learn about this “mystical thing” called a masterclass that every online business owner apparently does. Coming from an academic background and more used to giving scientific presentations, I figured I had quite some to learn 😆
So, I “challenged” myself to give a masterclass every month that year. I fell short of that goal but I did manage 9 in 9 months before I called it a day (/ a year). They were all on different topics and for different audiences and groups. It was a wild ride!
I’m half and half when it comes to tech
When it comes to tech, I’m a bit half and half (is that even an expression?) I mean that I’m usually keen to give it a go while on the other hand I just want things to work and put zero effort into it 🤷🏽♀️. I can tell myself that I’m fully ready to become an expert but the moment any code pops up on my screen, I break out into a sweat and immediately close the window.
The tech side of things often feel a little bit… ungraspable to me.
Over the years, and thanks to 9 in 9 months, I’ve learned 2 important lessons about tech that have significantly improved my sweaty armpit situation (and that interestingly can be transferred to habits too).
Lesson #1: It’s not that hard
If the 9 in 9 months taught me any thing it’s that it’s not as hard as you think. In the famous words of Marie Forleo: “Everything is figureoutable”
Just the ungraspable notion that I had around tech would often stop me in my tracks. I’d watch countless tutorials on how to do something techy and then spend hours picking out the right shade of blue for my website 😆
In 2022, that changed.
How? I took a course. Yes, so simple. I invested to learn from someone who knew how. I mean, YouTube can only bring you so far. At some point you need a structured approach and direct feedback on what you’re doing.
The course wasn’t about tech at all, it was a marketing course and tech was just one small component of it. But it gave me enough insight into what to put on a landing page and how it all connected together.
Just a few simple pointers were enough to help me go from spending too much time and energy on unimportant things to setting up a converting landing page in a couple of hours.
Am I great at it? Absolutely not. Do I no longer let it hold me back? Absolutely yes.
How lesson #1 relates to habits
When it comes to habits, we so often overcomplicate things. Many introverts I talk with have spent years trying to find the perfect morning routine and it frustrates them that they can’t nail it. Others want to make a big change in their life like a new job or starting a business and they’re waiting for when their schedule opens up; except it never does.
If you’re a true Exploring Introvert, you probably like to dot the i’s and cross the ts. You want to wait until you have the time to work out all the details and create an airtight plan (I see you 😉).
You can wait.
Or you can start small. Building habits doesn’t have to be complicated. It also doesn’t have to be an all or nothing situation. You don’t need the perfect solution from the start. It’s often more effective to start small and build from there.
Go ahead and take a small, less than perfect step. It will probably teach you much more about what works (and doesn’t work) in your situation than trying to create a perfect plan ever will.
Lesson #2: Shifting your focus to “what’s the role?”
I have the tendency to give too much (as you can probably tell from this insider series 😂) So, the first time I made a landing page, I wanted to put everything on there. I thought I needed to have this extensive description filled with amazing promises and an information stacked page with the most beautiful design,
On one hand, it makes a lot of sense. If you look at examples out there, that’s a lot of what you’ll see. In addition, most introverts I know like to do their research and they want as much information as possible before making a decision. I am totally in that camp myself!
But, as you can imagine, striving for this perfection (once again) led me to spend waaay to much time and energy on things that weren’t important. I started to resent working on the project, it became this insurmountable mountain of work and I procrastinated.
Finally, I realized that I was giving the landing page too much responsibility and that was making it overwhelming (for me and potentially for you too!).
Instead, I needed to shift my focus to what’s the role of the page.
The landing page isn’t supposed to be a full resume of everything that I’ve ever done or everything that I’ve ever learned about planning for introverts. No.
It simply needs to give you a quick overview of what to expect of the masterclass. You should quickly be able to tell by looking at the page if this is at all interesting to you or not.
How lesson #2 relates to habits
Interestingly, the same concept is true for habits. One of the reasons a lot of people get stuck with their habits is because they focus too much on the habit itself. They give the habit all the responsibility!
E.g. Say you want to exercise more, so you decide to walk 5 km or 3 miles every day. You start enthusiastically but then you have a tough night and barely get any sleep so you skip a day. The next day, your friend wants to meet up so you skip another day. and so on. At the end of the week, you’ve walked 3 miles the entire week and your inner critic is raging.
But what if you shifted your focus to the role of the habit instead?
You see, exercising can be walking for 3 miles but it can also be throwing your kid up in the air 10 times or dancing non stop for 3 minutes to an upbeat song.
Shifting focus away from the habit itself and focusing more on the role of the habit can help you to stop wasting time and energy fighting with the inner critic and instead doing what you want to do and feeling good about doing it.
Talk soon,
Mariella
PS.
Clients have said that these two lessons have been eye-openers for them in the personal coaching programs. We’ll talk more these and other eye-openers during the masterclass: “Successfully planning your day for introverts: Learn 3 key ideas to focus on for a no-discipline approach to habits, no matter how busy or overwhelmed you are”
I will be teaching the masterclass LIVE on November 19th.
Sign up now to get the complete masterclass bundle:
- A seat at the live masterclass on 19 November 2024 at 12:00 CET
- Access to the masterclass recording until January 2025
- The full transcript of the masterclass
- The summary ebook “Succesfully planning your day for introverts”
Week 3 Highlights summary
Hi there 🧭 EI insider!
Wow, less than 2 weeks to go before the masterclass..!
When this all started, I thought 8 weeks was a lot of time to build a masterclass… now it feels pretty short 😆
In this 4-week insider series, I’m taking you through my entire process of how I prepare for the upcoming masterclass.
This week, we’re talking about the promo side of things. Here are the highlights!
HIGHLIGHTS
- Don’t say the A word..
- Be loud and bold or go home
- Gentle promotion
- Happily failing
FULL SUMMARY
Don’t say the A word..
Marketing used to be a dirty word to me. Anything related to it left a bad taste in my mouth. When I was still working in bigger organizations, the equivalent of marketing was “professional profiling”, being “visible”, and “assertive” (I became allergic to the A word for a while…)
For a long time, I bought into the stereotype. In fact, I burned out trying to keep up with it.
After my body hit the breaks, I accepted that I wasn’t going to be a group leader in science (too soft, too risk-averse). I looked for jobs that I technically was overqualified for where I could focus on the content and wouldn’t have to worry about the politics and the profiles.
But even there, I couldn’t escape the A word…
In every performance review my boss told me that I should be more assertive and show myself more. I started to wonder if I simply wasn’t the right type of person for these roles I was in, despite getting lots of positive feedback about my overall performance.
Be loud and bold or go home
In hindsight, it’s not strange that I felt like something was wrong with me.
When it comes to Marketing (in the entrepreneurial world) or Professional Profiling (in the corporate and academic worlds), there’s still a stereotypical expectation that you need to be loud and bold to be noticed and appreciated.
You need to be an easy talked and a quick thinker to stay top of mind or to be considered for promotions. You need to be extraverted and “on” all the time to keep up with the quick pace of business (yours or your employers). And you need to be ruthless to be respected and to be a good leader.
For a lot of introverts the message is: change everything about yourself and you’ll be great!
Gentle promotion
Playing the role worked for a while. But it became exhausting. More than that, it started to feel simply wrong.
Step by step, I started to move away from playing a role and more to me. I’m still working on some areas like how to be visible for my business now in a way that works and feels right.
Right now, I’ve taken on a gentle promotion approach. My version of gentle promotion is creating a safe environment to promote my work. For me, the people are the most important.
Thinking about this when writing to you, I realized that my main requirement is: If I fall flat on my face, will I feel judged by these people or will they laugh with me and help me up?
In a practical sense, that means that I’ve only talked about the masterclass and the insider series so far with you here on my mailing list. You are my safe place. Because I can fail here and know that you won’t judge me. Some of you even send me messages with encouragement or share your own failures with me.
I appreciate that beyond words!
If you’ve ever sent me a message: thank you!
If you’ve never messaged me: thank you too! You being here is enough.
Happily failing
Gentle promotion isn’t about being afraid to be visible or about avoiding the A word. It’s about creating skills that you can build on. And, in the end, you do that by failing.
If you’re trying something you’ve never done before, if you’re constantly learning and developing your skills - like the other Exploring Introverts in this community - then you will fail. You’ll probably fail a lot.
So, the question isn’t whether you’ll fail or not, the question is: what’s a safe environment for you where you can happily fail?
Talk soon,
Mariella
PS.
In this insider series, you’re getting the inside scoop of how I’m building the upcoming masterclass: “Successfully planning your day for introverts: Learn 3 key ideas to focus on for a no-discipline approach to habits, no matter how busy or overwhelmed you are”.
Click here to save your seat for the masterclass.
You’ll also get the complete masterclass bundle for free including access to the recording for the rest of the year.
Week 4 Highlights summary
Hi there 🧭 EI insider,
It’s a gloomy day today (I guess Autumn is officially here). We’ve reached the end of the insider series. I’m sitting by the window thinking about the past 4 weeks. So much has happened and the weeks honestly flew by.
In this final highlights summary, you’re getting a sneak peek at my slide deck for the masterclass. What was the most difficult thing about creating this year’s masterclass.
Was it the inner critic? Was it narrowing down and focusing the topic? Or was it the logistics of getting everything done in combination with the insider series?
Here are this weeks highlights.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Are the nerves kicking in?
- What was the most difficult thing to prepare for this masterclass?
- Shifting focus
- Insider series yay or nay?
FULL SUMMARY
Are the nerves kicking in?
We’re a few days out from the masterclass and the nerves have started to kick in. More people have signed up than I expected so chances are that a lot of eyes will be on this masterclass (either LIVE or on the replay).
I’m trying not to think too much about that as I get started on the slides.
I embrace the “crappy first draft”, so my first version of the slide deck is usually pretty terrible... (you can see some of it in the insider video above ☝🏼)
That’s okay.
The point is to get started.
Good.
Now that the first slide has been made, the outline appears and then… aaah, flow.
I’ll be going into my creation cave for the next few days to get this masterclass ready. It’s going to be a good one! My inner critic isn’t so sure yet 😆 Regardless of how it goes, there will be plenty of lessons to learn.
Here’s a pic of the first draft and vx.x side by side.
Progress, right?
What was the most difficult thing to prepare for this masterclass?
A few things came to mind when I thought about this. Was it the inner critic? Was it narrowing down and focusing the topic? Or was it the logistics of getting everything done in combination with the insider series?
When I did my first masterclass in 2022, the most difficult thing by a landslide was managing my inner critic. You know, that little voice in your head that likes to point out all the things that you’re doing wrong.
I’d done scientific presentations before but never one like this. My critic was quick to point out how bad I was at this and that no one really was interested in what I have to say.
Boy, the inner critic can be a real jerk sometimes…
Thankfully, this time around, the inner critic was much more quiet. Thanks to learning the different ways to tame the inner critic and that I also teach in my 1-1 coaching program.
Finding the focus of the masterclass was a challenge in the months leading up to it but once the dots started to connect, it became clear. Like finding that missing, center puzzle piece.
Shifting focus
No, all in all, the logistics was the toughest part this time around. I underestimated what it would take to make the insider series and there was also an unexpected personal matter, the things you can’t plan for.
Halfway through, I realized that I needed to change my focus from “make the awesomest insider series” to “just make it to the end”.
Being really realistic with your own expectations when the circumstances change and asking yourself “When would I be happy with my effort?” is a great focus shift. It calms down the inner critic and shifts the focus from results to effort, a place where a lot of introverts shine.
In the end, I’m happy to say that I enjoyed this process much more than I thought I would. Not only that, I “made it to the end” and published most of the content I intended more or less on schedule.
Although it was more work than I expected, I was really motivated and happy to do it - for you ! Knowing that you and the other Exploring Introverts are watching and reading - and hopefully getting some value - it helps me to keep going!
Insider series yay or nay?
So, for me it’s a YAY for the insider series!
But...what do you think…? Send me a “yay” or “nay” to let me know.
If we get enough “yays” then we might do another insider series next year 🤗
PS.
The next time you see me will be on the masterclass. That is, if you’re signed up.
Join me live next Tuesday? Or just grab the ebook the week after by signing up here.
We’re talking about 3 eye-opening ideas for introverts to learn no-discipline habits so that you can successfully plan your day, no matter how busy or overwhelmed you may feel right now.