Key insights from the conversation

Curiosity and Experimentation

• Always ask "what else can I do with this?" when exploring tools

• Breaking things to discover their limits and possibilities

• Learn through exploration rather than tutorials

Work should be enjoyable

• Work doesn't have to be boring

• Create experiences where people "want to" rather than "have to" participate

• Focus on engagement over dry information delivery

Authenticity in professional settings and the value of your expertise

• "You can fake it for 20 minutes in a job interview, but not for your whole career"

• "Your vibe attracts your tribe" - authenticity attracts the right connections

• What feels like play to you can be valuable work to others

• Don't discount skills that come naturally to you

• Small discoveries often lead to exciting learning journeys

The hierarchy: connection → content → tools

• Connection with people must come first

• Content/expertise comes second

• Tools should only enhance what you're already doing well

• "The best microphone only amplifies what you already have to say"

Learning through creation

• "The Ikea Effect" - we value more what we build ourselves

• Breaking away from instruction manuals leads to deeper understanding

• Process can be more valuable than the final product

Professional Identity and tech implementation

• Start with small tech changes before adding more

• Good tech implementation is invisible - "it's magic"

• "If you tell me exactly how to do it, why do you need me?"

• Talking with people rather than to people

Full transcript

Here is the full conversation transcript, edited for clarity and conciseness. Here’s also the link to the conversation on LinkedIn live.

Roberto: It looks like we are live. Okay, let me check and put this out. First of all, I want to thank you. Thank you so much for the preparation you did and for investing this time for you and also to the people who is already connected. I see already someone in saying hi in the chat.

Hi, Andreas. Hi, Joel. And also thank you because you're investing also one hour of your time, which is the most precious resource that we have. It's never going to go back. And you're already seeing things happening on Said's screen. So we invite you to engage with us, to interact with us because this talk, this live would be different and we will be much more interactive.

So we will not wait until the middle of the conversation for the questions. So if you have any questions for Said, if you have a question for me, just put it in the chat and we will go there in a moment. First of all, a little introduction. I knew you since July, 2023, when Indra, which is a common friend of us, recommended me to follow you because he said, Oh, this is an amazing person to follow so many good things.

I'm so surprised that we are having the conversation after two years. And I look back at the, wow, so much time has passed. And I'm very grateful for this recommendation because I learned so much for you.

Said: I just want to say thanks a lot for the invitation I think this week was the first time we actually spoke with each other, which is weird.

Roberto: And it's also the beauty of internet, how we can connect with People all around the world. And my first question for you, Said, and also for the people who is connected, what's your story?

Said: Yeah, that's always a very challenging question I don't want to start with my birth. That would be too long a 40 year story but I would like to start with I can never remember when it was it's like time gap in when the pandemic started, was it 2021, 2020?

I cannot remember anymore. It's a long time Ago. before the pandemic, I've been always in customer service, having different roles there starting at the very bottom as a customer service agent for many years, as a trainer, quality management, customer experience management, all the things that have to do with customers and trying to support them and provide the best experiences they can have, in different companies when the pandemic hit us all and we were at home, it was, I think, it's challenging for all of us. It's a new situation. We, of course did remote things before if you did home office, but no, we were forced to organize everything. And also for my private life, I was looking for things to entertain myself, to not go crazy, to not go depressed when you're at home 24 hours a day.

And I discovered different things that I didn't know about. I'm a geek and I was very surprised. Certain tools people can use to make their online sessions, their virtual meetings, more engaging, more fun, more than just having somebody sharing PowerPoint slides and talking for an hour, like a TED talk.

And I got very passionate about the things that I figured out and I'm a tinkerer. Try it out, watch a few things on YouTube and read a little bit and follow the right people that are already in this business, which are streamers, by the way. a lot of streamers use this now.

Make workshops based on this, or trainings or just fun Meetups. And from there, very patient, just did it for myself, as a hobby while I was still in my role in the Company. after a while, I thought, okay, I always share the things that I do just because I like to share, hey, look what you can do. And then, people are interested in these things, or people didn't know about that. And sometimes it's, small things. I didn't know you can do this. Or how do you do this? No. Okay. I thought everybody know already. And yeah, then I took it just as a challenge for myself to educate others, share with others, what is possible, how they can do it themselves.

Fast forward, here I am calling myself The Facilitainer and trying to support others in making their sessions less like 2020, more like 2025. If you're still doing the same things you did before the pandemic online, are you missing out. We had this conversation, you don't know what you don't know. So if you don't know what's possible or how to do things differently, there is so much that can be done with small means that can change the way you do things.

Roberto: Absolutely. There's one thing that stands out from your story, Said, is that I hear you have huge curiosity.

Said: Yeah. The first thing I think it's often, when I think

Let's talk about a tool, for example, it doesn't matter which one it is.

I see a tool, I use Miro, for example, or others. My first question is what else can I do with it? It's not about, what can everybody do? There's a tutorial or documentation, that's covered.

But my question is, what else could I do? How could I surprise myself? How could I create something?

It's maybe not that purposeful or useful, but it doesn't matter. How could I break the thing and see what's the limit? What else is possible? I'm always curious to keep my brain busy and entertain myself a little bit.

Roberto: Yeah, and you mentioned entertain and at the same time you talk about the streamers and when I think about streamers I think about playing and games, but then you see okay you are bringing things from I think that It's not usually associated with work and with let's say serious work and then we will talk about what's serious.

What's the importance of play in your view of facilitation and in general of communication?

Said: I strongly believe that just because something is work, it doesn't have to be boring. Okay. If you think I have to do this, yeah, I think the outcome is different. If you think I have to do this or I want to do something and how do we get ourselves and people we work with, to have this feeling I want to be part of this.

I want to work on this. I want to join this session. Nobody ever said, Oh, I want to join this meeting. People have invited me and then I will show up, whatever, and I will write, read my emails in the meantime. But if you use, it's not really about play, but it's about, what are the engaging elements?

How can you make something that's enjoyable and not funny, but fun, or at least not boring. I think the outcome at the end of the day is way better than if it's just, Hey, Let's talk about this PowerPoint for 60 minutes. The information is maybe the same, the way you present it or the way you interact with people makes a huge difference in my opinion.

You talked about streamers and, why we would join something like this today, which is a stream and not a Zoom Meeting. If somebody says, Hey, I have a zoom meeting where I talk with Roberto about stuff. Maybe it's the same conversation, but we know from live streams, there is usually it's interactive.

Usually it's different. There are certain elements that can be used in the live stream that we don't know from a zoom meeting or from a Microsoft Teams meeting or any other platform. But surprise. it's the same tools. It's the same strategies we can use for Both. if you follow the right people, you will understand that they use all these techniques and tools that live streamers use to create this engagement, this playfulness also in, virtual meetings where you are in the same room.

Like a zoom meeting, for example, or a workshop or a training. So they just need to know that it's possible and how you can do it. Yeah. I think that's a great approach because I watch live streams all the time. But do I want to join this meeting? I'm not sure.

Roberto: Yeah. And this is amazing.

Just imagine if we could, in all our meeting, say, I want to join this meeting, not just because they invited me and I have to go because it's my role, maybe it's a bit idealistic and I hope someday I 100 percent won't choose to join the meeting, but of course we can control what we can control.

If we could make our meeting more memorable with more novelty and with more play so that the people can join and see, oh, I want to join this meeting with Said, I want to join this meeting with Roberto because besides the topic, I know there is going to be something useful for me. I'm going to learn something.

I don't know what to expect to a certain point. What would you say, Said, is something that the People. Who's connected, who's watching this recording, which is also another thing, wanting to watch a recording. But what would you say you mentioned one thing, which is you don't know what you don't know, some easy thing people could say, okay, try this.

And see what happens.

Said: Okay. If you follow me, this, so this is not the tip I want to share with you, but I'm just saying if you follow me you often seem like doing silly things or you, sometimes I overdo it. I do a lot of things, but this is showcasing. I'm just want to show what's possible and sometimes it's a lot, I'm not saying you have to do everything.

That's my point. My point is not, Oh, I saw this guy who does this for 20 years and he has all the things on his screen. I don't know what, no that's not the goal. The goal is what is one thing that you could change from what you did. In the past 10, 5, 2 years, however what's a small thing you could change that could make a difference.

And what I do is, first of all, is the way you appear on camera. If I get paid for something. I should look like I got paid for this and not, Oh, I wake up and then, Oh my God, meeting. I have to do a presentation. so the way you appear on camera is in a professional way.

this is not playfulness but, if I join a meeting, he actually looks like he cares about this. He takes it seriously or she, put effort into preparation. He wants to make this look different. One thing, for example, is as you can see on my screen, when I join a session as a guest or as a host, it doesn't matter, you will recognize me, not only because of the head, because I always have the same look, but also my camera has a certain look, it looks branded, I have this little, overlay, so it's not like my blank camera, I'm cropped properly, I'm sitting in the middle of my camera, I have the lighting is set up correctly.

I have audio. You don't need to spend like hundreds of dollars into, into a microphone or anything, I'm just saying, hopefully my audio is clear so people can listen to me without getting the ears bleeding. So these are the small things that, try to make an effort. And people will recognize this, the other thing is, if you look different, if you, if I join your session, Oh, he looks different on camera, just because you have a little thing, you have your logo somewhere here or your name popping up, or I don't know, small things that make a difference. Oh, I, let me see what he's got next or, looks like this guy has a plan.

So I'm more likely to listen to you and follow along Then. If it's your camera and I can see the inside of your nose because you're, This typical, setups where people just have the laptop and then half of the ceiling. It's okay if you don't have any better place, but still small things that you can change.

Roberto: Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that stands out is that you care. You care about making the most of the time of people. You care about the quality of what you. And one of the things, for example, when we did this, the preparation for the light I'm sure you invested so much time, so much care. I can feel the details you prepare the cropping.

So it's exactly the same size. And LinkedIn live. So we have not only better conversation, but a better experience for the people investing the time. this is an amazing example because you are thinking not only about me, but about the other people who are here with us and looking at you

And this is great. And at the same time, it's a mix of hearing about the people, preparation, but at the same time, Hey, we are Human.

Said: This may sound very selfish, but I want to have fun too. This is not only about You. Sure, I'm delivering.

Whatever it is, if it's a training or a talk or whatever for the audience and the participants, but I want to enjoy this too. So what can I do for myself? And sometimes it's a small things that I, Oh, this is also fun to me. Even if you don't notice some things, Oh, but I know it's there and makes me smile when I think about it.

Oh, I cannot wait to show off this little feature. I have a little something looks a little bit different today because I created something. Oh yeah, this is fun. I cannot wait for people to see if they see it or mention it or even if not. But I know it.

I want to have fun myself. If I don't like what I'm doing, I think, oh my God, I have to do this linked in live with Roberto. Oh my God. What, why did I say yes? It's a different conversation. Please don't take this clip out of context.

Roberto: One thing is great because this is contagious, but there are two things.

The first, what I think is that the intention, you have the intention and you go into a meeting, into a zoom, into a live session, whatever, with the intention of having Fun. this also helps a lot because if you put your mind onto that, if you read what I also thought about. How much fun am I going to have today?

And it's already happening. And at the same time, it's contagious. Because what you are feeling, probably, will also be in connection with other people. All of the people have their own, feeling, their situation, but the person who is talking sets the tone, I think, for the meeting and that's what you're doing.

Said: I'm not talking about being silly. I am silly, but it's just my character. I like to make jokes sometimes even really bad jokes, it doesn't matter. we are still humans. I don't wear a monocle and bow tie when presenting I'm not a different person, on LinkedIn than I am on, I don't know, Instagram or elsewhere or with, in my Facebook, in my, WhatsApp with friends and family.

So I'm a character. You are a character it's just be yourself the best you can, while staying professional. All right. So make an effort, but still, being yourself, I don't know how to describe it, it's just in a professional manner.

Roberto: Yeah. Exactly. I hear from you saying that We have many facets. We are not just, professional. I'm a father. I am, for example, I'm very excited about going outdoor. I'm also a tech geek. And these are also all facets of ourselves. So in a certain point, we don't have, of course, to show all of those.

At the same time, I hear that you say that, in a professional setting. the professional part has to be its part, but then we can also show some of who we are, because in the end, when people sees us, who we are, maybe they will trust us more because they say, okay, this is who Said is this is who is Roberto.

I know I can trust him because it looks like he's being transparent.

Said: I find it really hard to fake for too long. You remember, I don't know when was your last job interview? Mine is a long time ago. maybe it's 8, 9, 10 years ago since my last real job interview. And yeah, you can fake it for 20 minutes maybe.

But you cannot take it for the rest of your life. In this 20 minutes, you are overly serious and you try to really give more than you would do in another situation. But you cannot do this your whole career. You cannot do this in every session. It's just too much effort to try to be someone else.

So the easiest way for me, yeah, just be myself and don't care that much about what others think, in a positive way, so yeah, this is who I am deal with it or don't, maybe I'm not your type If you have to change, I wouldn't join his training.

That's fine. There are others join someone else's sessions or workshops But for me, it's okay. This is what you get and deal with it. But again, in a positive way, This is what you get very clear.

You can expect things to be silly, playful, Different and interactive, not as linear as you are used to. Not the PowerPoint guy goes, okay, step 1, 2, 3. Maybe a little chaotic sometimes, but hopefully you get what you paid for or what you didn't pay for.

Roberto: Absolutely. there is one thing you said about sharing and, the idea of when you connect and when you are. The meeting, you can choose who you are, but then if you choose so long, something that you are not aligned with you so much effort, I can definitely see that there's one more thing that's connected with this, when you send the beginning that you share just what you like.

And what you would like to see in others is amazing because there is a say that one of my coaching trainers told me, your vibe attracts your tribe. It means that what you share properly, as you do, and as I hopefully do It's what you are, and then it attracts people with the same interest.

And as you said, if they don't have the same value, maybe it's good. We don't have to have exactly the same idea of everyone. this is also the beauty of the Internet, because there are so many niches, so many things that we can find people aligned with our values and then go deeper into that. This is an amazing example.

Thank you.

Said: Thank you. Sometimes what people say is, this is, it's not about me. It's not about you, right? So you are the least important person in. As a facilitator, you're probably the least important person in the room as a trainer. You're the least important, but it's not about you. It's about the people to get the value and to get the outcome and get the best experience they can get.

Okay, I get that. But on the other hand, I take myself sometimes as a benchmark. What would I like to join? if I had a chance to have this same topic about whatever it is, that version A is somebody's just talking to me the whole time, it has his or her slides, or it's the same concept but maybe with a joke from time to time, maybe with something unexpected that keeps me awake.

60 minutes is a long time. We have TikTok brains. If things don't change every 20 seconds, you fall asleep. If somebody takes 30 seconds to find the right screen to share in zoom, I will check my emails. I will check my LinkedIn notifications and I'm gone. You cannot catch me anymore

Oh, he's sharing. Let me quickly do this What would keep me engaged and how could I create something that hopefully people would also that say, yeah, this is way more enjoyable than just the pure information.

I saw, I think it was Jenny in the chat, Joe, sorry, saying The age of information is Over. It's not only about, I can read a book if I want information, right? I can listen to an audiobook if I'm lazy, But how can I be interested in what the information is?

Why do I want to learn this? Yeah, it's important. tell your kids, this is important. You need to learn math. They don't care, right? But if it's in a fun and playful way, an engaging way, or you play a game with them, they will learn the math automatically. They don't even know they learned.

And oh, 60 minutes are over so fast. If you do an hour with them of playful learning for example, with fun cards or a game. And why should we not do the same as adults?

Roberto: Yeah, absolutely. this made me think of one thing because I've been doing, and it's so much fun, by the way, virtual communication Workshop.

I asked the people who joined before the workshop, what's their biggest struggle with online communication and virtual Communication. it was surprising in the beginning because I expected, okay, my biggest issue is camera, the microphone, the nonverbal language, which all are important, but then eighty percent of the people

The most challenge I have is engaging with the people. And how do I keep the attention? How do I deal with people that don't have the camera on? And how do I connect with someone again? And what you said about not wanting to be on the meeting, all around the same. And the idea of connection with the people, hearing and engaging comes again and again.

Said: Yeah, I know people, friends or people I got to know over LinkedIn. There are so many awesome people. When I see they have an event coming up, I want to join this. It's a meeting. It's a workshop. It's not about the problem I have.

I don't care what the topic is. I know, she will do a great job and I will learn something new. There are people to connect with. It will be engaging. It will be all the things that I like. And I'm pretty sure I will have a nice 60 minutes or 45 minutes

Why? Yeah, let me join this. And this is the thing that, I think then you won when people are just waiting for you to do something and you will join automatically. I actually don't care about the topic sometimes. Yeah, I know the format is great. And even if the topic is not my thing, while I'm there, maybe I learn about something I didn't care about before.

Maybe I figure out all this topic is not for me, but I figure it out in a fun way and not in a boring way. Yeah, just Join. if you go on LinkedIn there are so many events going on and then you also see, oh, how do they do It? and it's not about copying. It's oh, I just like the way she posts or facilitates her workshop. Or I like the way he does his webinars. Or I like the tech he uses because I'm a geek. this is what brings me into the session.

And then while I'm there, okay, then give me also the information while I'm here. I will not stop listening just because it's not my topic.

Roberto: I'm super curious. Now that you've mentioned this, what's the thing that you learned in the last year in the last six months that surprised you the most?

Said: I, maybe it's not learning, but being aware of, just because I know something I should not assume everybody knows this.

I know this because I'm doing this exact thing for years now. And for me, it's just a habit. Oh yeah, of course there is a button in zoom. You can click to do something. No question. And then you do the thing. How did you do that? Yeah. it's there for 10 years. a big red button on the top, How should you know if you never saw somebody doing it talking about it or saw it in action you don't know what you don't know. this is the thing I learned. Sometimes I have to go back to basics and talk about the small things.

What's the smallest thing you could do to have greater online sessions or greater meetups. Greater conversations and sometimes, Oh, let me go back to 2021 or something. What was the first thing I learned that surprised me? That I now take for granted because I've done it so many times.

And that's one thing. The other thing is also, unfortunately, often I get, somewhere on the spectrum, I get. Not bored by my own stuff, but if I do something too often. in the same way. Oh yeah, I've done this five times the same way.

I've used the same colors five times. Oh, how boring. It's boring to me because I spend so much time doing it. I'm seeing the same thing every day for somebody who joins my session, my training, my masterclass, whatever, for the first time. To them, it's new. this is also something I need to remind myself that just because I think, yeah, nobody cares about this anymore.

Yeah. People care. People often care. It's just me. I have to get over it. So yeah, people are still interested in this. And when you get feedback, for example, or we get somebody who actually says, Oh, I didn't know this Oh yeah. Okay. There is still value. And this excites me again about the small things, but it's a process to not. get bored by your own stuff. If you're a cook, or I don't know, you cook like spaghetti every day. Oh my God. How can people eat spaghetti? But if you only eat it once a month in a restaurant, it's totally different. Yeah, this other things that I need to remind myself of constantly that my knowledge or my experience is not the benchmark for others.

Roberto: Absolutely. And what I hear from you is More in general, not to discount ourselves, just because it's easy for us, maybe it's not easy for someone who has not done this 10, 100, or 1000 times, it still has value. on the contrary, this is easy for us. And we can share or teach or anyway, we can do it faster than other people who didn't do it yet.

Yeah, I see what you mean that, okay, it's easy. Let's do another thing. But this has still a ton of value. And then there is one more thing that I hear from you. You are doing things that for you, and I would like to quote Naval Ravikant here, who says what feels like play to you, but it's like work to others and in the sense of work, which is the opposite of play, because we know it's not opposite, but hear this from you that it's all play.

Said: just because something is easy to me or to you or to anybody in the audience, whatever your niche is, whatever your expertise is, does not mean that it's easy for others, sometimes it's just knowing where to start, knowing what's possible and knowing how to practice, getting the first kickstart, for certain, topics.

And then it becomes easy. Everything Is hard in the beginning I forgot how hard it was how does this whole thing work? I have no idea. And then after a few weeks, it's okay. I don't even know where to click or what to do anymore, because it's just muscle memory for a lot of things, we should constantly remind ourselves about, the value, of course, this is valuable for someone out there.

I sometimes do things that I said in the beginning they are silly, mostly in the middle of the night, like 2:00 AM In Europe, then I open a Miro board and then, oh, let me just do something. I don't know what I do, visuals or something, or open Figma, which is for, a designer.

I'm not a Figma expert. I said, oh, let me figure out how I could do something and combine something and create, I don't know, whatever it is, a meme or whatever it is, or I open OBS to entertain myself and as an exercise to not get bored by the things, right? Oh, let me figure out a new feature.

Oh, I saw somebody on YouTube doing something. How could I do it differently? often it's just for fun when I share it with people, I mostly share everything on LinkedIn. if somebody says, Oh, I could use this for this use case. Okay. I haven't even thought about the use case.

This was not about here is something that will help you in your life. But who am I to judge What you find valuable or what you could use for your work, your private life, whatever just sharing and maybe there is inspiration. I learned from that Oh, he or she would use this in this situation that gives me a use case to make it something more serious and useful.

I just start with playfulness for myself. And then, make it a fun thing. And Alpacas and a joke and all the things that I'm maybe known for. And then somebody gives me the feedback of, Oh, I did something similar, but I did it in this way. And we used it. Oh, that's nice.

No, I can go deeper in the rabbit hole. look for purpose. How can I delete all the silliness and make it something that people would use? Yes. It's a little bit of a reveal.

Roberto: You always start with play and then with curiosity. I'm curious about. What's the thing that excites you the most at this moment of your explorations?

Said: Oh, I'm not sure if there's just one thing that excites me the most. For me, it's more the sum of the small things. I'm often excited by a very small thing that I discover. Not oh, the big, huge thing and then bam, here's the excitement. It's a really small thing because it gives me a start for other things.

I saw something or heard something or read something. Oh, this excites me to get started. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh, I found a puzzle piece. Where's the rest of the puzzle? And so that's what excites me and how can I put things together, rather than, oh, there is one thing.

And as a geek, I always like when I explore tech tips from someone. Why didn't I know that? This is just something that's there for years again. Oh, let me go the rabbit, down the rabbit hole again for three, four, five hours of trying to do things. So yeah.

Roberto: Yeah. And connects with what you said in the beginning about you have an application, you have a software and you don't just take it out of the box as it is and use it, but always try to do, Oh, how can I do this better? How can I do this more? How can I change or tweak a little bit? And what can be the connection, the world of work of this idea?

Said: This is all work related, I think.

Roberto: Yeah.

Said: I think learning by exploring is way more valuable and to learn better than learning by teaching, right? If you figure out the solution yourself, or if you figure out a solution, it doesn't have to be the perfect one, but, oh, then you thought deeply about the problem.

You thought about, certain ways to, to solve it and to have maybe a creative outcome, a very serious solution for the task. Or I could just tell you one plus one equals two. If you try to figure it out yourself, okay, how does this one and one work? I don't know. So maybe there are ways I haven't thought about.

And then I think this makes the process easier because if you explore it yourself, we talked about, software when I discover a tool. sometimes it's free software, so nothing to lose, I download it, I explore myself.

I don't like to, or I will watch two hours of tutorials first to understand what, I don't care, I just, okay, let me break this thing, so what's the worst thing that can happen? then things pop out, and stuff happens, and then, try to figure out myself what I can do with it.

Then once I, It's like, I want to do this one thing and I have no idea how to do it and I start googling and with all the exploration I did by myself, plus the actual answer to something, this combined can bring a totally different outcome than if I started with a linear learning of how this tool works, here's where you click, here's this window, here's this window, but I discovered a window you didn't talk about.

And just give me. a solution for a problem I didn't have before. So just exploring by myself this also works, for work the same way try to figure out yourself. And if you can't I will give you a hint and we will get to a solution.

Maybe it takes longer. But the knowledge will stay longer you can apply it better if, if you thought, Oh, I discovered this, no, but I discovered this myself. I'm so proud. I found this button. Or if I tell you there's the button in two seconds.

Roberto: Okay. Yeah.

Said: I think it's a difference, right?

Again, the example with children, if you tell them, oh, you have to, the Legos have to be, like if you have this Lego Star Wars packages or whatever, where everything has to be in its place. I find this boring, right? or here it's just building bricks, build some, build a Lego Death Star yourself and they will find ways to do it. The first time it will not work and it will break and it will not look the way you want it to look maybe, but going by the manual, it's just following steps.

Roberto: Absolutely.

Said: Nothing against processors, but, just saying.

Roberto: You're not saying that it's one or the other.

what I hear from you is that if you put your, the effort and if you are investing this time and trying to make your own, then you can ask for help, of course. But if you have already the answer, you have to do A, B, C, that's it. I remember one thing that is called the Ikea effect, which means what you build yourself , you value it so much more. So it's the same Thing. I have one screen with my image so I can see if I'm centered or not. I did it myself, there are many online, of course, but I wanted to do it myself and it's mine. It's also a way to better understand the things and to make it yours.

Said: Definitely.

I literally have the same thing. It's called Rule of Thirds, right? How do I center myself On? I knew about the concept, but I saw it somewhere. I was reminded. Oh, I will sit down for half an hour. And create a thing.

I learned how to do things. I gained some skills that I didn't have before in designing something. I could add my touch to it and then it's mine.

Roberto: now that you said it, can you show it so people see it?

Said: Yeah. I'm hoping, I'm not breaking something, but let me quickly experiment. . wow. So as you can see, for me, I know what eyes and what shoulders are, but I even edit little labels so I know, okay, this is where my shoulders should be and this is where my eyes should be

Sometimes I even edit the head. I don't need a head, but I'm like, let me add something transparent that looks fun I don't need this little effect, but it was part of the creation. And then I share it with people. So if anybody said, oh, I like that or during my trainings or whatever, I would like to use that too.

You don't have to create things yourself. I have so much fun doing it for you. if you're someone who wants just a solution, okay. I like the process more than a solution. Sometimes I do things and then delete them afterwards because I enjoy the process of being creative so much.

I tried different iterations and my boards, look, oh, I will never share this how it looks. It's like a million different things and copy of copy and trying to, and then at the end, okay, done. No, I'm bored. I don't need this anymore. But the process of getting there, that was the most fun

Roberto: actually this makes me think of one thing. I'm a person who takes notes so much. I'm taking notes all the time. I think about all these notes that I never look anymore. And I say, what's the important thing? And one person, I did recently did a training and my coach in this training challenged me, and she said, Roberto, you are taking so many notes, but you are missing a point, maybe you are missing some of the session. You are not so engaged because you are taking so many notes. What is important you will get anyway. So take just a few notes, what's really very essential. And the rest will stay with you.

When you said that you created this, but then you deleted, that's also reminding me of this, because the important thing after you had the experience is already with you.

Said: Exactly. So just think for yourself. do I give you the solution or do you want to work on the solution? No, I just want to do it myself.

I like to take notes, to process things and then throw them away afterwards, that's the way I process things. That's the way I learn. That triggers an idea for something I haven't thought about while I'm doing this one thing. People, are different, luckily, where we are not all the same, whatever works best for you.

just try it. There is nothing you can do Wrong. if nobody asks you to do something you're doing just for yourself, there is no wrong way of doing It. if it's client work or somebody requests that you have structured notes

You probably do it differently, but if it's just for yourself, who cares how it looks, Let me be creative. Let me try out things. And then I use it.

Roberto: Because when they asked you to do it this way, I would challenge it a little bit because you can always add your little touch.

Everything can be at least a little bit personalized. It doesn't have to be the copy.

Said: And you know what? If you tell me how to do it, why do you need me? Then tell it to anybody. That's why you don't need me. What's my part in this? So you use chatGPT you could tell it what to do exactly, and it will give you the outcome you liked in 30 seconds.

But why do you want to work with me? Why do you want to me host a session? Why do you want me to do a training? Because I think different or maybe I have my certain touch to it. Maybe I have a certain playfulness. Maybe it's my brand. Maybe it's my personality. Maybe it's the way I don't know what it is, but why me?

If anybody can do it, I'm already bored. I'm not a fan of just doing the thing for the sake of having it done, if you come to me, then probably you want my expertise, or there's something you expect, let me do the thing.

Roberto: And when you say this, it came to my mind. I think maybe you heard that there is a TED talk about micromanagement, which there is a very important, crucial part when they say we hired amazing people and then crush their souls by telling them which fonts are used in the PowerPoint.

Said: Yeah, exactly. So we all have been there maybe. I remember no name calling, but I remember like meetings or 90 minute meeting of somebody telling me what to write on which PowerPoint. In the same time, you could have done it. Why am I sitting here? use your text to speech, or speech to text, and then you have the information.

You don't need me if you tell me every single step. The same is if, to the metaphor of going to a restaurant. I order pizza, or noodles, And I know which ones I want, but I don't follow you into the kitchen and say, take the other pan and do it that way. You are the professional.

I come to you because I know you have a skill, right? And then I know that the outcome surprised me. Maybe if it's even what I didn't expect, even better.

Roberto: Exactly. I went to a restaurant one day, it was Japanese. And we said, we have this budget, surprise us, we trust you, do your thing.

we chose to go to a Japanese. We didn't go to an Italian because we wanted to eat something. And this is exactly the frame. And this also goes into the, business world in the world of work. I have a colleague or teammate or my manager We have the frame and then we can play and Experiment.

of course we have to. achieve the goal, but we can achieve the goal in our own way. Into the process, we learn more even.

Said: It's different between how and what. it's okay to tell me the what, what do you need? But not the how. So as long as at the end, it's what you wanted or even more if I'm good at what I'm Doing.

that's all you need and leave the how to Me. that's my superpower, the how is my superpower, not the what.

Roberto: Absolutely. at the same time, I hear that you always look for feedback. You're not just, okay, I do my thing and this is it, you like it or not, but then you ask always for feedback.

What did you like? What was useful? And you're also surprised by the feedback what I heard sometime.

Said: I'm not sure I always ask for feedback, to be honest. But, I think people give feedback automatically sometimes. What I meant in the beginning is more, I share, and then whoever likes or is interested enough to spend two minutes writing a comment or feedback that's even more valuable than, oh, I asked you for feedback, now you have to come up with something.

And if you ask people after the training, I need feedback. Here's the form, fill it out with 10 questions, you will get answers. We will get feedback, but because I had to give feedback, the worst feedback is, if people don't even care enough to give you feedback, I don't care about this, I will not participate in the survey I just like to share things, and I know people will comment, will add something to it, positive or, room for improvement or negative, everything is welcome. I need to know for myself how I deal with it. Is this feedback or just an opinion? There's a huge difference between your opinion and your actual feedback towards what I'm doing. Seeing how people use things, that's also feedback.

If I show something and then somebody comes back to me and say, hey, look how I use the thing you shared the other day. Okay, that's feedback. It's not, oh, it was good or it was bad but this is what I created.

Roberto: Great

Said: feedback. Information.

Roberto: There is one thing saying that now that you said that I remember once that I sent you a photo some time ago, I sent the photo of my stream deck.

Oh yeah. I was so happy. I said, look, Said I bought this stream deck thanks to what you shared, and what you did is you took the photo and you did a meme or some joke out of that. It was amazing.

Said: Yeah, because that triggered my creativity So this was feedback I never asked for, but I get this a lot especially the geeky things when somebody sends me a picture of one of these things that, Oh, look, I bought this.

Okay. Why are you telling me this? But of course it's because, Oh yeah, I saw you talking about it or I'm part of the club and it's a proud moment. Okay. Awesome. Somebody spent 200 or euros because of my posts, buy something, maybe they didn't even understand fully. And that's, no offense.

I'm just saying some people, Oh, I trusted you enough in what you are sharing. So I bought it and I will figure it out later. Or, I would like you to explain to me, or we join one of your classes or something like this, this is awesome feedback. It's not about the, this is good. This is bad. This is what you can do better.

It's, I never asked for this and you spent money, you took the time to send me a picture and I have a lot of these picture, either this or people send me alpaca photos for some reason. It also happens a lot. whenever somebody sends me a photo of geeky things, here's my new camera.

Here's my microphone. Here's how my desk looks. This is. So awesome to me to just see this things. And this makes me happy. It's like a little love letters. Oh yeah. Thanks a lot for the message. Way better than any other written feedback.

Roberto: And say that you're talking about, and I'm conscious of the time by the way, because time flies.

Now you show the, Stream Deck, do you want to show any of these gadgets and tell the people who connected here what it is and what's about?

Said: So first of all, full disclosure or disclaimer, a tool is a tool. Don't think, oh, I saw all these streamers they have one of these, or they use this tool to do things.

They have a teleprompter, they have 12 lights, they have a yellow microphone, and if I buy these things will go automatically. This is not how it works. Tools is maybe the third part in the process. I want to quote, a colleague and friend who said it's connection first, then it's content, and I add, then it's the tools. So if you don't know how to connect with people on a human level, if you don't have your content, if you don't know what you're talking about, a stream deck will not add anything to, or a better camera will not add anything, the best microphone only picks up what you say.

If you don't know what to talk about, then it'll be just silence or weird things, but in good quality. , So just be aware of this tool, and I'm saying it as a geek, I really like tech, but, just how, which problem does it solve in the end? How can it make what I'm already doing, what I'm proficient, what I'm, excited about?

Even better. And one of my favorite tools, and I have two of them here, is an Elgato Stream Deck, which just allows me to do certain things, which is, I don't switch between cameras, for example, turn on and off certain things on my camera, mute myself in zoom, turn on my lights and turn off my lights.

There is a button for everything. if I have to start a session and I have everything on this buttons prepared, right? And I know where they are and they have colors and I know how to use this device.

When I'm doing my mirror workshop, for example, I press button one, which will do the screen sharing. Then I press button two, which will make my camera small and have my face. I don't know, in a, however, styled right on this one, we'll turn up and down my microphone volume, and then I have something else that will show these little things, we'll have a pop up somewhere that shows some additional information or hide it.

This is great for creating a flow and supports me. And the same for you, because now I can focus on you. I know when I want to mute myself, there's this big red button that I have to press. I don't need to care where the zoom window is. once I start fumbling,

I lose my confidence because I'm out of my comfort zone but if I have something like this, I can trust this little device that will support me with The basics that I need. And then there is a lot of very cool additional things that you can do.

That's one thing. I recommend people to at least take a look at something like this. If it's something that you think, Oh, I didn't know what it is. Let me dive deeper. At least understand what it is. if it's something for you, if you have the budget for it, and if it solves any of your problems, or maybe it solves problems you didn't even know you had.

Roberto: Exactly, because in my case, my use is completely different. I use it to open windows, I have one, one, one folder for each of my product inside the project. The links to the files that I use most, for example, if I'm going to prepare this, live, I have my folder with all the relevant things And again, it connects with what you said at the beginning about tinkering and experimenting and finding your own way, because there is no one solution.

Said: To do this. And once you start, I can tell you my use cases and some of them maybe also apply to you. We all need this one mute button because we all do this.

And how can I easily screen share? How can I keep track of things? How can I open tools in a safe time and prepare myself, What is your use case? Thank you. And then you can ask if you like, and I will happily share with you how I would do it or multiple ways to get creative, the other one, which I don't use today, I have it here, but it's different for the live stream is a teleprompter, which is up there.

So I could see your face and look through your face into my camera, maintaining eye contact, Streamers and broadcasters use this, but it works in zoom. It works everywhere. So whoever I'm talking to, and then look them straight in the face or in the eyes it's not like this the whole time.

Roberto: Yeah.

Said: Today I do it a lot because I'm on a LinkedIn live. It's a little bit different at the moment, but in general for my work, I use this all the time. So I know, or when I want to talk to people, I always look up automatically. The habit is there and I can see their faces.

Roberto: You're doing this because you care to invest money, time to have a better connection with the people because it's not about you. It's about how your message comes across and how can you engage with the people and not just looking at the other skin. You're not talking at the screen you're talking with another person.

Said: Exactly. This is just a medium, right?

It's just something, It happens that there is a screen between us where we are still humans, And, yeah, one last thing regarding that is. Start small, what's the one thing I could change? Change one thing, see how it works, get comfortable with it, and then you get bored by it, hopefully.

Okay, now I want to add the second thing. And by bored, I mean you just have the routine now, right? Okay, what else could I do? And then, how much more can I add until it's, not overwhelming and it supports me and adds value to the audience.

Roberto: Exactly. this is an example, because we have been talking almost all the conversation.

about connection and the content and the tools, absolutely.

Said: If you're doing it right, nobody will know which tools you're using. It's not about, hey, look, I talk about it because I also educate people in these tools,

for you as a facilitator, as a trainer, as a speaker, people shouldn't even know which tools you are using and it's magic. So who cares, right? just enjoy the moment and don't look behind the curtain

Roberto: Yeah, absolutely. I have one, one, first of all, one more question. How can people reach out to you or connect with you if they want to know more after this life?

Said: If you are not already, connected with me, please connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm here all day long. This is the best way to stay in touch with me, DM me, if you like.

If you want to know more about my work and things that are coming up, it's thefacilitainer. com where you can find, yeah, a few more resources that I share. if you find me on LinkedIn, then you found me, I think this is a great way to communicate and the rest will evolve from there.

Roberto: And I have one more question for you. if you had to choose one thing, what would you like to see more and less in the world?

Said: In general or about what we talked?

Roberto: What comes to your mind more and less?

Said: First of all, I think education in general, should be free and accessible to everybody.

There shouldn't be a barrier to education on the planet. I just want to see more access to knowledge, more access to free knowledge, more access to easy, digestible knowledge for everybody And the things that I would to see less to our topic is maybe less talking to people than with people and whatever that means.

We talk to people today, but still there are certain elements where I say, yeah, but we also talked with them because we try to interact with them the best we can in the circumstances. Yeah, just having more conversations rather than giving lectures.

Roberto: Absolutely. And you're an example of that, by the way.

Thank you very much. Same to you. I see the care and the little details and really. comes across as that you think that this is valuable and you respect yourself, the time of the people and everything. Thank you.

Said: Life is too short to spend it with boring and uninteresting things. So let's make the best out of it. Absolutely.

Roberto: Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you also for the people who's connected. Of course, we're a little bit out of time. Thank you for being there. Thank you for interacting with us. It was very fun, actually, the experiment of doing it live.

So thanks again and a great afternoon, evening or morning, depending on your time zone.

Said: See you very soon.

Roberto: Bye.

Where to find Said and his work

• LinkedIn

• TheFacilitainer