Tips On Designing A Powerful Sex Positive Workshop

by Reid on May 9, 2021

Tips On Designing A Powerful Sex Positive Workshop

 

 

 

 

 

Cathy: Reid can you give us some tips on designing a powerful workshop?

Reid: Nope! Nope! Nope! Nope! Cathy Vartuli from http://theintimacydojo.com/

Cathy: Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/

Reid: However, I can teach you things and give you ideas maybe they occur to you as tips

Cathy: Okay

Reid: Or maybe they are just nonsense. I am Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/ but also the creator of  http://www.sexgeeksummercamp.com/ and judging from this question sounds like it’s a design studio question.

Cathy: Yes.

Reid: Which is a three-day workshop where we’re going to geek out on workshop design and different ideas around how you create content.

Cathy: Well, I really love how you’ve helped me with a couple workshops that I run and I. We all run classes a lot not problem but just a few tweaks you made you suggested that I followed, really changed to engage in the class it made a huge difference and if you’re like me it’s so much about making a difference. I don’t want to just teach to teach, I want to teach to change lives and then there were couple things that I did and I was like wow! This looks like sunk it so much deeper and then like in the same amount of time, same amount of effort but it just brings such a bigger impact and I still have people texting me for I was traveling at that time. People are still texting me and asking me when are you going to come back?

Reid: What do you remember what those tweaks were? Because I don’t, don’t remember things well.

Cathy: It was part of it was the flow that you suggested you had me changed the flow around to let people get a little more comfortable because a lot of times when people first come to a class they’re like and I teach a lot of things for shy people but I think anyone if they’re stretching their comfort zones can feel overwhelmed. So you had me do some specific exercises to get them to know each other and just step in to the class and make the space safe.

Reid: Yeah.

Cathy: So that and I hadn’t been doing that because I tend to be shy and I don’t want to make shy people uncomfortable. So I hadn’t been doing that and when I invited them to do it, I think all but one person participated and that person was just like no I’m going to stay here quietly and then okay but the whole room energy changed around it.

Reid: Yeah, I think and thank you for sharing the stuff that you shared. So one thing from this example that I would just say that a lot of workshop facilitators don’t do is a lot of us our teachers and educators but, but we’re not necessarily learning nerds around how people learn.

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: And a lot of us aren’t facilitation nerds and how to facilitate getting people to a space where they can learn better. And, and those two things actually influence how you design workshops and how you present the information that you give to people. So if you know how to get an audience into a good headspace and to feel connected so that they’ll open up and be more vulnerable and if you know how to kind of position and weave your information so that it’s easier for them to understand and implement and remember then then you’re just a better teacher and this is getting clear about what those things are for you.. is like starts to become the how you design a workshop and you know everybody.. you can have your own versions of it but I think there are some core principles that are really useful like you can build a house to look a lot of different ways but you need support walls.

Cathy: Yes.

Reid: Houses work better when the foundations level.

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid:  Kind of things where houses work better when there’s a door at least one door in to a house, right? And.. and again like I’m being corny but I think in workshops and then workshop designing, curriculum designing and delivering deliverability, there are some foundational principles that can look different yeah but underneath is still the same and when you when you line all those up to work really well together then it’s almost like user design, right? Were your attendees are having an experience that just helps them learn better.

Cathy: Yeah, it just sinks in better

Reid: Yeah

Cathy: In a really powerful way.

Reid: So.. so taking the time which feels like, “oh my god! I only have 90 minutes” why would I take 15 minutes to get my audience to share why they’re there and to talk to each other? Well, the reason is they will remember your workshop better.

Cathy: But also, one of the questions you had them.. I had.. you had me shared and mind people to share was, why are you here? And a lot of people like they mainly know why they’re there but if they articulated to each other, one I hear what you’re I here for  might be “oh, that too”. But also it helps me to get clear on what I want and that helps me actually absorb it like it just it’s it really made a difference for what people got out and then I ask them to popcorn share where you also suggested that and I had a better idea because I had had I was this one place I was going to teach they hadn’t had a class like before in.. in that topic and I was ready to like go for sex for the shy and awkward and they’re like they could barely say the word flirt as they were going around they’re like. Okay, let’s just cheat you like let’s ratchet this back a little bit they’re going to they’re not going to be able to absorb this really well if I go right in deep first.

Reid: Yeah. And.. and little things about you know how not to overwhelm your audience most of us teach too much too fast like we’re forcing our audiences to drink from the fire hose

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: of our “geekiness” and.. and again that that doesn’t help them learn you might impress them with your vast amount of knowledge but if they can’t learn anything what you risk is at some point they think either they’re broken or your information sucks and especially around sex and intimacy with so many people already feeling broken.

Cathy: Yeah.

Reid: Why would you want to do that? And why would you want to impress people and then have them eventually think that your content doesn’t work? And then they stop coming to your workshops where what you can impress people with is how quickly you change their lives.

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: And what a deep impact you make?

Cathy: When they go through their life carrying the new information with them

Reid: Yeah and then so there’s some ideas on how to create frameworks that help people remember and implement your information which when you like the safer sex elevator speech or the difficult conversation formula are things of mine, the difficult conversation formula is so easy and powerful for folks to use that they end up recommending it to everybody else

Cathy: Yeah

Reid: I’ve had I’ve had people who found the difficult conversation formula recommend it to their therapists to use with other clients and then gotten thank-you notes from therapists saying thank you for creating this module one of my clients you know shared this with me and I.. now I recommend it to everybody. So imagine if your workshops were filled with those little modules that then everybody who takes your workshop then goes and shares with everybody else a particular module or shares with their therapist, your module which is now helping more people but also getting more people to come to your future workshops.

Cathy: Yes

Reid: So again like I’m this is me nerding out on this stuff but if you want to spend three days going deep with this stuff that whole design studio weekend is just me sharing all of the stuff that I do.

Cathy: And where can they go to find more information?

Reid: They can go to https://reidaboutsex.com/designstudio

Cathy: Yeah, great.

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