Tips For Sex Educators Attending Retreats And Festivals | Facebook Live With Reid And Friends
Reid: Is Monique’s on? Three, two, one…
Monique: Hi guys!
Reid: Hey everybody! It’s Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/ and today is white sex educator day on Facebook live where we’ve amassed a bunch of cisgendered white sex educators for your loving enjoyment.
Monique: Well, we just happen to be in the same place.
Reid: We did. We were but I had that I have to I have to acknowledge these things ‘coz my viewers are like “hey, we’re are the people of color.” And today would…. their someplace else.
Monique: Yeah
Reid: They’re not here today but we all just got back from Soul Play Festival
Monique: Today
Reid: and I have…and I have my new friend Ashley Apple.
Ashley: Hello everyone.
Reid: Who’s hot…
Monique: She’s my old friend, Ashley Apple
Reid: Yeah, you two know each other better and then I don’t know who’s that behind us but
Peter: It’s a…It’s a weird person
Reid: Very, very weird, very weird.
Peter: My name is Peter by the way.
Reid: So where are you all from like give people because they have web browsers open and after ready so Ashley, where do people find you? You’ll do that first.
Ashley: Hi everyone. Well right now I’m in the Bay Area so local with Reid as well although I’m about to go on a year-long international traveling tour so I may be coming to your country or your state soon and you can find me on https://ashleyapple.com/.
Reid: I’m going to put my I’m going to put my phone near Monique so we’ll talking
All: There we go.
Ashley: It’s like
Monique: And for those of you that are watching in my community, Ashley is going to come start doing her travels in our different communities. So D.C., San Diego, and Asheville we’re going to have some Ashley Apple in the next year. I’m very excited but you can…I’m Monique Darling and you can find me at http://whereintheworldismoniquedarling.com/
Reid: And Peter where…what about you?
Peter: And I am Peter Petersen at http://awakenbodyandsoul.com/ all spelled out A and B soul.com
Reid: Cool and then everybody I’m Reid from https://reidaboutsex.com/ and http://www.sexgeeksummercamp.com/. So we all got back from Soul Play and http://www.soulplayfallfest.com/ which is and Soul Play is having
Monique: Thank you Romi
Reid: Thank you Romi and everybody who made Soul Play happen but there’s going to be a fall version of Soul Play that so you might want to go to http://www.soulplayfallfest.com/ and check out when the fall situations going on but we wanted to share some tips ‘coz it was it was fun and arduous this year. So what do we got, what tips do we got? It was cold.
Ashley: It was cold.
Reid: It was rainy
Monique: So always bring many, many layers and be prepared for everything like it could be bring blankets, bring layers of clothes and don’t forget your suitcase at home.
Peter: There’s a tip
Reid: There’s a tip
Ashley: Hey
Reid: Yeah, I know that was me. I forgot my suitcase and I…and I Facebook live earlier this morning before my battery ran out and we’re talking about my suitcase and they were like “oh, your poor suitcase.” But my…one of my tips was when you design your workshops, can you teach them if you had nothing like if you’re if your luggage got lost or if you’re like me and you just leave it, or you put it in a car like do you could you teach a workshop with nothing and then kind of reverse engineer from there to make it more powerful and then the piece I talked about this morning was just like self-care tips so that when it comes time for you to teach, you’re well-rested and….and warm hopefully
Monique: Yeah
Reid: like so what kind of self…you had a good one with…with the
Ashley: I had a really good festival tip. I don’t know if this will put every festival but I…I had 300 feet of extension cord and a space heater and I dragged that through the woods into my tent and I will say that I was safety oriented. I wrapped the extension cord around a tree that was right by my tent so in case someone did trip on the cord in the middle of the night, it would just yank on the tree and not on my heater and therefore burn me down to the ground. So
Reid: Got it.
Ashley: I was…I would warm and toasting.
Reid: So, so they would fall they would fall on the woods while you just
Ashley: Well, I also…I also put the cord underneath rocks and branches and I you know
Reid: So you hit it?
Ashley: I did. I hit it.
Peter: She’s like Rambo.
Reid: Yeah, she was like the Rambo spacers
All: Hahaha
Monique: I love it Ashley
Reid: Alright.
Ashley: I was warm.
Reid: Now Monique and Peter
Monique: Yeah
Reid: you two travel the world, you’ve been to Scotland and…and Europe for other festivals so….so
Monique: Well, we’re going to Scotland
Peter: We’re going to Scotland
Reid: Okay.
Monique: We have been to Sweden.
Peter: Yes
Reid: So do you have
Monique: Yeah
Reid: Do you have international festival travel tips?
Monique: Well, it counts for both.
Reid: Okay.
Monique: I mean I could come up with one of those but what I wanted to share is for I, especially workshop facilitators, if you’re teaching in a lot of festivals make sure that you do what you need to for self-care and because people get burned out or you get tired like if you’re at a festival’s space that’s naturally cold, you stay up late and then you’re teaching the last two days, you have to make sure that you’ve taken care of your body and it’s the same thing for participants just at a different level and so it’s being able to walk through the trees, it’s going and sitting by the creek,
Ashley: Yeah.
Monique: it’s bringing blankets, it’s making sure that in between the workshops that you’re just not like “oh, it’s the festival, I only have four days” which it can often feel like but let go of some of the things and just really listen to your body so you can enjoy the things that you do choose. And that’s what I’ve seen over and over again at festivals is people just go, go, go, go, go and then they burn themselves out.
Reid: Yeah.
Peter: That was exactly what I was going to say integration time. Get into nature
Ashley: Yes
Peter: Go to the river, there’s like rivers and rocks and trees usually at these places like in Sweden, Monique found a fairy forest where she
Monique: It’s amazing
Peter: got to connect with these fairies and we have like the most amazing time in-between classes and so many people think like “oh, I got to go class, class, class, class.” It’s like no
Monique: There’s a fairy mansion. It’s like sponge of green and the fairies were just standing all around.
Reid: All of my skeptics are now just….they’re just running away from this video. Whatever your belief system, take care of yourself.
Peter: That’s right. Exactly.
Reid: That means visiting the fairy mansion is there like a fairy air bee and bee as well?
Monique: It is.
Reid: Yeah.
Ashley: I’m sure.
Monique: All the fairies come.
Reid: I know that one night, the final night when they were doing the big the big dance and music, I just was so burnt out. I just stayed in bed.
Monique: Yeah.
Reid: And…and ate it was my cheat day so I ate cookie dough in bed
Monique: Oh
Reid: but I could hear the music so it was really great but like it was hard for me because I had fomo, I wanted to go
Ashley: Yeah
Reid: see everybody
Ashley: Yeah
Reid: but at the same time like I knew I needed to take care of myself because
Monique: Yeah
Reid: I’ll I leave in a couple of days for another festival for Intimacy Fest with Dave Booda
Monique: Yeah
Reid: And then you
Monique: And we’re flying to London tonight.
Reid: You’re flying to London tonight.
Monique: So it’s imperative for facilitators.
Reid: What about…what about travel tips like what do you …what any travel tips for the sex educators and…and muggles out there?
Monique: Bring something from home with you. For me, what I figured out is that I need to carry
Reid: Suitcase, bring your suitcase from home with you.
Monique: Yes, that too. But you bring something with you that feels like home so even when you’re on the road then you feel like you have something to recharge and for me it was a smoothie bag. So I bring everything including a little blender so that I know that I’m covered on food needs if I can’t find anything else.
Reid: Yeah
Monique: and it just helps me have that comfort that like it took so much worry off my mind when I started bringing that smoothie bag.
Reid: Nice. Peter, what about…what about you Ashley?
Peter: Oh god. Ashley, you go and I’ll have one.
Ashley: Okay, so I’m an herbalist and I believe heavily in the powers of natural medicine so I always travel always with my immune boosters even if I’m not feeling sick, especially if I’m not feeling sick I have my Echinacea, my golden seal elderberry, I have ginger, I bring little sachets of my favorite tea, I also bring earplugs and eye mask. I think earplugs and eye masks are
Peter: Huge, huge
Ashley: essential for the plane, for the bus, for a festival if it’s loud
Reid: Yeah
Ashley: So yeah, I would say immune boosting supplements even if it’s just vitamin C, just bring some vitamin C that will help.
Peter: Green smoothie mixers is what I always bring. I have like a bunch of that stuff
Ashley: Alkalize
Peter: Alkalize big time
Ashley: Alkalize your blood.
Monique: You…you is moving your body like that’s why you remind me every single day it’s like let’s get out especially if it’s a travel day then move your body on the plane, move your body as soon as you like stop along the way if you’re driving, if you’re in the bus and then
Peter: Just making sure you’re getting some sort of circulation into your blood system because it’s very, very important.
Monique: And it’s important to have an ongoing movement practice like you if you’re traveling all the time, it’s really hard to get to the gym, it’s really hard to be able to have “oh, I work out at the eight o’clock in the morning.” So wherever you are then you find ways and that’s what Peter is great at is being able to say “oh, look there’s a park, there’s something let’s go do a pull-up” like he was doing pull-ups at the festival on his little bar and he was across the tree.
Peter: And that bar was freezing by the way, god.
Reid: Don’t put
Ashley: It snowed in June in California yesterday.
Monique: It is snowing.
Ashley: As we were packing up, it was snowing.
Reid: It was…it was also at elevation. It was very
Peter: It was 4,000. It was 4,000 ft.
Ashley: Yeah. It’s cold
Monique: What about you honey, what’s your travel tip?
Reid: Well, I mean I think the big travel tips for me aside from don’t forget your suitcase is
Monique: And I’ve tried that one too.
Reid: What…what can you do what can you learn about yourself if you’re doing back-to-back gigs to make to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself? So for me, if I’m gone I know that I can go out on the road for two weeks which is really easy for Allison and I. If I’m gone three weeks then Allison we joke about this but Allison starts painting rooms’ different colors in our apartment. Isn’t that right honey?
Allison: Maybe
Reid: She’s upstairs she’s like “maybe” but when I come home
Monique: I love you, Allison.
Reid: when I come home I don’t feel like I’ve landed and then can recharge and go back out again unless I’m home for like three days because I’ve done a couple of 24-hour turnarounds and…and I what I learned was it’s better for me to just not come home if I’m only going to be home for 24 hours
Monique: Yeah
Reid: And…and so what I’ll do then is I’ll just book an extra day in a hotel or wherever I’m at and hide from everybody
Ashley: Yes.
Reid: take all my vitamin C and take baths and…and watch some Netflix or something like try to not do anything and recharge as much as I can but if I can come home and if I can get three days in, then I can go back out for another two or three weeks and that was hard for me to learn because I’d never I didn’t know I needed that kind of turnaround and I didn’t know what my sweet spot was because I used to go out for like a month and then I learned for me the months are too long.
Ashley: You…you don’t know your sweet spot? Sorry
Reid: I’ll show you later. I can’t reach it. I can’t reach my own sweet spot.
Peter: His hands are full right now.
Reid: That’s my….that’s my toys…toys. Professional tools create professional results.
Ashley: Travel with your favorite toy.
Monique: Yes, yes. I love that
Reid: Last
Ashley: And that’s I think I remember that was a problem for you this festival you forgot…
Reid: I didn’t have my toys
Ashley: he didn’t have his toys
Reid: because I left my suitcase so
Peter: Yeah, so create space in you travel
Monique: I remind toy in my purse. So and so [Inaudible 00:10:01]
Reid: Yup that your toy is Peter. So the last but not the least
Peter: Who told my secret?
Reid: Last but not the least, first off, last but not the least Monique has more viewers than I do right now so I have envy so
Monique: So you have envy then?
Reid: so can the people who are watching on my channel can you just hit the emoticon a couple of times just to make some hearts go.
Monique: We love Reid.
Ashley: blow some kisses, blow some kisses.
Reid: and then I’ll feel…I’ll feel better. I’m having performance anxiety here now ‘coz
Monique: But what if there’s no hearts?
Reid: If there’s no hearts then no one loves me. No one loves me here it’s going to come oh!
All: Yay!
Peter: Hallelujah
Ashley: They’re happening everywhere. Everybody is loving.
Reid: See but now you have hearts too now. I’m back to the same part of it. Man.
Monique: Nobody put hearts on mine.
Reid: Yeah, you’ve got a blast of hearts.
Ashley: You’ve got a blast of hearts.
Reid: Alright, last but not least because my video is aimed for sex educators and workshop facilitators
Ashley: Okay
Reid: We covered some tips for being you know rested for when you teach but any business advice for…for when you teach like obviously we’ve got email signup lists and things like that business cards or I do stickers and sell t-shirts but you’ve got your book so first up where….where can people find your book?
Ashley: My book is called the Kama Sutra Kitchen so if you want recipes to make your orgasms feel even more potent, more strong, more powerful, who doesn’t want that check it out and you can get it on Amazon just Google the Kama Sutra Kitchen or go to Amazon.
Reid: Okay, cool.
Ashley: Thank you
Reid: So, so oh you’re welcome. So any business advice for when you’re teaching at a festival?
Monique: Well, I
Ashley: Lots
Monique: yeah it’s really encouraging having something that people are excited to go to your website and sign up because I’ve done email lists and if you’re going to have someone fill in the email list then what Ashley and I we’re talking about is having block letters like right the first couple really…really legibly and remind people to do it legibly because I would go to a bunch of festivals and you couldn’t even read half of the email list.
Reid: Yeah.
Monique: So what I found is even better is to be able to offer people a free gift, give them cards so they can go to your website and sign up themselves.
Peter: Also have an iPad and just have them type it in right there
Ashley: Yes. Ah!
Peter: And then it’s just like boom!
Monique: If you have Wi-Fi
Reid: Yeah, if…if there’s Wi-Fi there.
Monique: ‘Coz we didn’t know if we have Wi-Fi there
Ashley: We didn’t have Wi-Fi this weekend
Reid: Yeah
Ashley: so I had to do the sign-up sheets. One thing that I also highly recommend for those of you out there who are looking to build is that at the end when people come up to you and there’s always going to be a handful of people that really resonated with you and they want to work with you, maybe they want a session, if you do private coaching don’t just say “great, send me a message later” like if you have the ability, literally pull out a calendar or whether it’s your phone or whatever and say would you like to set something up right now and then you’ve got them right then and there and it’s so much better than waiting for them.
Reid: Just [Inaudible 00:12:33]
Ashley: Yeah and you get to help them sooner too.
Reid: And then and then I don’t really do this but you…you do sometimes you do sessions when you’re on the road
Monique: I do
Ashley: Yeah, I do too.
Reid: one-on-one sessions so these are like do you
Monique: I do like one in a day.
Reid: Do you sell those act like you tell people that you’re booking them after or do you try to pre-book your sessions before you arrive at a festival or an event?
Peter: No
Ashley: It depends on the venue if it’s a place I’ve been before and people already know I’m coming and they want to work with me, they’ll pre-booked.
Monique: Yeah.
Ashley: I don’t really ask….I don’t sell it like people come up to you and say “wow, can I work with you?” Or I might mention I have room for two more sessions while I’m in town and then someone will come up and say “I want it.”
Monique: ‘Coz I used yeah, I used to advertise too but now there’s always people waiting.
Reid & Ashley: Yeah.
Monique: Especially in a festivals I almost say hey, we’re offering if…if we are sometimes we won’t offer sessions
Ashley: Yeah
Monique: If we are, we’ll say “hey, we’re offering and then have people come booked”
Reid: Got it.
Ashley: Yeah
Monique: as our time and their time permits.
Reid: The thing that I do but again it only works with Wi-Fi when I’m speaking to college audiences, I have a link that they can go to and just sign up on their phones so I’ll have them take out their phones and then I also ask them to take a photograph and then post it on social media.
Ashley: How do you do that?
Monique: Well, how do you do that too?
Ashley: How do you word it? How do you say “hey guys put your phones right now and post it for me.”
Reid: Oh, well what I do in the beginning is so I’ll model a couple different things but this…this is more for college audiences but this could work at a festival too.
Ashley: Okay
Reid: You can tell everybody “okay, so here’s the deal and this is what college audience’s work really well like I don’t mind if you have your phones up. I know your teachers yell at you for having your phones out so I want you to all take your phones up right now and take a picture of me so you can put it on social media and tell all your friends to stay away from this guy.” It’s creepy like I make it a joke and then I get them likes and that’s usually when I whip out like a huge you know rainbow dildo or something and…and a Vulva puppet and then everyone takes their…their phones out, takes a picture
Ashley: Right.
Reid: and I tell them that they can you know put it on social media and then I say and if you want to be on my email list, then if you want to do it right now go to https://reidaboutsex.com/ and then for sex educators what I would say is https://reidaboutsex.com/sexgeekpro and then go right there and then sign up right now while I’m teaching and then that way I can email you more things as we go along and then I’ll remind them about that link at the end and I’ll encourage them for the kind of teaching I do to take pictures as much as they want. Now in certain venues or certain festivals that the privacy policies no photos
Monique: Yeah
Reid: obviously you wouldn’t do that
Ashley: Right
Reid: and if you didn’t have Wi-Fi you couldn’t send them to that link
Ashley: Nope
Reid: so you have to go like old you know email version for the sign-ups.
Peter: You can have them open up a memo pad on their phone or on your iPad and just have them type in their information right in there.
Monique: Yeah we’ve done that before too.
Reid: With…with an iPad?
Peter & Monique: Yeah
Reid: Okay
Monique: Or with our phone so just
Reid: Yeah
Monique: people open the memo pad, type in your name, your address so we can look you up on Facebook later.
Peter: Yeah
Reid: Cool. Yeah, that’s good so again like those are little like tech hacks that you can use to get people to get on your email lists. Another thing that I do which I’ll email Romi later today from Soul Play is I have a whole article about decompression and re-entry
Monique: It’s a really good article for you guys
Reid: like just tips for how to handle a retreat hangover or festival hangover
Monique: Yeah
Reid: and then I’ll promote on social media that article link and then try to have the organizers promoted as well or retweet it
Ashley: U-huh that’s right
Reid: and then there’s a there’s a field there for people to sign up as well but also I’m just always trying to give people tools to help them handle whatever it is that they just experienced, whether it was my energetic sex workshop or something like that and thank you for being our demo
Monique: Yeah
Reid: the other day for that.
Monique: That was awesome honey.
Reid: so it’s more like…like how do you give people resources to follow up while at the same time helping you know helping your own business so that you can go to a festival who maybe can’t afford to pay you but you know how you’re going to make money later.
Monique: Can we end with that?
Reid: Yeah
Monique: Can we end running some energy because we have all of these energetic
Reid: Oh
Monique: yummy people and we all be each other energetic sex then.
Reid: Hey, we’re only going to run energy if you all hit a bunch of emoticons right now.
Monique: Reid wants more emoticons
Ashley: Hearts and kisses
Reid: So, let’s see what we got.
Peter: I remember, this is the late, am I take a couple of seconds?
Reid: Here comes…that’s what I tell all my lovers. Okay, here it comes. Here…here it comes
Ashley: One
Monique: Oh there they go. There they go.
Reid: Oh, there’s one. Make it rain. Make it rain everyone.
Peter: Oh my god.
Monique: There you go
Reid: Alright, alright. Who’s going to play with my energy?
Monique: Oh, we can play with each other here we go.
All: Ah. Ha ha ha.
Reid: Oh, I feel…I feel self-conscious right now. Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow
Monique: And they feel wonder what’s happening. Where can they find out about energy sex on your website Reid?
Reid: They can go to https://reidaboutsex.com/enegysex and that should do it. Ah!
Monique: Ah!
Reid: Wah. Wah. Wah.
Monique: Oh, we’re all good at playing you know honey.
Reid: Alright. That’s enough.
Monique: Thanks for joining us guys.
Reid: Get a room Facebook. Bye, everyone!
Monique: We love you.
Reid: Thank you, everyone.