Dr. Myriam Hadnes, Founder of Workshops Work, shares her journey from academia to entrepreneurship and the creation of her companies NeverDoneBefore.org and Workshops.Work. She discusses the challenges she faced in transitioning to entrepreneurship and the importance of building a community and creating a safe space for collaboration. Myriam also explains her facilitation agency model and the value of investing in branding and design. She emphasizes the power of understanding human behavior and communication in facilitating workshops and building successful businesses.
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πTALKING POINTS
06:39 Creating a Safe Space for Collaboration
10:14 Building a Community and Overcoming Challenges
13:10 Transitioning to a Facilitation Agency Model
25:54 Overcoming Obstacles and Negotiating Deals
27:57 Investing in Branding and Design
30:01 Understanding Human Behavior and Communication
πCONNECT WITH DR. MYRIAM
πCONNECT WITH TOM
Tom Finn (00:01.016)
Welcome, welcome my friends. Today we are learning from Dr. Myriam Hadnes. Myriam, welcome to the show.
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Myriam Hadnes (00:07.534)
Hi Tom, thank you for having me.
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Tom Finn (00:09.72)
Well, thank you for being on the show with us today. Can't wait to spend some time with you. And if you don't know Myriam, let me, um, take a moment and just introduce you to her. She is driven by a vision to create an ecosystem for facilitators. She wants to help people leverage the impact of their work, uh, through community and collaboration and co -creation and working together and all of those wonderful things that we really want to see in the world. She holds a PhD in behavioral economics and a master's in sociology which is pretty cool, but she also founded two companies, NeverDoneBefore.org and Workshops .Work, which I think technically makes her an entrepreneur. So well done to you. Let's start right there. What led you to pivot from academia to founding a couple of different companies?
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Myriam Hadnes (00:57.87)
Thank you. At one point I realized that the public sector was just too small for me. It was this moment, well, politics kicked in to the public sector. I was in the strategy department and my office was replaced by McKinsey. So this was maybe the moment to reflect, am I still at the right place? And...
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Tom Finn (01:20.984)
Yes.
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Myriam Hadnes (01:27.886)
While waiting for them to find a new position for me, I realized that I actually don't thrive in an environment where every time I come with a new idea, the answer is, well, no. Let's keep it as it is. This is maybe a little bit too experimental. So I quit my job because I thought they will fire me and they didn't and moved to Amsterdam.
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And first I thought that I wanted to find a job in⦠in the HR sector and organizational development, something like that. But then having had a career in academia, HR just couldn't do anything with my CV. So I really didn't fit in any of the boxes. So I started to reinvent my life. I started hosting some meetups that I called idea parties. So I invited people to join, bring a question. Bring a challenge, we'll brainstorm on solutions, have a couple of beers and you will leave with new friends and new ideas. And doing that, suddenly people started to ask me questions about workshop facilitation, designing workshops, asked me to facilitate their sessions. And yeah, in this bubble, I then realized that this is really what I enjoy doing and realized that you can also make money out of it.
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So my first step was actually into freelancing as a freelance facilitator. But funny enough, and I didn't even knew that before, funny enough, I always listened to the podcasts that were all about solopreneurship and entrepreneurship and digital marketing. And so in the back of my mind, there was all this knowledge and all this kind of curiosity of how to build an online business. So the freelance work was just, I think, a way to get into the cool stuff.
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Tom Finn (03:44.728)
So how did you take the first step? Because that's really hard to do. I mean, going from, hey, I'm looking for a job in HR, which great, those are, those can be great roles, but you didn't fit in the box. You were a square peg in a round hole. And then you said, oh, I'm confident enough to just meet strangers and buy a couple of beers and hang out and see what they say. How did you make that leap?
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Myriam Hadnes (03:44.878)
Long answer. I think my real superpower is that I underestimate the complexity of things. And I'm always a little bit too, oh, hell yes, let's try that. So back then, I was reading the Harvard Business Review and finding all this inspiration on how we could, in a perfect world, work together and encourage our employees. And I was listening to all the podcasts, how easy it can be to build an online business. I was a big fan of Pat Flynn, who basically on his podcast shared that you can build a business around anything, even around fly fishing, even if you don't know anything about fly fishing. So I think it was just sufficient naivete and underestimation of the complexity that let me just lean in combined with a huge anxiety of what am I doing with all that?
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Tom Finn (05:13.752)
Yeah, you've got a lot of time when you leave academic world and you're looking for a gig and thinking about what you want to do next. All you have is time. So the fear was really curbed. It was curbed though, Myriam, by having this push within you to meet some people and do something, because sitting at home wasn't going to play out well. So it was that social feeling or need that got you out of the house and got you to do this.
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Myriam Hadnes (05:23.118)
Yeah, and that's scary. Definitely. So I moved from, I lived for three years in Vietnam. From Vietnam, went to Luxembourg, suffered a severe reverse culture shock because Luxembourg is just the smallest country in Europe. And after Hot Shimon City was quite impressive and then moved and there only worked. So I didn't really build a social network. And from there I moved to Amsterdam where I literally didn't know anyone. So I would⦠go to meetups a lot just to meet other people and to get a little bit of inspiration. And I had the impression that in Amsterdam, everyone is a solo printer. Everyone is some sort of a coach or an entrepreneur. And then just hanging out with them and seeing how others do it, I realized that all I have to do is to post an event on the platform and find a space in my coworking space.
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Tom Finn (06:39.096)
So it really is that easy. You just host an event and find a space at a coworking space, invite some beautiful people. And then what do you talk about? Well, how do you get people to communicate differently or feel welcome and warm or sort of unpack their own baggage so that we can have an open dialogue?
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Myriam Hadnes (06:58.638)
Thank you. And I think that's something that I have learned. So I've learned to facilitate without even knowing that facilitation was a thing. So the first time I heard the term facilitator was in Priya Parker's book. And this was after I started my company, actually. And before that, I was a researcher in behavioral economics. So I run experiments to measure the impact of to measure human behavior and run experiments on what creates trust amongst humans or how can we create environments where people become more reciprocal.
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So studying this part of human behavior and group dynamics really taught me people behave in groups and what makes them trust each other and what makes them give back when they receive. And I think this mindset that I have nurtured as an academic, I brought them into my work as a facilitator that I kind of knew what it takes to create the safe space without having, without even be conscious about it. And I think what creates the safe space with strangers is to really be authentic and not make a big deal out of it. So it wasn't anything but perfect. So people would come, they bring a challenge, because that was the thing. I would distribute sticky notes and then invite them for five minutes to talk about the challenge they brought. And then I said, okay, now you stop, I put the time timer on and now we just, everyone throws out questions, only questions allowed. No one answers the questions, but the different questions will allow us to learn about different perspectives about the challenge and allow the person who is in the hot seat to reflect about it and maybe potentially see some blind spots.
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So this was a fun activity where everyone pitched in and it was totally safe because we didn't put anyone on the spot. Nobody had to answer the questions. So we could be very straightforward and very explicit. So everyone wrote down the questions on their sticky notes and then handed them over to the person who was in the hot seat. And then it was the next one. And from that, I then designed, I realized that, oh, maybe that can be overwhelming to have all these questions. So I created a little workbook that people would then receive so that they can structure and work through the questions on a daily basis. And all of that I did, I think, out of curiosity, boredom, and the curiosity of what happens if we do that and how can I actually hack the system and make it easier to learn from strangers.
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Tom Finn (10:13.944)
So all of that makes sense. It all makes sense. The questions, putting people on the hot seat, those types of things. But how do you, how did you feel confident that you would actually have more than one person show up? Whenever I feel like doing a meetup or something like that, I always feel like I'm going to show up. Nobody else is going to show up. I'm going to be the only guy standing there or worse. One person's going to show up. And then I'm super embarrassed that I'd rather have nobody show up to my party.
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Myriam Hadnes (10:35.79)
One shows up. Yes. Yes.
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Tom Finn (10:42.616)
Than one person, like, where's everybody else? Well, excuse me, you and me tonight? You know, I don't want to play that game. How do we avoid that? How do we get a group that really wants to join us at these events?
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Myriam Hadnes (10:48.622)
100%. And to be very honest, so I started in the coworking space where I went to the desk without even knowing what I would do there. And I advertise at first at the, at the, at the coworking space so that they would join. So the first ones, and then I took pictures and I think quite early even I, I hired a professional photographer to take pictures so that at least it looks professional. And then, so I didn't make any money, but I would spend money for it to look professional because then it's easier to advertise it and people would take me seriously. And then really, yeah, talk to friends and invite friends of friends and I didn't really charge for it. So the first ones were exciting and people actually did show up.
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And then I thought, oh, perfect. I can make this a thing. I can have full-day events. And then I learned that the name of this actually masterminds. I want to create a business. I want masterminds. And this was then the moment where suddenly I started to charge and then nobody showed up. Or as you said, one person showed up. Yeah, definitely the worst because then it's a coaching session and I'm not a coach. How can you brainstorm with one person? It's not.
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Tom Finn (12:08.394)
Ah! Not going to work. That's the I'm terrified of this. So what did you charge? Myriam, you got to tell me what did you charge?
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Myriam Hadnes (12:22.574)
Yes, and I think that honestly, I think. Oh, I started with five euros, then I did pay as you want, which was the worst thing ever. And I think at the end, so my highest meetup price was 25 euros, I think for kind of lunch time session. But then all the materials and stuff was actually more expensive than that. So luckily I could stop running meetups at some point because I found some corporate clients. And this was already when I started then the podcast. Yeah.
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Tom Finn (13:10.584)
So let's transition. So we're going from in this story, the early stages of doing meetups, having conversations, having some laughs, some beers, and getting a few people there to somehow you took this bridge to creating a business out of this. Because let's be honest, five euros, even 25 euros a pop isn't going to get it done. We need a bigger jump here. So how did⦠How did you make that jump into gaining clients?
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Myriam Hadnes (13:43.886)
So I think one thing that I did right, and I didn't even see that, I recently met my roommate with whom I lived in Amsterdam. And she pointed out that I would ask for help and hire people before I could actually afford them. So I hired a business coach. I went to a mastermind for entrepreneurs. And⦠And there I found the inspiration and everyone told me, Myriam, you have to start a podcast. So I started a podcast about facilitation and workshops to advertise the value of facilitation and workshops. Because every time I pitched myself as a facilitator, people would go, what's a facilitator anyway? And then I worked with a business coach and he told me that I should create a lead magnet.
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A lead magnet is something that people can download for free that creates value and an exchange for their email address. And this would mean that I attract people and I get the email addresses of people who are potentially interested in the work that I'm doing. So before I actually even had a real business, I didn't know what to sell. I would have the 12 steps checklist that make workshops work as my lead magnet to download and start collecting email addresses. And that way I could build trust to an audience because I didn't have anything to sell anyway. Eventually I sold the guide to the 12 steps checklist for nine euros. I remember I sat down with my business coach at some point. He was like, Myriam, so how many guides do you have to sell to sustain yourself?
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Tom Finn (15:37.592)
That's a lot of guides at nine euros. Let's do the math on that one.
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Myriam Hadnes (15:38.302)
You have to find a different strategy. I must say that as an intermediate step, I got hired by someone that I met while I was still working at the university and they were looking for someone to design and coordinate their summer school. So this was a facilitation job and this was my first gig when I started freelancing. And they became my bread and butter client. And that was a European investment bank. So also a good name and a good client. And this helped me to then also invest and really build the business. And then three years into that, I realized that if I continue to work for them, I might have a stable income and it will be comfortable, but I will never⦠be able to make the transition into entrepreneurship as I actually wanted to have that. Because then I will continue to trade hour against money instead of earning money while I sleep, which is entrepreneurship.
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Tom Finn (16:51.576)
Yeah. So let's touch on that for a minute. Let's pause on that one. That was a big concept. I think people that listen to the show have probably heard some, um, some language like that, but let's go through this really quick. Um, Myriam said, I don't want to earn our hourly wage for money, right? Hours, you're trading hours for money or entrepreneurs that do it right. Make money while they sleep. So what's the difference in your mind? How do you actually create something that makes money while you sleep?
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Myriam Hadnes (17:24.59)
Hmm. I, nothing of that was ever planned, but it kind of happens. I'm a very accidental entrepreneur. I, the first step into the real entrepreneurship happened because of the pandemic. Pandemic hit, I lost all of my clients. And every morning when I woke up, I spoke the mantra. What would I do if I won the lottery? just to keep myself moving. So I reached out to my podcast guests and asked them if they wanted to join me on a fun adventure to host a festival, an online festival in facilitation, where the only condition for the workshops that they would deliver during the festival was that they have to do something they have never done before. Because⦠I went to conferences before and I was always underwhelmed. So I had this imagination of, oh, I want to host a conference, which is really mind blowing, where we can learn something new, which is the art. So the pandemic was the perfect opportunity to do that because I didn't have anything else to do anyway. So it started as a working title, never done before. Then it became an online festival, 24 hours. And after this was over, I, my therapist told me that I would show indications for postnatal depression. So I gave birth to this festival. And then afterwards I realized, okay, now this is over. It was nice, but now what am I doing? And interestingly, the guests to the festival, they all said, this was amazing. We need to continue.
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So we had an aftermath of the festival where we repeated some of the workshops and then the year was over and we're like, Myriam, we have to continue. And I didn't want to start a community because I have kind of attachment issues. So I said, instead of starting a community, let's plan the next festival. You can buy tickets today for the next festival and everything that happens between now and then is part of the year. So this was a first step into building a community where I would sell tickets to something and make money from the sales of tickets, but the community actually also entertained themselves.
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And that was the birth of Never Done Before, which is now a, it's a paid community. We have a hundred members from 40 countries. I have a community facilitator, community manager. She works half time for me and three other staff members. So it's one of the few communities that is actually financially viable. Because, because it's centered around the people. Um, and I never founded the community to actually make money out of it, but it was an accident. And then, and, um, I realized that I have this network to all these facilitators. We speak almost any language in the world. And I was, um, I was connected to a potential lead and they were looking for train for someone who can deliver online training on different topics to their remote workforce that is scattered all over the globe. So I realized that I have all these facilitators at hand, parts of my community. I know how they facilitate. We share the same values, the same way of doing things. And all I need to do is to create a system where I train them and put them, match them on the workshops, on the trainings. So then I became an agency.
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Tom Finn (21:32.984)
Ah, okay. Now I'm following you. So we start with community and I want to go back to that before we transition to workshops .work. I want to go back to this never done before concept. So you, you're building the community. What are the members, the hundred folks in 40 different countries speaking lots of different languages? What do they get out of the community? What's in it for them?
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Myriam Hadnes (21:56.719)
It is peer learning, most of it. So it's funny because the community matures and evolves with its members and with me. So we started with, oh, let's host workshops for each other. And always the only condition is to do something we've never done before. And the idea was that we are so creative, we have so many ideas, but we don't have enough opportunities to actually play with our skills. Because clients, if we tell clients, oh, I have a great idea what we could do, but I've never tested whether it works, maybe a bit risky. So this was basically a playground for facilitators to test new ideas and to get feedback.
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That's how it started. And then nowadays we have lots of more on the conversational sides of how to build a facilitation business. We just started Never Done Before courses. So we have community members who collaborate to create courses to bring their knowledge together to create courses for the outside world. So I'm building now basically a marketplace for online courses, which is then also very entrepreneurial because I would get a fee for that. Yeah. So what are the members getting out of it? It's a safe space to learn with and from each other, to experiment, and to find answers to their questions.
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Tom Finn (23:40.504)
That can be enough. Having a safe space to share ideas and learn from each other is a great way to do it. And that is the essence of community, right? You've really got it right at the tip of the pen on that one. I mean, it's really important for people to have that. But then your brain keeps going and you start thinking about this facilitation agency model. So help us understand your business model from an, you know, you referred to it as an agency. And how do you do that part?
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Myriam Hadnes (24:12.91)
So the agency part comes in where we have large clients. They need, let's say, 50 to 100 workshops per year because they want to train their workforce on topics like psychological safety or giving feedback or having difficult conversations unconscious bias. So they come to me and we agree to a rate for every workshop. And then we have an automated system where they can book the workshops in our database. My assistant then reaches out to our facilitators, says, OK, we need a facilitator in this language at that time who is free. And then she matches them, links them back to the client. And then they deliver the workshop. The associates, so the community members would then invoice me. And I invoice the client. And I get a cut. So everything that is client relationship then is on me and the training of the facilitators is on me. Although now I have one master trainer who's growing into delivering the training for the other associates.
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Tom Finn (25:31.608)
So this sounds like a really easy path. You quit academia, you move to Amsterdam, you throw back a couple of beers, you start a nonprofit called Never Done Before, you jump into workshops, you get a ton of clients, you build a network of facilitators. Did anything ever go wrong?
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Myriam Hadnes (25:54.19)
So when I, before I got this big, my first big client, agency client, I quit the assignment with my bread and butter client that I had before because I realized I wanted to step into entrepreneurship and this is the golden cage. I was super confident. And suddenly I looked at my numbers and I think I was, I just started my, um, my company. So going from freelance to company and realized that I was not aware. I was not aware of my numbers and I underestimated how much I subsidized everything I did through this big client. Um, so it was June and I had no idea where money would come from in September. So I sat down with my parents and they were like, how would the family deal with a bankruptcy? And they were actually really sweet. I think my mom was super excited. She was like, oh, you're coming back to live with us. I'm like, okay, let me revisit that. And then someone introduced me to this big client and they actually just looked for a facilitator and I⦠We had a few conversations and then suddenly this agency model fell into my lap. And I think I just, I switched in the right moment and said yes and took the opportunity. Um, and negotiated very well. Um, and that's basically saved my, my sanity, I guess. Yeah.
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Tom Finn (27:38.168)
That's a great story. I love hearing when you've got to overcome the obstacles, figure things out on your own, negotiate a good deal, put yourself in the right room at the right time and make it happen. I mean, that's what entrepreneurship is. You've got to do all of those things simultaneously.
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Myriam Hadnes (27:57.518)
Yeah. And then yeah, learning by doing, when I think of the first, the first emails that I sent out to the mailing list and trying to automate all these steps and then sending the wrong emails, the broken links, it was so painful and so shameful. But I think, shameful only for me, I think what really happened back then is that I built real fans because I⦠I just took everyone on the journey. I was like, okay, I'm learning this. I'm to share everything that I'm learning with you through the emails. And I think this was, gave me also permission to just be a little bit more playful. So to be playful and embrace the imperfection on one end, on the other end, always, I never⦠to save money when it came to design or when it came to the quality of the work. So paying for a designer to do the website, paying for a designer to have a nice lead magnet to download, paying for a photographer to take pictures of the free event. So all these, I think, small things are for me also part of the entrepreneurship because it's an investment into the brand that I have no idea when it will pay off, but eventually I just trust that it will. And it has.
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Tom Finn (29:32.92)
It's a scary leap to make though for most entrepreneurs. Where do I put my money? And you're saying put it into design and photography and make sure that your, your brand, um, you know, some in real estate would say curb appeal. Myriam, you're basically saying, look, my curb appeal needs to be right on. And if my curb appeals right on and I look the part and then I go in and I'm kind and thoughtful and patient, I can win the day. Is that really what you were thinking through when you put it all together?
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Myriam Hadnes (30:01.55)
Yeah, maybe I wasn't as strategic, but I, and somehow I was actually, because I knew. So the good thing is, so I did a PhD, so I know I'm smart. And for the first time I started also wearing my PhD because I knew, okay, people who will see my profile, they will assume that I'm smart and then I can just be myself. So this gave me also permission to be imperfect and to just try stuff out because I had this label. And what I wanted is that people who visit my website, that they have the first impression, OK, that's professional. Don't need anything else. So when they check me out, when I distribute my business cards, back in the days, people were still doing that. We distribute my business card. If someone visits my profile, my website, they have the impression, okay, she knows what she's doing. Although I had no idea. And for me this was very important, yeah. And I think it paid off.
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Tom Finn (31:08.504)
Yeah, but you, I love it when people say I had no idea. You did have an idea because you studied human behavior as an academic and you understand how people think, how they work. You can see and read the cues of others, which gives you a tremendous advantage in just open communication and dialogue because you probably know at some level what people are thinking and feeling and, or at least you can be pretty close. Is that right?
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Myriam Hadnes (31:35.182)
Yeah, I think there's a study and then there's of course also a personal story attached to all of that, why we developed our superpowers. And I think, yeah, I'm good at that and I enjoy it. And I think, yeah, as a behavior economist or experimental economist, we basically learn to manipulate people. We run these experiments to measure behavior. And what are the clues? How can we nudge people to take different decisions and change their behavior? So, and I learned to do this now in my job for the better. So how can I help people to get out of their own way? How can I help groups to communicate better, to overcome conflict, to be more creative, to generate more ideas?
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Tom Finn (32:28.28)
You're like the AI before AI. I mean, hopefully you're using this for good and not evil, Myriam. I mean, we gotta keep an eye on you. Make sure that you're using all of these superpowers the right way.
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Myriam Hadnes (32:42.894)
I think that's what we do as facilitators, right? It is eventually to help groups to just become a better version of themselves.
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Tom Finn (32:53.656)
Yeah. So what's next for you? You've got a couple of cool businesses, you've built a community, you're growing as a facilitator network. What is the next step for you? Is it more growth? Is it travel? Is it taking a step back, replacing yourself, adding more people? What are you thinking in the next couple of years?
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Myriam Hadnes (33:13.87)
Um, removing myself sounds weird. And I think I, I am partly workaholic and I do enjoy the business building part. So hacking the system and understanding how it works. So we moving myself. No. Adding layers to the team would be beautiful to have more people. I have nobody on my payroll, so I only work with freelancers. So still working on my commitment issues. But also that's beautiful. And my focus at the moment is the courses. So building this academy, because I think that for me, there's so much beauty in empowering facilitators to⦠join forces with each other and to create something together that they will then offer to the world. And I think many of the courses we have on facilitation, it's by one brand or one person who thinks, okay, I teach you to facilitate, but it's so complex. There is not one way to facilitate. So if we can learn it from six different master facilitators from around the globe, how cool is that?
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Tom Finn (34:32.184)
It's very cool. And we would always say that six minds are better than one or four minds are better than two, right? The more people, the more perspectives, the more ideas you have, the more languages, different backgrounds, varied upbringings, all of those things matter. And we can get a better answer when we have more diversity of thoughts.
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Myriam Hadnes (34:53.774)
Yes, and I think it also shows us when we are participants or learning a craft, it gives us permission to be ourselves because we see there is not a right way. Everyone brings in their personality and if we're exposed to this variety, then we can also find ourselves in a more easy way.
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Tom Finn (35:14.584)
Yeah, beautifully said, beautifully said. So Dr. Myriam Hadnes, where can people track you down, hunt you down, find you, join Never Done Before, or work with you in a facilitation environment, or just generally go out and grab a beer with you? How can they track you down?
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Myriam Hadnes (35:33.134)
I think the easiest is LinkedIn. I'm an open book on LinkedIn and enjoy hanging out there.
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Tom Finn (35:40.214)
Perfect. Well, we'll put your LinkedIn in the show notes and give everybody access to find you. If you want to check out workshops.work or neverdonebefore.org, I think I have those correct. We'll put those in the show notes as well and you can see the good work that Myriam has taken on and is enjoying.
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Myriam Hadnes (36:02.798)
Thank you so much Tom for these intriguing questions and for your curiosity.
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Tom Finn (36:08.44)
Oh, it's wonderful. I love entrepreneurs. I love entrepreneurship and, and I love the approach and the angle that you've taken using sort of behavioral economics to push yourself forward. And then you, you landed splat in the middle of a behavioral economics zone, uh, just in, um, more of a commercial way than, than what you were doing in, uh, in academic, in the academic setting. So I think it's, it matches up all beautifully. And what we like to do as entrepreneurs is use the skills we already have that we're already naturally good at and that are our gifts and double down on those. And it feels like you've done that, which is just wonderful to watch and to hear from you as well.
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Myriam Hadnes (36:52.782)
Thank you. Thank you for reflecting that back. Appreciate that.
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Tom Finn (36:56.6)
Myriam, thank you for being on the show. We loved having you.
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Myriam Hadnes (37:00.558)
Thanks, Tom.