Inviting People In

In Part One, you found out how I ended up with a ticket to a tiny conference about making a huge dent in the Universe, Misfit Conf. I had the go ahead from my team here at You Can to raise the funds to get to the conference and bring back all that amazing learning to help our community. Now I just had to… do it!

In my Misfit application, I talked about taking the gloves off and wanting to kick ass and be Danger Lou. At this point though, I really didn’t feel very confident about it. I wrote a post; note the question mark in the Danger Lou badge I designed in the picture.

There’s a funny thing about being scared. It makes us totally withdraw – that fight or flight response can be turned inward, so that we flee from the world, and fight ourselves. So I named the fear, and invited people in.

First, I asked the You Can Hub team for help to raise the funds. As soon as I asked them to help with ideas, first of all they wanted in. They wanted to help. And they said, “It’s got to be Danger Lou.” It had to involve a costume. And so, Danger Lou went from being a concept in an application form to a real character with a costume. Then Ruth’s fruit and veg box became my nemesis, the Robot of Mediocrity and the rest, as they say, is on youtube.

You might be thinking, it’s ok for you, Lou. You have a team of people around you ready and waiting to help – they already know you! What about me? Well, in the next stage of fear, I needed to ask for help from people I hadn’t met yet.

This was the first time we’ve invited donations at The You Can Hub. I was kind of blown away with the response; very quickly we had three quarters of the money I needed. Flights and accommodation were booked. This was actually happening. Was Danger Lou scared? Of course I was! I’d never been to the States before; never travelled on my own before. It was starting to freak me out. So, I had another thought – invite people in. And I recorded it.

I posted in the conference group. And it turned out there was someone there waiting for me to ask.

There was someone else on the same flight.

I met with Deborah at Heathrow; we shared breakfast and went to the boarding gate together, then met up again in Chicago. And it turned out my challenges weren’t done because a huge thunderstorm hit Chicago just as we were due to make our connection to Fargo. Our flight was cancelled and we had to stay overnight. Putting that post in the conference group was the best decision I ever made; it meant that I had someone to stay with and share the evening with during our unscheduled overnight in Chicago. And now, I’ve made a friend for life.

Here’s my challenge for you:

• What is scaring you at the moment? What are you struggling with?
• Who can you invite in?

There are a few key pointers that help when you’re making the invite:

1. Be open and friendly
2. Be specific about what you’re inviting the person to – give details
3. Be clear about who you’re looking for
4. Be clear about who you are and why you’re asking

Let me know how you get on! In my next post, the final one in this series, I’ll be sharing how I think the conference changed me!

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You can also listen to me talking about Danger Lou on the social media show #TSMShow with Ann Hawkins and Eric Swain – and the great thing is my friend Martyn Sibley, whose nonchalant tweet led me to finding out about conference, features on the show too! Click the link!