So what did your friends say? Did they like your introduction? Were they able to tell you exactly what you were hoping they would? Do they ask you for that free item, that special report that white paper, whatever it was, that you're giving away? Did they ask you for that now, you may decide not to do a giveaway. My main goal for you is that you give people a reason to come up and talk to you that you make them remember something interesting about you.

So if they see you later at the cocktail hour, or over at the snack bar, they can reference something you said in the introduction. And this can start a conversation. Let's not forget, nobody's going to make a million dollar deal or get a $10 million contract by a 10 second introduction, or a 32nd introduction. That's not what it's about. What it is about, is helping you make the most of every opportunity. Have to meet people to bring more people into your life, whether you're after more clients, more prospects, more colleagues, more industry associates, more people to raise money from more people to give back to you want to connect with can be completely for social reasons to.

So I'm not passing judgment on any of the reasons why you want to meet people. I'm simply trying to make it more effective, more efficient your use of time. Let's face it, myself included, we've all been to networking events before. And maybe left with a stack of cards by people are walking around here. Here's my card. Here's my card, complete waste of time.

And what do you do to someone like that you typically throw away their card. But we've also been to events and you've talked to a few people, but it's just sort of, whoa ha now what do you do? And you can leave the event sort of scratching your head. Why did I even bother? doing that. How many of these people business cards?

Am I even remember anything about them? Why would I even follow up with them? Why not just throw it away in the trash can on the way out of the event. We've all been there, ladies and gentlemen, what I'm trying to do is to equip you, so that you can get a lot more out of every single time you go to event, every single time you introduce yourself. As I said, at the very beginning, it's an opportunity to make a bad impression, which you no longer are going to do. It's a chance to make no impression, which in my opinion, is what happens to 99% of the world.

Or it's a chance to make a great impression. And to attract people to you. That's what you want, every single time you speak. And, obviously, if you're going to an entrepreneurial event, and there's entrepreneurs pitching for money, and you introduce yourself as a venture capitalist looking to invest Well, you can be the worst introducer in the world and you're going to be surrounded, you're going to be mobbed by all of the young investors and investors of every age coming to you. But most of the time for most people, it's not going to be that easy of just like dangling, you know, raw meat in front of a wild animal, the way venture capitalists would be to investors. So that's why it's important to really think about this.

Not memorize. But to think about it. Let me end with a note on memorization. memorization is number one hard to do. Number two, it's even harder to do when you're feeling stress. So standing up in front of 12 people introducing yourself might not seem as scary as standing in front of 12,000 people but it still takes most people out of their comfort zone and when you're feeling nervous, that's why your palms are sweaty your feet as well.

Your body's telling you run, get out of here. Adrenaline is flowing. When that happens, your mental faculties shut down because your body's saying run, don't think that's one reason why I really recommend not memorizing your self introduction. The other problem with memorizing something is you're now like an actor on Broadway, memorizing and delivering a script. Well, here's the thing about acting. It's really hard.

We can make fun of dumb actors all we want. It's a really hard skill. I can't do it. Someone gives me a script to memorize. I'm awful at that. Because it's hard to remember if you do remember it.

Word for word. It's hard to deliver it without sounding like you are reading a canned speech or you have memorized something so don't do it. Focus on the idea you want to communicate and just talk it through in a conversational way. don't memorize that's extra work. That's extra stress. What I'm trying to do is relieve stress for you on every aspect of this.

And you know what, when you're in these meetings now, instead of worrying and thinking, oh, there's three people away from me, it's going to be my turn. What am I going to say? You can actually listen to this person over here about what they do, what they have to offer, and why you may want to go up and talk to that person afterwards. That's the other beauty of this is if you plan and you have a process, and you're all set, you're not going to be sweating it, waiting for your turn to introduce yourself, you could actually be present. I hate to sound all new agey, but you can be in the moment, actually listening to other people. Instead of thinking in yourself, oh, now it's going to be my turn.

What am I going to say? I hate this. I hate that interview. You don't hate your self. You don't hate introducing yourself anymore because you're not Now good at it. The number one way to get over hating anything or feeling nervous about it is to actually get good at it.

And now since you follow the lessons in this course, you are good at introducing yourself. So I wish you luck in all your future introductions. I'm also asking you begging you in the discussion forum right here in this class, please, please record a video of yourself. introducing yourself. I would love to know who you are. And I would love to hear how you're introducing yourself.

I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for spending this time with me. I look forward to meeting you.