'Your customers will tell you what they want your product to be. Listening to what the customer wants is half the battle and the key to everything you do.' Andrew Barry
Andrew Barry (@bazzaruto) is 'the course guy', an online teacher's teacher and founder of Curious Lion Learning.
If a single slogan could describe Andrew, it would be 'The more you learn, the better it gets', a line which he credits to a sporting TV network he used to watch while growing up, a self-confessed sports fanatic, in Cape Town, South Africa.
With a start at KPMG as a chartered accountant, Andrew veered off into teaching, having found his niche developing training for corporate companies.
His vision is sharp: better learning experiences enhance both brand and culture, and he delights in creating the right digital or hybrid products to deliver just that for his clients. His method? Taking the time to ask in depth questions and listening to what the customer wants.
In this interview, Andrew digs deep into the 8 component parts of TOC's (Transformational Online Courses), a term coined after analysing the process which had led him to several of his own personal transformations.
Far from the 'sage on the stage', he explains how we learn better from each other, the importance of establishing trust and credibility, and being student-centered. Host Anne Mühlethaler (a course nerd herself) also shares her best and worst online workshop stories, and asks Andrew about how to promote a digital course (when you hate promoting yourself), tech platforms (important or not?) and opportunities for early movers in the adult digital learning space.
For anyone trying to understand online learning, those interested in signing up for a course or perhaps even developing their own, this rich interview will not only leave you knowledgeable on the subject, but perhaps even yearning to learn something new.
Happy listening!
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Selected links from episode:
Connect with Andrew on Twitter @Bazzaruto - https://twitter.com/Bazzaruto or @CuriousLionInc https://twitter.com/CuriousLionInc
On IG @Bazzaruto - https://www.instagram.com/bazzaruto/
On Youtube @Andrew Barry Teaches - https://www.youtube.com/c/Andrew%20BarryTeaches
or discover more on Curious Lion Learning - https://curiouslionlearning.com/
Andrew's $5 email course: https://curious-lion.ck.page/products/course-creator-email-course
His free ebook to create the perfect online course - https://curiouslionlearning.com/ebook/
Listen to the Curious Lion podcast - https://curiouslionlearning.com/podcast/
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Anne's interview with Andrew on his podcast - How did you Learn That
MOOCs - the meaning - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course
Interview with Nadine Kelly
Akimbo workshops - https://akimbo.com/
Write of Passage course - https://writeofpassage.school/
The altMBA - https://altmba.com/
Robbie Crabtree Performative Speaking - https://www.robbiecrabtree.com/
Ali Abdaal Part Time Youtuber Academy - https://academy.aliabdaal.com/
Ish Baid, CEO of Virtually - https://twitter.com/IshBaid
Virtually - https://www.tryvirtually.com/
Seymour Papert - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert
Jean Piaget - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert
Andrew's Essays - https://curiouslionlearning.com/perfect-sales-offer-online-course/
Jim Collins 'Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0' - https://www.jimcollins.com/books/BE2.html
Hasan Kubba 'The Unfair Advantage' - https://www.amazon.com/Unfair-Advantage-Startup-Success-Starts/dp/1788163311
Robert Moses 'The Power Broker' - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1111.The_Power_Broker
The song It's Alright, Ma - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JBNWkCsmqAY
Bob Marley's 'Jammin' - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1uM5exCBWzk
Shaka Zulu - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka
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Anne Muhlethaler:
Hi, hello, bonjour, and namaste. This is Out Of The Clouds, a podcast at the crossroads between business and mindfulness. And I'm your host, Anne Muhlethaler. Today I have the great chance to be joined by Andrew Barry. Andrew and I got to know each other after I signed up for a course that he was leading with the On Deck, which was called On Deck Course Creators. So we refer to it as ODCC. The reason I was interested in this course was simple. I am a meditation teacher on the side of being a consultant and podcaster. And since I've moved around so much in the past 20 years between the UK, US, France, et cetera, I thought how best to transmit the teachings that I love so much than via an online course.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And yes, I already offer some free classes and free guided meditations on Zoom and Instagram and YouTube. But when you're really obsessed about the subject that you want to share with the world, you really want to build up on it. And indeed, that's my case. So, instead of trying to go it alone, I found this course very randomly, signed up for it very intuitively. I really did follow my gut. And I was so lucky to find the support that I did with Andrew, the wonderful Jackie at Be On Deck, and a cohort of 150 people who were incredibly wonderful, and I cannot say more good things about them.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So I'll let Andrew share his journey, but suffice to say that whether you understand online learning or not, there is something incredibly interesting and important happening in online learning right now. And so, I suggest that you follow me and dig into the subject of Transformational Online Courses. So without further ado, I give you my really wonderful interview with Andrew Barry. Enjoy. Andrew, thank you so much for joining me today. Welcome to Out Of The Clouds.
Andrew Barry:
Thank you so much for having me, Anne.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So where am I finding you today?
Andrew Barry:
I am in New Jersey in the United States, just outside Manhattan.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And you're enjoying lovely heat, as I understand?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. It's our turn for summer now, and I can't complain. I will take extreme heat over extreme cold any day.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Actually, on that note, can I ask where you're from?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. So originally from South Africa, spent most of my life growing up in Cape Town and then moved here to the states about 11 years ago now.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, right. Can I ask you why the move?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. It was a work move initially. I started working professionally in South Africa and got an opportunity to come here for initially at two years secondment. And I just jumped at it. I loved traveling. I traveled a lot before that. And I thought, wow, an opportunity to live in another country for two years. I've never been to the States. Actually that's a lie, I came here as a kid with my parents, but I never lived here. So thought, oh, fantastic, let me give it a shot. And yeah, I never left.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's awesome. So I'd love for you to start maybe this conversation with you telling our listeners who you are and what it is that you do.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. So I like to say I help people teach on the internet. It's something that I've been doing in one form or another for 15 odd years. Adult education has been something I've focused on that time, working in, we'll get into the details of that, various companies, and then for the last five or six years, my own company. And I think now the thing that is most exciting for me is the future of online education. And that's where I spend most of my time, helping others learn how to teach on the internet.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So when I was considering the questions that I could ask you, I thought I'd want to know what were you passionate about when you were a kid or as a teenager. What was a subject matter or something that had you really passionate in those years?
Andrew Barry:
I was an absolute sports fanatic, as most kids growing up in South Africa are. So I was huge into rugby, into cricket, into international football. And so, I was a huge fan of watching games, watching sports, playing them as well. But I was also always interested in learning about this slogan in my head, the more you know, the better it gets, kept coming true for me. So the more I'd learn about the individual players or the strategy of the games, or all of that kind of stuff, the more I just enjoyed it. I'd learn about the stadiums and I'd start to learn about the history of the teams in those cities and learn about the cities.
Andrew Barry:
So I was always just really curious. I would just go down these rabbit holes. I was passionate about that. Sport was kind of a jump off point for me, but then I would get into the history of the places, so history was another huge passion of mine. I was just really curious about learning things. I could never stop learning stuff. I'd teach myself a little basic, very basic, programming language and then play around with that for a while, and those kind of things. It was not any one topic that consumed me completely. I was interested in so many different things and just learning about them.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And can I ask, what did you study at uni or college?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, so as I got into my late teens, I started getting into business. And I think I remember when I was deciding what to do for university, I was always very good at maths, logic those kind of subjects. And so I was just like, "I'm going to be a CEO of a company." And that was my dream at the time. So I studied accounting, I studied finance, I became a chartered accountant in South Africa. And it was funny, it is funny now to look back and think that wasn't really, it is not at all what I am doing. Well, I am a CEO of a company, but it's my own company. I never ever thought I would be running my own company. And I couldn't think of anything worse than running someone else's company.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Isn't it fascinating?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I'd love for you to tell me, what was that slogan again, that you mentioned?
Andrew Barry:
The more you know, the better it gets.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Where you hear that the first time?
Andrew Barry:
I think embarrassingly it was probably the slogan or whatever for the sports network in South Africa, called SuperSport. And I'm pretty sure that's where I got it from, the more you know, the better it gets. So it was like pretty talking about the talk shows and stuff around the thing, which looking at them now, those are often just a load of whatever. But yeah, I think just that, the essence of that, really stuck around for me. It's true, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
I can see myself in that. Absolutely.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, totally.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So I was just finishing editing this morning, a wonderful conversation I had with a lady called Nadine Kelly who's an ex physician, a pathologist in the US, who later on decided to leave her work and become a yoga teacher, particularly for mature women, who she calls Wise. Women's. She's also a podcaster and she supports, let's say, the workshops on Akimbo, which you may be familiar with, the Seth Godin Akimbo workshops. It was fascinating to me because, I'm glad I had this conversation before speaking with you, because what she was saying about these workshops is that it was the classroom that she'd always dreamt about. And she went back and revisited what it was like to be at uni and to be taught by someone who was standing far away at a chalkboard who had his back to the students, and her wondering if he even knows that there are people in the room. And so, I wanted to use this example to color the reason why I'm excited about having this conversation with you today. So I'd love for you to tell us, why should people care about online education?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. Well, it's a great context to provided. Because what Nadine is describing there, I think as many of us who were, in the early days, consumers of MOOCs, started to see it happen online, which was that whole feeling of sage on the stage, someone just broadcasting or presenting information in a lecture, which actually, when I look at my university experience was exactly like that. Just a quick tangent here, I was a very bad student. I didn't go to lectures that much, actually. I realized quickly that, yeah, right, I realized I could learn better just by doing it in a one-month sprint before exams, and then just enjoy the rest of the semester to myself. So that was the way I approached it.
Andrew Barry:
So I'd lock myself in a room for a month, and then the rest of the year I'd kind of do what I wanted. And it was because of that, because it was just someone in front of the room, with the exception of a few. There were a few teachers I had, which I will never forget because they were the antithesis of this. But it's that broadcast of someone reading you the textbook. It's pointless, right? It feels like a waste of time. So I think that's what Nadine's getting at there with that, even worse, the back's to you just writing on the board. And so in the world of MOOCs, the initial online education was that, with a camera, put online. So you just now watch it on a screen. And lectures would be two, three, four hours long and you'd watch them, maybe they'd break them up into 30 minute chunks. But it was just very much just consuming information, which, again, you can read that same information.
Andrew Barry:
You can listen to a podcast. There's so many other ways of doing it. And there was no interaction, really. There was probably knowledge checks and that's it. So I think what I'm most excited about now. I think what tech is enabling is just removing all the friction between people being able to interact with each other online. And that's the key, because we learn best from each other and we learn by doing, and we learn by reflecting, and we learn by speaking to each other. And I'm sure your experience with this in ODCC may have worn through. I'm putting words in your mouth here, but I think a lot of people found a lot more value in a breakout room with two or three other people who were at the same or similar stage of the journey as them, talking about something that maybe I had said in the lecture part of it. But the real value comes in talking about how it's applied in your life, learning from someone else's life or business. And that's where it really beds in.
Andrew Barry:
And I think what online education now is doing is it's enabling that at scale, where we can all get together. You're in Geneva, I'm in New Jersey, and we had 150 people, literally all over the world, and we were able to get together for eight weeks and learn together, and experience transformations together. And I think that was just so exciting. And so, technology has just enabled that to be frictionless, that we can do this, we can get together, a click of a button, and we're here and we're interacting. And I think people that are now delivering training in an online education world now versus where it was like in the MOOCs, are starting to think about how to really use that frictionless technology, or the way technology is enabling this, to be more creative with how that teaching and how people and students are interacting and how group work happens.
Andrew Barry:
And it's just taken it to a whole other level where you're getting the best of both worlds, because you can still meet in person and have meetups and kind of knowledge salons in Ancient Italy. You can still have those kind of things. In fact, you can do that online as well, which is really cool, but you can also then deliver information, provide ways for people to interact, assess their own knowledge, knowledge checks, track their progress. The possibilities are endless.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I'm trying to consider what was the biggest takeaway for me in terms of the various courses I've taken and ODCC in particular. I think for me, it was the mix. I like to learn from a really varied panel of options, and all of these different things just seemed to enrich my learning experience. So I loved the lecture part. I loved the interaction, and I was very inspired by everybody. Actually, on this note, before we go any further, I'd like to ask you, what was it like to make a selection of these 150 people that did ODCC? Because I know that for you and Jackie, who supported you in this, it was a very heavy workload. But I think that the first, the most impressive thing for me when I entered the classroom, virtual, albeit, was how impressed I was, not just with you guys, but with the rest of the students.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. Well you're a hundred percent right, first of all, that it's such an important part of this whole experience. Because going back to what I said, we learn best from each other. And if it was just me, that's one person you're learning from, that's one way of learning. But getting 150 people who have experience in this space, who have a spirit of service was another big thing I look for in people, who were also in like a build now mode. They were ready to take action on things. Those elements together, to experience the spirit of service and being ready to take action, was so key. So everyone was out there doing the thing for eight weeks, and sharing their knowledge with each other and helping each other. So those are the three things we look for. But what the benefit... It's almost like it was just pure luck, to be honest, with who applied. We had such a wide variety of people with different skill sets, different backgrounds. And so, we almost created this absolute killer agency of people who could help you with anything you needed in this whole realm of [crosstalk 00:15:19], right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. That's what it felt like.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. If you needed someone to talk to about understanding your users, there was Tina. If you needed... I'm not going to mention to all of them, but there's just so many. And that's the beauty of this world of online education as well, is that everyone has domain experience or expertise that they can share with others. And so we just had 150 of those people all together in one space and being able to share with each other was remarkable.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. That was really fun. So I read a post that you wrote rather recently, I think it was this year, where you mentioned about how the early online course creators also gave the space a bad reputation. Because there were marketers out there trying to make a buck of selling something to as many people as possible, right? And obviously low quality content and profiteering of the user is not optimal. But you added, "When courses work, students are transformed. And when students are transformed, they tell other people." And I thought, yeah, that's right. Tell me about what Transformational Course stands for. Because I think that's what a lot of people don't necessarily understand.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. So that initial thing, which is, I think the wave, I think MOOCs, you may be able to point is the beginning of this online education world. And then a lot of people came in and realized, okay, great. I can create this information product. And digital marketing, I think, existed a bit earlier, at least there are professionals in that space who looked at this as an opportunity to be like, all right, I can create funnels and ways for people to buy this product. And then it doesn't really matter what the product is. Because I can rely on volume at the top of the final and just keep selling it. And so that is where that bad name came from. Where transformation comes in, is that experience that anybody who's taken an online course, we say this in this world of you come for the... I'm going to try and generalize this. You come for the course content, but you stay for the transformational experience.
Andrew Barry:
So we'll talk about like specific ones later, but it's that you come for a writing course and you leave having conquer imposter syndrome, for example, right? Just really transformation stuff where you've got on this deep internal journey with others, you get out of your comfort zone, you get vulnerable. And the medium is that particular case happens to be writing online. And so that's what a Transformational Course is. And that transformation is unique to everyone. So it could be completely different for every single person. I've got like eight characteristics of it and we can go through those now, or if you want to go.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I would love for you to go through that because I'm fascinated by it.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. And I'd love hear your thoughts as well, having gone through a lot of these yourself. So Transformational Online Courses, and this is for a background and history for people. When I was creating ODCC, I sat down to write a manifest of what is this thing. And I'd coined the phrase TOC, Transformational Online Courses, back in November. So before I joined On Deck, before ODCC was a thing. And first of all, it was from my own experience. And the writing courses, a particular writing course I'm referring to, Write of Passage, where I took that and I was a hundred percent transformed by the end of it. I was a better writer, better business owner, entrepreneur, better person, all of these things. And so I spent a lot of time thinking, what did they do that was so powerful? And that's where I started writing online, taking that experience, writing that online and sharing those thoughts.
Andrew Barry:
That's when things really started clicking for me personally in this world, was that reflection. So I was able to bring my 15 years of experience in adult learning and look at well, what are these really amazing course creators doing who are the pioneers really of this space, and started to codify it a bit for people. And so this translated into this idea of TOCs and these eight principles. And so the first one, and I think one of the most important, is that it's student-centered. So everything you do is centered around the needs of the learner. And even to the point where you're giving the learner multiple opportunities to reflect on why are they doing this course, what is their personal meaning in it? And the really good online courses all do that through a lot of their activities, a lot of their reflection exercises.
Andrew Barry:
And that just helps you, motivation is so key to learning. And if you're connecting with that why, you've got that intrinsic motivation that comes to the fore, right? And that's the most powerful one, versus extrinsic. So that's a big part of it. So it's student-centered, right? The next thing is, it's trust-based. And I talked about this in ODCC. Learning is hard. You have to get out of your comfort zone. You've got to trust the process, because it's not always clear right at the beginning that you're actually learning anything. And so you've got to already trust the process. And what that means actually is you have to trust the teacher. You really have to trust the teacher. So that trust-based piece is so important.
Andrew Barry:
As a teacher, what that means is you need to be credible and you need to communicate your credibility, and you need to be very clear on signposting what the learning journey is throughout, so people always know that there is a process, there is a method to it that you may not feel like you're learning something now but you actually are. Give them ways to see that. So that's another huge part of it. But the third one is that it's community-based. So it's just all the stuff that we started talking about, right? It's not a sage on the stage presenting information, but it's more of a guide on the side, as our friend [Cam Houser 00:21:16] talks about, where the teachers giving guidelines for the community to learn from each other. And so exactly that experience we're saying about in breakout rooms and that kind of thing. And we can go, that's like a whole massive topic around that as well.
Andrew Barry:
But the fourth one is it's outcome based. There is a transformation, there is an outcome. It's like, by the end of this course, you will be able to fill in the blank. That's another thing. It's hybrid and format. So there's a lot of talk, at least in the way I see it, TOC is that they're hybrid. Because you get CBCs, another term that's going around, coined famously last year, cohort-based courses, so very much focused on the live experience. Then you get evergreen courses, which are obviously the opposite end of the spectrum, much more just on-demand concept of information. But I think the best are a bit of both. And in the work I do with my company, Curious Lion for the B2B stuff, for other companies, we're recreating hybrid stuff where people need content to consume in their own time. And they also need that live interaction. So hybrid is very key.
Andrew Barry:
Another one, a small point of it is that it's platform agnostic. And this is really me trying to say to people, don't worry so much about the platform and the tech. The most important thing is the teaching. If you can just get a Zoom call and have three or four people in it and you can teach them and have them interact with each other, there's community, there's trust, it's centered around them, all of that, you've got something... The platform is just the Zoom, right? So you can then layer in the platform later on. But platform agnostic is quite important. And then the last two is it's an asset and it's a passion. So the asset piece is that, once you've created a way, a successful way, to deliver your own information to create transformations, goes back to that point you were saying earlier, which is that quote that you use of mine, which is people will tell, once you transform students, they will tell others.
Andrew Barry:
And so it becomes an asset. So many more people want to, once you've solved the problem for one person, the others will then come out. And the really great ones, people don't even know it was a problem until they start to see this transformation. And they're like, oh wow. That's the really powerful move. And then the passion part is just that this is, I know now talking from experience with ODCC, one of the hardest things you can ever do, you really have to care about it. You really, really need to be passionate about what you're teaching and the transformation you want to see in your students.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, this resonates. And I appreciate how much you've analyzed it, because it feels completely true to all of the best courses I've done. And for our listeners, I am a course enthusiast. When I left my corporate job in 2017, I had made a very, very conscious decision. I said it out loud, I wrote about it, I told my friends that I wanted to make room for learning. And I had no idea about what was out there for me to learn. And I really did make a lot of room, and I've had amazing experiences and absolute rubbish experiences as well. If anybody wants some pointers about what not to do, I can very happily direct you.
Andrew Barry:
I'd love to hear one example. What's one of the worst experiences you've had. You don't have to mention the name or anything.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Sure. No, I wouldn't mention the name because that would be unfair. There is a writer and communications coach who sells a course for, I think, around $2,000, which was sold as a hybrid course. But the only Zoom call that was included was somebody else, who's an alumni from her course, giving some background information about legal stuff to do with publishing. Everything else was recorded posts and recorded Zooms from 2016. And the reason why that doesn't work is, well, first of all, when it's 2020 and we're in the middle of a pandemic, you have to be careful about the kind of recommendations you make. And also, there were a selection of guests who were all very knowledgeable, but a lot of whom talked about social media and promotion for people who want to establish authority as writers and coaches. And none of these are relevant.
Anne Muhlethaler:
None of these are relevant because they were recorded in 2016. And as we both know, things have moved on a bit. So, the thing that was fascinating is that, for the similar price, there was another coach and writer who offered a six-months life course where she did Zoom calls twice a week. One that was lecture-based, and one that was sort like a webinar, but where people were interacting and communicating with her. And the second one was, which was more like a lab course where she was directly engaging in coaching people, with all of the materials, the assets, the recordings, you can imagine. So it was fascinating to see, for a similar price, the various possibilities and value. And of course, one of these people, I won't stop talking about. And that's the one who was good. I literally have written about her, I think, five times already in my newsletter.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. It's amazing. Right? Because you felt like you just got more value than you deserved, maybe, for whatever you paid. That's the key. You feel like you're just getting overvalued in terms of what you paid for. That's a transformation right there. You had all these ways to go about that, all the access to her, the content, all that stuff. You're not going to stop telling people about that. Totally agree.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. And actually, after we finished the course together, I wondered who has helped her in putting together the course, because it's so thoughtful. The management of the interactions with all of the participants, because I think it was around the same amount of people as you had for ODCC. So this is a high-volume, but anyways, that was very transformational for me. So I'd love to you hear from you, what was one takeaway from one of the courses that you did that brought you in that transformation realm?
Andrew Barry:
I'll use another one, because I talked about the writing one already, but they were both quite similar. The second course is Robbie Crabtree's Performative Speaking. So I know you him through ODCC. I didn't know him that well before I took that course, so I met him in Write of Passage. He was one of those students that was just out there helping everyone all the time. And then he launched his course on the back of that. And I wasn't sure about it. It was on speaking. I sort of taught speaking back in South Africa, and I thought I was pretty good at it. But anyway, I wanted to support him. I thought what he was building was really interesting, I wanted to learn more about it. And I thought you know what, maybe I learned something myself as well.
Andrew Barry:
So I took the course. And I was just blown away by how much I transformed my... So much of it was confidence, actually, the confidence to say what you mean. That for me was like a huge, huge part of it where I felt like before I was possibly over-elaborating on things, felt the need to explain myself. So the process of it was a five week course. You got Robbie's sessions, you could learn from someone who's clearly an expert at this, but then the practice part was so, so key. And the deliberate practice elements of it was important, but also the practice itself was the assignments we had were reflective as well. So there was an element of reflection. So the very first assignment, you have to create a video talking about your core values.
Andrew Barry:
And I, oh my god, Anne, I did that thing probably seven or eight times. I recorded it, edited, and I was never happy with it. In fact, I was embarrassed by it, often. because I was just babbling. It was so like unclear. But through doing it seven or eight times and then eventually publishing it in the community, getting feedback and redoing it, I got so much better, not just in how I was communicating my values, but actually in my own clarity on what those values were. I'm getting goosebumps thinking that was transformational. Because you get other people's reactions to it and you can tell as well, even just watching it yourself. You might think something's of value, but you can tell you're not authentically communicating. And you're like, okay, maybe that's actually not a value. Maybe I just want that to be. And so you can keep refining that until you get a balance, really the core essence of what you're trying to get across.
Andrew Barry:
And so that was just an absolute eye-opener for me. And so after that first assignment, I was brought in, I just completely consumed myself with that course. And it was amazing. Every assignment built on the one before it. At the end we had this Ted Talk type capstone. And every single person that did it... My wife and I, it was the last week of the course, and there were evening lectures. I put it on the TV and she hadn't done any of the previous four weeks, but we watched everyone else's together. And it was just so incredible to see the transformations that people went through, and to then realize that you had gone through that yourself and to obviously seeing your own one. So yeah. And that was just so well done and so transformational, And then also just being speaking, it's a naturally vulnerable, out of the comfort zone thing for so many people. So, it was just so cool to see everyone put themselves out there.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds absolutely amazing. Actually, I was coaching someone yesterday who I can tell would benefit from that. And I'm thinking, check, I want to sign up to that course as well now.
Andrew Barry:
Oh, you'd love it.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I don't know if I was putting that in the questions, but I did read a great post of yours about core values and how important it is to know your values before you build anything. I'm curious to find out from you, if you had done these kind of exercises before, and what may have failed in the past.
Andrew Barry:
I think I know what post you're talking about, I'm trying to think if that was written before or after Performative Speaking.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I think again, it was still 2021. I tried not to go back too long.
Andrew Barry:
Okay. So it was fairly after. And that one talks about how, I clarify one of my big personal values is freedom.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yes, yes, yes. That was the one. That was fantastic.
Andrew Barry:
And just so many decisions I made based on that. The point of that particular piece is that I realized for myself that clarifying your values just creates so much more in everything else you do, just how you spend your time, the decisions I was making and stuff. So to answer your question about why, I just don't think I had that rigor or that discipline to actually sit down and journal or think about what those core values were. And I'm trying to think now if I had done that before, as deliberately, before the Performative Speaking course, and maybe not actually. And I think that's probably the thing. There was a forcing function too, that I had to sit down, I had to write these things out, not only did I have to write them out, I had to record myself doing them and then share that video with people. That's scary. That was really scary.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, my god, that's scary. Yeah.
Andrew Barry:
So that takes it to a whole new level and you really have to think carefully about how you're communicating them, all that kind stuff. So I think just there's so many meta layers of learning that were going on there that just really drew it out of me of what those core values were. So I don't know if that answered your question, but-
Anne Muhlethaler:
I think it does. Yeah.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. It was so important to do that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
But you know what's fascinating about what you're saying here, so a couple of years ago I did my yoga teacher training. And at the same time I was doing a two year course to become a meditation mindfulness teacher. And I did the altMBA with Seth Godin the year before. But the one thing that these have in common with what you are describing is the reflection or contemplation piece, whichever way you want to talk about. Which, in certain contexts, especially in the yoga teacher training, was imposed to an extent, because you are in a room with 10 other people, your teacher's taking you through a very sweaty two hour class and she's dropping you into a deep meditation and then asking you to consider and to write about certain values and things. And so, it's fascinating the level of shifts that I underwent that, at first, you don't notice.
Anne Muhlethaler:
It's almost that's such a deep layer, like seismic nature, where there's deep meta layers moving, and then later on you have major changes that happen, but you kind of didn't see coming because it happened so deep down. And I think the contemplation and the forcing bit is the thing that made it transformative for me for each of these courses, including yours. Because I forced myself to go and ask myself question around the course I wanted to build. And I had such big aha moments that were so unexpected, out of stories that I'd been telling myself for years that were so clear in my mind, and yet I was missing a couple of layers down. So anyways, that's very cool.
Andrew Barry:
I just love your metaphor there because that's exactly how I of visualize it. That it's this core of the earth movement. The consequence of this is that often, with that, you only feel the earthquake later on. And so that's exactly what happens as well. You don't know that's happening and you feel the effects of it later on and then you realize like, oh, if you're present, you realize maybe that's where it came from. Yeah. That's exactly how I picture it.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. So I became quite good friends with a couple of people back in the altMBA in 2017, and I'm hoping that I'll stay good friends with quite a few people from ODCC. And one of the things I'm expecting is, and I'm already seeing some changes that I've made recently in my life, is that when you are dropped into deep contemplation about your values, about your purpose, about what you care about, you end up making changes. Because once you see what really matters, not following that path means that you're out of line, out of integrity with yourself. And it's hard to deal with that. And generally, I have found in my life a few years ago that this is when there are eruptions. Always volcanic in nature, because you're... I'm going to lean on Martha Beck, the coach who I'm studying with, who talks about the social self and the essential self. And so I think that when the essential self is in strong clarity about purpose, it will explode structures if you don't respect or listen to it.
Andrew Barry:
I love that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Not necessarily pleasant when it happens.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. So here's another thing to add to that as well. What's interesting about this for me, from a learning perspective, is that there is a school of thought that informs a lot of what I do, which is constructionism and constructivism come from two gentlemen, Seymour Papert and Jean Piaget. And I forget which of them actually said this, "Learning happens when people are actively engaged in something that is meaningful to them." And so that kind of brings it full circle. Right? It's beautiful. So that's why I always tell teachers, "Give students time to connect with their meaning so that they can make that connection explicit."
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds absolutely wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing that. Now I noticed, I took quite a few questions actually out of the, you have a $5 email course available. Which I think is a wonderful entry into learning, for anyone who's interested, about creating an online course. And actually I want to say to you, everyone, that you are incredibly generous on your website on Curious Lion, and several of the blog posts that I've read, I have found exceptionally helpful. And I'll put some links in the show notes.
Andrew Barry:
Thank you.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You said early movers, so people who start building online courses are going to be rewarded. And I see that early movers, people who are going to be early adopters are going to get some rewards. But I was wondering whether you'd speak a little bit more about this.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. Funnily enough, I've actually just been thinking about it recently this week, and will be writing more about this, but let's hash it out, because this is a fun topic. I think there's something interesting about early movers. I was also researching, I don't remember his name now, who came up with the idea of innovation adoption theory. It's that curve of crossing the chasm.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Absolutely, yes. Crossing the chasm.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. It's not actually that guy. He references someone else's work, which is the discovery I recently made. But anyway, that whole idea is true for this as well. I think what's interesting is that people who... We're in the wild west of online courses still. You say you're an enthusiast. You could also say a learning online course nerd. Just want to do as many as possible. I'm exactly the same. And that world is still pretty small. Right? There are not that many people... I'll say it this, I know a lot of people, friends of mine, I think most of them happen to also just be in jobs still, kind of in that knowledge economy or knowledge worker economy, who don't even know online courses really exist, and probably think it's kind of weird that I have friends on Twitter that I meet in online courses. And I think that is still the majority of people who are in that boat. So we are early adopters. And as course creators, we are the same. We're the ones seeing the potential for this and then realizing...
Andrew Barry:
I also talk about how I think everyone has an online course in them. So there is some knowledge and expertise that you can share with the world. And an online course is teaching online, teaching on the internet. So in a learned skill, you can learn how to do that and you can then share that with people at scale. And so if we are at that very early stage, people who are doing it have the opportunity to become opinion leaders. And I think a lot of us are becoming that, are that, in that we are, I wouldn't say setting the rules or anything that, but we're shaping what this is. We're defining what good looks in a lot of this, by doing it, by talking about it by, by consuming it as well. So that, I think, is an opportunity for early adopters in this space.
Andrew Barry:
And then all the benefits of being an opinion leader in a space when the early majority or even the late majority starts to come to this space is huge. So I don't think we even need to talk about that. The potential of that is just huge. And as more people start to realize that online courses are a viable alternative to traditional education in the secondary and probably tertiary more space, but also in the professional space where I'm very in the corporate learning world, and that is still very traditional and very broadcast-based. And that's slowly changing. Imagine a world in which people working at companies, especially in regulated streets, accounting, where I come from, pharma, law, legal, that kind of thing, start to know...
Andrew Barry:
Imagine the legal profession learning the principles of writing online and just the benefits of that kind of thing. It's just going to open up a whole can of worms of real skills, real behavior change that people are not actually getting. I think people will just connect with that. Anybody who goes through that kind of transformation knows it when they feel it and knows that that's something, especially when it's something that they're not used to feeling, they're like, well, I need more of that. I want to keep having that. Because I'm not getting that in the time I spend learning in my job. And so, I think then that just creates a tidal wave of new demand and new interest in the space. And then all of us who've been doing this for a while will benefit from that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. That's beautifully explained. I see that as a tidal wave. Yeah. Like you, I have very, very few friends who've done any kind of online learning. And those who have found an interest or a potential teacher who's very well known, who they may learn from, are not necessarily keen to give themselves the extra work on top of whatever they're doing in their day jobs. And I was writing about... The first time I started doing learning as an adult was actually learning Italian in, I want to say, 2010, 2011. Just for fun. I had no reason to do it but I really wanted to learn it. And so I had this teacher that came to my house, and then she left and then I traveled to Mexico and I realized, I always thought I could speak a couple of words of Spanish, and it turns out I couldn't and I was so mortified.
Anne Muhlethaler:
And so I thought, damn, fix that, so I took my son to a Spanish teacher. And she came to my work, and I worked very long hours. And whenever she would come up at 7:00 p.m., I'd get really pissed off with myself going, "Damn, I have too much work. I don't want to do this." But I wouldn't be mean, I was not going to send her away. And within three minutes of sitting down and working that other part of my brain, I'd be the happiest girl in the world. And so there's a really weird thing where it's not just that these learning courses are bringing something transformational. But for some reason for me, at least, they're balance something in my brain.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. I totally agree with you. I feel the same and I'm trying to see if I can... What is that? It's some... Yeah, I don't know.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I think it's literally different hemispheres that are... We're tapping into a different area, so it's giving rest to this other part that is used to be doing, I don't know, my accounting or copywriting for clients.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, produce.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Or even producing a podcast. And so, when I give myself the opportunity to move from one type of work to another type of work, this learning work seems to provide me with a release or a relaxation of some form. It's quite fun.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, I totally agree. Do you think the elements of discovery, the joy of learning something new, is a part of it? It's almost connecting with that childlike aspect, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yes.
Andrew Barry:
That's a huge part of this, I think.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I'm connecting to the name of your company, Curious Lion. So what I've learned in the course of becoming a teacher in mindfulness meditation is that you can't be in two states at once. And one of the first things that you can tap into when you're stressed, when you're anxious, when you're unhappy, is to become curious about your own state. And that's what you do in mindfulness. So watching your own thoughts, watching your body, watching your breath, becoming curious about the experience you're having, takes you away from whatever else you may be hearing. So you're right, I think curiosity is a big factor.
Andrew Barry:
This has become so clear to me having a son now, it's 15 months old. And just seeing that joy that comes through. At first it was funny because I was frustrated with him wanting to get into things that, he would probably burn his hand or something and it's like, what are you doing? But I was just like, the more I observed it, the more I realized he was just taking so much joy in figuring out stuff and not even figuring out, just experiencing things and just observing them and learning about them. And yeah, that really kind of made me think more about the curiosity piece again. It's so key. There's a joy in it.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's fantastic. So I did want to talk about tech. I should tell you why I signed up for ODCC. I think it's because there was the word transformation in the title. Because I had already experienced Transformational Courses, but no one had labeled it that, and the fact that it was boldly there in the title to me indicated that's for me. I did not know you. I did not do any research. I was like, "I'm in."
Andrew Barry:
That's awesome.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I really do rely a lot on my intuition.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, that's great.
Anne Muhlethaler:
But I did know that On Deck had a great reputation with regards to tech stuff. And so, I'd love for you to tell me about why is tech interesting, if not essential? Because I agree with you. Zoom is enough to become a teacher, or actually face to face, whatever you want to do. But how will tech be able to support this at scale?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, no. It's an excellent question. And it's the right question to ask once you've realized you can do this and you start to do this for a few people. And I think the key to it is scale, that's where it enables... You and I could have a teaching series of teaching sessions like this where you could teach me mindfulness meditation. I'd get so much value out of it because I could ask you questions, we could practice things together, but that's not scalable for you. So you as a teacher, how do you start to scale then? That's where tech comes in really, really valuable. I think the thing I'm most excited about is this idea of kind of a CRM for students. So, an ability to keep track of individual student progress, wants, reflections, needs, all of that stuff, just assessments, everything in one place. Where as a teacher, when you're having an interaction...
Andrew Barry:
Because I think the thing I struggled most with the ODCC was that there was so many different people. First of all, I couldn't get to every individual request, but when I tried to, I didn't have context always for where the person was coming from, from that interaction. And then it's a lot of digging and trying to go back. And so having all of that in one place to be able to pull up a student profile really quickly and see the whole history of interactions, why is this person doing this course, where are they now in their journey, all that sort of stuff, helps you make a really quick response. And there's some companies now working on that particular thing, an SRM, student relationship management.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Amazing. Student relationship management.
Andrew Barry:
And so, it's someone actually who came virtually who came and spoke to us at ODCC. And I've become quite good friends with their founder, [Ish 00:49:13].
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh yeah. I was there during that session. He was great.
Andrew Barry:
Ish [Bain 00:49:17].
Anne Muhlethaler:
Ish Bain.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. Really cool. And so what he's doing now is a bit of a pivot in that they were a tooling platform for cohort-based courses, but they're now really focusing in on the SRM part of it, which I think is so smart and so needed. So that's one example. And there you can start to add more and more people and just be able to have that context right at hand as a teacher. And as not just the teacher, so you can bring in mentors, and so they have access to that and so everything in one place is so key. And then the other side of it is allowing students to have that interaction with each other at scale. So what does that look like? We use Slack in ODCC, others use Circle, they have their pros and cons, there's no... And so I think there's still space for people in that area to innovate and create new things, so yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, I actually found out that Luma is launching communities, actually.
Andrew Barry:
I saw that. Very excited to see what that looks like.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Me too. Because I was originally thinking about using Slack because so many people I know use Slack, that I feel if people already use it in their day job and it's easy to see the visibilities of the various platforms, then it's easy to switch.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. It's a big one. And it's got me starting to think of what happens next with our new venture after this where we are having that exact same debate, and we are looking at a different platform called scale growth. It's a very interesting take on community building and it's very modular so you can kind of make it what you want it to look like. And so yeah, it's tricky, but that whole switching cost thing is a huge part of this now as well. Are people going to be familiar with a whole new platform?
Anne Muhlethaler:
I was very curious about that one guy who gave us a lecture, a guest lecture at ODCC. This guy based in Berlin, the French guy. He's doing it on WhatsApp, which I thought was really daring and very cool. But yeah, there's a lot of fun to be had there.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. I think it's an enabler. The biggest message I want people to think about is just that you shouldn't start with that as your question. It should be something that's like, once you know what it is you're doing, how you deliver your transformations, then find the tech that enables that. And there are so many great options out there and they continue to be illustrated.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I think, if anything, the difficulty for them is going to be to find the right option because there's so many. I want to go back, just one step, and talk about, in that email course, I loved the fact that you were targeting, as you said, educators or experts. These for me are two very different buckets. Entrepreneurs or hobbyists, coaches or consultants. And I really wanted for you to talk me through this target group. Why are these people yearning to become course creators, or will they become?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. Interesting. The first point, educators are experts. Those are definitely more opposite than the other two groupings. But in general, that whole group as a target audience goes back to what I was saying. I think everyone has an online course in them. If you go through every single one of those, coaches, consultants, clearly entrepreneurs, even hobbyists... Hobbyists, I'll use that as an example, if you can teach someone else how to do that hobby, to find the same joy that you find in it. As an entrepreneur, you're delivering a service or a product to people, or as a coach or consultants, you're offering advice. In all of those cases, you are helping people improve their life, their business, their career, whatever it is. Right? And if you can do that in a one-on-one setting and you can do that in a repeatable way, change out the person and do it with another person and another person, then there is no reason why you can't teach that to a lot of people, at scale.
Andrew Barry:
That's my theory. I think that's why all of those people have online courses in them. And the skill of teaching is a skill. It can be learned and you can get better at it. And so, my goal with that, like you said earlier on, with the email course, is to introduce people to some of the concepts and the thinking behind that. A lot of what we've talked about today comes through in there. It's also set up in a way where it's quite practical. At the end, there are questions to think about and reflect on, and some actions recommended, next steps to take. And my goal is for people to realize that this it's not just a pipe dream, it's not just something that other people do. It's something that you can do. And for some, it may actually be your main thing. It may be the thing that you build your business around. So I think that's sort of the goal there. And I look at all of those avatars as people with the potential to teach others.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. One of the things that I felt I would've wanted a little bit more of is to talk about the seat of the teacher. Because people look up to a teacher. And for me, and for a lot of people I know, it feels like a very serious step. Some people may see it as a revenue making process. For me, I see it as a responsibility actually towards the students. Personally, I feel there's a lot of reflection to be done around the motivation behind becoming a teacher and what it is that you want to leave people with. That's my personal two cents on this. I was very impressed, actually, I was listening to your podcast episode with Ali Abdaal who has an amazing course.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. Part-Time YouTuber.
Anne Muhlethaler:
But I was incredibly impressed to see that he takes, or he and his team were taking so seriously their attempt to build a community, and seeing that it wasn't giving the right value to so many people, they refunded $120,000 worth of subscriptions instead of cashing in and being okay with people not finding sufficient value in their course. So that felt like a good tie-in with that kind of responsibility of being a good teacher and taking it seriously.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. And I think the benefits of doing that is it shows, like you said, it shows you rarely care about it. Ali wouldn't do that if he wasn't passionate about teaching as well. And so he wants to keep doing that. And so that gesture, realizing, hey, this part of this of my course, that community was like, it was a separate piece, just is not delivering the value that we want to be known for. And the courage to cut that loose, refund everyone their money. So that was a great gesture, I think also it will benefit in the long run and that people will see that, okay, this guy really means what he is doing. And I think he'll see the benefit of that through his future cohorts and all of that. But yeah, you're a hundred percent right. The responsibility of this is massive. If you do get into this space, you've got to take it seriously. You've got to have that passion to begin with, but then you really got to own the responsibility. And you're right. I think we need to talk about that a lot more.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Now, for those who are interested in doing an online course, I think the other thing we need to talk about is how to sell the course. Personally, I really have a problem with self promotion, which is funny when someone has a podcast, and there is internal tension, that's for sure. I loved an article that you actually had on your website, which was called Perfect Sales Offer Online Course. I'm going to put that post up. That is so good. But can you talk to us about how to sell a course for those, like me, who don't want to sell stuff in general when it's got to do with ourselves?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. That is one of the hardest things, talk about imposter syndrome, right? Who am I to sell this to people? And then there's always just this element of sales which feels icky and gross. So to me, I think the way to navigate this is to be as authentic as possible in what you're doing. To be able to do that, you have to be able to deliver value. You have to lead with that value and you have to provide insane value. And I believe that you should start by giving that away for free and actually even continue because, I'll talk about this for a second and then I'll come back to how it applies to sales and that post. But a lot of people think that if you give away the stuff for free, you mentioned on my website, through Twitter, that it's all out there, then no one's going to buy it from me because why would they, it's all there for free.
Andrew Barry:
But it doesn't actually work that way in practice. People want, no matter how much you can provide out there, people will always still want to pay for some curation, some implementational advice, community, all those other aspects of a course, which you is a way you can package it as a product. So first of all, disassociating that as a risky move of just giving away the value is key. Once you've kind of made that mindset shift, you can just pumping out just great content, great value for people, and just start teaching people for free through these means, through writing, through videos, through whatever podcasts. And so that becomes a great top of the funnel way of demonstrating your credibility, demonstrating your expertise, providing value and building relationships as well.
Andrew Barry:
So apart of the sales thing is just having people get as many different types of interactions with you as possible through all your different types of content, through different channels, and also just also starting to learn your personality so they can build a relationship and trust. Then from that point, you then need to be thinking about getting people to register interest. So you've got to resist the urge of like, oh, cool, wait, you've signed up for my newsletter and now buy my products. There's a lot that happens in between that. And so the big part there is, so there's nurturing and then there's a register of interest. And what that looks in practice is basically saying, hey, I'm going to do this thing. This is what it's going to look like. Are you interested in learning more? And you slowly, so someone... You get a yes there which is a lot easier yes than I'll buy it from you, but it is already a step in that direction.
Andrew Barry:
So now you have people that have expressed interests anymore, and so you start to do that and layer that into... Maybe they sign up for a Q and A call, so now they've put time aside, they're going to join you for that. It's a free thing, but they're going to learn more about it. And so you slowly build up to the release of the product and release of the demand for the product as well. And then where that post comes in is knowing how that mindset shift in the consumer happens, in your future student happens. Whether you like it or not, you have to think about this. It's the hardest part. Well, we talk about how teaching is hard, but it is possibly harder to actually get people to buy that from you.
Andrew Barry:
Because you know that once people have committed to it, you know you can deliver your transformations, but there's a lot of uncertainty in the whole buying process. So that piece talks about, I think it's five or six mindsets that the consumer goes through from being problem-unaware, so they don't even know the problem exists, to problem-aware, then solution-aware, so they know that they have the problem. Now they know there is a solution for the problem. Now they know about your solution, and so it's goes further and further. And then it's like, they're now interested in actually buying from you. So, that was why that's helpful. And there's just different ways of communicating with people at different stages of that journey. And so as you're basically applying the ideas of that post into what we were talking about of you've got people who have registered interest, they're thinking about buying, and then you get them to that point.
Andrew Barry:
And then you release the demand, you say this is... And then there's stuff to think about there around creating scarcity and urgency, but doing it in an authentic way. It is legitimately a scarce resource. You can't teach thousands of people in one go. When you hear a course creator say there's only space for 50 students in this cohort, that's true, because it's actually really hard to teach to more than that. And so those things also help play into that. And get people who are ready to buy over the line. And those that aren't, you've also got to think about them. Keep nurturing them, keep providing value and back to what we talked about, at the beginning of this, that needs to keep happening in the background. Because those people might not be ready now, but they might be in six months. And if you're not staying top of mind about providing constant value, you're going to lose them.
Anne Muhlethaler:
You're so, so right. Because there was a course I was hesitating on last year. But in the meantime, the few emails that I got from that coach were exceptional. You know when someone's writing is just so on point, and everything was phenomenal. So yeah. I want to say she had me at hello, but that wasn't true. She had me at an email post about integrity. And I really wanted to share it with people, but it's not on MailChimp. You can't share the link. So, anyways. It was so good.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, but that's it, right? That's it. It's that type of value that something inside you vibrated and you were just like, all right, that is-
Anne Muhlethaler:
Listen, I tried for a good five minutes to see how I could forward, embed or link it. That's how good it was. So once anyone wants to share the free resource you're offering, they are already over the line and probably ready to commit to whatever you're going to be selling.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. I'll say the last thing on that, though, is that even in that case, there are still things like timing. It may not be the right time for that person.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Of course!
Andrew Barry:
All those kind things. So you need to also be okay with that. You can't force people to buy it from you. There are a lot of things that need to go right for that. And so, all of this stuff we've talked about, you need to be doing all the time. Because it's not just like you're going to do it and there's a finite time, and then everybody will buy it from you. There are a lot of other factors going on, as we all know as consumers ourselves.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. I find that one of the most important things for all of us who are building companies, products and projects, any of these things, is that time is important and consistency is important. I have one particular client, who I love, and who is so keen on making money, and I admire. She has so much passion and she's so dedicated to her work. But I think that part of it is going to, at some point, if she continues, if she's consistent and she delivers, it will do. But I think that you have to keep at it.
Andrew Barry:
You have to keep at it. Yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
I really wanted to know why your company is called Curious Lion, because it's such a good name.
Andrew Barry:
Thank you. It's an evolving story, as I think any name has to be. Because there's no grand scheme behind this. There was no team of consultants behind it, it was a lot of trial and error.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Good for you.
Andrew Barry:
It was initially going to be called Lion's Pride Learning, so that'll give you some context. So I always wanted to have the lion piece in it, and lion's pride of lions together. And the lion thing is a nod to South Africa, the homeland for me. And also, I am a Leo and the star sign element comes into it. So I always wanted the lion to come through and I always had an affinity for lions throughout growing up in South Africa. Then I thought about the curious part. And we talked about the beauty of curiosity, the joy of it, that element is definitely in it. But there were two initial ideas behind it was the power of good questions and how I found that was one of the best values we provided. I kept saying we, but in the early days it was just me. You know the name, it was a company called Curious Lion, it was just me.
Andrew Barry:
The value I was providing was in the questions I was asking, much like yours, for those of you who don't see behind the scenes, Anne puts an incredible amount of thought into this and I had a whole bunch of questions well-researched that she sent me ahead of time. And it's that that drives conversations this. And those questions in the context I work in drive the content extraction we do with clients to get their ideas done and be able to then design a course for them. So there was that curiosity. And then also just curious in the sense of strange and different. So I wanted that to come through as well. I'd take a very different approach to a lot of traditional corporate training. And so it was always that. It was the power of questions and the strange difference connotation. It's funny, because going back to our talk about Performative Speaking, my first value that I came up in that homework assignment was curiosity. And it was the joy of curiosity and that's almost just come out of it, you know what I mean? Which is really cool. It's evolved into that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah, I did think it might have something to do with South Africa. I thought that the lion piece, but as for the curious, that's super interesting. Would you mind telling us quickly what your company does for businesses?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. So, we help companies create custom training experiences for their employees, and typically for cohort-based stuff. So it's often onboarding for new hires, onboarding new managers, so create transition type stuff. And what we rarely nailed and focused in on since COVID really, was helping clients think through how to do this in a virtual setting. And so now it's very focused on this hybrid format of we'll take your content, your ideas, we'll turn that into pre-training, through videos. And we also curate outside resources. Clients are starting to get very comfortable with that. There are so many great ideas out there, radical candor, growth mindset and there's so many great resources on these types of ideas that, why not get people... Not everyone's reading those books, right? So let's get them to read them. Let's share videos, Ted Talks, that kind of stuff. That's kind a cool element. So we do create the pre-training and then we design these live sessions so that they can bring people together to learn how to reflect and apply, and all of the good things we've talked about.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That sounds fantastic. And so I know I've already taken quite a lot of your time. I'm about to switch to my quick fire round.
Andrew Barry:
This has been fun.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Is there anything else that you'd like to add for our listeners before we go into these?
Andrew Barry:
No, just that this has been so much fun. Just keep going.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, good. All right, so this is a question that I heard from another podcaster and I thought that was wonderful. Can you tell me about an act of kindness that has touched your life?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. The one that comes to mind is just a friend of ours when our son was born 15 months ago. And a lot of our friends sent us gifts and stuff, very, very kind, but this one particular friend put together a box with like, I don't know, 20 or 30 little items in it for having a newborn and then wrote a, probably six page, letter that was in the box, explaining the purpose behind every item in the box and just how much... They had both their kids already, and just how excited they were for us, that we were having our firstborn. And my wife and I, we sat down, and we were just on the couch going through this box, reading the notes and just bawling, just crying nonstop. But it was just so beautiful and so, so thoughtful that she took the time, or both of them, took the time to do that. It was an amazing. So touching
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's beautiful. I also just realized, so your son was born what month of 2020?
Andrew Barry:
March.
Anne Muhlethaler:
What!
Andrew Barry:
The weekend that the lockdowns started in New York. So yeah.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh my god, I can't even imagine what that must have been like.
Andrew Barry:
It was crazy. We were also blessed in a way that we had all this time together. We didn't go anywhere. Just the three of us. And we couldn't connect with our friends and family, that was the hard part. But we spent a lot of great time together as a family. So it has-
Anne Muhlethaler:
What's your son called?
Andrew Barry:
His name's Leo.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Good one. Happy to hear that. That's wonderful. What is your favorite word?
Andrew Barry:
I was thinking about this, and I went through a few just for the beauty of the word, how it looks and feels to me, but I think the...
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh, I'm sorry. Can I do this again? What's your favorite word that you would maybe tattoo on yourself, that you could lift with?
Andrew Barry:
Ooh. Oh, wow. That changes it. That definitely changes it. Maybe not, maybe not. Maybe I'll stick with it. So the word I was going to say was, yeah, I'd be cool with this, was joy. I think it's a nice mouth feel, the word itself. I like how it feels, and also it's something that's recently come through a lot for me. A lot of the feedback I from ODCC was just like, you bring so much joy to teaching. And I was like, yes, thank you. That's what I wanted to come across. And it wasn't something I'd set out to try and come across. It's just that talk about authentic. I enjoy this, I'm glad others could see that joy and maybe sharing it. So yeah, I think joy would be the word.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yep. That sounds very, very good to me. Now, a harder question, I think, even, is what song best represents you?
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, so I think when I first hear that, my thoughts go straight to Bob Dylan and I can't pick out any particular song. I can actually pick out one particular lyric, which is, "He not busy being born is busy dying," which comes from It's Alright, Ma. I actually took that and put it on my website when I was doing Write of Passage and coming up with an about us page. I just think that encapsulates me so much. At times, I'm restless. I want to keep moving forward. I want to keep learning. I want to keep growing. And so I think, "He not busy being born is busy dying." I really like that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's amazing.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah. But the rest of the song is actually pretty political, as most of Bob Dylan's stuff is. So it's probably not the best overall song to describe me. The other one that comes to mind is Bob Marley, the other Bob, and Jamming. One of those core values is playful. There would be a lot of people back in South Africa who would look at me now and be like, "Oh wow, you got quite serious with life." I was very, very playful and relaxed and chilled out back in South Africa. And I think that's still a big part of me. And I'm connecting back with that now. So we jamming.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's very special. I love that. What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Andrew Barry:
CEO of a company. I was very set out on... As a young kid, no. But I suppose as a young kid, I wanted to be a professional sportsman, just to be able to play that, play sport forever, get paid for that, been amazing. But yeah, once I realistically started thinking about it, was to be in corporate life, to be the CEO of a company, which is crazy to think back on.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So what would you say back to your younger self then, if you could send yourself a message?
Andrew Barry:
Oh man, I love that question. I would say that, you don't have to have it all figured out. No one does, actually. And we are constantly figuring it out, and you will constantly be figuring it out, and that's actually okay.
Anne Muhlethaler:
That's a good one. Now, what's the best advice you've ever been given?
Andrew Barry:
There's so much. I think lot of the stuff we've talked about is manifested from that. One that, just a different one that comes to mind in a business context, was that your customers will tell you what they want your product to be. That was a huge realization for me. I went into thinking it was going to be one thing and the business completely evolved into something else. And in the early days, I didn't resist that, but I wasn't aware of that. And so it just took me a while to realize that. Now with a new thing that we are launching, we just know the importance of that, now realize that that's really what listening to what the customer wants is half the battle and half the key to everything you do.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Now, what book is next to your bed or what book is on your desk?
Andrew Barry:
There's actually a bunch. So they're all actually next to my bed right now. So I'm reading Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 by Jim Collins, so a bit more of a business book, which is a nice summary of a lot of his work. I've always been in a huge fan of him and his ideas. I've also got a friend of mine, Hasan Kubba, who was actually a mentor, peer supporter for us.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Oh yeah, he was great.
Andrew Barry:
And his book, The Unfair Advantage or Your Unfair Advantage, which I'm going to crack open as soon as I finish Jim Collins. And then I'm also reading The Power Broker, which is the story of Robert Moses, the guy who architected New York City. And to me, that's a fun book. So that's why a lot of people think I got really serious, because that's not fun to a lot of people, but it's historical truth, right? It's history. And so I love reading about people and their accomplishments and the history and the context that surrounded that.
Anne Muhlethaler:
These are very interesting. Thank you. I feel like I asked this question just so that I can add to my own list.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, I love it.
Anne Muhlethaler:
If you saw the number of books I've bought in the past three months, it's actually embarrassing. Who is one person that you think we should all know about?
Andrew Barry:
Oh yeah. So I thought about this a bit. I went with my intuition, which is someone that my gut feel is that not many people will know about this guy. His name was Shaka Zulu, and some people may know the mythical name. Right? Yeah. Some people think there is a mythical connotation to it as well. I've always read about him, I've got a bunch of books in South Africa. I once actually started writing about it because he was actually a tactical genius, in that he was mobilizing a people that were extremely overpowered by the British armies that were inhabiting South Africa. They were the indigenous people, but completely outmanned, outgunned, all that sort of thing. And he mobilized this people, it was in a military context, but just bringing the community together, training these incredible warriors, fighters, the way he commanded that army and the strategies that he employed helped them survive for a lot, lot longer know than they ever should have or ever could have against the might of the British empire.
Andrew Barry:
So there's so many great lessons in what he did. And yeah, he was also not perfect, like all people. Nelson Mandela is another person I've studied a lot and he is the first to admit he was not a great husband, not a great father through a lot of his life, but obviously did a lot of other great things. So I also liked that elements of where no one's perfect and there are lessons to be learned there. But yeah, go study Shaka Zulu. There are actual innovations in battle that he came up with, which were incredible.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you so much for sharing that. And then, let's finish with my favorite question. What brings you happiness?
Andrew Barry:
So I used to think a lot, and still do to some extent, but I used to be completely consumed around progress, accomplishment, achievements, those kind of things. And I think the benefits of the past year we've been in, through having a son during that time, getting a bit older, all of these kind of things, I am starting to realize the power that the beauty, the significance in my life of just the simple life. Just time with family and time with my son, getting to know people. Especially the last six months was so busy. I had lost touch with a few friends and so reconnecting with them. And it's just so much joy that comes out of that.
Andrew Barry:
Connecting with people and just catch up, those really great friends that you don't talk for six months, but then you talk as though it was six days ago. And so I get a lot of happiness out of that. And related to all of this, a day where you wake up and there's just no commitment, nothing that you have to do and just the whole expanse ahead of you to kind of do whatever you want. That makes me happy.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Yeah. That definitely sounds good. I'm really yearning for a holiday.
Andrew Barry:
Yeah, right?
Anne Muhlethaler:
That really resonates with me. Andrew, thank you so much for giving me so much of your time and for being very generous with your knowledge and your know-how. Where can people find you if they'd to seek you out?
Andrew Barry:
So, the best place they want to get in touch is through Twitter, @bazzaruto, I will respond. I check all the DMS, respond there. So that's definitely the best place. It's my top of funnel of new ideas and stuff I'm sharing. Always goes on that once. Once I've refined that and you want to dig it a little bit deeper into things, go to curiouslionlearning.com.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Cool. Awesome. Well, listen, thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of your day.
Andrew Barry:
Thank you so much, Anne. I really, really enjoyed this. You're an excellent host.
Anne Muhlethaler:
Thank you so much to Andrew for being on the show today. You can find him, as he mentioned, online at curiouslinelearning.com or on Twitter @bazzaruto and all the details are included in the show notes. Hey, friends and listeners. So thanks again for your time today. If you want to hear more, you can go to your favorite podcast app. I don't know which one it is for you. After years of being dedicated to Apple Podcast, I am starting to move my sights to Spotify. But I would appreciate if you would hit the subscribe button and even leave us a review. I love to hear from you.
Anne Muhlethaler:
So in case you want to connect, you can get in touch with me directly @annvi on Twitter, @annvi on Instagram, or on LinkedIn. The details are in the show notes, because you might not be able to spell my name. You can also follow the show @_outoftheclouds on Instagram, where I also share some guided meditations and daily musings about mindfulness. You will very soon find all of my projects and podcast episodes at annevmuhlethaler.com, and you can sign up to receive email updates on all the fun things I am doing. So that's it. Thanks again for being here. I hope that you will join us again next time. Until then, be well, be safe. Take care.