 Every facilitator has their strengths and has their weaknesses. At AJ & Smart we've got a ton of facilitators which I train and for me it's very easy to see pretty much on day one okay this person has these strengths and this person has these weaknesses. Now a lot of that comes down to whether someone is you know extroverted or introverted and an extrovert is somebody who gains energy from an audience and gains energy from being around people all the time. This is sort of like the definition and it's still kind of a bit blurry but whatever let's just stick to that so an extrovert is generally generally if you're just looking at someone is someone more like me who just loves being around people all the time tends to be a bit louder tends to be a bit more animated and in your face whereas an introvert often doesn't enjoy being around people all the time and loses energy being around people all the time it needs to recharge and the interesting thing about being a facilitator is that in this world people tend to think and one of the most common questions I get on my Instagram and on our YouTube is yeah but can I do this if I'm shy can I do this if I'm an introvert well the answer is you can be extremely extroverted or extremely introverted extremely bold or extremely shy and still completely nail facilitation actually one of the interesting things is that AJ & Smart my company we started as like a UX design agency UX designers are often pretty introverted our entire UX team is extremely introverted compared to me I'm kind of like I'm the CEO I'm salesy I'm loud I'm in your face I'm I'm for me it is a bit more natural to be in front of people the main thing to know is that whether you're an extrovert or whether you're an introvert you can still be an excellent facilitator one of the things that you can use and one of the ways that you can sort of use either of these things to your advantage is by understanding what your strengths and your weaknesses are as a facilitator and actually just own them and take advantage of them I want to give you an example so you kind of know what I'm talking about here so if I think about my strengths let's start off with my strengths and this is something I really want you to do as well after I finish this I want you to pause this video and I want you to write down what your strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to being in a group of people and and facilitating even if you haven't done it before maybe you're thinking about you just you being around a group of friends so a couple of my strengths I enjoy groups I enjoy being around groups of people so that makes it kind of easier for me to be a facilitator I also enjoy entertaining people for me I get a buzz out of seeing people laugh and and seeing people have fun so that's something that I can use as a strength for me just putting the word laugh here another thing is I like to improvise so for me it's not a big deal if something goes completely off in the workshop because I enjoy improvisation now let's have a look at some of my weaknesses because there are downsides to being someone who's a little bit like extroverted and enjoys these things so my weaknesses would be well I'm not a natural listener this doesn't mean I never listen it just means that I have a tendency to if someone's talking to me I have a tendency to just think about what I'm going to say next rather than actually listening to them as as part of my like core being this is an issue and that's something that's not great for being a facilitator so another weakness for me is I have a very short attention span and that's not great when you know people in the audience really kind of want you to explain something in more detail I'm generally moving on much faster than they want to as as a default state when I'm not aware of it finally another thing is that I I guess it's kind of related to number two is that I'm not like somebody who really pays a lot of attention to detail so I am the worst when it comes to documenting workshops and this is something I really hate doing I'll really half-ass documentation so I'm not detail oriented whatever okay so why is this helpful for me to know well number one it's very helpful for me to be able to play out my strengths even more I know personally that I'm great around groups that I like to entertain people and that these are the things that make me that give me energy so you know I'll build a bit more improvisation into my workshops I'll build a few more things that help make the audience laugh these are things that make me feel good and come naturally to me more importantly though if I know my weaknesses so a lot of people's weaknesses might be that they're shy or that they're too quiet these are things that you can own and talk to the audience about some of our employees here this extremely introverted more developer types you know especially the people who don't have a lot of facial expressions going on they'll still make jokes about that they'll be still say something like hey it's going to be a really great day I know it doesn't look like that I'm going to be able to keep you awake but I'm going to do my best it's going to be really good like you can really if you know your weaknesses then you can point them out before the audience thinks them okay so for me I can say look I know I tend to speak over people apologies about that and then they don't feel like they're being insulted because I'm saying you know I get it I actually do that and I'm saying it up front so if you can really own your strengths and own your weaknesses especially and bring them to the foreground before anyone else even points them out it's great another thing this is especially at AJ & Smart we all have crazy accents here at this company I have a strong relatively strong Irish accent mixed with a weird American accent loads of people here who have strong German accents about people from all over the world working at AJ & Smart and depending on which company or country we work in I might bring up my accent if I'm in a place where people might be confused by it or maybe they'll be so curious by my accent that they're just not paying attention and especially if you have a strong accent you don't have to feel bad about it you can say I know I have a super strong German accent but you know you haven't you always wanted to be thought by Arnold Schwarzenegger I know he's Austrian whatever and I often play up the fact that I have a an Irish accent that comes out in certain words and because I know it because well people have pointed it out to me now I can own it now I can say sorry that's my Irish accent coming through so really understanding your weaknesses and playing them up not trying to hide them the thing is if you try to hide those things you're using massive amounts of energy on something you shouldn't be you should be using your energy on what you're good at not on hiding what you're bad at so if you have a strong accent if you are quiet if you are shy if you're sweating in front of everyone because you're so nervous say it right say it doesn't matter takes the air out of the balloon if that's something that people say and really just try to own your strengths and weaknesses as a facilitator everyone can facilitate it doesn't matter what sort of personality you have what sort of nervous ticks you have you can still be a great facilitator you can still get better over time by not trying to conceal your weaknesses