Been a while! A lot has happened

/ Community, Company General, Discord, Events, Founder's Thoughts, Learnings / By

Hello, wonderful person!

This is a long one, because it’s been a while, a month in fact, since the last blog post. I’ve been having issues sleeping and focusing during my days, so there were certain things I haven’t been keeping up with, like the blog.

But despite this, Ugeddit has been growing, slowly but surely as you’ll read about below, and I’ve also caught what was causing the focus issues, so I’m adjusting this as well.

Updates

  • For our in-person CNC Practice events

    • 2023-07-01
      • We went over many things from conflict resolution to using CNC on oneself to clear self-judgements and think in terms of adjusting to achieve what we want, and since they were curious, we then started talking about cognitive science like psychology, neurons and electrical patterns, even quantum physics
    • 2023-07-08
      • 5 people came in-person, 2 Japanese, 1 Korean, 1 Indonesian, and me. We started out mostly having a casual hangout and language exchange, but then we went over the first 3 CNC core skills, Observations, Pure Emotions, and Core Needs. As I was sharing example situations to use them in, one of the Japanese attendees, Kaito, thought of how he could use it with his long-distance girlfriend who’s in Japan to create more understanding and happiness in their relationship!
    • 2023-07-15
      • I totally forgot to write a summary of this event when it happened, and I don’t remember, but I’m sure it was valuable!
    • 2023-07-22
      • We went over just how critical it is to think about things in terms of Observations, Pure Emotions (Feelings), and Core Needs, all together which make up a “Situation” in CNC. For example “I heard him say ‘You’re an idiot’ while looking at me” (Observation), “…and I felt scared” (Pure Emotion), “…because I need to know I can handle the situation and be safe” (Core Need)
      • Today’s event was all about focusing on processing everything through the lens of CNC, especially when it comes to self-talk, or “insulting/shaming yourself in your own head, making yourself feel bad about things you did or haven’t even done yet”, and translating that into your CNC Situation. For example, “What I said didn’t result in what I want, and I’m sad about that. What I need is connection, and…” (this next part is a Strategy) “…and I think being able to talk to people will help me have someone to talk to, and this will create more connection for me”
      • One of our members used CNC to realize their Observation. A couple of times, their Observation was actually imaginary, as in “I imagined hearing myself say this to the person, and I felt scared about doing that, because I need to know I can handle things well”
      • The next part of the CNC thought process is Creating Strategies… to be continued… I’ll share the rest later, or if you really want to know, you can ask me directly too

  • For our Deep Dives

    • 2023-06-30 “How People Decide Their Hobbies”
      • We had many people share one of their hobbies and interests, and we went back in time to when they first experienced doing it, before they actually knew they enjoyed it, and almost everyone mentioned it was during childhood. One member shared they saw something and just immediately wanted to do it, however two members shared theirs was born out of a chore or task they were told to do, but then they found something positive and enjoyable within that chore/task, and either transformed the chore, or started enjoying doing the task itself
      • Oh, and one of those people sharing in voice chat was someone who barely talked in the server let alone spoke using their voice, so I was glad to hear and see them being comfortable enough to speak
      • But that’s not the crazy thing I did. The crazy part was the Deep Dive is 1 hour, but (if I’m remembering right) I stayed and we all chatted for THREE additional hours after the event’s hour ended
      • But THEN, even after I left and continued my day, another member who also almost never previously spoke in voice chats started speaking to other members with their voice too
    • 2023-07-07 “Solving conflicts (drama, hate, etc)”
      • At the start, because I was still in coaching mode (the event is immediately after my coaches office hours), I thought the Deep Dive event was actually our Open CNC Practice event, and I introduced a CNC example at the beginning. Our members reminded me it wasn’t a CNC event, and we all laughed
      • Then, I realized that solving conflict can involve CNC, and the example I shared was a conflict situation already, so it actually all worked out anyway. The prompt was about a statement someone made while they were upset/angry, and the questions were about why the statement wasn’t CNC, and how it could be made in CNC instead
      • Everyone pretty much got it within a few minutes. One of our members who was nervous about their answer being “wrong” actually answered in CNC, and when I mentioned that, they said they immediately felt proud of themselves
    • 2023-07-14 “Overcoming fear of talking”
      • One of the people talking during the event was someone who never spoke before last month in the VCs, and I liked that. We did end up talking about CNC again actually, but a couple of the “fear of talking” questions we and the participants answered were “What causes fear (in general)?” and “What helps you move past fear?”. If you want to know more, join our Discord (ugeddit.com) and find it in the #deep-dives channel
    • 2023-07-21 “Sharing different opinions comfortably and safely”
      • Everyone got busy and no one was able to attend, which was also helpful for me because I had a priority task I wanted to complete that day, and this freed up more time for me to complete it
      • But, I did share 2 questions to the community asking what dates+times would be easier for them to attend that we can shift towards, and what other changes to the events they would appreciate and value even more

  • For our online CNC events

    • 2023-07-03
      • We all very quickly completed this week’s CNC Challenge which was about recognizing the Observations and Pure Emotions of someone talking to themselves in their own head. Everyone answered the key questions over twice as fast as they did in the previous event with the previous CNC Challenge. I like it
    • 2023-07-10
      • The event itself was very quick. We all figured out the CNC breakdown of yet another challenge situation, and after this, we started talking about other situations people wanted to share and ask for help with
      • But the craziest thing happened, once everyone else left the voice chat, it was me and 1 other person, and we ended up video calling for almost FOUR HOURS after the event ended, talking about everything from social situations, to learning and memory skills, even to mental math tricks. It basically turned into an extended coaching seminar
    • 2023-07-17
      • The event was below average in both attendance and outcomes, but the attendees each still ended up gaining at least 1 actionable learning they can use in their real situations
      • Afterwards, one of our members said something that reminded me of two critical things I realize now are clearly important
        1. CNC (Core Needs Communication) uses a term called “judgements” to describe words which have a socially-embedded implication of “wrongness” or “badness”. For example, words like “evil”, “insult”, or even “master” (implies others are not skilled) or “good” (implies others are “bad”). When people hear these words, they often feel unhelpful emotions like anger, sadness, etc. The problem is that the word “judgement” itself is a judgement, and I’ve been using this word to describe people’s attempted CNC usage as a method of teaching, and at least some people have interpreted this as “making a mistake” which then usually turns into either self-blame (”I did something wrong”) or other-blame (”They’re targeting me”), neither of which helps learning. I’ll be keeping this in mind and thinking about how to adjust teaching methods moving forward
        2. I knew that “pointing out mistakes” is not the most-effective teaching method, but I didn’t actually realize I was doing this in the moment with our Open CNC Practice events, so I’m glad someone reminded me I was doing this, because now I can notice and adjust

  • For our CNC Skill Tree

    • I finished overhauling the CNC (Core Needs Communication) Skill Tree. I’ve simplified and clarified the definitions for things, and also massively simplified the skill pages, steps, and descriptions. I’ve also connected each of the skills to each other in ways that guide people through using each of them and explain more about how the skills all fit together

    • We now have two completed Outcomes (use cases, goals, etc)

      • Resolve a discomfort or disagreement
      • Handle an “insult”

      Outcomes are step-by-step guides for how to use Skills to achieve a goal. Skills are activities or behaviours that can be learned, trained, and mastered

  • For everything else

    • Our members have invited at least 3 more people to the Discord community (that I’m remembering at the moment; there may be more)
    • Not only that, they also helped them through onboarding, and introduced them to what Ugeddit is about, and even shared with them tips about CNC

Next steps

  • I’ve met a couple people who may be able to help me monetize Ugeddit in an ethical way, so I’ll be chatting with them about how I can do this to make sure Ugeddit is both sustainable and true to its values
  • I’m focusing on rapidly training people in CNC to reach level 3 as soon as possible, so one of them can become our first Teacher (beside me), if they want to, and help others learn how to speak CNC and how using it can improve their social skills, relationships, and more

Ways you can help

  • If you know someone who wants to

    • Improve their social skills, a relationship (by solving a disagreement, or creating more comfort & happiness in general), or
    • Help others do these things

    Then tell them about Ugeddit, or me, or both! → ugeddit.com

    And if you think it makes sense, you can also tell them about my goals for Ugeddit about CNC and a first Teacher

I appreciate it a ton!

Always moving forward