I’m going to reveal the most annoying thing about planning and prepping and rehearsing a 90-minute webinar.

It’s that the thing takes 90 minutes.

So when you rehearse it, if you want to rehearse it to time and make sure that you’re properly to time, you need 90 minutes per rehearsal.

Because if I do it rushed, then I don’t know how I’m doing on timing.

Other things I’m thinking about as I plan for this webinar that’s tomorrow, you know, when I do this thing in person, this kind of presentation, you can gauge feedback in real time.

You can see how people are responding.

When you make jokes, you can hear if people are laughing.

When you’re doing what I’ll be doing, which is talking to a silent audience in a Zoom seminar where I can’t even see the other people, you get no feedback.

You’re talking in a vacuum.

People can submit Q&A, but it’s not the same thing as hearing whether the jokes are landing or seeing whether people are engaged.

So I got that going for me.

And then there’s also the final question that I have, which is, what’s the right amount of time to leave for Q&A in a 90-minute session?

I want to give people 90 minutes of information, but people also like to have Q&A answered.

So it’s like, is it 10 minutes?

Is it 20 minutes?

I can’t do more than 20 minutes.

If you’re paying for a 90-minute presentation, you got to have at least 70 minutes of presentation.

So I’m aiming for 75.

I feel like if you only have 10 minutes for questions, then it feels really rushed.

Also, Q&A, we all know, can get annoying sometimes where people are asking hyper-specific questions that are exclusive just to them.

And what’s the point?

So we’ll see.

I think it’s going to go great.

I’m really looking forward to it.

But prep, man, prep is hard.

Your Daily Lex I also want to apologize to everybody who loves Duolingo for ruining Duolingo.

I never signed up for Duolingo until yesterday.

And then yesterday is also when the CEO was like, we’re going to fire all our contractors and replace them with AI.

And listen, I don’t hate AI the way some do.

I think AI has a great purpose, but AI needs humans.

AI can’t be original or creative in the ways that we think about creativity.

Anyway, so I signed up for it yesterday to learn two things, reading music better and Italian since we’re going to Italy in July.

And I’m already doing okay at the Italian especially.

But yeah, then this announcement comes out and I’m like, oh, great timing, Friedman.

That’s what I said to myself.

I call myself Friedman.

It’s not true.

So I’ve mentioned I haven’t loved having to publish all these selfie videos about my upcoming webinar, but it’s the only way I can think of to really promote it in any reasonable way.

And what’s kind of funny to me is I enjoyed making the videos.

Like I didn’t love having to publish self-promotional videos, but I enjoyed the process of making them, especially because some of these that I was making, I was going unscripted, which maybe is obvious, but I was just talking directly to the camera and then editing them in Final Cut.

And the whole process was taking like 20 minutes from pressing record to uploading to YouTube or whatever.

And I’m not going to become a YouTuber.

I don’t think, but it was fun.

I should probably do more video, especially when I see like reels on Instagram of people doing funny things.

I’m like, I can do funny things.

Why don’t I ever do that?

And I would say, I don’t feel like I’m an expert in how to best make Instagram real style videos.

You know, the style of video where you’re playing different characters and talking to yourself or whatever, but I’m funny.

I can be funny on video.

I just don’t do it, but I enjoyed it.

So who knows?

Who knows?

Let’s see.

I got the seminar slash webinar coming tomorrow.

I’ve got a couple of people who want to attend, but can’t make that time.

So now I’ve got to record it and then give them like a link to watch the video, but I don’t want it to get shared a million places because people had to pay for it.

So I’ll probably only leave the link up for a couple of days.

Of course they could download it and then share it, but I’m not super worried about all that.

But anyway, those are all the things I’m thinking about with regards to this webinar.

I, oh, here’s a fun fact.

I decided that, you know, I wanted to do a real webinar style.

If you do it as a regular Zoom meeting, then you’ve got people who can click the cameras on and off or there’s that whole grid of people.

Like it’s not in, it’s not in true webinar presentation mode unless people opt for it to be that way on their side.

So let me, let me make this a true Zoom webinar.

And Zoom’s like, oh, we got to pay for that.

And it’s like, I don’t know, some ridiculous amount, like $800 for a year or something.

I was like, well, I’m not going to do, I don’t need a year.

I don’t need to spend $800 on this thing.

And they’re like, well, you can buy one month for $80.

I was like, you know what?

The most I’m going to do this is once a quarter and it’s probably less.

It’s probably like two to three times a year.

So just doing it one off for $80 a pop makes more sense for a month at a time than paying this full annualized webinar fee.

So that’s what I did.

But I feel extorted by Zoom and I’m mad about it.

I’m doing nothing about it other than being mad.

Could I research other platforms that are cheaper and more cost effective to do a good webinar?

Sure.

But people know Zoom.

People have Zoom installed.

It’s fine.

Everything’s fine.

You have to spend money to make money, I guess.

Anyway, that’s all I got.

Happy April 29th and ciao, as they say in Italian.

Lex.