Have you ever wondered how some coaches effortlessly scale their events from small gatherings to massive conferences, hosting hundreds, even thousands of attendees? It's a path many coaches aspire to take, but it's not always clear how to make it happen. Today we're going to talk about building capacity for more.
Whether you see yourself renting out a stadium with thousands of guests, Sarah Jakes Roberts, I see you, or you simply see yourself expanding your events reach and taking your events to new heights. This episode is for you. You are in the right place.
this summer inspired this episode, I did a whole lot of building capacity for more. And in the moment, it did not feel like building capacity for more. It felt like doing hard things. And a lot of times I thought to myself, this sucks.
But as my therapist has been telling me recently, Sarah, you're responsible for your first thought, but you are not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible for your second thought. So if yes, this sucks comes to mind, perhaps then we could reframe the next time we think about it, which is I'm building capacity for more. And so that's how I chose to think about my summer as I look back. So we did our annual summer road trip.
was our fifth time doing this because, you know, we moved from Minnesota out here to Portland about five years ago, and every summer it's just felt like.
The thing to do to go visit family and friends back where we used to live for 20 years and also spend a significant chunk of time in our happy place in Door County, Wisconsin, and live the lake life. And so we plan to do that this summer, just like always. And
After our plans were in motion and we were on the road, we found out that my husband needed to spend the majority of that time in New York City for work doing probably the coolest project of his career and I'm so happy for him.
And that meant that most of the summer road trip I was flying solo with a kiddo and a dog to be responsible for and a business to run from the road and clients to serve from the road. And it just felt hard at times, you know, like packing out of a vacation home after you've been there for a month and cleaning.
all by myself and having to put away our satellite internet all by myself. I typically tap out for my tech support to handle such things and that's my husband. Things like I was caretaker for a sick family member for a couple weeks and that felt really hard to do with not only
a sick family member, but also my kiddo to take care of and run to play dates and my dog and then two additional dogs at my sick relatives house. And it just felt hard. And then driving back across the country all by myself and just generally speaking, trying to keep all the balls in the air and ensuring that the ones that are glass don't drop and break because yes, some
some balls bounce. But it just felt hard. And I'm sure that I'm preaching to the choir here and that you've very recently done super hard things. And I tell you this because I'm still so glad that we did it and I wouldn't have done it any other way because I wouldn't have wanted to give up hanging out with family and friends and spending time in some of our favorite places and getting to build.
memories along the way like my kiddo and I stopped at Glacier National Park on the way home and Coeur d'Alene and just had some really magical moments. Oh and then we got home and we had some relatives come visit us for a week that we haven't seen in a very long time and they wanted us to tour them around the Pacific Northwest and it was utterly exhausting and
School starting and all the things like it's just been kind of a crazy three months and I'm just choosing to look back on it as This was capacity building for more. This was not Like it sucks. This was I am preparing for a season of life where My business is demanding more of me. My family is demanding more of me. I'm building more relationships. I am
networking with more people, I'm doing more things, I'm doing bigger things and I think that if I choose to look back on hey doing all that travel was you know like what almost 8 000 miles in three months is just building capacity for more because there's gonna come a time and place where I'm gonna be speaking on stages, I'm gonna be on
in more people's audiences as a guest, whether it's masterminds or conferences, or I'm speaking on more virtual stages, or I'm hosting more students inside of Live Event Academy and it's tapping more of my mental resources. And I think that doing stuff like...
looking back on the hard things like my summer for example and saying that was just helping me build capacity to do more harder things in the future at once. And so I'm looking at it with gratitude and it made me think of you because this whole concept of doing hard things prepares us for more is such in alignment with
events, right? Because yes, when we do these hard things, it builds our capacity for more. It's essential for personal and professional growth. Things that are hard now will feel effortless in the future. Stuff like going on that road trip in and of itself would have felt impossible. It felt very hard the first time, but now we've done it five times and it's, this is not new news to me. And
So it didn't feel like impossible to drive back across the country by myself with a kiddo and a dog because well, I've already done it like what nine times so I know the path even though we took a new route I kind of know what's going to be expected and so it didn't feel impossible and I was willing to do it Or this podcast for example, like I am nearing 100 episodes
What I'm doing today at the level at which I'm doing it is far, far past where I started and sitting down to record an episode for you doesn't feel massive and overwhelming like it did in the past and cold plunges. Ha ha.
I started watching Instagram of people doing cold plunges and then I started taking cold showers every single day. And now I'm easily doing a four minute cold plunge several times a week and in 48 degree water and doing it with calm and ease and not having to talk myself into it and not getting overwhelmed or stressed at the thought.
and being able to keep my heart rate under control. And all of that is a testament to building capacity for more. And I want that for you when it comes to events. And so I wanna talk about putting in the reps with events. I saw a post this past week on Instagram by Brendan Burchard celebrating his 100th four day seminar.
That is no small feat that is cause for celebration and huge congratulations to him and his team for making that happen. And I bring that up because it is something to be proud of. And he didn't start at thousands of people in a hotel ballroom. I think he describes it as something small where he was playing the music on his own.
like music player and running his own laptop and projector and maybe got to, I don't know what the whole story is, but 10 to 20 people by counting not only the guests, but his family who were there and also wait staff that were in the room. And Tony Robbins has similar stories and hosting now arenas. And I think...
that it's easy to start something and think that instantly overnight, it's gonna feel easy to host more guests or to host more guest presenters or to host in a bigger, more elaborate space or to host overseas, whatever the vision is for you of what more looks like when it comes to your events.
And I think we need to give ourselves permission to take small steps and give ourselves the moment to integrate those wins and know that it's stacking and allowing us to do more in the future, whatever more looks like for you when it comes to events. It could be looking like putting on a stadium event. Did you see Sarah Jakes Roberts?
and the Women Evolve event, I think it was in Dallas this past week. Oh my gosh, how incredible, right? And exciting to be building a stage that big and pouring into women's lives like that. And I'm sure she didn't start out in a stadium. And I wanna know what it is for you that you're feeling called
to do in the future because I know you have a vision and that the small things that you're gonna do now are gonna build the foundation for handling bigger, more larger later down the road. So think about if size is a thing for you. Well.
have to start somewhere right if it's 10 in a room or if it's 100 in a room right now that is preparing you for what it's going to be like to step into more. Alex Hermosy just did his book launch event I think it was what 500,000 people registered maybe 100,000 live and if you go watch his YouTube it's like a 10 minute on I think it's titled We Broke the Internet and it's
he makes a comment in there about how that he's been here before. I mean, perhaps not in this space with this many people, but he's put on presentations before and he's prepared before and he's preparing for this one, just like he's learned to prepare for previous talks. And so. It's not nerve wracking like it would have been if he went from
10 years ago when he was getting started and just like stepped right into 500,000 people registered for a live virtual event. And there's lots of things to consider, whether it be the size that you're working yourself into, the complexity that you're working up to. There's stuff like refining systems and processes so that your team...
can support you with ease and with less overwhelm and with less time being taken away from their normal day-to-day work for you. And it might take putting in the reps, it might take seeking out new mentors who've either achieved what you have achieved or also help do that for a living. And
So I encourage you to think about what it is you're building towards and what steps could you start taking now that would help get you ready for more in the future. And I think that...
embracing the fact that it's a journey and it's not going to happen overnight. Now, yes, you may be thrust into a situation where seemingly overnight you are talking to a massive audience and that's just all the more reason for you to be putting in the reps now learning how to prepare for a presentation, learning how to
cast your vision to your team, learning how to, as we talk about it inside of Live Event Academy, picture, plan and produce and do it in a way that is repeatable and scalable and profitable. Anything that you can do to practice that process of picturing it, planning it, producing it, so that it's repeatable and scalable and profitable, the better. And it's just like...
What is it? There's a quote that I got this morning from one of my mentors, Chris Harder. He coaches on money stuff. And it was kind of along the lines of perhaps what you want. It's on its way to you. It just might not be there yet because you're not ready for it. And that there's work for you to do on mindset or readiness.
in order to welcome that abundance in. And let's think about how that applies to events and how you know that there's work that you need to do. If there's any place in your event process right now, however big or small your events are, that doesn't feel like it's done with ease, then that is your sign that you need to do some work in that area.
And so.
I hope this has been helpful for you. I think we'll wrap it here on this whole concept of building capacity for more. I hope this conversation has at least inspired you a little bit to think about what hard challenges do you need to take on now to build yourself, to prepare yourself for bigger things on the horizon. And I want you to remember that growth and expansion don't happen overnight.
It's a journey. Every small step that you take right now will contribute to your ability to handle more significant challenges in the future. And I know that you've got this and I'm cheering you on. And if something came up for you today while we were hanging out, I want you to let me know, drop into my DMs on Instagram because I wanna help cheer you on.
this work, this personal and professional development, it's so important. And I don't want you to be discouraged based on your current size of your current stage. Instead, let's focus on the progress that you're making. So whether you're dreaming of hosting really large conferences or speaking on bigger stages or simply pushing your boundaries, know that the journey is
beginning right now with one small step and I want to thank you for hanging out with me today. This has been so fun. Keep building your capacity. Keep pushing those boundaries. Make it an outstanding day and I'll see you in the next episode.