Poolside facilitator sessions are the best kind of sessions.
Within five minutes of arriving at most conferences, I’ve decided coming was a terrible mistake.
I’ve been to a lot of them. I’ve hosted a few, taught at many, and sat in the seats of quite a few more. And the arrival is almost always the same.
I walk up to the registration table, get shoved a bag full of stuff, and then … I’m thrown to the wolves.
I scan the room for a familiar face. If there isn’t one, I’m resigned to a day of working really hard at small talk.
Compare that to the House of Beautiful Business in Lisbon, an event I was at a few years ago.
They gave each of us three random words that pinpointed a location in the city. Mine took me to the waterfront, where I bumped into someone else from the conference. We spent an hour or two wandering around Lisbon together, and she became the person I knew there. (My anxiety dropped instantly.)
So as I prepare for Stay Curious LIVE (in just two-ish weeks!), that’s the first thing on my list: make the first three steps easy.
We don’t need more.
The second thing on my list comes from something that really irritates me. Conference organizers always want to “add value,” and they think the way to do it is with more content.
But virtual hand up if your problem in life is that you don’t have enough content …
No hands? Right. We’re all drowning in it. (I’m grateful you even opened this email.)
For years, one of my core principles has been this: what’s the least I could teach that would be the most useful? Because the magic isn’t in the content.
It’s in the space you give people to wrestle with it, digest it, and metabolize it.
Space isn’t just time, it’s place.
Too many conferences are drab and beige, mostly because they’re in hotel ballrooms that have committed to drab and beige as an aesthetic. (Sorry if you’re in charge of hotel decor.)
Find beauty, natural light, and a bit of quirkiness … and something magical happens.
One of my favourite memories is facilitating a session for 150 people seated around a swimming pool in Portugal, feet dangling in the water, the coast stretching out beyond them.
Space is in the body, too.
Most conferences just shuffle you along from room to room so you can get your next overload. But I know (even if I struggle to fully embrace it myself) that wisdom comes through movement.
Am I suggesting a dance party? Maybe. But even some yoga poses do the trick (and if you watched my stand-up video last week, you know which ones I mean).
You’re probably not running a conference any time soon. But you might be hosting a meeting, an offsite, or a dinner. As you prepare, ask yourself:
How do I make the first three steps easy?
What’s the least I could offer that would be most useful?
How do I find the beauty?
And how do we get out of our heads, even just for a moment?
Answer these, and you’ve got a gathering nobody will regret showing up for.
