What a room full of brave, curious and awesome humans looks like.
I have a confession …
In the days leading up to Stay Curious LIVE, our first-ever live event celebrating ten years of The Coaching Habit, my team and I were tired. Really tired.
It was months of planning. A thousand decisions that all needed answers at the same time. And a hundred moving parts (not to mention nearly as many opportunities for things to go sideways).
We were excited, of course. But we were also wondering whether we’d ever want to do something like this again.
Fast-forward to Sunday morning, post-event.
I woke up with a question in my head:
When can we do this again?
Turns out Ainsley, who leads my team and had worked so hard to bring the event to life, had woken up with exactly the same question.
We’d just spent two days with 100 curious humans at The Second City in Toronto.
And somehow, instead of feeling wrung out (or, truthfully, in addition to feeling wrung out in the best possible way), we were filled to the brim.
So what happened?
We trusted the room
We’d made the plans, designed the experiences, agonized over the details. But once the doors opened, we had to let go of the “what ifs” and trust the process.
Trust the work we’d done. Trust each other and the people who’d chosen to show up.
Trust that they’d find what they needed, offer what they could, and make the whole thing better than anything we’d planned on our own.
And they did.
People arrived as strangers and started having conversations that quickly went beyond the usual “So, what do you do?”
They asked questions. They listened. They challenged their own assumptions. They made themselves vulnerable.
They brought their whole selves, including their doubts, their humour, their generosity, and their willingness to play. And they made the experience their own.
The teacher got taught
We spent time exploring some of my newer ideas, including what happens when two of our essential needs collide.
One person discovered that reducing something to just two words got her closer to the truth than two hundred ever had.
Another flipped the exercise around and found an entirely different way in.
Someone else suggested drawing an infinity symbol through the middle of my carefully constructed framework … which made it better. (And this all happened in real-time while I was teaching from the stage!)
Huzzah!
And in the Practice Rooms, twelve fantastic facilitators created spaces for people to experiment, reflect, challenge themselves, and learn from one another.
When you get 100 curious people together, the wisdom doesn’t just flow from the person holding the microphone.
Full on. And fully nourishing.
There was a lot happening over those two days — big questions, small conversations, moments of discovery, unexpected connections.
And so much generosity.
People poured appreciation and encouragement into each other. Into the facilitators. Into my team. Into me.
We’d hoped to create an experience that would help people enter 2027 a little lighter, braver, and more ready to act.
What I hadn’t quite anticipated was how much we’d receive in return.
One person wrote in that the experience had “filled my jam jar of the soul.”
Another talked about rediscovering the importance of being more “play full,” especially when life feels heavy.
And someone else realized they’d forgotten to take photos with half the people they’d met. They’d been too busy having good conversations.
That might be my favourite bit of feedback. Because … same.
