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10 Lessons from Hosting the First Daily Writer Retreat · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of weeks ago, I hosted my first Daily Rider Retreat in St.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Charles, Missouri.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And even though the Daily Rider Club has been active for about two years, I never really considered hosting a retreat until just a few months ago.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why was that?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I knew that putting together a retreat was a lot of work, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to invest the time or the energy or frankly the money to host a retreat when I felt there was a lot of other more important things I could do.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I've got client work, I've got this podcast that goes out every day, I've got my own books and writing that I'm working on, and I've got endless administrative details that are required to run a business, and all those take my time and attention.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So hosting a retreat for a select few people was honestly pretty far down my list of priorities.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: However, and this is a big however, I've been to a lot of retreats and other small events the last couple of years, and I've known about the incredible power of a retreat or a live event and how it can impact people's lives.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I felt that myself.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I have experienced the power that a retreat or a small live event can have on your life and really the whole direction of your business.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: There is a magic when people get together in person, and it's a magic that you simply cannot duplicate when you just interact online.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Despite my best intentions to put off a retreat until next year or beyond, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Several of our daily writer club members had been asking me about a retreat.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I could say they kept bugging me about a retreat.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a very kind way of saying it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is that they were kind of bugging me, but in the best way possible, if you know what I mean.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew that it was something they wanted to do, and I thought, well, maybe I'm the one holding things up here.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you realize that you're the bottleneck in the progress of your business, that's that's actually a good sign because you can fix that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of became aware that I was the one holding this back for really no good reason.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we decided to go ahead with it, and we made plans to have a small retreat of 10 people, and I had a lot of help planning in the events.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this wasn't something I just did on my own by any stretch.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we decided to put together a schedule that looked something like this.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So let me share a little bit about this, uh, what we actually did at the retreat.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then I want to share 10 lessons that I learned from hosting this first retreat a couple of weeks ago.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So on Tuesday evening, we met at a great barbecue restaurant in St.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Charles, Missouri.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Salt and Smoke.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually one of my favorite restaurants.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: They have the best rolls at a restaurant I've ever had anywhere.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're absolutely phenomenal.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, another boy, they're a close, another close second is Lambert's Cafe in um Sykeston, Missouri.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Those are really good too.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Home of the throwed rolls, by the way.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love that place.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: But Salt and Smoke has great rolls.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: They have great brisket and sides and all kinds of good stuff.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, the best mac and cheese I think you'll probably ever have in this life.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: They have at Salt and Smoke.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we met there on Tuesday night for uh for dinner.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Super fun dinner, kind of a fun kickoff where everybody could meet everybody else and just kind of get to know each other.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then on Wednesday, I kicked off the day on Wednesday morning by having everybody share what a successful retreat would look like for them.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I said, what do you most want to get out of your time here?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody comes with different expectations.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: They have different goals and everybody wants something a little bit different out of a retreat.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to make sure and know what that was.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I would change my plans radically based on their responses, but I wanted to know because if you're doing a retreat for a small group, you want it to be really valuable.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I wanted to make sure if I could adjust things or if I could ask certain questions, or uh I just wanted to make sure I could do things that would help draw out the best in everybody and help everybody to have as good an experience at the retreat as possible.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So what we did after that kind of initial session, we spent the rest of the day in two small groups helping everybody to get really clear on their business goals.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the first day of the retreat was focused on your writing business.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: What are your goals?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of income streams do you want to have?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what do you ultimately want out of all this?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some people at the retreat were more experienced and are part or full-time in their writing business.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Other people were brand new to this.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I really actually thought that was a fun mix because everybody gets to learn from everybody else, even if they're in very different stages in their writing business.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, on Thursday, we had a similar schedule, uh, you know, basically a long session in the morning and a long session in the afternoon, except that on Thursday, the focus was how to write a short book.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm a big proponent of crafting short books, especially if you're a first-time author.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: My go-to, my default type of book for somebody to write as their first book is a short little book.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because people oftentimes struggle with getting that first book out there because they've thought of doing a book for years or maybe decades, and they have all these things they want to put into the book, and it becomes so overwhelming, and there's so many things that they want this book to be that it just is impossible to actually make it happen and to get started.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there myself, I know what that feels like.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, so my strategy now, particularly for first-time authors, is to kind of set that big book aside.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can write the big book later on if there's like some massive thing you want to do or some, you know, very important book that you have in mind that you've thought about for a long time, let's set that aside and let's do a little short book that solves a very specific problem for a specific audience.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that I like that strategy is because it's a quick win for the reader and it's also a quick win for the author.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you can write a short book that focuses on one very specific thing and helping somebody to get success in a particular area, whatever topic the book is on, then you can get the book out there fast.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn some basic systems for particularly self-publishing, and you just have a really quick win, and that is so, so important.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're struggling with this big, massive book that you've been thinking about for a long time, you're probably not ever going to get it done because you're so overwhelmed.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why on Thursday at the retreat, we focused on specifically three different ways to organize a short book.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I went through those, did about a half an hour of teaching on that, and then we broke up into two groups, and we had two sessions the rest of the day.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh each so each of those groups had two sessions, and we just focused on helping people to outline those books.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We thought through titles, who is the audience, what is the transformation you want the audience to have, uh, what's the structure of the book, what's the the way you want to format it, all those kinds of things.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really, really a lot of fun.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So now that you have a basic idea of how we structured this daily writer retreat, I want to share the 10 most important lessons that I'm taking away from this experience as the host of the retreat.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's dive in.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number one is that people are hungry for live events.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think after two years of dealing with COVID, people have been ready to get back to live events for some time now.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, not everybody has, you know, stayed at home this whole time.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for the most part, I'm not saying COVID is behind us, but for the most part, people have kind of, at least emotionally, they've kind of moved on from it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, people are still getting sick and and some people get very sick from it, but for the most part, culturally, we've kind of moved on in many ways from the pandemic, and people are really, really ready to get back to going to live events and kind of like life as it used to be.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this real pent-up demand for people to get together for concerts, for events, for retreats, and those kinds of things.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, personally, I never stopped going to events.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and your mileage may vary and your attitude toward that might vary, and that's totally cool.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the point really here is that people are wanting to get together.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: They want to be with other people in a live setting.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this retreat showed me the power of getting together in person, particularly for introverted riders who are usually isolated from other riders.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is the key that I try to keep in mind for this particular retreat is introverted riders.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk about that um later on down the list.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: But lesson number one is that people are hungry for live events.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number two is that food and location make a big difference with the retreat.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So for this first daily rider retreat, I splurged on a nice large historic home in St.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Charles County.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, in St.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Charles, Missouri.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is in St.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Charles County, but the city is St.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Charles.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we were only a couple of blocks away from the historic main street in St.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Charles, where there's dozens of quaint little shops and tons of coffee shops and restaurants and all that kind of stuff.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: They've got cobblestone streets, and it's a big touristy area.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also literally right next to the Missouri River, like literally one street over from the river.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really cool setting.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's a lot of shops there.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very fun, quaint kind of a space.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the home itself was a historic home built in the 1800s.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It had been remodeled and refurbished.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was totally and thoroughly modern on the inside.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: It had four huge bedrooms.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the people at the retreat stayed there.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It had like all this space and these really high ceilings, super modern and this cool kitchen.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the actual space and the location was great.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now the catering was provided by my friend Steph Hill, who owns the catering company called Nibble and Nosh here in St.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Peter's, Missouri, where I live.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: She does a great job.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the food that Steph did was, I would describe it as a little bit more upscale.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, many times when you go to a retreat that's kind of like a homespun type of retreat that, you know, it's just people who are putting it on, it's a small event, not like it's not like events where you have these huge companies come in and do things.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to these smaller events, many times the food is kind of like sandwiches and soup and chili and all that's great.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that a bit.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love all that stuff.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: But for this particular retreat, I wanted something that was a little fancier and a little bit more upscale.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the reason is because I wanted to set an atmosphere that, hey, I'm not just like throwing this together.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted something that you can tell I've put some thought and planning into.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, if you have a retreat where you have chili and peanut butter sandwiches, I personally I love peanut butter sandwiches and chili.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you have a retreat with that, that's totally great.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not commenting on that in any way, shape, or form.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying that for this retreat, I wanted to have something just a little bit more upscale.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So Steph put together this menu that was really cool.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: The items were just a little bit different, but they were so good, and everybody really loved it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was fantastic.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I'm trying to say with this lesson is that I just wanted people to come and know that I put some thought and some resources into this event.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't just throw it together.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't trying to do like the bare budget type of event, if all that makes sense.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you can you do you, well, you know, how you do your retreat uh is totally great, I'm sure.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but this is how I approached mine.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: For this very first one, I wanted to really make a good impression on people and to to have an atmosphere which includes food that was really nice.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go on to lesson number three, which is that introverted riders need a different type of retreat.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I designed this two-day retreat as sort of a retreat for introverted riders specifically.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've been to retreats before where people are going from early morning until late at night, and you know, that's fine.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: But as an introvert, those kind of retreats exhaust me.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I need a lot of personal space and downtime, especially if I'm with a group, sometimes in a small, kind of enclosed setting like a house, where it gets kind of loud, and if you have some extroverts there, you know, they they talk a lot, which is great.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: But all that means that if I'm in an intense, small setting like that with a little with a lot of people, that drains my emotional battery really, really fast.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I can't, I really just can't do like 10 or 12 hours of that.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't work for me.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I designed this retreat with that dynamic in mind, and I wanted this to be a space where people could come and we have a light breakfast, we have a session, then we have a long lunch, then we have another session after lunch, and then we have a break in the afternoon for a couple of hours.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I initially planned, so that people in the afternoon could go get coffee or they could take a walk or whatever they want.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the funny thing was that even though I had that in mind in planning this retreat, what I did not take into account was that writers love to talk and talk when they're around other writers.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it was actually like a weird kind of reverse where I expected that we would come and people would sort of be tired by around three in the afternoon and they would want to kind of be alone.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the opposite was actually true.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, even though I would say most of the people at the retreat were introverts, they kept talking and talking and talking and and wanting to to work on stuff and wanted to do something in the evening.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that really kind of surprised me.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not sure what to make of that, other than the idea that I think if you have the expectation that it's okay for people to be introverted at this retreat, then people sort of relax and and they they can let down their guard a bit and they want to engage more.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if there's an expectation that you're gonna be high energy the whole time, that it's gonna be like 12 hours of interaction and planning and discussion and all this intense stuff, I think if people expect it's gonna be that way, then they need to retreat more.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that's a dynamic I need to think more about for the next one.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I was really kind of surprised by that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the the end result of this is that we ended up not having much downtime because all these introverts wanted to talk and plan and get together.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's a function of writers who are alone most of the time.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: When they get together, it's like they have all this pent-up energy that they want to spend in conversation and planning and and stuff.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that that's it, I'm not really sure.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I still feel like introverted writers need to have a different kind of retreat.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you set an expectation that it's okay to be introverted, even within this social context of a retreat, that people want to interact more because they don't feel pressured to do so, if that makes sense.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, uh lesson number four.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of feel like I beat that horse to death.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go on to number four.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: The main value of a retreat is not in information, but in relationships.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: As a result of being together, everybody there made new connections.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: They expanded their goals, they made a lot of progress on their book outline or their projects, or they had some other type of breakthrough.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, including myself, I had uh a breakthrough there also, which was that retreats are really cool and I should do more of them.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was my main takeaway.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think that everything in life, including in writing and in business, everything is so much easier and it's a lot more fun when you surround yourself with great people.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that a retreat is a great setting to build those relationships and collaborate with people.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: The main function of a retreat, in my opinion, is not to come and get a lecture or to get information.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You have a little bit of information, you have some a lot of questions, you have dialogue, and you have the emphasis on collaboration and building those relationships and in uh taking action on what you've learned.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is the most important part of a retreat, not on coming to, you know, hear a lesson or or attend a workshop or whatever.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, workshops are great, but a workshop to me is fundamentally a different setting than what a retreat is.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: A retreat is all about relationships, getting away, thinking about the big picture.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it totally depends on what the retreat is about and what the focus of it is.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: But to me, a workshop is a place where you go to get knowledge and you apply that knowledge and maybe you have breakout groups or whatever, but a retreat is kind of a different beast.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I say the value of a retreat is not in really in information, it's about forming relationships and collaborating in life change.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, lesson number five here is you need help planning a great retreat.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a lot of help planning and running the first daily rider retreat.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: My wife Melanie helped choose the venue and prep some of the food.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And two of our Daily Rider Club members, MJ James and Lynn Smargus, were a huge help in planning the retreat and also leading some groups.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this is not just about delegating your tasks that you don't want to do to other people.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is really about collaborating with other people who are smarter than you in their respective areas, and you each bring your own perspectives and you bring your best gifts to the table as you're planning a retreat.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a it's a plussing kind of thing.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a term that Walt Disney would use.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Plusing when you take something good and you expand it or you plus it, you add to it.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's the value of having help when you plan a great retreat.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is people are bringing energy, they're bringing ideas that you cannot bring on your own.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really, really grateful for uh these fantastic people in making the retreat so much better than I could have made on my own if I were just kind of left to my own devices.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number six is a retreat or a live event can have a powerful impact on someone's business or life direction.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: For example, one of the people who came to this retreat had been trying to build a ghostwriting business for a while, but they had been honestly just kind of stalled out.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: However, in one of our group sessions, this person and then another person who's a full-time editor, and person number one, the person who was uh kind of an aspiring ghostwriter, he discovered that he had a real gift and a love for editing because he had a teaching background.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as this person started talking to the editor, they really had a breakthrough moment where they thought, well, maybe editing is what I should be doing and not pursuing ghostwriting.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so now those two people are going to be working together, the editor's gonna be providing some mentoring and training, maybe even um hiring out some work for this other person who was going to be a ghostwriter, but now they're probably gonna become more of an editor.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is phenomenal because without the retreat, without that insight and without that conversation and those sessions, that would not have happened.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So being in a live setting with people who want to help you can really help you make radical progress in a short time.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it was at a retreat for the Total Life Freedom Community a couple years ago.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: My friend Vincent Puglisi leads that group.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was at a total life freedom retreat where I was challenged to start the daily writer club.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel ready and I wasn't really going to do it.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: But yet somebody challenged me and they said, Kent, if you believe that you can help writers by forming this community, but you don't, you're really doing them a disservice.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt very convicted by that.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so as a result, I started the Daily Rider Club.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And two years later, here we are, and having the community has grown a lot, and a lot of cool things have happened, and we had a retreat and uh getting ready to start a mastermind for the group, and lots of other cool things have happened simply because I was in a context where somebody challenged me to just get started.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number seven: a retreat is a great setting for people to look at the big picture.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: So at this retreat, we did a lot of book planning, but the most important question that we talked about was what do you really want from all this?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we writers love books, but the book has to be connected to your bigger goals.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of writers get stuck, not because they don't have ideas, but because they're not sure which idea to pursue.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when you have a clear idea about your goals and what you want, everything gets a lot easier.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is why whenever I talk with a prospective ghostwriting client, the very first thing I always do, we don't talk about the book.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about what's the big picture of their life or their business and how does this book connect with their overall goals?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because the worst thing that I can do as a ghostwriter is write the wrong book for somebody.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can write a great book for somebody, but if it doesn't help them achieve their goals or take them in a direction they want to go, the wrong book is actually going to be a huge detriment to your business.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because now you're gonna be pouring energy and time and resources into a book that is taking you completely in the wrong direction.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why it's really important to be clear on what your goals are and what your overall direction is.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And a retreat is a great setting for people to look at the big picture of what they are doing with their writing or their life or their or their writing business for that matter.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because a retreat gives you the time and the space to get away from the details of your everyday life, and you can focus on those things because you have the mental and and the physical space to do that.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number eight, people love swag.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: People love to get stuff.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: We've all been to events where the organizers give you merchandise that wasn't really high quality.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's, you know, they give you like this sort of generic looking pen with their logo on it or something like that.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but I didn't want to just give away cheap pens or other items that weren't really first class.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what I did for this first retreat, now for future retreats, I may do something different.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I probably will.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but for this first one, I just went through VistaPrint and I had some really high-quality tumblers, pens, notebooks, and stickers made.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they weren't cheap, to be honest with you, but they did make a really good impression.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we put all those items in gift bags for the attendees.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I got some really nice shiny silver gift bags, you know, put the Daily Writers logo sticker on the front.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh in the future, we'll probably make those a little fancier.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: But for this one, I was really happy with it.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that was important to me because I didn't want to give away stuff that didn't represent the best side of my business.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that meant that I spent a little bit more money, but I I really wanted to do something that was high class.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me give you just a side note.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: When you're designing merchandise for your business or for retreats or for events, I think it's important to make sure that you're you're designing items that people will actually use.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so do things that maybe aren't quite as common.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: For example, coffee mugs are super common, and I have a lot of coffee mugs with logos and other designs on them.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but maybe instead do a tumbler because a high quality tumbler is something people are going to probably use more frequently than a coffee mug.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that may also be that I don't drink that much coffee, so I don't.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, I place a high value on coffee mugs because I don't use them that often.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: We actually recently did a coffee mug purge at our house.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I got rid of tons and tons of coffee mugs.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: There were probably uh four or five or six coffee mugs that I personally wanted to keep.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of those was actually for a mastermind that I'm in called the Empire Builder's Mastermind, uh led by my good friend Honor Recorder.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I would not dare throw that coffee mug away because number one, it's a cool design.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, it just reminds me of being in this cool mastermind.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I got rid of a lot of other coffee mugs.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: But all things being equal, you know, think through what your people would value.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for my group, Tumblr seemed like a great option.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, maybe for your group, coffee mugs would be great.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that people love the most, actually, though, was I had super high quality journals created.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was the kind of journal that uh it's a little bit bigger in size.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: I actually don't know the size of it, but the only way I can describe the cover was that it's kind of poofy.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that's not a technical term, but you know, you know, like when you're in high school, you have a memory book or something like that, and the cover, it's a little, it's really soft and it's kind of poofy.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was that kind of a journal.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the colors were great, the printing was fantastic, and people seem to really like those.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh, my point with all this is that get some high quality stuff, spend a little bit extra money, think through what would really be valuable to the people that you are designing your merchandise or your swag for.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And don't go cheap on it.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Get some stuff that's nice, get it, get the nicest stuff that you can for the money.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, lesson number nine here, this is a quick one.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're never too old to chase your writing dreams.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We had several people at our retreat in their 60s and 70s, and it was so much fun, and it was so inspiring to see them taking action and making progress on their goals.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So don't ever think that you're too old or too young to try something new or to take the next step in your business.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number 10 is the role of a retreat leader is not to be the guru, but to be a catalyst.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me hang on on this one here for just a second because I think this might be the most important takeaway of the whole thing.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say it again: the role of a retreat leader is not to be the guru, but to be a catalyst.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean by that.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: People in your group or your community, they come to a retreat or to an event because they respect you and you have a certain breadth of knowledge that they want to learn from.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: However, I don't believe that a retreat is the best time to focus on the knowledge that you have as the leader.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because a retreat is not about gaining information.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: A retreat is about life change.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the best way that life change happens is through conversations, through applying knowledge, through asking and answering good questions, through great discussion.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think food has a huge part to do with that because when you have good food, people relax, they talk, they chit-chat a lot more, they hang out in the kitchen.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, food has a way of bringing out uh a lot in people, of bringing out conversations and relationships and just sort of hanging out.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why, you know, this kind of goes back to the one of the first items I mentioned is have some good food there.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, make sure it's good quality and it's stuff that people enjoy.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that the leader's job is to be a catalyst and to make sure that everybody is supported and included.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think this means having a high degree of emotional intelligence and social awareness as the leader or as the host of a retreat.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be able to see when other people aren't participating and then take the steps to draw the best out of those people.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because, let's be honest, uh at any given retreat, you have a mix of people.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have people who talk a lot, and sometimes you have people who don't talk much.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And your job as the host or the retreat leader, uh, specifically if you're working in smaller groups, is you've got to be aware of that and then know kind of when to help other people to quiet down and help other people then to speak up.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think that's part of being a leader in any setting, really, but specifically in a retreat setting that's highly relational, and it is typically in a smaller group that you're working with.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do a bonus lesson here before I wrap up this episode.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this focus on adding value at the retreat, not making it highly profitable.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you may totally disagree with this, but just hear me out.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: For this first retreat, my goal was not to make money.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, for this first retreat, I planned on losing money.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: The reason is that my goal was to get a good group together and have an awesome event.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I priced it really low, and I did everything I could to make this high value and really worthwhile and a lot of fun.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up losing money, but it really wasn't a quote unquote loss.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I considered that an investment into my training as a retreat host.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Events can be really expensive, and my goal with retreats probably is never gonna be to make those the most profitable part of my daily writer business.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a really vital part because nothing can match the energy and the relational value of a live event.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: You simply can't replicate that any other way.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So your mileage on that may vary, and you know, everybody's financial situation is different, of course.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I went into this retreat knowing that it was not going to be profitable.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: This first one would not be profitable, and that was totally okay with me because, again, I saw this as an investment.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted this to be a learning experience for people there, but also for me as well, because I wanted to learn how to do this better.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to create the conditions that would attract people at a low price point.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, wanted to really invest in this event and make it good.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that we really accomplished that.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's kind of my perspective on, you know, especially doing a first event is don't try to make money on it, just do a good event.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, be willing to invest some of your own money in this so you can make it good.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking the long view of this, and it was the same thing with the Daily Writer Club, by the way, uh, or with the podcast or with anything else.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: When you start something, you've got to give it some time and you've got to take the long view.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Way too many people, I believe, they'd start something and they're upset or they're angry because it's it's not like immediately profitable.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you've got to, there's gotta be a learning curve and you have to invest in something so that it can grow later on.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully that all makes sense.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my friend, those are my major takeaways from this retreat.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot, and I saw this as an opportunity for me to get my feet wet as a retreat leader, and I really suspect that retreats are gonna become a bigger part of my daily writer business as time goes on.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever considered leading a retreat for writers, I hope that you'll take these lessons to heart.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I certainly want to invite you to participate in our next Daily Rider Retreat, which is coming up at the end of February.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: More details to come.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So before I close up shop on this episode, I want to let you know that this was brought to you by the Daily Rider Club.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are you looking for a community of enthusiastic and success-minded writers who are launching books and growing their writing business?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: If so, the Daily Rider Club is the missing piece that you've been searching for.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Members have access to weekly writing sprints and live calls with expert teaching, an active online community, access to retreats, which you've just heard about, as well as other in person events, and best of all, a clear pathway for growing your writing platform and your business.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Check it out at DailyRiderLife.comslash club.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.