10 Rules for New Moon Wishes & Manifesting 🌚

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.

From “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio.
Written by Cliff Edwards and released in 1940.

This classic song from Pinocchio was trying to tell us something. Like most Disney magic, they got it half right. Let me show you how to wish upon the new moon and have all your dreams come true. Join me for a ride through Jan Spiller’s New Moon Practice.

Wish within 8 Hours of the New Moon

Just like knowing what season to plant your seeds in determines if your flowers will grow…there is a more effective time to plant your wishes. This practice is most effective within the first 8 hours of the New Moon. Put a reminder in your calendar to try this practice as soon after the New Moon peaks (and not a minute before). Here’s a list of the new moons in 2024 to play with.

Be Focused on You

The New Moon is perfect excuse to create a little ritual for yourself. I do several hours of meditation and yoga on the new moon (come join me sometime if you’re in Chicago). Your ritual could be as simple as breathing deeply for 5 minutes with your eyes closed. Perhaps it’s taking a mindful bath and wearing your favorite robe. Maybe you light a candle or call in your ancestors. It’s totally up to you. Whatever helps you focus your attention back on yourself.

Start with Stuck Habits

One way to bring clarity and support is to wish to shift your relationship with that habit. Here’s some examples from Jan Spiller’s New Moon Magic.

• I want to easily find myself embracing new eating habits that support a healthy body.

• I want the practice of abandoning myself easily lifted from me.

• When I feel emotionally anxious, I want to easily find myself taking three deep breaths to relax.

• I want the habit of ________ easily lifted form me.

• I want all cravings for _______ totally life from me.

Grab this book for a full run down of the wishing practice and thousands of sample wishes to play with. 

Handwrite Your List

Take out a piece of actual paper. Date it. Handwrite 4 to 10 wishes on your paper. After you complete the ritual, you don’t need to do anything special with the paper. Just keep it somewhere safe in case you want to refer back to it.

Don’t Combine Wishes

Even if two wishes are related, you must keep them separated. Rewrite “I want the habits of smoking and drinking alcohol totally lifted from me” into two separate wishes.

1. I want the habit of smoking totally lifted from me.

2. I want the habit of drinking alcohol totally lifted from me.

Make Multiple Wishes on Difficult Areas

For a particulary important issue, you can make multiple wishes around this area of your life. If you’ve decided to focus on your body during this period your wish “to feel healthy” may expand into…

1. I want to easily find myself joyously cooking healthy meals.

2. I want all attraction to highly processed foods totally lifted from me.

3. I want a total healing to occur in ____________ (this area).

4. I want to attract the right information that leads to the total healing of my tendency to _________.

5. I want to easily attract, recognize, and begin working with the right healers for me that restore my ____________.

You Can’t Make Wishes for Other People

Wishing other people will change doesn’t work. Wishing to change your approach or boundary with others will. For example…

🚫 I wish John would lose weight and eat healthier.
✅ I want to easily find myself saying the right words to John that lovingly prompt him to eat a healthy diet.

🚫 I wish Jewels would be nicer to me.
✅ I want a total healing to occur in my relationship with Jewels, resulting in mutual support and goodwill.

🚫 I want Jessica to go to therapy.
✅ I want to easily attract, recognize, and begin working with the right marriage counselor that restores positive communication between Jessica and me.

Watch Your Wording

There are hard and easy ways to get what you want. You could wish “to be rich,” and forget there are many unpleasant ways to get there like overworking or a tragedy. Feel into each wish as you write it. If it evokes feelings of happiness & harmony, you’re golden. If something doesn’t feel right about the wish, rewrite it. Here’s a few wealth wishes to try on.

• I want to be rich in a happy way.

• I want to easily find myself making choices around money that lead to financial prosperity for me.

• I want all resistance to attracting lots of money into my life totally lifted from me.

• I want to find myself easily saving ___% of every paycheck.

• I want clarity regarding money, leading to my handling it with wisdom and balance, and in ways that are in my best interests.

Don’t Fall for Logic

Skip the “logical” wishes. This is about magic and possibility. Don’t write down a wish that seems smart but doesn’t feel right. Remember that you’re allowed to wish for whatever you want. Forget what your mom says you need and go for the moon!

Trust Your Process

Areas where you’ve been stuck for a while, may need a few new moon periods to shift. If a wish doesn’t come true quickly, keep rewording and rewriting that wish until it does.

Did your wishes come true?

Let me know in the comments what your experience was like with this New Moon Wishing & Manifestation practice. You can always contact me with your questions.

Is this my habit or yours?

I used to make a lot of rules for myself based on past experiences. I’d break up with a lawyer and decide I’m never dating a lawyer ever again. I’d get overwhelmed at work and decide I should change industries. A relationship/situation would become unbalanced–and then I’d make some rule to prevent that type of relationship in the future. This wasn’t going well.

The worst part of having so many rules is that they didn’t work. At one point, I was applying rules from so many previous heartbreaks that I was ruling everyone out. There were a million ways a relationship could go wrong and I thought a million rules could prevent that. 

Lately, I’ve switched from trying to control my reality with rules to recognizing when a pattern is mine and when I’ve fallen into someone else’s pattern. My patterns will keep coming up until I learn how to disrupt them.

Now, whenever I feel a reaction rising up to someone within me…I sit with that feeling and ask…

1. When have I felt this way before?

2. Who was involved in making me feel that way?

3. What did I make that feeling mean about me?

Often these feelings were created by my 3 to 8 year old self and it’s time to let them go.

For example, one of my patterns is to distrust white men. I can focus on all sorts of “data” for my pattern or sit with my 5 year old self that was almost sexual abused by a white male neighbor. Me projecting that all male leaders are rapists isn’t going to lead to less rape in the world.

Since I am human and humans are awesome pattern seekers, I am going to see every data point that supports my pattern. I am going to miss every data point that disrupts my pattern. This is how I can get stuck in “old thinking” without taking into account new information.

Women Grow's First Leadership Summit in 2015

My first attempt at working around this pattern was to only lead with women. I was a Director for Women 2.0 (now called Switch) and then Co-Founder/CEO of Women Grow. I thought I could avoid men but it turned out men wanted to support women too. And of course, it turned out after working with thousands of women, there were some I couldn’t trust either.

Running an international network of women working in the quasi-legal cannabis industry burned me out. At one point we had 60+ chapters meeting across 4 countries. I learned that bringing people together brings a lot of people’s patterns into my life. Now with hundreds of relationships to manage, I had to get much smarter about what was mine and what was there’s. 

At first, I treated every problem at Women Grow as mine to fix. I was the CEO and so at the end of the day it was my responsibility. Trying to take responsibility for how thousands of women interacted with each other was a disaster. Especially because we had no ground rules on how to be in community with each other, everyone had very different conflict-resolution methods. 

I learned the top “conflict-resolution” method employed by the women in my network was to collude with as many people as possible about how bad someone was until they left. In my first 60 days as CEO one of our advisory board members tried to convince the rest of the board that I should resign, because I was also interested in having my own cannabis business. It was this woman’s opinion that I couldn’t be CEO of Women Grow and have my own business because that would be unfair to the other business owners. I thought that running an organization encouraging women to start cannabis businesses wasn’t very genuine unless I was also participating. At the time, I went through a lot of drama and pain around this disagreement. I even offered to resign based on one person’s opinion.

Looking back on this conflict I can confidently say that I got sucked into someone else’s pattern. My saboteur had been competing with other women in cannabis consulting and was creating rules that she thought would make it easier for her.

I’ve learned there are three options for dealing with conflict…

1. Try to make all the rules to avoid all the conflict.

2. React to conflict as it comes up.

3. Act from kindness and neutrality when needed.

I’m leaning on the third option now.

Whenever I feel a reaction rising up to someone within me…I sit with that feeling and ask…

1. When have I felt this way before?

2. Who was involved in making me feel that way?

3. What did I make that feeling mean about me?

I also love this quote that has been attributed to a few different folks in the public eye…

“If you have a problem with me, call me. If you don't have my number then that means you don't know me well enough to have a problem.” ― Eleanor Calder

Watch 2015 Me on Vice

In 2014, I co-founded Women Grow with Jane West and went on the wild ride of supporting female entrepreneurs in cannabis. This 2015 episode from VICE, features me in San Francisco and Denver teaching women how to connect with confidence. I can’t get over how many of these women I still know from almost 10 years ago.

My segment is about 30 minutes in.

11 Lifestyle Changes You Must Make Before You Become a Digital Nomad

Six months after founding Women Grow, I figured out that I couldn't afford New York City rent on a startup salary. So in July 2015, I quit my job at Tekserve, packed 6 suitcases, and shipped them to a friend's warehouse in Oakland. Almost 9 years later...I haven't paid rent or worked in an office since.  

It wasn't easy. I still spent time and money on housing. I didn't move to a less expensive country. I didn't buy a van. I didn't have a trust fund. 

I did end up... 

🫏 infiltrating a political party

🍁 creating conferences for thousands of women in weed

🧘‍♀️ taking yoga trainings around the world

🏕️ running a campground

📿 leading silent retreats with 1 to 1,200 meditators

🍄 serving 🍄 in Jamaica

🇪🇺 traveling through Europe 4 times

🚙 driving over 200,000 miles

🚐 blowing up 3 borrowed RVs and finally buying a travel trailer last summer

I still have no idea "what I'm doing" but I've learned a lot. 

I want to share with you the lifestyle changes I made to stay on the road indefinitely. These 11 habits have kept me healthy and sane when I didn't know where I was sleeping that night. So many of you have told me that you want to take a year off to travel. Here's the checklist to avoid expensive snags & health scares. The folks that don’t address these challenges end up quitting the Digital Nomad lifestyle to pay rent. 

I want to thank all the folks who housed me over the last 9 years. There are too many to name but I'll try...Bill, Melissa, Mylee, Aundré, Gill, Charlie, Dan, Jorge, Sarah, Alexis, Corinne, Diane, Jody, Sunny, Alesha, Kelly, Cheyna, MacKenzie, Nancy, Megan, Jason, Anna, Max, Paul, KymB., Alice, Hannah, Katherine, Laura, Ashton, and more.

My Wildcat Travel Trailer and Acura RDX.

1. CREATE AN ANNUAL GATHERING FOR YOUR FRIENDS

Posting all those pics of you working from the beach won’t build camaraderie with your friends stuck at home. Traveling gives you the opportunity to make new friends every day, while making it harder to stay in touch with your old friends. Once you leave town your friends will slowly begin to forget about you.

I recommend you reverse the trend of drifting apart from your old friends by inventing an annual reason to get together. If I’ve already built a friendship with someone, I find that a quality in-person hang once a year can maintain it. I encourage you to build your own weekend campout/sleepover instead of relying on attending the same festival every year. Putting it near your birthday can help prevent the birthday blues. If you like one-on-one hangs, then invite your friends to join you on the road or design your travel to visit them. 

Summer Campout with Cannabis Friends in Mendocino. Thanks to Lauren P. for organizing!

2. MAKE YOUR SELF CARE ROUTINE PORTABLE

Even if you’re visiting the most relaxing places, travel is stressful. Now is the time to create good self care habits before you’re stressed out and lost. Here are the steps that I took to be able to travel continually without stressing out…

1. Know Thyself. Figure out what signals your body gives you on the way to freaking out so you can self soothe. I know when I have a cold coming up or a digestive issue that needs attention before it becomes a problem. I learned this by practicing yoga in my body instead of living in my head.

2. Carry Emergency Stress Release Options. I travel with my favorite tea, noise canceling headphones, ear plugs, yoga mat, and gemstone jewelry. I pack cannabis and 1 over-the-counter pain reliever. Even if you don’t use any pain relievers at home, travel will probably push you into needing one at some point. I love Traditional Medicinals Teas for constipation or gas. 

3. Create flexible morning and evening routines that work when you’re on the road. Since your environment will always be changing, you need practices that ground you. I was the type of person that would get distracted by whatever was in front of me when I woke up somewhere new. Now I try to ignore where I am for the first 1-3 hours of the day and focus on myself instead. I also added a shower to my evening routine because it helps me sleep better. 

4. Exercise. My goal is to walk 5 miles (~10,000 steps) and exercise for 45 minutes every day. Figure out what type of exercise you can do anywhere. Build a walk into your day, every day. I switched from attending in-person yoga classes to watching recordings on youtube. If I’ll be in a town for a few days in a row, I’ll grab a yoga studio or fitness center trial membership. (Some studios limit trials to locals only, so use your hotel’s address and say you’re researching if you want to move to town.) I’ve also used ClassPass, which is a membership that gives you access to undersold fitness classes in large cities.

   You can do my Yin Yoga for the Hips class anywhere (below). It’s especially nice to stretch the hips after you’ve been seated traveling all day. Yoga is also what helps me recover from sleeping in strange positions in strange places.

3. FIGURE OUT YOUR FOOD STRATEGY

Indulging in any food you want is common on vacation but it is unsustainable as a lifestyle. You’ll either blow your budget buying high-quality food or blow up your waist eating cheap calories. Here’s how I changed how I eat to get the right food at an affordable price.

1. Make lunch your largest meal. Many traditions recommend eating your largest meal around noon for the best digestion. Lunch specials are cheaper too.

2. Split big entrees into 2 meals. Some full-size restaurant meals clock in at 2,000 calories. That’s enough calories for some people’s entire day. Split your entree with a friend or save half your meal for dinner. 

3. Cook your own food. You’ll save money and eat higher-quality ingredients when you do it yourself. Even if you don’t have a kitchen, you can make your favorite salad and top it with protein like chickpeas or smoked salmon.  

4. Make your own snacking rules and do your best to stick to them. Once I stopped buying snacks with meat, sugar, gluten, or crappy cooking oils, there’s no snack I can buy at a gas station. This personal rule saves me about $10/day and lots of empty calories.

5. Try $5 Meals from TooGoodToGo. TooGoodToGo is an App that helps bakeries and restaurants sell their leftover food at the end of the day. It’s available in most large cities in the US and Europe with about 180,000 restaurants participating. In NYC I use it as an urban food safari, booking 4 different pickups each day and walking about 5 miles to get everything. I can easily feed 2 people for $20 a day in NYC if no one is a picky eater. (This isn’t a good option for gluten-free folks, low-carb, or strict diets.)

Got 2 sandwiches and a dessert for $5 on TooGoodToGo from Le Pain Quotidien on 29th & Broadway (NYC).

4. PREPARE YOUR ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS FOR TRAVEL

The way you date at home does not work on the road. You won’t be in the same place long enough to get to know someone slowly over months or years. That doesn’t mean you have to leave love behind but you’ll have to work harder to find Cupid’s spark. The #1 reason I see people quit #VanLife is that they get lonely. Here’s all the strategies I’ve used to have romantic relationships while traveling.

1. Date someone who can travel with you. 

2. Meet someone while traveling that you can date while you’re in the same place.

3. Use Dating Apps to date anywhere. Feeld and Tinder make it easy to quickly see who is available around you. Sometimes I’ll change my location to the city I’m visiting next and start chatting up date options in advance. 

4. Date yourself. Take a break from looking for romance and romance yourself. Buy yourself flowers, take yourself out to a great meal, and get a massage by candlelit (no partner required). The 6 months I spent dating myself helped release a lot of codependent habits I had. If you’ve always been in a relationship, then this is the best time to discover who you are solo.

5. Keep a long-distance relationship. You would be surprised how much quality time you can get with your long-distance lover if you get together for a 2-week vacation and two weekends. Let’s say at home that you’d see your date once a week for 6 hours, which is about 312 hours of time together. If you spend 16 hours together each day while traveling, you only need 19.5 days together to get the same amount of time.

Mylee and I do most of our traveling together.

5. GET GOOD AT KEEPING TRACK OF YOUR STUFF

Traveling requires you to be aware of where every single thing you have with you is located. If you tend to forget your water bottle, then you’re going to go through a lot of water bottles while you’re on the road. Here’s a few ways I worked through the very human habit of forgetting stuff.

1. Work on building awareness of where you put things and gathering them back up before you leave. Try putting things back in your bag right after you use them instead of leaving them out. 

2. Make your “easy-to-forget” stuff easier to remember. I have a neon orange phone charger that I write my name on to make it easier to spot in a white hotel room. 

3. Don’t bring your most precious stuff on the road. Reuse a disposable water bottle until you get used to keeping track of one. Buy some cheap earrings instead of bringing diamonds with you. 

4. Do a final sweep of anywhere you were staying after you’ve packed out. Check the shower, power outlets, bed, and the mini fridge. 

5. Get a bag with pockets and store the same important items in the same places every time. I have my bag setup so I can see if I have my laptop, passport, phone, and chargers in one glance. 

6. UP LEVEL YOUR HEALTH

I can’t encourage you enough to proactively improve your health before you travel. New people, new weather, and new routines on the road will challenge your immune system. 

You won’t have access to your health care team, so now is the time to do your annual checkup, STI test, and dental cleaning. Check with your providers if they can provide Telehealth appointments while you’re out of town.  

One health hack that works in most cities is to find a community acupuncture clinic. Community Acupuncture is usually around $50 for the first visit and then sliding scale ($20-$50) for followup visits. I use it when I’ve got body pain that I can’t clear myself. 

7. SELL / DONATE / GIVE AWAY YOUR STUFF

Traveling full-time while still paying rent full-time is a waste of resources. Don’t keep your old apartment as an overpriced storage unit. Use getting ready for the nomadic lifestyle as an excuse to clean out your closets and cabinets. 

Instead of having to pack everything in the week before you leave, take a few months to do it. This gives you time to sell items of high value and find friends to give the rest away. If you’ve been in the same place for a few years, you may be shocked at how much stuff you’ve accumulated. 

I’ve simplified what I own down to what fits in my travel trailer (about 10 tubs).

8. GET A MAILING ADDRESS & SIMPLIFY YOUR MAIL

When it comes to bills and taxes, you’ll need a mailing address. Here’s all the different ways I’ve continued to get my mail while on the road.

1. Use a relative’s home address (with their permission). It’s extra easy if you share a last name with this person. 

2. Get a private postal mailbox. I use PostNet for $10/month because they scan the front of every letter so I can see what’s been sent to me immediately. Private mailbox services can also receive packages for you from different carriers. The disadvantage of using a private mailbox is that if you want to close the mailbox and forward your mail to another address, you usually can’t use the USPS address change service. 

3. Get a USPS post office box. USPS boxes can only receive mail sent via USPS but are fully compatible with the USPS change of address service. You’ll need to return to the post office to see your mail or have a friend in town pick up your mail and send it to you.  

4. Share an office or art studio space. Ask your friend with a space if you can contribute $100 a month to receive your mail and store your work setup / art hobby there. This is especially useful if you own a business in that state that needs to have a physical address to stay registered. 

I also simplified my postal mail needs by doing the following.

1. Unsubscribe from junk mail, non-profit mailings, and catalogs. 

2. Change physical magazine subscriptions to digital. 

3. Change all of your bills from paper mailings to online only. 

9. RENEW YOUR IDS

You are going to need at least 6 months on your passport to go anywhere. I got stuck in Hawaii with an expired driver’s license and couldn’t rent a car or even get a Costco membership without a valid ID. While you’re in one place, get all your IDs up to date. I recommend gathering these physical documents and making digital copies before you travel. 

1. Passport

2. Driver’s License or State ID

3. Birth Certificate

4. Social Security Card

5. Health Insurance Card

6. Car Insurance or Travel Insurance Card

7. Credit Cards and Debit Cards

8. Medical Marijuana Recommendation (sometimes you can use a medical marijuana recommendation from another state to get out of trouble)

10. BACKUP YOUR TECH

Having your phone stolen always sucked but it’ll suck more if it has all your photos from the last year on it. Make sure your laptop and phone are being backed up on a regular basis. Don’t carry a backup hard drive with your laptop because if you lose that bag you still lose all of your data. I use Apple’s iCloud service and Dropbox to backup everything over the internet. Making a complete backup of your digital life to leave in your storage unit is a good idea too.

11. PAUSE YOUR UNMOVABLE HOBBY 

Do you have a hobby or side gig that you won’t be able to take with you? There’s a lot of passions that require too much equipment to bring with you. Take the time to bring your big hobby to a safe and convenient stopping point. Sell extra equipment. Put finished art up for sale. Condense valuable tools into storage or move them into a shared workspace. 

BONUS TIP
PRACTICE BEING BY YOURSELF

The #1 reason people quit traveling is that they get lonely. Now is the time to practice being by yourself if you aren’t used to it. It’s easy to fall into doom-scrolling social media when you feel disconnected from your community.

Start making good solo habits before you leave. Pick an educational course that you can work through on the road, a book you’ve always wanted to read, and some good headphones. Try a guided silent retreat to practice being by yourself.

When you feel lonely, stop scrolling! Message or call someone to create connection. Commenting on each other’s posts is fun but doesn’t create the connection we need.

Fix the 3 Mistakes I Make When Setting Goals

We've all been through the self-improvement yo-yo for New Years resolutions. Here's the mistakes I make in creating unsustainable goals/intentions/desires...

1. Buying the work, instead of doing the work. Purchasing a big membership thinking that because I paid for it I will definitely go to the gym.

2. Making my 1 year goals too big and my 5 year goals too small. I tend to overestimate what I can get done in a year and underestimate what I can do over a few years. 

3. Adding goals to my plate, without taking anything off. I'll show you how I figured out what to quit doing so I can start something new below.

🚫 What can I say NO to this year...so I can say YES with ease?

During our last silent meditation retreat I brainstormed a list of things I'm NOT doing anymore. Here's a few things I'm changing to make space for the things I value.

• I'm skipping mob call outs of individuals I don't know. There's plenty to be outraged about without spending my energy on the bad actor clickbait of the day. I'm going to save my energy to call in people I know instead of calling out strangers in the comments. 

• Impressing other people. I spent most of my adult life feeding that slot machine: put something out, get praise, repeat. It was a cycle that kept me producing what others wanted instead of following my authentic path. Once you unyoke from the external validation train...the world really is your oyster. (I have a kick-ass inspirational speech on this below!)

• Implying you must be rich/white/skinny/young/perfect/hustle to be successful. What we share on social media sets the culture...especially for the next generation. I can reinforce the culture of white supremacy, ageism, patriarchy, and fat phobia...or I can share images that disrupt those systems of oppression.

👋 Where am I limiting or underestimating myself?

Here's how I get around the very human tendency to overestimate what I can do in 1 year and underestimate what I can get done in 5-10 years. 

• Hitting the minimum viable goal. The crazy thing about desires/goals is sometimes we get them wrong. How many college graduates do you know who didn't want to work in the area they studied by the time they got out? I went to run a campground last summer and discovered I hated it. Look at your big goals and ask yourself: How can I get a taste of what this change would be like with a minimum investment? Instead of committing to medical school, could I get a receptionist job at a Doctor's office for 6 months? Instead of planning 5 new international retreats, could I sell out a day-long retreat at my house? Instead of waiting for the time off to write my book, could I email friends a new chapter once a month?

• Creating a next step for each goal. Big goals can be really intimidating to get started. For each goal, write down something you can do this week. Every step you take towards your goal will show you if you're on the right track. 

• Making a mood board of my desires. I'll create a visual board of 'desires' and 'ways of being' I want in my reality. This mood board goes in my meditation area so I can see it daily. It reminds me to pursue my goals holistically because it has a mix of personal, professional, and aspirational goals for the year. I don't know why staring at pictures of what you want to happen in the world works...but it does.

🤑 How to avoid overspending on the way to my goals

I LOVE to invest in myself and my people. I've had years where I've invested $30K and years where I've spent $100. Some of it was money well spent and some of it could have gone to something better. Here's the framework I use to avoid wasting money on buying the work instead of doing the work.

• Set a budget for investing in myself for the year. I set budgets to support my physical health, my mental health, my spiritual health, and improve my skills. For example, my Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training was $7K but used budgets from all four of those areas and included room & board for a month. 

• Check the time requirement & learning style. I won't register for a program unless I think I can do at least 75% of the live sessions and 50% of the homework. I know I won’t make time for recorded classes, so I don’t buy them anymore.

• Do one program at a time. It can be tempting to pile up on courses and try to do everything at once...but then I never finish anything. 

• Be realistic about my effort & return expected. A lot of programs show off testimonials from their most successful students. I like to ask myself if I get half of what these other people experienced, will it be worth the price? 

🚩 Avoid the Red Flags of false urgency or fake scarcity. Zoom rooms are easy to expand...so don't get lured in by claims like "only 3 spots left" for online programs. You can often get into a "sold out" program even after the deadline, just by asking and having the cash. If the program is in-person then the limited availability is more likely to be real.

---

I'm writing from Portland, Maine, where we're dog sitting over the New Years for some lovely friends. We'll be back in upstate New York from January to March, offering our 4-night silent meditation retreats. 

Our retreats are for just 4 guests at a time and cost just $420. 

A weekend of silence is the ultimate New Year's gift to yourself. Please join us! 

Radical Silence Retreats with Spots Open:

• January 11-15

• January 18-22

• February 15-19: Couples Course with 2-for-1 Registration

• February 22-26

• March 7-11

Happy New Year from Me & Mylee!

May 2024 be our best year yet!

10 Free Self Healing Techniques I Use

My definition of self healing is to clear up the “residue of the past” so I can act from the present moment, instead of my collected fears & traumas. Residues of my past show up in thoughts like…

• My previous partner never took out the garbage and now I’m annoyed every time I have to remind my new partner.

• My last offer didn’t sell out so that must mean that nobody likes what I do.

• I can’t work for a boss, they’re all jerks. 

What’s the difference between applying a past lesson to the present AND carrying around all your emotional baggage like an airline? I’m still working on this one myself. What I’ve learned so far is that every situation and every moment is different from my past. If I assume everything will always work the same way as it did last time, I leave no possibility of change. If I assume my partner will never remember to take out the trash, they’re going to have to fight really hard against my assumption to change that. 

By clearing up my fears, traumas, and dramas, I’m better able to approach each situation as a new opportunity. By releasing my anger from past situations, I stopped bringing that anger to my current reality. 

Self-healing and healers are totally worth paying for. I wrote this list because I used to make my budget an excuse for not doing anything. Here’s 10 totally free ways to self heal.

1 - CRAFT YOUR MORNING ROUTINE

Setting a new morning routine and keeping it can be HARD. I broke my morning resistance by practicing for 40 days straight. I find that anything I can do for 40 days straight becomes a habit and isn’t nearly as hard to do.

You already have a morning routine that might look a little bit like this…

• Alarm goes off, you get pissed and snooze it

• More snoozes, more pissy

• Finally pick up your phone and immediately get into work emails or social media

• Realize you don’t need to do your work email in bed, and finally get up

• Shower but forget to put on sunscreen

• Run out the door (or to the laptop screen) while forgetting to hydrate

Although mornings like that support you getting to work, they don’t support YOU. Here’s a morning routine that takes about the same amount of time…

• Wake up and take 5 deep breaths

• Stretch for a few minutes

• Make chai tea and water with lemon

• Sit quietly in a sacred space and focus on yourself through journaling, yoga, meditation, or reading OR take a quiet walk in nature

• Shower and remember to put on natural sunscreen

• Go to your first appointment with your water

If you have more time, these are some of the activities I add to my morning routine…

• Play an instrument / singing / chanting

• Read a book that expands your thinking

• Yoga 

• Meditation 

• Walking / running / dancing

2 - GO TO NATURE

Walking barefoot the grass, sitting under a tree, and swimming in nature have all been shown to decrease stress. Try turning off your phone for an afternoon and reading in the park.

Here’s all the hacks I’m implemented in my own life to get more nature into my modern life…

• Create or find an outdoor space for exercise/yoga that you can use regularly

• Take business calls while walking outside or invite contacts for a hike (instead of a drink)

• Choose a home with a small amount of indoor living space so you’ll be encouraged to go outside. Our RV is about 300 square feet of indoor space and then I setup a 200 square foot shaded area outside.

• Pick social activities that are outside like festivals or camp outs

• Learn an outdoor hobby like how to forage or landscape photography

• Start gardening outside

• Add an outdoor sport or hobby to your week

• Offer to dog walk for friends

• Ask your friends with houseplants to get you started with some baby house plants/cuttings

• Put nature on your biggest screen. I love watching the bucolic lifestyles of farmers in Azerbaijan. Search for “Azerbaijan cooking” for some beautiful YouTube channels. 

3 - PRACTICE MEDITATION

We’ve all TRIED to meditate but it can be hard. Coming into a relaxed focus is not something we’re used to practicing. Here’s some different ways to practice meditation for free.

• Just sit down, breathe, and be OK with whatever comes up. Set a timer for a few minutes and increase the time as you get more comfortable. 

• Try guided meditation with the free version of the CHANI App. Chani is a lesbian, trauma-aware, astrologer who offers a free guided meditation every week through her App. 

• Find a meditation center near you. Most meditation centers offer a free introduction or public teaching regularly. If you’re in the Bay Area, check out the Sunday Dharma Talks at Green Gulch Farm by Muir beach. 

• Find a Vipassana course. Vipassana courses are challenging 10-day silent meditation courses, where you meditate up to 14 hours a day. The courses are offered by donation so technically you could go for free. I donated $50 for my Vipassana course (and later donated more money when I was able). The challenge is finding an open spot in a place that you can access inexpensively. 

4 - FIND A TEACHER ON YOUTUBE

YouTube has an incredible wealth of healers and teachers for you to try. Try subscribing to a few different folks and see how they support your healing. You can try out Yin Yoga with me on YouTube. Here’s a few teachers that I follow.

• Astrology: Pam Gregory, Heather Ensworth

• Yoga & Meditation: Kimilla, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Bernie Clark

• Positive Psychology: Abraham Hicks Wisdom

• Practical Spirituality: Christina Lopes

5 - TRY JOURNALING AND FREE WRITING

Writing can help you work things out without someone else to talk to. It’s recommended you set a timer for 5-25 minutes and write for the entire period. The goal with journaling isn’t to be clear or correct. The goal is to get as much as you can out of your mind and onto paper so you can work with those thoughts and emotions instead of just repeating them. You’re going to write down things that don’t make sense and things that aren’t true. That’s all part of the journaling process. 

Here’s a few writing prompts to get you started with journaling…

• Journal about your dreams and any themes that came up.

• List what you are grateful for.

• Write a letter to a person that you have trauma or drama with (but don’t send it).

• Make a list of people who support you and/or are important to you.

• My journal of 23 Questions to Ask Yourself, which you can download for free here.

6 - FIND FREE TRIALS

Yoga studios, fitness apps, and gyms often have free trials that you use to try out their programs. Some fitness studios will have a monthly “by donation” class that you can attend for free. If you live in a city, you can try a 30-day free trial with ClassPass, which will give you access to local yoga and fitness classes. Look for online classes that will give you a free trial to watch their recordings. 

I’m offering a free Yin Yoga class via zoom coming up.

7 - LIBRARY BOOKS

Go to the best-funded library in your area and see what they have. You’ll definitely find all sorts of books on self-healing. If you don’t love to read, look for audio book options. 

Here are books that I used on my self healing journey…

• The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing… by Gabor Maté

• Paul, Rest, Be by Octavia Raheem

• The Third Millennium by Ken Carey

• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

• The Untethered Soul & The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer

• Judgement Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein

• Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad

Books specifically for women and humans who are working on cultivating their internal attention…

• Unbound: A Women’s Guide to Power by Kasia Urbaniak

• The Spark Factor by Molly Maloof

• Warrior Goddess Training by Heather Ash Amara

• Pussy by Regena Thomashauer

• Spiraling Upwards by Wendy Wallbridge

8 - VOLUNTEER AT A HEALING WORKSHOP

If there’s a healing workshop that you’d like to attend, ask about volunteer or work/trade tickets. Volunteering doesn’t mean you’ll miss the main event. Ask if you can come early for setup or stay late for strike. Every training needs a team of people to operate so ask if you can help run errands, greet people, or clean in exchange for attending. I have a friend who hasn’t paid for a workshop in over a decade because she volunteers to take event photos. 

9 - TRADE FOR SERVICES

If there’s a teacher or healer that you’d like to work with but can’t afford, try asking for a trade. Honestly we’ve gotten so good at marketing to each other that it can feel like you need to buy a bunch of courses and coaching. I recommend focusing on one program at a time. Typically newer teachers are more open to trades as they build up their business.  

After being on both sides of the trade equation, here’s my hints for asking for an effective trade.

1. Do some of the teacher’s work to make sure it’s actually what you want. (This could be watching their YouTube content, reading their book, listening to a podcast interview, or attending a free class.) Spend 4 hours on this teacher’s content and then check in with yourself. Are you still excited about working with this teacher? Does spending 4 hours a week on this seem worthwhile?

2. Become a member of their community with whatever free methods this teacher offers. This could be joining their mailing list, following them on Instagram, and/or participating in a Facebook group. If possible, become a positive and contributing member by leaving thoughtful comments and participating in challenges. Look for opportunities to volunteer with them.

3. Know how you heal best. If you can learn from recordings that is usually the cheapest way to work with a teacher and therefore the easiest to trade. If you are looking for 1 on 1 sessions, you will need a higher-quality skill to trade. Ideally you have skills that the teacher needs and you can offer them with ease. 

4. Ask fearlessly. Send the teacher a nice note with what services you’d like from them and what services you can offer them. Include links that show your work or attach your resume. 

10 - DRINK MORE WATER

Water is a powerful ally to cleansing on every level. Keep a glass of water nearby throughout your day and night. Remember that if you’re thirsty, then you’re already dehydrated. Remember that beverages that dehydrate need to be matched with more water (coffee, black teas, alcohol). My body sometimes tells me I’m hungry when I’m actually just dehydrated. Keeping hydrated helped me reduce snacking.

How to Get Found On The First Page of Google as a Coach, Creator, or CEO — My 25 Year Old Formula

The internet may have changed from blinking fonts to TikTok dancing; but one thing has never changed—people still use the internet to find the people they need to meet and the services they need to buy. After 25 years of writing websites, I’m finally going to share my simplified process to land on the first page of Google search results. Beyond any trend or trick, this is the well-worn path that has worked no matter how many times Google changes their algorithm. 

MAKE A LIST OF WHAT YOU COULD BE TOP 10 IN THE WORLD AT IN 10 YEARS

20 years ago I didn’t need to be the best yoga teacher in the world, I just needed to be the best yoga teacher in my neighborhood. Now if I want to offer yoga classes online, my competition just went from local to worldwide. I don’t just have to be the best yoga teacher that you can find on the Internet, I also have to be more engaging than the million other things you could be doing online. 

Do NOT make a list of hobbies or things that you might enjoy. (You’re allowed to have hobbies. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you have to monetize everything you do.) This is a list of passions that you want to spend the next 10+ years practicing. Website design and online marketing ended up being my 25+ year passion and it’s how I’ve made the majority of my income. I didn’t know that when I started. When I opened my first solo web design agency in 2005, the prevailing advice was to make a backup business plan for what if the internet turned out to be a fad and no one needed a website designed ever again. 

Peer into your crystal ball, imagine yourself 10 years into the future, and write down what they are going to say about you. For example, “Jazmin Hupp teaches thought leaders how to build their own websites.” OR “Jazmin Hupp teaches women how to use psychedelics, meditation, and yoga for self-healing.” OR “Jazmin Hupp offers silent meditation retreats, which integrate yin yoga, plant-based meals, and cannabis.”

PICK ONE PASSION

“But I’m a multifaceted creature of many passions!!” you tell me. 

I get it. I also have multiple overlapping interests. In the last year I’ve blogged about digital marketing, online dating, vegan cooking, psychedelic guiding, travel packing, saving money on groceries, Domination & submission, and designing decentralized events.

You don’t have to simplify yourself to be online but you do want to pick where to concentrate your resources/time. Let’s say you plan to write 12 blog posts a year. If you focus 9 of those posts on your main passion, you are much more likely to be found.

DISCOVER 3 WAYS SOMEONE WHO NEEDS YOUR PASSION WOULD BE LOOKING FOR YOU

Imagine waking up on a perfect morning and sitting down to your perfect day. When you open up your laptop there are three messages from three separate people who found you through your website. These three people are going to turn into your best clients yet. They are ready for what you have to offer and have the resources to pay you for it.

Write down everything you can think of about the three people who message you.

• How old are they?

• Where do they live?

• What do they do?

• Why do they need help?

• What have they already tried?

• Are they just starting to look into this topic or have them been researching it for a while?

• How did they find out about you?

• What’s changed in their life and made working on this aspect of their life a priority?

You can use aspects of your previous best clients to create the profiles of your future clients. 

Once you’ve created these three ideal client personas, it’s time to figure out what they typed into Google to find you. Put yourself in their shoes. Think about how long they’ve been working on this issue. Think about what they’ve already tried and didn’t work. Think about how much time, money, and attention your ideal client has to work on this issue. Coming from their perspective, what would you type in that search box?

Now once you have a general line of inquiry that your ideal client would use…you need to figure out how specific you need to get, in order to rank on the first page of search results.

From 2014 to 2019, I was the co-founder and CEO of Women Grow, which is an organization that championed female cannabis business owners. At first my goal was to rank for “women in cannabis”, which we did. However I found that just because people were searching for women and cannabis, it didn’t necessarily mean they were business-oriented. I then started to work on content and events to rank for “how to start a cannabis business”, and this led to higher quality clients coming in. After a few years I saw how I could attract women who were further into their journey by targeting “how to win a cannabis business license.” I saw that my ideal client’s needs and vocabulary changed as she learned more and refined her interests. Picking the right words will give you access to the right clients at the right time. 

REFINE YOUR SEARCH PHRASE 

The more specific the phrase you chose, the less competition there will be to rank for it. However the more specific you are, the less people who will be searching for that term. Your job is to pick the perfect balance of specific enough to be from your ideal customer but broad enough that there are lots of people searching. You can use tools like Google Trends or SEO Moz to see how popular different terms are in search (over time) and guesstimate how hard it will be to rank for that term. 

Maybe you have a few different phrases that might work. You can use the compare feature in Google Trends to see if the popularity of your phrases are increasing or decreasing. For example, maybe I’m trying to see which psychedelic I want to focus my content on for the next 5 years. By entering those terms into Google Trends, I can see which search terms are becoming more or less popular over the last 5 years (or longer).

CRAFT YOUR BLOG POST IDEAS

Create 12+ blog headlines that answer your ideal client’s top questions. Use the related queries in Google Trends to formulate headlines that are being searched for frequently. Blog posts that attracted clients to me included, How to Name Your Cannabis Business and 21 Questions to Ask Before You Become Co-Founders or Collaborate. I wrote that piece on naming your business in 2015 and it still ranks to this day without any changes or updates. 

KEEP AT IT FOR 12 MONTHS

Maybe you get 3 blog posts into your topic and realize it’s not really what you want to be doing. No worries, that’s OK. However, I recommend pursuing each passion for 12+ months because it takes time to see the results of your work. Don’t get discouraged in the short-term, you’re writing this content to be found for years to come. 

WRITE REALLY F*CKING USEFUL CONTENT

We used to talk about writing your content for search engines versus writing for people. After having my content sit on the internet for 20+ years and surviving every Google algorithm change, I always land on the side of writing for people. The goal isn’t just to be the first search result. The goal is to be the first search result that HELPS the person who reads it. If your content isn’t helping or entertaining your reader, there’s a million other sites that will. Remember people are usually interested in helping themselves first and then knowing more about the helper second. 

SHARE YOUR CONTENT

Take your monthly blog post and share it through every channel you use. 

Here’s an example of how I might edit my blog post for each channel.

• Instagram — make graphics with the top 5 points and a call to share it into a carousel post (you can have up to 10 images in a carousel post)

• Twitter — publish a 🧵 on the top takeaways with lots of opportunities for retweets or responses

• LinkedIn — publish a short summary of the article and link out to the rest in the comments or offer to send the full post to anyone who messages you their email address

• Facebook — publish some of the article with a casual photo of yourself and offer to email the rest to anyone who messages you their email address. Use lots of emojis. 

• YouTube — create a short with the top 3 tips

IMPORTANT!! Take the sales pitch out of these social shares. You’re welcome to ask your social followers to take a free action (like DM their email address) but stay away from trying to sell them something on social. In the same way we learned how to fast-forward television commercials, we are getting good at ignoring anything remotely like an ad on social media. Use social media to build your following and build trust. People don’t want to be sold to on social media. 

BUILD YOUR MAILING LIST OR SMS LIST

Over the years I’ve tried talking to my community via email newsletters, casual emails, snail mail, text messaging, Signal groups, WhatsApp, Facebook groups, Clubhouse, and more. They all have their pros and cons but email is the channel I continue to return to over and over again. I found email fit the pace of my business. I wanted to send a message and let people read it when they were in “business mode” for the day. I found it hard to hit the right timing with text messages. My content wasn’t urgent enough to need to be read right away. 

There’s a million free platforms you could build your list on top of but you’ll always be at the mercy of that platform. A few years ago, the trend was to start a Facebook group for your community, now most of us have been invited to so many thinly-veiled sales pitch Facebook groups that we ignore them. This is great for Facebook because it gives them an excuse to sell you ads to “re-engage” your community. Ideally you’d have your community in a system that you control so you don’t have to pay Facebook when you want to talk to them. 

MEASURE YOUR PROGRESS

After a few months it’s time to see if you’ve made any progress. 

• Ask each new client / buyer / investor how they found you.

• Using a tool like Google Analytics, check what search terms you’re ranking for and how many visitors are coming through. 

• Count how many new list subscribers you have.

• See if you’ve increased your social media followers in any channels.

Review what’s working. Not just what is giving you bigger numbers but WHERE your new sales are coming from. For example, you could have a ton of traffic from Reddit but if none of those visitors are turning into valuable connections, then you don’t want to create more content for Reddit. 

How to Write a Bio for a Job You Made Up

Your bio is probably a pretty dry list of facts and dates. In this article, I’ll show you how to surpass the average biography by writing about your experience with specific SCENES that illustrate your past.

Sharing your history with short stories is more memorable and more fun. The more people that can remember what you’re about, the more likely those people will be to send you the right connections. This isn’t a vanity exercise. You will learn how to use the art of writing to get the right connections to come to you.

#1 BRAINSTORM 10+ SCENES FOR YOUR BIO

These are the moments that made you the human that you are today. Look for big wins, big losses, turning points, and surprises to write down.

• A moment from your childhood that inspired your life’s purpose.

• A professional experience that influenced you greatly.

• An award or a certificate or some sort of education that shows why you're on your path today?

• Was there a turning point, a low point, or a death, that pointed you to your life’s purpose?

• What was the moment you discovered your superpower.

• Peak experiences using your super power.

• The moment when a teacher or mentor inspired who you are today.

#2 HOW TO PICK YOUR BEST SCENES

You are the editor of your life’s movie and not every scene will make it into the final cut. Pick about five scenes to write out a sentence or three about. These are going to become those small paragraphs in your bio. These are the moments in your life that add up to where you are now.

Here are some guidelines for how to narrow down which scenes you want to include in your biography.

• Choose scenes that are evocative–they produce an emotional response in your reader. So anything that's mainstream or obvious or administrative, feel free to drop that and look for the moments that are going to evoke emotion in your reader.

• Look for moments that preview your future by showing where you picked up the skills and contacts to do what you’re doing now. A history of jobs that looks random will make sense if you illustrate the moments that add up to who you became.

• Pick moments with outside context. Outside context is something that someone who isn’t in your industry would understand. When strangers read your biography, they're trying to place you within their understanding of the universe. You need to give them some context clues of where you belong in the universe. Are you someone who does a really specialty thing with a small amount of people? Or are you somebody who's known nationally?

• Examples of context in a scene:

• Mentioned in press or number of press impressions

• Celebrity who attended your event or was a client

• Won an award

• Well-known local client who recommends you

• How long you’ve practiced for / how long ago you started

• How many clients you’ve served or attended your events

• Social media followers or newsletter subscribers (if over 10K)

#3 GO WRITING GO!

Write one to three sentences about each scene. Put your favorites scenes into your biography in reverse chronological order (if your more recent scenes are the most interesting). Then ask a couple of colleagues to review your draft. Make sure to ask people outside your field if they can understand your scenes.

Next

Read or watch my 8 New Ways to Start Your Bio Right. I’ll show you how to take your unusual career and make it understandable in the very first sentence.

Let me know in the comments how your biography upgrade is going. You can DM on Instagram @jazmintheinsideguide or email me with your questions.

How to Thrive at a Group Retreat as a Highly Sensitive Empath

I just finished a Yin Yoga & Yoga Nidra Teacher Training in Mallorca, Spain. It has been a few years since I’ve attended someone else’s retreat. I had a fabulous time, learned a lot (I’ll share the story below), and was reminded that there are some tricks to having a great time as a sensitive person. 

As a highly sensitive empath, I’ve learned I CAN have a great time with a group of strangers, I just have to do things a little differently. These tips come from my personal experience at yoga teacher trainings and collected from the neurodiverse people I’ve guided on silent retreats. 

KNOW HOW YOU FREAK OUT

“Know thyself.” 

Your freakouts aren’t totally random. They are usually preceded with a couple of warning signs that you can watch for. For example, I know to watch myself when I’m hungry, tired, dehydrated, and hit a system that doesn’t work the way I think it should. Double points if I’m PMSing. Tracking my moon cycle and watching my food & water intake helps me avoid freaking out. 

Write down the thoughts/emotions/sensations that you have on the way to freaking out. Write down the self-soothing actions that work when you start to feel that way. Monitor yourself for sliding towards freak out and put your soothing plan into action before you can’t take care of yourself. You may even share some of this knowledge with a retreat leader, so they can help if you get in over your head. 

USE WATER TO CLEANSE (FROM OTHER PEOPLE)

A mindful shower, bath, or swim can help you clear whatever is thrown at you. I take a shower before I go to bed at night to reset myself for sleep. Sometimes I’ll choose retreats on the ocean so I can swim in the morning. You can look for a retreat at a hot springs or at least with a hot tub. 

Drinking purified water is CRUCIAL to surviving and especially helpful when you need to be flexible. Aim for 128 ounces of water a day. Remember that if you wait to drink until you’re thirsty then you’re already dehydrated. Drink a full glass of water when you wake up and with every meal. Don’t forget to get enough natural salt while you’re at it. 

LOOK FOR SILENT OR QUIET RETREATS

I find retreats where everyone is talking all the time exhausting. Planned silent time helps me recharge and completely silent retreats are my favorite. Look for retreats with silent periods. For example, silence from lights out to after breakfast is common. Some retreats will have a silent day or give you a sticker so you can be silent. 

I teach Radical Silence, a 4-night retreat with 66 hours of unplugged silence. It’s my favorite way to focus on my development in the company of others. You can find out more at www.jazminhupp.com/silence

LOOK WITHIN BEFORE YOU LOOK OUT

I have an old behavior pattern of always looking for an outside reason whenever I get uncomfortable. I’ve blamed everything from ghosts, to bad energy, to bad food, to bad music. I used to blame my discomfort on whoever was around me. Over time I learned that trying to “fix” everyone else was a losing game BUT I could work on what was calling for my attention within me. 

Recently, I attended a Yin Yoga Teacher Training at Green Yoga International in Mallorca, Spain, and had nightmares. I called the retreat leader out in front of the group by asking for the history of the land we were on and if the previous energy had been cleared. He pointed out how many things they had done to reset the energy using Vastu principles (it’s like feng shui on the Hindu side). I doubted him and continued to blame my dreams on the old German energy in the beds. Luckily another student talked to me over dinner and explained what she understood about nightmares. She invited me to take ownership of everything I was experiencing in my dreams and free write about them. As soon as I began to write I immediately saw the lessons my dreams were trying to share. 

Notice every person that triggers you. Instead of blaming them for triggering you, look for what you could clear within yourself now that this emotion is alive. Take your time to sit and feel whatever emotions come up. Don’t shy away from the hard emotions because that’s where some of the best lessons are to be found. 

This advice does NOT apply if you’re experiencing sexual harassment or anyone touching you without your permission. No one has the right to your body, time, or energy. State your boundaries and get help if someone isn’t listening. 

P.S. I loved the Yin Yoga training in Mallorca. It’s a beautiful island to visit with a full medieval city on the ocean and stunning rolling hills. I loved hanging out with a diverse group of European women. https://greenyogaindia.com/

WALK 2+ MILES A DAY

Most retreats include some sort of exercise but it’s usually not enough to stay fit (or balance those delicious retreat meals). Walking is the best way to experience a new place because it gives you time to digest what you are seeing. I notice so much more when I walk. If long walks aren’t your thing, try walking for 15 minutes after every meal. I use an Apple Watch that tracks my steps to keep me accountable. 

GO SLOW ON THE FOOD

Many retreats serve amazing food but it may be nothing like what you are used to. Go slow with new ingredients and spices. Don’t drink unfiltered water. Know what ingredients tend to work for you and skip things that are on the edge.

If you have food allergies/sensitivities, report them to the retreat staff at least a week before you arrive. Most retreats can accommodate specific diets with advance notice. When in doubt, try to eat less than you think you need. Chew more times than you want to. Try to finish your last meal by 7PM and definitely no caffeine after Noon. 

FOCUS ON 1:1 CONVERSATIONS INSTEAD OF GROUPS

If you find following a group conversation tiring, focus on having personal conversations. Try picking the person sitting alone at lunch for a conversation (if they’re into it). For a small group I’ll challenge myself to have one conversation with each person before the retreat ends. I learn a lot talking to others, especially when I’m not exhausted by group dynamics. 

USE SUNGLASSES TO REDUCE EYE CONTACT

If making continuous eye contact is tiring for you, you can use sunglasses as a crutch. Mirrored sunglasses will show the person you’re talking to their own face instead of your eyes. I use them when I want to stay in a conversation but I’m done connecting for the day. Wearing sunglasses will make it harder for the other person to connect with you and understand your facial reactions. You’ll need to be more clear with your words when you’re hiding half your face.

TAKE TIME BY YOURSELF

You may feel pressure to be with the group but take as much time by yourself as you desire. For me that might mean NOT taking the group shuttle to the retreat center so I can arrive solo. I often eat meals by myself so I can take that time to recharge. I also plan a solo decompression day or two after the retreat to come back to myself. 

TAKE THE TIME OFF

The first step in having a truly transformative retreat is to make time for yourself. If you’re constantly worried about that work call you have to make on Wednesday or work emails piling up, it’s going to be tough to fully participate. 

Take the time off from work and from social obligations. Put up an email autoresponder to let people know that you won’t be responding. You can re-record your voice mail greeting for the trip. Let your family and friends know you may not be reachable and turn OFF your devices. Give your Mom the contact information of the retreat center and let other people miss you! This is an especially good time for your work colleagues to realize how valuable you are—or for you to realize everything at work doesn’t really depend on you.

While you’re taking time off from work, try to add some extra days to the beginning and/or end of the trip so you can arrive calm and decompress before you come home. There’s nothing worse than coming back from a vacation and realizing you need another vacation.

ARRIVE A DAY EARLY & STAY 2+ DAYS LATE

Travel can be stressful and unpredictable. Give yourself some grace by planning your travel to arrive a day early and stay a few days after the retreat. Arriving early will help you accumulate to the new environment before you add lots of strangers on top of it. Plus if you miss a flight, you can still arrive on time. If you’re changing time zones, the extra time will help you shift your sleep schedule. 

Don’t take the red eye or any other flight that will stress you out. Sure getting an extra day in paradise sounds like a great idea but you will probably just end up cranky. It took me YEARS to realize that the $100 I was saving by taking the worst flight, just made me spend more time recovering from the travel experience. 

Staying after the retreat for solo decompression time is highly recommended. I love to have a few days to myself before returning home. Many retreats are in amazing places that you might not visit again anytime soon so you’ll want time to enjoy it. 

BOOK A PRIVATE ROOM (OR FIND A PRIVATE SPACE)

I need a private space to recharge between peopling. If a private room isn’t available or isn’t affordable, scope out how you can get some private space throughout the day. This might mean taking a walk between sessions by yourself. Or telling your roommate that you practice silent mornings and won’t speak to them until after breakfast. You can also ask the retreat staff if there’s somewhere off the beaten path that you can sit solo. Whatever you do, don’t book a dorm room. Sleeping with 6 new strangers usually triggers me after a few nights.  

TAKE TIME TO UNPACK & MAKE THE SPACE YOURS

I used to fling my suitcase down and throw myself into a retreat right away. Now I make sure to arrive on time so I have plenty of time to unpack and settle in. I create my nest in my room before the retreat gets started.

• Unpack my suitcase to see if I forgot anything crucial

• Put my toiletries in the bathroom so I don’t have to look for them with wet hands

• Charge my devices so I can turn them off (fully charged) and forget about them

• Set up my portable Altar with mementos for meditation

• Decorate my room with jewelry, my outfits, wildflowers, whatever I happen to have

• Figure out how the lighting, windows, and heating/cooling works

• Favorite snacks in the refrigerator 

PACK YOUR ARM FLOATIES

Taylor Tomlinson is hilarious on this…

At home you probably have every calming toy and trick available to you. To travel, pack your portable self-soothing tools. These are some of my favorites. 

• Eye mask & earplugs — for sleeping on the plane or if you get roomed with strangers

• Noise canceling headphones & calm music — for travel, sleep, or me time

• Alarm clock — to allow me to get up early to take medication or nap without worrying about missing the next session

• Hat & hoodie — Covering your head can help cushion against the outside world

• Fidget toy

• Favorite tea or coffee with all the fixings

• Favorite snacks 

• Favorite pen / art supplies & notebook

• Lotion, moisturizing mask, oils — try self-massage in the evening before bed

• Lavender oil — is calming and can help you sleep

• Portable Altar objects — a few stones, a note to myself, jewelry from my grandmother, and other objects to ground into

UP YOUR IMMUNITY

Traveling to a new place and meeting lots of new people means your immune system needs to be in top shape to protect you. Here are some things you can do to stay well.

• Get enough sleep before and during the retreat

• Don’t drink alcohol

• Take supplements like Vitamin C, Zinc, Elderberry, Mushrooms, etc. 

• Drink 128 ounces of water a day

• Wear a mask around sick people 

• Drink hot water, lemon, ginger, and honey

• Moisturize your skin — your skin is your first defense layer

• Protect your respiratory system & lungs — they are you second defense layer

• Wear sun protection clothing or sunscreen — excess solar radiation while flying is real

• Keep up your regular exercise schedule 

PACK EVERY MEDICATION YOU’VE EVER NEEDED

Our bodies can do unusual things when we take them to unusual places. Most retreats will have basic first aid but it can be hard to get specific medications. Bring anything you might think you will need. Preferably in their original labeled bottles so you don’t get questioned about your meds. 

• Personal medications

• Pain medication

• Sleep medication

• Allergy medication

• Constipation medication or Smooth Move tea

• Diarrhea medication

• Band-aids

• Arnica 

• Cannabis 

• Plan B / Condoms

BONUS TIP: WRITE YOURSELF A POSTCARD OR TO DO LIST

Near the end of the retreat, I like to reflect on what I’ve learned and what I want to take into my daily life. It’s tempting to want to make lots of big changes after an amazing retreat but I like to focus on 1 or 2 habit changes and a handful of ideas I want to learn more about. I write myself a postcard or journal the changes I’d like to make and why. I find writing about my experience and what I want to take forward helps me retain more from the retreat. Being realistic about how many life changes I can make after a retreat has made for a much smoother re-entry process. 

How to Start Your Email Marketing List from 0 with Free Tools

This is a tip for all my artist and entrepreneur friends. If you plan to do anything in your future and invite people to donate/attend/whatever...the highest converting method is an email. Not Twitter, not Facebook, not an ice bucket. Sending personalized email to people who know and like you will help you accomplish your goals. The only messaging medium that I’ve seen perform better than email is personal text messages (so collect cell phone numbers if you can). Do this pre-work now and reap the rewards for years.

1.) Start Your List

You can track as many pieces of data for each contact as you like but keeping it simple usually helps. Start a new spreadsheet (I do mine in Google Drive) and label the columns: email, first name, last name, zip code, state, cell phone. Do you best to fill in whatever info you have. You don’t need to collect zip code/state if you don’t do any in-person events. I also never use the last name field in emails but it helps me know who is on my list.

2.) Fill Up Your List

You’re going to take some quality time to really comb through your emails and contact apps to start your list. Here’s places I’ve pulled email contacts from in the past that you might try…

• Looking through every email I’ve sent (sent folder)

  • I look through my sent mail instead of my received mail for new contacts. I figure if I haven’t emailed you back then you’re probably not a real connection.

• People who have purchased or attended something I’ve done

  • Search your computer for anything you’ve done in the past where folks may have registered with an email.

  • Check your Google Drive for any spreadsheet with the word “email” on it.

  • If you’ve sent calendar invites to folks, you can find their emails on your calendar from past events.

• LinkedIn

  • You can export your first-degree LinkedIn connections and get some emails. Use these instructions from LinkedIn.

• Contacts App / WhatsApp / Signal

  • Add folks from your phone to your list. Message people and ask them for their email if you don’t have it.

3.) What can you teach your audience without selling to them?

You can either build your mailing list or sell to your mailing list. Basically folks love building support for something until you ask them for money. So if you have no plans to sell anything anytime soon, this is the perfect time to start building your list.

Sometimes a lot of resistance comes up when I tell people to teach to their list for free. Play with what is an even energy exchange with your audience. People are bombarded with advertisements everyday in every way. Many of us have started to ignore anything that looks like an ad before even opening it.

I don’t expect anyone to invest in reading my newsletter if I don’t invest in them first. I teach something to my audience in every newsletter. When I have something to sell them, they already look to me as the expert.

Here’s some random ideas on content you could be sharing to invest in your audience before you ask them to invest in you…

• How to Get Started With [my special skill]

• What I Learned [doing something your audience is intrigued by]

• How to [do something that your audience wants to learn]

• New Recipes

4.) How to Deal with Changing Emails

People’s emails change. I’ve found that my friends keep their corporate emails for about a year and they keep their personal emails for about 5 years. This means that up to 50% of your list may be changing emails every 2.5 years.

Any decent email newsletter app will track which emails are no longer working and let you know. If I know the person with the bad email, I’ll try to reach out to them for a fresh email. If I don’t know them, I just remove them from my list.

You can’t stress about people changing email accounts or no longer checking an old account. You CAN invite new folks to join your list. And you CAN put out such useful content that you subscribers take you will them to their next email.

5.) Invite People to Join Your List Everywhere You Appear

Wherever your name appears, invite people to join your private list. If you’re speaking at an event where you don’t get the email list of attendees, end your presentation with an invitation to email you for something (copy of the slides, lecture notes, check-list.)

If you are offering content on social media, ask folks to send you their email address and cell phone number for the download.

Add an invitation to join your mailing list to your website and all social media accounts.

If you do any in-person events, make an event sign-in sheet that collects emails of anyone who didn’t register in advance.

8 New Ways to Start Your Bio Right

The first sentence of your bio is the most important. MOST people won’t read or remember anything past the first sentence.

It’s your challenge to answer as many of the basic questions as possible AND pique your reader’s interest in that first sentence. Here’s 8 templates for how to start your bio’s first sentence and examples for each.

8 Ways To Start Your Bio

Traditional Style

Jazmin is an entrepreneur.

Traditional with Purpose 

Jody is an accountant who supports solo entrepreneurs to stop stressing about their finances. 

I’m Three Shades of the Same Thing

Jazmin is a natural medicine facilitator, harm reduction author, and founder of the deCommodifyPsychedelics movement.

I’m Three Different Things

Jess is a yoga teacher, reiki practitioner, and a business coach. 

MY Different Things = MY Company

Jennifer is a leader in women’s health and cannabis science. She founded NewCo Beauty Company to create organic products for women after her mother’s battle with breast cancer.

I Created My Own Title, SO I Will Explain

Jazmin is a human programmer. She helps neurodiverse humans create routines for healthy & balanced lives.

I Will Explain My Job

Jess is the Founder of NewCo Cannabis Farm. On a mission to provide top-quality cannabis products to Californians, she is focused on regenerative cultivation with seed-grown and sun-grow cannabis. 

I’ve Done SOOOO Much

Jazmin has been a leader in cannabis since founding Women Grow in 2014. You may know her from her work at Women 2.0, Tekserve, or Apple. Jazmin has encouraged over a thousand women start cannabis businesses.

6 Questions Your Bio Should Answer

Now you’ve got your first sentence and want to know what comes next! Humans use context clues to place you within their understanding of their universe. Just like a newspaper reporter, you need to use words your readers know to help them understand the following questions…

• Who are you?

• What do you do?

• Who do you do it for?

• Where do you do it?

• How long have you been doing it?

• Why do you do it?

I recommend challenging yourself to answer 5 of these 6 questions within the first paragraph of your bio. Once you’ve finished that, you can move on to my favorite creative writing exercise to supercharge any bio.

Getting Ready to Date Online

In the early 2010s, I decided that finding a partner through online dating was a numbers game and went on 72 first dates in 6 months. It was a modern pansexual polyamorous woman in Manhattan heroines journey. And I learned a LOT! Since all of our dating skills have atrophied over the last few years…here’s how to get ready to date in 2023 and onwards.

It’s Time To Get New Photos Taken

When I first started giving online dating advice in 2010, I wrote that your photos were the most important part of your dating profile. Over a decade later and my advice is the SAME. Your photos will determine who decides to meet you in person. I encourage you to take the best photos possible.

Taking a body shot in the bathroom mirror is so 2005. Find a friend who is really good with their camera or an actual photographer. For women, the expectation is that you’re wearing makeup and have your hair done. I’ll go to a blow-out bar and MAC makeup to put together a full look on the cheap. I’ll include pictures of me with no makeup in my profile as well.

Favor These Types of Photos

• Headshots that show off the best features of your face.

• Full body picture (with clothing on) where you look good.

• You doing something you love to do.

• You on vacation somewhere beautiful.

• You doing something impressive.

Avoid These Types of Photos

• Pictures of you with kids or pets that aren’t yours.

• Pictures of you with previous partners that aren’t in your life anymore.

• Group shots. It’s hard for potential partners to figure out which one you are in a group shot so don’t include more than one.

• Photos that are over 10 years old or more than 25 pounds ago.

Become a Delightful First Date

I recommend being as much of yourself as possible on the first date. There’s no need to sell a potential partner on somebody you’re not going to be come the fifth date. That being said, here’s my tips for setting yourself up to be the best version of your authentic self…

• Schedule dates for times that you’re more likely to have energy. If you’re not a late night person, stop scheduling late night dates.

• Suggest activities that you enjoy and are easy for your date to try. Stop asking people to meet in bars if you don’t drink and meet for a hike instead.

• Do the self care you need to feel great by the time the date starts. Clear your daily frustrations before your date.

• Don’t check your phone or break eye contact to look at other potential partners during dates. If you’re easily distracted, sit facing away from the door so you don’t see people passing behind your date.

• Give your date clear feedback verbally and physically. You can say things like, “I’m really enjoying this conversation.” If things are going well, try gently touching your date’s arm and seeing how they respond.

Ask Interesting First Date Questions

Asking thoughtful questions shows your genuine interest in a potential partner. Asking creative questions shows you care about more than just asking what they do for work. I have a spreadsheet of authentic relating questions I use when messaging new people and while on dates. Here’s some questions I’ve been asking lately…

• What is the most significant thing you’ve changed your mind about?

• What is bringing you joy this week? (Monera Mason taught me this one for Bumble dating.)

• What is something, that although painful or difficult, you recommend everyone does at least once?

• What is the most controversial opinion that you hold in your social group?

Create a Healthy Routine For Yourself

My friends seem to have gone in one of two extreme directions during Corona. You either got super fit or super fat. The average weight gain among Americans was 35 pounds I heard. So no shame if you went to either extreme but now is the time to create some balance.

I’ve dated as an obese woman (242 pounds), an overweight woman (200 pounds), and a fit woman (170 pounds). How easy it is to date while overweight completely depends on the weight norms in your area. When I was obese, I had no trouble dating in New Orleans but had to work much harder to date in Manhattan.

2012 me in my transition from obese to overweight.

I’m not here to tell anyone what is the right body for them. If your body is meeting your needs then don’t make any changes. If you’re frustrated by your selection of potential partners, investing in your health will usually lead to a larger selection of interested dates.

Here are the healthy habits that work for me…

• Quitting hormonal birth control

• Quitting alcohol

• Drinking only tea, water, and vegetable juice until Noon and not eating after 8pm typically

• Learning how to cook at home, recipes here >>

• Limiting eating out/delivery to 5X per week, no more than once a day

• Fruit fasting for one day a month, using LSD to distract me from my normal eating habits and confront anything I’ve been avoiding

• Hot yoga or infrared sauna at least twice a week, I’m a big believer in using sweat to detox your body

• Kundalini Yoga, Twerk, or Zumba three times a week

• Meditation and self-work to resolve issues I used to numb out with food

• Choosing active ways to socialize (hiking, yoga class) over inactive ways (bars, sports games) when possible

2020 me after implementing healthy habits

It’s Time To Get Tested–for STIs

Remember before all those nose swabs that we used to get tested for sexually transmitted infections? (STDs if you were born before the 90s.) If you don’t have a regular doctor, you can order testing online. I just did a 10 test STI check through Health Labs for $139.

Getting tested can feel scary but not knowing your baseline health before something goes weird is scarier. It’s common for folks who are really active to get tested every six months. If you want to date someone in those circles, start by getting tested.

No Cost Gift Ideas for 8 Different Friends

Here’s a few ways to spend nothing and add big value to your friend’s life.

💍 FOR THE SINGLE FRIEND 💍

Set up your single friends. Really you gotta. If you haven’t been on the dating apps lately, you have no idea how bad it is out there. Many people gave up on dating during the panini and haven’t come back. 

You can start by interviewing your single friend and asking them what they’re looking for in a relationship. Try to get beyond the physical attributes and ask them how they want to feel and be in a relationship. If your friend says, “I want to date a tall blonde man,” then ask them why. Where did those preferences come from and why do they think those attributes create a healthier relationship?

In my experience, what my partner looked like had the least impact on our relationship. My partner’s values, habits, and beliefs affect us everyday. My partner’s hair color…just doesn’t. 

🍾 FOR THE NEWLY SOBER FROM ALCOHOL FRIEND 🍾

We’re about to experience a full blown party and family reunion season with all the drinking that it encourages. I expect more people to pause booze in January than ever before. If you don’t need alcohol to have a good time, invite your friend to party with you. It takes practice to learn how to socialize without booze. Know that alcohol has chemically convinced your friend that they are having a better time if alcohol is involved. It’s your job to create a more fun reality than a drunk fantasy. 

👩‍💻 FOR THE NEW JOB SEEKER 👩‍💻

If you have an old colleague who is looking for work, try writing them a recommendation. You can do this on LinkedIn or the old-fashioned way.

There are two angles to the recommendation. If you have status in the field your friend is applying in, then your recommendation can be pretty generic. What’s most important is who is recommending them and not exactly why. If you’re not famous, then it's worthwhile to craft a recommendation that speaks to your friend’s strengths. 

Not sure what to say in a recommendation? Tell your friend that you’re writing them a recommendation and ask them what strengths they would like highlighted. Or if you want it to be a surprise, ask your friend to send you a job description for their dream job and then write the best recommendation for that role. 

📊 FOR THE SMALL BUSINESS OWNER 📊

Help your business owner friends by recommending their services to friends and family. A personal recommendation from a trusted person is the most effective marketing. Think of 3 people who would love your friend’s business and send them each a message. Tell your friend why you recommend this business and why you think they would love it too. 

If you don’t have any friends that will use their business, you can try writing the business an online review. Yelp and Google Maps tend to be pretty important spots to gather positive reviews. Try to fill your review with key words that other people might search for this business. For example, don’t write “the food was great”, write “the tacos are my favorite and they’re really good about providing gluten-free options”. For a friend’s yoga studio, you could write about the specific yoga styles you practiced instead of just “class was fun.” 

👩‍🎨 FOR THE NEW BUSINESS STARTER / NEW CREATIVE 👩‍🎨

It’s actually easier to start a business than ever before but there is still a TON of steps. If you have a friend who is starting a new thing, offer your business support skills as a gift. Maybe you know numbers and can help them figure out their sales projections. Maybe you only know how to make a sandwich and will bring them lunch once a month. A new business owner is a lot like a new parent, they could use help with everything in their lives. 

🧚🏻‍♀️ FOR THE RETREAT LEADER OR LIFE COACH 🧚🏻‍♀️

If you’ve worked with any of your friends offering retreats or coaching, they would LOVE a testimonial from you. Testimonials are the lifeblood of marketing experiences like retreats. If your friend has testimonials on their website, then you can use that same format to write your testimonial. If your friend doesn’t have testimonials, ask them what format and length they would like. A great testimonial doesn’t have to be long but it does have to be specific about how this teacher benefitted you. The quickest way to get this done is to write the comment on their social media page(s). Get extra extra credit by sending your friend a video testimonial if you have the time.  

😡 FOR THE RECENTLY LAID OFF 😡

Most folks are living paycheck to paycheck, so your recently laid-off friends may not have savings to fall back on. They may need to come up with a big stack of cash to buy out their stock options or keep their healthcare coverage. Most folks are also out of work longer than they expect, so help your friends set themselves up. 

Depending on what you’re great at, teach your friend a life skill to save them money. This could be teaching them how to grocery shop and plan meals instead of ordering out twice a day. This could be helping them cancel all their cards and consciously restart the subscriptions they want to keep. 

🙅🏼‍♀️ FOR THE FRIEND IN A BAD RELATIONSHIP 🙅🏼‍♀️

The live-in boyfriend I had in my twenties was good for the first half and bad for the second half. At that time, I thought my value as a woman was a direct reflection of being able to keep a partner happy, so I stayed. 

If you have a friend who needs to leave but can’t figure out how, help them. This might mean connecting them to a new job, temporary housing, or being a shoulder to cry on. Let them know that you support them and your friendship is not dependent on their relationship status. 

🤗 WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE NO COST GIFTS? 🤗

I want to know what’s your favorite way to give without buying stuff this holiday season. Leave me a comment and share your special stuff. 

19 Qualities to Cultivate for Psychedelic Guides

I was recently serving psilocybin mushrooms in Jamaica for two groups with Atman Retreat. Psilocybin was never legislated against in Jamaica so you can cultivate, sell, and consume magic mushrooms legally. As someone who has been using psychedelics for twenty years, “it was a trip” to trip legally.

My fiancé and I became psychedelic guides accidentally. We learned how to guide folks through lots of trial and error with our own consciousness first and then others. I didn’t learn these qualities because I was perfect. I learned these qualities because I made mistakes.

I’m sharing these qualities with you to start more conversations. Tell me what I missed. Tell me what you look for in a psychedelic facilitator. Call me on my BS.

HUMILITY ABOVE ALL

While helping bust other people's egos, it's extremely easy to inflate your own. Pay as little attention as possible to the people who fall in love with you while you hold them in their darkest sorrows and greatest joys.

BECOME AN ANONYMOUS VESSEL

Do the work as cleanly and as anonymously as possible. Leave yourself out of it. None of these messages are yours to deliver. You are here to support each person in understanding their unique message. You are not here to share any specific philosophy or dogma or possibility. You are here to lead each participant back to their own creative force.

KILL YOUR SAVIOR COMPLEX

Do not take credit for healing someone or enlightening someone or unlocking someone. If a participant tries to tell you that you healed them, remind them that they healed themselves and that you are just part of supporting their growth.

LEARN HOW TO LEAD BREATH WORK & MEDITATION

You’re going to need the ability to control your own breath, the ability to influence another one's breath, and the ability to queue breath work.

ORGANIC CLOTHING & A HEAD COVERING

You don’t have to believe me. Test out wearing different colors and fabrics until you find what works best for you. All I’ll say is that for thousands of years, this work was probably done in organic clothing with a head covering. A white cotton scarf or headband, preferably organic, worn tightly against the skull will possibly protect you from excess energy.

DAILY ENERGY WORK PRACTICE

You’re going to need an energy practice that allows you to…

• clear your energy

• work on other folks energy and

• coordinate group energy when needed.

I practice Kundalini Yoga as my main energy work practice but I have also used Qi Gong, Reiki, Yin Yoga, and other yoga practices.

CLEAR LIFE

You will need to live a lifestyle that allows you to come to work completely clear of any agendas, side plots, or distractions and focus solely on being present for whatever arises.

CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

You will need the ability to improvise over and over again. No matter how many times you think you might understand a situation, you will always be challenged to come up with new solutions. Every trip is totally unique. Every client is totally unique. Every day of doing this will be a little different.

ASKING FOR FEEDBACK & RECEIVING IT GRACEFULLY

A dedication to receiving feedback with the utmost patience, humility, and good intention. If you bite the hands that give you feedback, you will stop getting feedback and it becomes much harder to improve.

DON’T TRY TO SERVE EVERYONE

Understand that you may not be the right guide for certain people. All people have a right to preferences. Whether that's race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or another quality, someone may prefer to have a guide who matches or contrasts their own identity. Do not assume which is correct for which people and do your best to ask directly.

AWARENESS OF BODY SHAME

If you are working with women, you are likely working with someone who has had an eating disorder or body dysmorphia. Do you know which comments will make someone struggling with their weight more comfortable and which jokes will shame them? If you haven’t struggled with your body size, it’s hard to know. My favorite book on loving your body is The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor.

AWARENESS OF WHITE SUPREMACY

White supremacy is built into most every system on this planet. If this sentence doesn’t ring true to you, it’s a great time to do some studying. I was taught by white teachers that racism ended with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. How did the textbooks convince us that the assassination of a black man proved that all men were equal?

If you are white or white presenting, Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad is THE BOOK. Doing this work completely changed how I work with Black clients.

AWARENESS OF THE DRUG WAR

I was lucky enough to be raised in an environment where psychedelics were illegal but no one I knew was prosecuted for using them. Your guests may have had a very different experience of the drug war. They may be coming in with programming that certain molecules are evil, make you lazy, will change your gender, and so on. Obviously if they’ve shown up for a psychedelic retreat they are ready to shift those opinions. I’ve worked with guests who have trouble getting high because they’ve been so convinced that getting high is bad. Luckily a higher dose of psychedelics tends to break through all programming.

Remember that the privilege of working with psychedelics comes with a responsibility. You must fight to end the drug war on all levels for all people. You don’t get to use these molecules without promoting access for all.

AWARENESS OF GROUP DYNAMICS

An awareness of group dynamics and how folks influence each other is important. Notice how people can raise each other up or drag each other down. Then stack your deck with ways to spin the conversation up if needed, and to separate those who spin each other down. I use a set of group conversation prompts that lay the groundwork for total transformation instead of letting people retell their old stories. Help people tell the story of who they are becoming instead of who they have already been when you want to support big transformation.

ABILITY TO READ BODY LANGUAGE

I am here to facilitate an internal journey for someone. Every time your guest needs to come out of their internal journey to communicate with you is an interruption. So you need to know how to look at someone tripping and decide if they need help. Once you’re good at looking at people to see if they need help, you can practice the next level, which is meditating while you “sense” who needs help without looking.

ABILITY TO LEAD A MOVEMENT PRACTICE

You’ll need a movement practice that supports you in staying flexible, limber, and strong. Even better if you can teach it to your guests as well. I'm particularly fond of yin yoga and foam rollers. Choose a movement practice that is accessible to everyone on average. You can push folks here and there, if you desire, but make sure that everyone feels welcome. You want them to go home wanting more movement in their lives, not regretting how much movement they did while out of practice.

KNOW & FLOW YOUR SEXUAL ENERGY

Sexual energy is your life-force energy. It is vital to cultivate and use your energy wisely. There are too many stories of people being sexually abused while using psychedelics in healing circles. People will fall in love with you while you do this work with them. Do not abuse their trust.

Sexual energy and sexual chemistry will come up when you work with people. As a polyamorous bisexual woman, I used to spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out who I wanted to f*ck in a new group of people.

To change that instinct I did a couple of things. First I spent a year in intentional celibacy so I could see how pursuing sex was affecting me. From that clearer place, I cultivated an anchor partner who I could flow sexual energy with. I found that getting super satisfied with my sex life helped me not look for that at work.

Finally, I have my own policy on what to do if I feel attracted to someone that I’m guiding. I wait a year to say anything. I’ll refer them to a new facilitator without telling them that I’m attracted to them. After a year of no contact, then I’ll ask them out on a date. It’s not an even playing field because you will still have a power dynamic from being their guide. It’s something I’m trying out as a compromise between celibacy and sex guru.

CONNECTION TO YOUR ANCESTRY

We all come from some people who were trying to do their best. Connecting to your ancestry will help you place yourself in the world. You can also call on your ancestors for help with this work. I often call in the spirit of my grandmother and great grandmothers.

PEOPLE WHO WILL CALL YOU ON YOUR SH*T

This work can inflate your Ego and make you feel like you are God. Don’t fall for it. You need a community of people who will tell you when you are out of line, especially when you think you are perfect. You will make mistakes. The more perfect you pretend to be, the more those mistakes are going to hurt. Stay humble. Cultivate amazing community. Shut your mouth and listen.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

I’m sharing these qualities with you to start more conversations. Tell me what I missed. Tell me what you look for in a psychedelic guide. Call me on my BS.

Free Workshop

I’m hosting a free live workshop in St. Louis on this topic. Go to https://decommodifypsychedelics.com/event to learn more and rsvp.

8 New Habits for Lighter International Trips

International travel is definitely back in full swing so I wanted to share a few things I learned on the road. I just returned from serving psilocybin mushrooms in Jamaica at Atman Retreat. I’m using these new habits to be kinder on the locations that I visit. 

As always, local customs are local. These tips might not work everywhere. Tell me your favorite travel habit in the comments.

STAY AT A LOCALLY OWNED HOTEL

Your lodging bill is often the largest chunk of change you’ll drop in a new country. Make sure all your money stays local by choosing a place to stay that is owned by locals. It’s easy to skip all the places owned by Marriott but harder to tell who owns independent resorts. Many resorts are owned by foreigners and then run with local staff. Ask who the owners are and where they live before booking. Not only will you keep your money local but you’ll be sure that the owners are actually around if you have any issues.

DON’T USE AMERICAN WEBSITES TO BOOK YOUR HOTEL

Using websites like Hotels.com and AirBnB.com will divert up to third of your dollars from the local resort to the booking site. This is only making American companies richer while investing less in the the resort. This results in more web advertising and less quality properties for us. 

If you find a rate online that you like. You can almost always call the hotel directly or show up at the front desk with the rate pulled up on your phone. Show the manager and ask if they can match that rate. They will usually be thrilled to charge you directly instead of selling the room for a low rate AND having to give a chunk to the booking site. 

If you find a house that you love on AirBnB and VRBO, you can often do a web search to figure out how to contact the owner off the site. This is against the policies of those websites but I'm against their policy of f*cking up the real estate market for locals.

USE CASH INSTEAD OF CARDS

Every time that you use your credit card, the person accepting it looses about 3% of the sale to (usually American) credit card companies. Keep 100% of what you spend local by using cash instead of credit cards. 

ALWAYS TIP IN CASH

When you tip on a credit card receipt, your server may or may not receive that amount. Even if you pay for dinner with a credit card, tip in cash.

BRING LOTS OF SMALL BILLS

For tipping obviously ;)

ONLINE OPTIONS ARE LIMITED & OVER PRICED

Not every business outside America has their own website. If you want to book all your travel online, you will overpay in most countries. Many of the best rentals and activities don’t have websites. 

When I’m traveling in the off-season, I tend to not book anything in advance. When I’m traveling in peak season or areas without much tourism, I’ll book a few nights of lodging for when I arrive. 

CARRY A BLACK OR BLUE PEN WITH YOU

I’m used to everything being digital. I travel with purple pens because I love them. Custom agents do not love them. You’ll need a black or blue pen to fill out your customs forms. They will send you to the back of the line if you use purple pen. 

GET GOOD AT WHATSAPP

WhatsApp has become the defacto messaging app for tourist activities. If you’ve only used WhatsApp in America, it can take a little time to get good at the international country codes and creating new contacts. WhatsApp works on Wi-Fi or while roaming internationally. You can even put a local SIM card in your phone and still use your original number on WhatsApp for a while.  

BONUS TIP: REDUCE YOUR TRASH

Americans are famous for the amount of trash they generate in every day life. Most countries don’t have unlimited land to fill with trash like the United States. Especially on an island like Jamaica, trash is often burned. Burning plastics is one of the ways we release tons of cancer-causing chemicals into our air, water, and soil. 

• Reduce your use of single-use plastic by carrying your own water bottle and refilling it.

• Ask for the big bottle of water when you order.

• Refuse plastic straws at restaurants and bars.

• Eat in instead of taking out food in styrofoam.

• Order local beverages instead of picking water flown 4,000 miles.

• Clean up litter. Leave no trace of your visit.

LEAVE YOUR FAVORITE TRAVEL TIP IN THE COMMENTS :)

See you out there! ❤️

5 Ways to Eat Better & Spend Less on Food

Mylee and I are on the road full-time and have noticed how much the cost of eating out has gone up. Many of the meals that used to be around $10 are closer to $20, (especially because we never tip under 20%).

Here are the tactics I’m using to reduce our food costs. We’ve even taken to traveling with an Instant Pot and making most of our meals in a hotel room. You can see me give a tour of vegetarian meals under $5 that I make on IG.

I am not a dietician or doctor. Please work with a professional if you’re looking to overhaul your diet. These are the ideas that worked for me. Your results will vary.

LEARN HOW TO COOK FOR YOURSELF

I didn’t learn how to cook until I was nearly 30. It’s never too late to improve your cooking skills. When you cook for yourself, you save money and eat less calories. 

Restaurants that serve a fixed menu are at the mercy of ingredient price increases. They are also paying higher wages than ever and can still be short staffed. On top of all that, they’re paying up to 30% to DoorDash. All this equals menu prices doubling at some restaurants. 

Don’t get stuck ordering the same food at higher prices. By learning some flexible recipes, you can use higher quality ingredients on sale. 

EXPERIMENT WITH NEW INGREDIENTS

Trying a larger variety of fruits and vegetables can lower your grocery bill. I’ve really enjoyed getting a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box that makes me try new stuff. Search for local farms or farmers markets to join a CSA. Find a grocery store that has good relationships with local farms. Berkeley Bowl is my favorite in the Bay Area for produce.

LOOKUP INGREDIENT SUBSTITUTIONS

The internet is your friend for figuring out how to replace any ingredient with any other. Stunned by honey prices? Ask the internet what replaces honey in recipes and you’ll get a ton of possible solutions. 

MAKE SOME FOOD BEST PRACTICES

For most of human history, it has been hard work to get enough calories to thrive.  Only recently have cheap and plentiful calories made over eating more deadly than under eating. 

As a white Canadian-American I have access to many more calories than my body needs. These are the practices that are working for me (yours will be different).  

• Picking 8-12 consecutive hours to eat each day and only drinking water/tea during the other hours.

• Eating a diet of 50-75% fruits and vegetables.

• Quitting alcohol and hormonal birth control pills.

• Minimizing gluten, dairy, and animal products.

• Not multi-tasking while eating.

• Drinking 64+ ounces of water a day.

I had a complicated relationship with food. I was shamed when I was overweight and praised when I was underweight. The list above is to illustrate some eating practices that worked for me.

I encourage you to get help in creating your food best practices. Some of the resources that you may want to research are: nutritionists, food allergy testing and counseling. My favorite book on releasing body shame is The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor.  

SLOW DOWN YOUR FOOD

In our hyper-productive capitalist culture, I had forgotten the multi-course meals of my European ancestors. I was eating while I did pretty much everything—driving, working, or relaxing. I was overeating partially because I wasn’t paying attention to my eating. 

Here’s what I did to slow down my approach to food…

• To interrupt my pattern of eating all the time, I took a weekly dose of psychedelics and fasted until dinner.

• I decreased my work hours and increased the time I prepare and eat great meals.

• I try to chew each bite of food as many times as possible.

• I no longer multi-task while I eat. With the exception of having a good conversation, I try not to combine eating with work.

WHAT WORKS FOR YOU?

What tips do you have for folks looking to reduce their food costs while eating healthier. How have you adapted to this new reality? Leave me a comment!

Venture Capitalists are Cowards

I was taught that the people who had money to invest must be smarter than me because they had money. So I entered the tech venture capital arena with gusto. Finally I had found my meritocracy. I was promised that rich people would recognize great new ideas and fund them generously. 

I joined Women 2.0, an organization that supported female entrepreneurs getting an equal amount of funding for their companies. Over the decade I was involved with Women 2.0, funding for female founders actually went down from about 6% to 2%. Why was my precious meritocracy giving 98% of their funding to men (and mostly white men at that)?

This was how I learned that venture capital wasn’t given to the best ideas or the most important issues. Venture capital was given to copycat ideas created by teams of men who were already successful financially. Instead of funding new ways to clean plastics out of the ocean or online communities to coordinate care of loved ones–we got dog food after dog food delivery company. While everyone chased ‘facebook: the sequel’ we wasted some of the most incredible technical minds on how to deliver groceries in 15 minutes. 

The Capitalists I met didn’t care about anything that didn’t make them more capital. (The only thing that disqualifies you from being a capitalist is running out of money.) By centering money first and foremost, they have re-ordered our world. Instead of focusing on our relationships, self-actualizing, or quality of life–we are focused on money, money, money. And if you don’t have money, then you don’t matter, so you better get obsessed. 

As soon as you figure out that venture capital isn’t given to the best ideas, you learn it’s all about who knows who. I was told that if you didn’t have family money, then you better make friends with people who did. 

I’m pansexual, meaning that I love people of all gender expressions, not just the ones I can make babies with. I wish the next chapter was about the hot rich lesbians I started hanging out with but that was rare. Since women haven’t legally been able to lead independent financial lives for much longer than I’ve been alive, there are few financially independent women. (Women weren’t allowed to have credit cards without their husband’s signature until the 1970s.)

I thought it was just luck of the draw who got the financial cushion and who had to stress about getting enough to eat. What I didn’t see was that wealth was being diverted from the lower and middle class to the wealthiest 1% intentionally. Capitalists told us that we would all be successful if we weren’t lazy and we believed them. All the time, they’ve been building business models that make them rich at the expense of everyone else. The capitalist were winning while unchecked by the people and politicians.

How to Create Events That Scale Magically ✨

This is my formula to create magical scaleable events…

CORE BUSINESS + AUDIENCE + TRENDING TWIST

The core business is the experience type you are providing. It may be a single location, multiple-location and/or digital business. Ideally someone on your team has previous experience running this business type. It’s easier to innovate on something you know how to do (but sometimes harder to break old habits). Here’s some core business types I’ve created for…

• Festival

• Party / Rave

• Group Fitness

• Group Healing

• Group Travel / Service Vacation

• Summer Camp

• Retail

• Restaurant / Food Truck

• Bodywork / Spa / Beauty

• Health Care

• Co-Working / Art Studio

• Private Club

• Elder Care

• Business Accelerator / Hackathon

AUDIENCE

Your audience is who this event is aimed at serving (although it may serve many groups, you need to pick a focus). You must be totally inspired to serve this audience because you’re about to work hard to do so. There also must be enough of your target audience members in the area you plan to serve. Here are some types of audiences that you might choose to serve…

• Young Children (and their parents)

• Older Children

• Pre-Teens

• Teenagers

• Millennials

• Gen Z

• Gen X

• Gen Y 

• Baby Boomers

• Elders -- Pay attention to this demographic! They are a huge population that is underserved by new experiences. 

• Women’s Group

• Men’s Group

• Beyond Binary Events

• LGBTQIA+ (you can focus on each segment individually or collectively)

• Race-Based Groups

• Faith-Based Groups

• Economic Segment (Wealth, Middeclass, Under-resourced)

TRENDING TWIST

Finally, a trending twist is what will take your event from ignored to front page news. Public attention moves in waves that send every reporter searching for stories on one trend to another. Having an established event that integrates a trending twist as the press spotlight searches will earn you more free press than you could ever buy.

Free press (or earned media) is seen as more trustworthy, which means being talked about in the New York Times is more beneficial than advertising in the New York Times. This is why integrating a trending twist can make all the difference to the success of your organization. Here are a few trending twists I’ve designed experiences for…

• Cannabis | CBD | Plant-based Wellness | Psychedelics 

• Sex

• Create Your Art | Play Your Own Music

• Secret (invite-only, have to know somebody)

• Co-operative | Decentralized

• Cryptocurrency

• Nature-based | Outdoors | Farming

Get Obsessed With Your Attendees

Most planners start with what kind of event they’d like to create and worry about who the heck is going to attend later. I recommend the exact opposite approach. I start by getting obsessed with the people I’d like to serve. This ensures two things: 

1. You’ll create an event that real people want to attend.

2. Every event decision will be easier to make because you’ll know who you’re making the decision for.

Again most planners skip this step and design the event to their personal taste. Instead of asking if the audience will love DJ X, they pick DJ X because they love her beats. This can work just fine if there is an audience very similar to them that will attend the event. This formula can create great initial events that fizzle with repetition if you don’t evolve with your audience.

Define Your Audience

I get obsessed with our audience. I want to know as much as possible about who is going to attend our event. For private events, this might be as simple as asking the client who they are inviting. For public ticketed events, you’re building the profile of the most likely buyer. For complex events, you may build several attendee profiles to represent the types of attendees. 

Why Profiling Works

Racial profiling by law enforcement is bullshit. Customer profiling by marketers allows you to sync up your team to make decisions around the people you’re serving instead of your personal preferences. Our favorite example of a customer profile is from Trader Joe’s, the quirky grocery store chain that sells more per square foot than even Whole Foods. According to business case study lore, Trader Joe’s customer profile is a

• Male

• 43 years old

• Unemployed College Professor

• Lives alone

• Drives a used Volvo

• Likes high quality & international food

• Doesn’t like to cook from scratch

This is fascinating on two big levels. First, this isn’t the customer profile of an average grocery store customer at all! While most grocery stores are geared towards mothers with kids (they buy the most), Trader Joe’s went after the exact opposite demographic. This gave them a fresh market of customers to please and permission to use tactics that other grocery stores won’t (like $2 wine). Their customer profile is the core of why they are such a distinct grocery shopping experience.

Second I’m fascinating by how little I match their customer profile but yet shop at Trader Joe’s regularly. Because they made strong cohesive decisions based on a singular customer profile, the strength of that design attracts me, while the majority of grocery store experiences are hard to tell apart. 

WTF Attendee Profiles

What information you want in your attendee profiles will depend on the type of experience you’re creating. Here’s elements I love to look at:

• Name:

• Age:

• Gender:

• Education: 

• Occupation:

• Income:

• Where do they live:

• Who do they live with:

• What transportation do they use:

• What payment methods do they use:

• Where do they learn about events to attend? (facebook is a juggernaut here)

• What other options do they have at the same time as your event? (go beyond just other happenings in the area, you’re competing against Netflix, getting high, and masturbating)

• Who would they invite to join them?

• How much do they spend on events?

• Why did they attend the last event they chose?

• What are they hoping to receive/do at an event?

• What are they motivated by?

• What do they want more than anything?

• What would change their life?

• What is their constant criticism of events? (i.e. bad food, wish they had this..., terrible music, snobby people)

• What kind of events do they usually attend? (street fairs, raves, clubs, bars, house parties, weddings/bar mit’s/anniversaries, conferences, classes)

• What are they afraid of?

• What brings them ultimate joy?

Do I just make this up?

Sometimes. This profile is your best guess at who you are serving. First you’ll pull as much data as possible (who has attended in the past, who lives in the area, survey potential attendees, etc.) and then add your intuition. Imagine the person you’re making this experience for and what they want. Lastly, we sometimes use our actual friends as profile templates to fill in the blanks.

Do Rapid Customer Development Instead of Guessing

This step sounds tedious but DON’T SKIP IT! Right now your team is full of assumptions about who is going to attend your event. Instead of testing those assumptions by making a huge event, you can get a lot of clues by asking for people’s feedback. Don’t spend a meeting arguing which graphic to put on the invitation, mockup a couple and ask people.

Identify and talk to 100 likely attendees to understand their specific needs and language. Seriously go TALK to your community before you make expensive decisions for them.

• Quickest: Visit a mall or competitive event and stand outside the area that attracts your target demographic for an afternoon.  

• Most Thorough: Set up short chats with potential customers by phone. This takes the longest because you have to identify potential customers and get them to agree to an appointment AND get them to keep it. (An unpaid market research call from their friend’s college roommate is the first thing that gets forgotten.) Offering to call the customer directly instead of using conference lines will reduce no-shows.

• Most Data: If you’re looking for a board opinion and/or a healthy start to your mailing list, then use an online survey or contest. The goal of this survey is often to collect as much customer data as possible to support creation of your event. The survey or contest should ask respondents if you may contact them to invite them to the next event. 

TIP: There are specific laws about contests or give-aways that must be followed in the United States and many other countries. Consult a lawyer if you plan to give away anything worth more than a few hundred dollars. Consult a web search for some default language for sweepstakes. Avoid requiring a purchase of any kind to enter the contest because you may run afoul of local gambling rules

Define What Your Event Is About

Now that you’ve become obsessed with the people you’re serving, it’s time to pick the core reason you will bring them together. Many events touch on ALL these areas but the best events are created around ONE core goal.

Seriously a SINGLE GOAL. You’d think you could stuff at least two objectives down someone’s throat over five hours and appetizers but you’re lucky if your audience remembers ONE thing from your event–so make it the ONE thing worth remembering.

Education

Teach them ONE thing. “What’s with this ONE thing thing you’ve got going?” you ask. People are busy. Brains are full. If you’re lucky to get a person into the receptive zone to learn something then you’re lucky if they take away ONE thing. Remember all those silly trainings with acronyms like KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Well the reason we make those acronyms is because people can only remember one thing so you need a single word to get them to remember four words that stand for a larger concept. You get the picture? Keep it simple and teach them ONE thing. 

Entertainment

Let’s have fun. Let’s relax. Let’s be amused. Astound or entertain your audience but make it memorable. We love building events with lots of small entertainment experiences woven together. Sometimes a mainstage act is all you need. Pick your entertainment very carefully. 

Influence

Be seen. Do the “right” thing. Be cool. Meet your “tribe”

Authentic Connection

This is where transformative events shine. With social anxiety at an all-time high, creating gratuitous excuses for connection is your special sauce. Interacting with new people can be terrifying and playing games on your phone is pretty safe so how can you create an environment where guests choose to risk it?

• Can you create ways for people to meet each other with little risk of rejection

• Can you create ways for people to learn about each other?

• Can you get them to skip the who are you and what do you do and go deeper first? 

Group Bounding

Taking a group of people and turning them into a team is one of the great joys of transformative events. You can create low-stakes environment for people to learn about each other and test out working styles. Since we know most obstacles are internal, I like to give groups challenges to work on their internal obstacles with external circumstances. We also know the highest functioning teams are those where everyone feels safe to contribute. How can you create a safe container where everyone’s input is received? How do you teach a team how to play together?

Why Does Your Audience Attend?

It’s not good enough to know what you’re going to do, you must also know why your audience is giving up their well-earned get high, watch netflix and masturbate time. Why should someone attend your event?

Curiosity

You’re doing something so novel that people just want to come experience it for themselves. This is rare. Most things have been done before. 

Relaxation

Leisure time is making a comeback as the links between stress and diseases like cancer become apparent. These events will focus on restorative practices.

Fun

Everyone could use more fun.

Transformation

This is an opportunity to put someone into a space where they can recognize a new way to be, exist as that being, and potentially exit transformed. Or it’s an excuse to blow millions of dollars on a desert rave. That’s all up to you. 

Transformational work should not be chosen lightly. Changing one's way of being is hard. In fact most of your friends and family don’t want you to change, they are dependent on you being exactly who you are now. (If you changed, they might have to learn a new way of being with you and/or it may force them to examine their own way of being.) 

I invite you to seek mentors and partners if you choose this intention. Start small and learn as you grow.

Pleasure

We’re about to see a pleasure revolution. You don’t have to believe me. Just enjoy it.

A few final words on Profit

You never thought I’d get to profit right? I put it last because I’ve found my best work was in events that were self-sustaining (make enough to pay everyone well and maybe donate some to charity). Events with the fundamental purpose of profit place the organizers of the event above the attendees, which often leads to lame events practices like huge blocked-off VIP sections, charging for water, and exploitation of the event staff. 

Don’t misunderstand me. I want your events to bring in lots of money that you spend abundantly on your staff and your guests. I want you to be paid abundantly for your time and effort as well. But I want you to look carefully at the profit-driven event empires before you choose that model for yourself. The time where customers will support businesses that don’t care for people and the planet is short.

Going Further

I’ve got a few articles you may find useful for your new event empire. Also feel free to leave your questions in the comments and I’ll get back to you.

More Event Tips from Jazmin Hupp

• How to Build a Decentralized Event Organization Without Going Crazy

• 13 Elements of Effective Event & Retreat Marketing Copy
  

13 Elements in Effective Event Marketing Copy

Great event descriptions are magical incantations. Bad event descriptions create doubt, uncertainty, and set up your guests for disappointment. Good event descriptions create clarity, unity, and set up your guests to be curious participants.

Some participants will read your event description a hundred times on their journey, some participants will never read it, and some participants will have a hard time reading it. (Most American adults read at the 7th or 8th grade level.)

13 Elements of an Effective Event Description

1. Set the scene - what kind of environment will this take place in?

2. Hint at the who - what types of people will be participating? Leave long bios for the extra information section, don’t waste time here with long credentials. 

3. What will take place - what kinds of activities are expected? Does participating require previous experience? Are meals included?

4. What you’ll leave with - what is the take-away or transformation expected by participating. 

5. Time & Date - use the date & time conventions of the region that you are in. Add the day of the week if possible.

6. Location - street address + Google maps link. Very brief parking or public transit hints here so the participant has some idea how easy it is to get to your event.

7. Accessibility - For differently abled participants (24% of adults have a disability) you MUST note the accessibility features of your location here. Also provide contact information so participants can ask accessibility questions.

8. Ticket/Registration Link

9. Testimonials from past participants and/or press quotes about your event

10. Longer bios and descriptions of what will take place

11. In-depth travel, parking, and transit directions

12. Other frequently asked questions

13. Who to contact with questions

Style & Grammar Tips

• Remember your potential attendee is probably trying to eat their lunch while a co-worker bugs them AND read this event description at the SAME TIME. That means you need to make this simple, easy to read, and laid out clearly so she can find all the details she needs to make a decision. 

• Match the style of your event description to the attendee you want to attract. Use her language, her flow, and her favorite methods of communication (visual, written, meme, video, etc.). 

• Use the lowest level of English possible to communicate your message clearly. I like the free Hemingway Writing tool to mark where we can improve our writing for clarity. 

• Whenever possible simplify and shorten your sentences. 

BONUS Tips on Overnight Event & Retreat Descriptions

Getting a participant to travel and devote an entire weekend or week to something is a different sell than an evening shindig. Here are some additional considerations for selling overnight events.

• Use lots of pictures throughout so participants can see what they’re getting. Pictures should highlight the features of the event, the venue, and the types of people expected at your event.

• If you’re selling lodging, make the features of each space clear. Note if they’ll be sharing a room and if they can request a specific roommate. Remember you’ve got to give participants all the information they need to decide to come AND decide which room to book. The less options, the better honestly. 

• Give attention to how you describe the food for the event and what diets can be accommodated. Over 10% of adults have food allergies. You’ll find many participants have special needs that if they can’t have them gracefully met then they won’t come to the event.

• Establish whether any previous experience is necessary for the event and add a newbies orientation to the schedule so that new people are setup to succeed from the start.

• If you can, don’t reveal the pricing of the event until after you’ve captured their email address. This event may be too expensive for them today but you want to continue marketing to people who were interested. You can also run a contest to collect email addresses from people who’d like to attend but can’t afford it.

What’s your experience with writing event descriptions? Add your questions and comments below and I’ll follow up with you.

How To Build a Decentralized Events Organization without Going Crazy

I’ve built two event empires that each served over 100K entrepreneurs in six countries: Women Grow’s Signature Networking Events and Women 2.0’s Founder Fridays. I learned a ton during my journey and totally burned out trying to do too much. After going on a healing journey to rebalance myself, I wanted to offer you the things I would have done differently if I was setting up a new international community.

Here’s my 2018 speech on how I burned out leading and what I learned about myself personally to come back. Below the video I share the professional tips to creating a sustainable international community to make stuff happen.

WHY SPREAD COMMUNITY THROUGH EVENTS AT ALL?

Even though we are digitally connected, the average human feels more disconnected than ever. Specialized communities create a place of belonging for people to grow and thrive. A hundred years ago we would have all belonged to a church community, a village community, a professional guild, and so on. Today, we have many more communities to choose from but most of us are disconnected.

I write about this topic because I believe co-created communities and decentralized communities are our collective future. If you’re curious what comes after top-down leadership, this is it!

TERMINOLOGY

Depending on the legal structure you choose and your community vibes, you will probably use different terms than me. Here’s how to translate this article for your organization.

• organization = your corporation, LLC, school, or non-profit

• members = affiliates, leaders, teachers, co-creator

• attendees = customers, participants, contributor

• experience = event, party, festival, Zoom room

CONTROL & CONSISTENCY VS. INSPRIATION & ITIRATION

You’ve created something awesome and you want everyone in the world to experience it too. Perfect! Now you need to decide what level of control & consistency your experience requires. Does your event benefit from the innovation and creativity of each team who produces it or are you just looking for people to perform what you’ve already created?

If you want complete control and consistency of your experience, you’re probably looking to build a corporation or franchise. If you want your experience to be co-created, you can do that with a licensing agreement, a school/certification, or membership.

Here’s the skinny on each way to spread an event from most to least controlled:

• Corporation or LLC: In this model you would hire employees and manage them to consistently create your experience. This model works best for people who are used to traditional capitalism. Meow Wolf is opening one new city a year using this model.

• Franchise: You create all the experience assets and then franchisees pay an annual fee and portion of their profits to operate your experience. Most states have STRICT franchising requirements because there has been some shady franchises in the past. This model works best in one state at a time or with lots of legal help. McDonalds is probably the most famous franchise in the world.

• Licensing: You may license your experience assets for a fee and set requirements for being able to use the assets in that contract. (I explain assets later in the article.) This allows you to partner with new members without being responsible for their business. TED created the TEDX license to allow organizations to produce smaller versions of their event.

• School/Training/Certification: In less than 50 years, Yoga became available in every town in America because of teacher trainings with certifications. The availability is amazing but the quality is all over the place. I’ve taken classes that surpassed all my highest expectations and I’ve taken sh*t yoga classes too. If you want to impart as much knowledge as possible AND give your members creative freedom, start a training.

• Open/Community: You’ll find a community theatre in most towns but that’s where the similarities end. Every community theatre is owned and operated differently. Community theatres are inspired by commercial theatre and touring acts but produce their own shows. The regional Burning Man festivals are inspired by Burning Man but do their own thing. If you just want to inspire but not control, try an open/community model.

Not sure how much control you want yet? That’s totally normal. Keep going and we’ll get into it.

WHAT IS YOUR MISSION?

Your mission may be obvious to you when you’re a solo producer just making it all happen. As soon as you add anyone to your team, you’re going to need a defined mission. Write it on every related scrap of paper you create for the event.

Making sure everyone understands the mission up-front is time consuming but it will create a cohesion that will save you time in the future. Deciding what NOT to do for your events is actually harder than deciding what to do. There’s always many more things that you COULD add than you’ll ever be able to add. The mission defines what is in-scope for this event and what you can decline. Syncing your members on the mission will help them proactively make these decisions with the core purpose in mind so you don’t always have to be the person saying no all the time. 

Here’s an example of a specific mission from a healing festival: The Free Self Healing Festival serves 1,000 women a day with self healing workshops from 50 teachers, supported by 150 volunteers.

The easiest way to create enemies is to say you’re gong to do something and then not follow through. I know it’s harder to tell people ‘no’ up front but it saves you oodles of time and effort later. The clearer and more intentional you are, so will be your members. And if you love trying scattered side projects, your community will too. No judgement either way, I ran a weed empire where I scattered everything to the wind, consolidated back, got blown away again, and so on. Your mission may be perfectly specific or generally open, it’s all up to your style.

WHAT ARE YOUR VALUES?

You can think of your mission as WHAT your event is here to do and your values as HOW you will do it. Your values affect every offering at your event. For example, here is how different values would be reflected in your registration area:

Values: Professionalism & Clarity

Lots of clearly branded signage from parking lot to registration area. Straight line of color-coded tables with rows of staff dressed in matching t-shirts. Extra volunteers to direct traffic.

Values: Underground & Secret

Unmarked entrance from the street, secret password to enter, checked off guest list by candlelight, given charm bracelet to enter.

Values: Beauty & Relaxation

Sumptuous reception area filled with overstuffed furniture and soft fabrics. Each guest personally led to a private salon where they are served decadent beverages and bites while they are languidly registered and adored with a flower crown.

Your values might be single words or principles like I’ve written below. I encourage you to choose no more than five values to focus on. You’ll need to train every person in your community on your values, the more you have, the more training required.

Here’s an example of values I wrote for a healing festival:

• Collective Creation - everyone is asked to give & receive to create the experience

• Healing not Hurting - non-harming all living things including self, nature, animals

• Seeing not Solving - listening with attention, skip offering solutions or diagnostics 

• Uplift instead of Judge - uplift everyone from exactly where they are instead of judging

WHAT ARE YOUR METHODOLOGIES & OPERATING PROCEDURES

What’s the difference between how you do it and how someone starting from scratch would do it? You have probably figured out a special way to do things that create a special result. That ‘specialness’ is your core asset. You’re going to need to be able to write down and teach the methods that you’ve created.

WHAT ARE ASSETS?

The experience that you’ve created is probably defined by a feeling, not a logo. Our legal system hasn’t figured out how to license good vibes so your experience will be reduced to tangibles.

Here are some examples…

• Trademark and Logo

• Website & Domain Names

• Social Media Accounts

• Email Lists / Newsletter Templates

• PR Lists / Press Release Templates

• Text Message Lists

• Branded Colors & Copywriting

• Photos or Videos or Graphics

• Methodologies/Operating Procedures

• Contract

  For each asset you want your members to use, you’ll need to decide how the assets are licensed or taught.

GETTING LEGAL: DO I HAVE TO?

Let’s say you start an event series like Women Grow, which are local monthly meetings for cannabis entrepreneurs. What stops a stranger from piggy-backing on your hard work and launching their own Women Grow without permission? A bunch of legal and trademark stuff.

Your legal agreements should be the foundation of clear understanding of shared agreements. Unfortunately most legal agreements are about tricking the other party into agreeing to loop holes (so you’re happier paying those high legal bills when something happens). The fastest way I’ve pissed off my members in the past was by creating hard-to-read contracts that only protected the organization.

DON’T use a lawyer to draft your original agreements. When you ask a lawyer for an agreement template, you get a laundry list of every clause they’ve ever put in to protect a client. Get the clearest writer on your team to draft agreements and then let your lawyer suggest changes.

The truth is you can get A LOT done without a single agreement in place. The agreements come in handy when someone does not fulfill their promises or makes a super bad judgement call. I like to think of my legal agreements as having three reasons:

1. Create a foundation of understanding between the organization and members. If your contract is hard to understand, you’ve added difficulty to every new relationship.

2. Make each person’s responsibilities, rewards, and boundaries clear. If these are unclear, you’re going to experience lots of missed expectations here.

3. Protect the organization and members from legal action.

Since lawyers are paid by the hour, you could spend tens of thousands drafting agreements (I have!) My advice is to go with the simplest and shortest agreements you can use.

Anything you put it into a legal agreement has to be upheld 100% of the time. Don’t put ‘nice-to-haves’ like having branded tablecloths in your agreement. Only write in the ‘must-haves’ like events must provide water free of charge to attendees. Put all the extras into your training methodology.

Here are the legal agreements I use…

• Incorporation Agreement

• Operating Agreement – you can skip this if you’re the only one who owns and operates the organization and your incorporation agreement specifies what happens if you die or go crazy

• Employment Agreements - you’ll need an HR Manual too that they sign off on reading. The HR Manual isn’t a legal contract but has your policies on sexual harassment, expense reimbursements, etc.

• Volunteer Agreements - have them sign the HR Manual if they are supervising other people, have all Volunteers sign a media release as well

• Vendor / Independent Contractor Agreements - often provided by vendor

• Licensing/Teaching Agreement - core agreement licensing your event assets to members, spend your effort on making this awesome because it sets up the core of how your event will spread

• Trademark filling with US Patent Office

• Event Waiver for participants

• Media Release for using participants photos or video

WHO OWNS ASSETS THAT ARE CO-CREATED?

It makes sense to keep ownership of assets that the organization creates. But what about assets that are co-created with the members? Nothing will piss off your members more than asking them to help you build your brand without giving them benefits.

Let’s look at three examples of a national mailing list that both the organization and the members have helped build.

1. TIGHT - All mailing lists & newsletters are compiled and maintained by the organization.

2. LOOSE - Members build their own list and write their own newsletter. There’s nothing to prevent members from using this list afterwards for their own purposes.

3. TIGHT with LOOSENESS - The organization runs all mailing lists but members can submit their own advertising content.

4. LOOSE with TIGHTNESS - The members run their own newsletters but do not have permission to use the list for other purposes.

The #1 email list problem I’ve had is members emailing everyone in the “to” field, essentially giving every email you have to everyone on the list. I recommend creating a way for previous members to advertise to your list (so they don’t steal the list and email them anyway).

WHAT IS YOUR RECRUITING & ONBOARDING PLAN?

The absolute best time in your members lives is when they are planning or training to become a member. When they are planning it’s a blue sky of possibility. Nothing has gone wrong and there is no one pressuring them for results.

Based on the psychology of meeting thousands of excited volunteers that only turn into handful of reliable humans, here’s what I recommend...

1. Have an application that takes a little effort to complete. Many people volunteer verbally on an impulse and expect you to follow up. I recommend having an application that they must complete to start the process.

2. Have a training that you ask all interested humans to complete first. This could be as simple as a free workshop or a paid intensive over many months.

3. Have a coordinator who is obsessed with getting to know your members and their special talents. Humans will do just about anything to be seen. Make sure someone on your team is looking.

That’s should get you started. Add your thoughts or questions in the comments and I’ll follow up with you.