After running my business behind my computer screen, except for speaking at events hosted by other people and other companies, I decided to step out of the virtual world and into the real one.

Every year I partner up with my best friend (business and real life) for a joint venture in February.

And, this year, Hermione waved her magic wand to make everything align like it never has before so that we could host an in-person retreat together.

We love connecting with creatives via virtual masterminds and retreats, but we craved something different and we’ve been getting this feeling that the women we work with have been, too.

For the past couple of years, anytime we’d mention doing something in person, we got massive positive responses from it.

We wanted to do it. We knew our people wanted it. So, it became about timing.

Neither of us had hosted anything quite like this (Mayi was about to host her first small mastermind at her house) and we quickly realized there was a lot of stuff we needed to consider that wasn’t on our radar.

Have you thought about hosting an in-person event? Just curious about the behind-the-scenes planning? Either way, here’s what you need to know and what we’ve been arranging:

1. Location, Location, Location!

When you’re hosting an event, you can’t do anything else until you pick a location. And, the location can make or break your event.

Decide to host your 500 person event in a town that is a two-hour drive from the nearest airport and you’ll be lucky if you can get 20 people there. On the other hand, if you’re only trying to get 10 women to that same location and you’re going to provide a taxi service from the airport to the venue, it’s much more realistic.

You’ve got to think about your ideal customer.

Can they get to your location easily? How much does it cost to get there from different parts of the country/world? Is there an international airport close by? Does the location have lots of hotels? Will there be lots of taxi and Uber options? Are there lots of restaurant options?

When we were thinking about Austin, we knew it wouldn’t be as convenient as Miami or L.A. (two other locations we had looked at), but as we researched airfare, it was actually pretty low–even from Panama. Plus, we love the motto: Keep Austin weird. There are plenty of restaurant and hotel options. Ubers won’t be a problem. Check…check…check…check!

2. Your Venue

Another element you have to decide on pretty fast is the venue. It’s hard to sell an event without a venue. You need pictures of the place. You need to be able to tell people where they’ll be going. Without a venue people are reluctant to hand over their credit cards.

Now, here’s a little chicken egg scenario. You can either: decide on the amount of attendees first and then find a venue that can hold that amount of attendees OR you can find a venue you love and base your amount of attendees off of the venue.

Before you hunt for a venue, think about the mood you want to create for your event. What are the top three priorities for your venue to have? Envision the space and then look, so you don’t pick a venue that creates the wrong vibe for your event.

When we found the Austin house, we knew it what THE SPACE we’d been looking for.

We imagined a space that creatives would find inspiring–that they would love so much that they couldn’t stop taking pictures. We wanted a venue that had a pool and a lovely outdoor space so we could all chill and relax together. The Austin house has a 2-acre garden. We wanted multiple large living areas–our venue has three. And, we wanted the bathrooms to feel like spas.

3. Amount of Attendees

Are you looking to create a massive event with lots of speakers? Do you want a more intimate event where all the attendees can get to know one another? Are you looking for something in the middle?

Creating your own event means that you get to decide on every detail.

The amount of attendees will affect how your event feels. If you have five women all staying at a beach house, your event will feel extremely cozy. If you’re filling a large conference room with 300 hundred people, your event will feel big and exciting.

When we decided that no more than 40 women could attend our event, we knew that we wanted enough women at the event for everyone to find people they really connected with but we didn’t want it to feel overwhelming.

A lot of our ideal customers are introverts and some suffer from social anxiety, and we want those women to feel comfortable. (Don’t worry if you fit into the social anxiety category…you can hang with me cause I’m right there with you!)

We want it to feel like a girls vacation while handling business and learning. Holla!

4. Food and Refreshments

This is just my opinion, but no matter how short your event is, I think you should always have some kind of refreshments available. That could be as simple as water and coffee. This always picks up the energy in the room and gives people something to do when they enter.

If your event is more than a few hours, provide more than water and coffee if you want to keep your attendees happy, energized and refreshed! You also don’t want them to leave because they’re hungry or thirsty.

Again, this doesn’t mean you have to provide the world. You could have water, juice or lemonade, coffee, single serving size bags of pretzels or trail mix, easy to eat fruit like bananas, etc.

Mayi and I have already done a lot of behind-the-scenes prep for Austin, because we want to make sure our guests feel very taken care of.

For the VIPs, we’re providing breakfast on Saturday so they don’t have to leave the house to go get something. We’re also giving the VIPs the chance to order lunch with us both days if they don’t want to leave the house. On the first night, we’re having a private dinner with the VIPs when we break for the day. For all the attendees, we’re providing drinks (multiple options) and light snacks the entire time. We’re also providing pizza and wine for dinner the second night so we can hang out until the last possible second!

5. Other Experts

Are you going to have other experts speak or provide their services?

You have to take into account your budget and how much this will cost. You should also consider if your attendees are coming for your expertise or for a mix. Do they expect a conference of multiple speakers or do they expect a retreat setting with you as the main host?

For the Austin retreat, Mayi and I are both running a workshop each day. If we did more than that, if wouldn’t feel like a work-cation…it would just feel like work and that’s not our objective.

6. Photography and Videography

You’re putting on an amazing event, so you probably want to document it, right? You especially want to document it if you’re going to host it again, because the photos and video will be your best form of marketing.

My husband has always been my photographer. Every single picture of me on my website has been taken by my husband. I’m lucky he grew up with an artist as a mom who constantly pushed him in that direction, because he has an eye for photography.

Mayi and I hired a professional photographer when I flew to Panama for our work-cation, but we ended up using Kris’s photos because we liked them soooooooo much better. We’ve already “signed” him as our Austin photographer.

We haven’t decided on videography yet, but we definitely want video from the event.

We’re doing this even though we don’t think we’ll be able to host another retreat next year (super sad emoji) due to personal reasons. We hope to be back at it in 2021, so we’ll use them then.

7. Transportation

A lot of events don’t include transportation, but every once in a while smaller events do.

For instance, I spoke at a retreat that was hosted by the lovely Bonnie Christine and my husband drove a number of the attendees back and forth to the hotel they were staying at.

My husband will also be providing a similar service in Austin for the ladies who stay at the hotel that we recommend. Isn’t he a keeper? (Love you, heart!)

8. Extras

Is your event going to include anything extra? A notebook for attendees to write down their notes? A yoga session first thing in the morning?

We’ve built the Austin retreat around the extras! We want our women to feel pampered. They’re going to receive a tote bag that Mayi has designed. We’re going to have a spa session, we’re going to go hiking, we’ll have a chill session by the pool, and more that we don’t want to give away because we want there to be surprises!

9. VIP Level

Have you thought of offering a VIP level? If your event is a day-long event, you could sell a VIP level for 10 people who get to join you for dinner at the end of the event. If your event is a few days, you could have a VIP level for 3 people who get 45-minute consulting sessions with you.

All you have to do is get creative to come up with a VIP level that your ideal customer would be interested in.

For Austin, it was built in. There are seven extra beds in the house, so we created seven VIP tickets for women who want to stay in the house with us. We added breakfast, the option to order lunch both days, and a private dinner with us on the first day to the package. And, there you have it…the Austin VIP package which I think is an incredible bundle.

10. Clean Up

Here’s the not-so-fun-part of planning an event. The clean up.

If your event is a multi-day event, are you going to hire cleaners to come in and clean at the end of each day so that it’s sparkling new each morning? Or, are you going to take care of that yourself when you’re worn out and need to get sleep?

Is clean up built into the price of renting the venue or do you need to hire someone to clean up when you’re finished?

For Austin, we’ve hired cleaners to come in at the end of the first day and clean so that everything will be looking new again at the beginning of day two. We also have clean up ready for the end of the event.

This is everything we’ve planned so far. I’ll do another post once we’ve planned more and I’ll definitely publish a post after we’ve accomplished our first retreat in September, so stay tuned!

Our retreat is 20% full and we have a few VIP tickets left if you’re interested. You can find all the details right here. (We’ve included flexible payment plans!)

I’d love to spend a couple days with you in Austin in September my friend.

Do you know that episode of Friends where Phoebe tells Monica that she has something she needs to tell her but she can’t tell her what it is?

The one where Pete is in love with Monica and lied about getting a girlfriend so that Monica would come and work for him. And, possibly fall in love with him over time. (Yes, I might know every Friends episode a little too well. Who’s with me?)

Monica responds by saying something like, “Wouldn’t it just be easier if you could tell me?”

Then Monica tries to guess and gets nowhere and they both get frustrated. Monica says she feels like she’s having a conversation with Lassie.

Well, I have something to tell YOU but I can’t tell you just yet.

Isn’t that the worst?

Don’t you want to call me a bad name? Possibly kick me in the shins?

Before you do…I have good news.

I can tell you the thing I can’t tell you right now on Friday at 3pm EST. Yep, THIS FRIDAY!

I’ve teamed up with my gal pal (do people still say that or have I really dated myself?) Mayi Carles and we’re hosting a live call to reveal a secret we’ve been striving to make happen.

I’m so excited to tell you about this thing that I’m having trouble sleeping at night. Thankfully, it’s only two sleeps away.

RSVP to the call right here to save your seat.

We’d love to see you there live, but if you can’t make it, use that same link to watch the replay.

We’ll chat more on Friday…

Your New Year’s resolution sparkle has fizzled out.

You’ve skipped the gym a few times. You missed a couple blog posts. You actually never got past page five of that book you promised you were going to write this year. You didn’t reach your sales goal for January.

You’re discouraged. And, you’re frustrated with yourself. You might be thinking, “What the heck is wrong with me that I can’t keep up with my goals for more than a month? Why does everyone else seem to have it together?”

You really want 2014 to be THE year for you. I get it, and I’m with you. I’ve got big plans for this year: a speaking engagement I’m excited about {more on this later}, a new program I want to launch, a book I want to finish and a lot more.

So, I’m going to share my simple {yet awesome} secret with you on how I take those super big dreams and break them down into bite-sized bits of action.

First, I start by prioritizing my goals. {I know. BO-RING. But, it’s non-negotiable.}

Be realistic with how much you can actually accomplish right now. Don’t try to set eighteen million different goals, because you’ll get overwhelmed and give up. Remember that just because you set something aside for now doesn’t mean that you won’t ever get to it—you’re just not getting to it right now.

Narrow your focus to three goals or less. {That’s an order.}

They can be resolutions that you set at the beginning of the year. They can be health-related, personal, or something to do with finances. They don’t all have to be about your business {but if they are, that’s cool, too}.

You got your goals? {Scouts honor!}

Here’s the secret. The magic ingredient. And, it’s so easy.

All you need to do is make one decision or take one action that will get you closer to your goal{s} each day. It can be a tiny step or a huge leap. If you start today {yes, I’m giving you permission to reset your resolutions this instant}, by the end of the year, you’ll have made a ton of progress.

There’s one other piece to this puzzle: tracking your progress. In a journal or notebook, you need to write down what you did to work towards your goal{s} each day. If you didn’t do anything that day, you have to write, “I didn’t do anything to get closer to xyz.” This will hold you accountable and the tracking process will turn into a habit.

It will also help you to remember to take action every day.

Let me give you an example.

One of my goals for this year was to feel more creative. I want to make more time for creating and my hobbies because they make me incredibly happy. On a day-to-day basis, it looks something like this: Monday – Knitted for twenty minutes while watching Parenthood, Tuesday – Played in my art journal for thirty minutes, Wednesday – Took photos and played in my art journal for ten minutes, Thursday – Created my own recipe and tested it out, Friday – Worked on my Alabama Chanin poncho for an hour, Saturday – Worked on my Alabama Chanin poncho for two hours, Sunday – Played in my art journal for an hour.

If your goal is to improve your health and lose weight, a week of tracking your progress might look like this: Monday – Green smoothie for breakfast and passed on the birthday cake at the office, Tuesday – Hot yoga class, Wednesday – Ordered a large salad when we went out for dinner and walked for twenty minutes, Thursday – Walked for an hour, Friday – Hot yoga class, Saturday – Hiking with friends, Sunday – Green smoothie for breakfast.

This isn’t “I’m-going-to-change-my-life-in-one-week” kind of stuff, but it adds up over time. Those little steps that you take daily will create a new reality for you. They can {and will} change your life.

And, it’s doable, unlike so many other crazy goals that we set for ourselves. {Hello losing twenty pounds in ten days…} Instead of being so hard on yourself, you’re making one decision or taking one action every day that fits into your life to get closer to your goals.

This means if your goal is to get healthier and you don’t have time to exercise that day, you eat a salad for dinner instead of indulging in spaghetti and meatballs. Or, if your goal is to open an Etsy shop and you only have fifteen minutes to work on it today, you could work on writing one product description or you could spend those fifteen minutes editing a set of product photos.

The point is that if you set rules like you have to exercise for an hour or paint for three hours or write all of your product descriptions in one sitting, you’ll fail. If you give yourself some room to take actions that actually fit into your busy life, you’ll be much more likely to succeed.

It sounds possible, right?

Are you with me?

If so, what are you going to do today {even if it’s only for five minutes} to get closer to your goals?

I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

We each have a medium that speaks to us.

For some, it is a new skein of yarn and the endless possibilities for how it could be manipulated with a pair of knitting needles. For others, it is the feel of a camera in their hands, ready to capture the sights around them. For me, it is a pile of jump rings, just begging to be linked together.

For as long as I can remember, I have dabbled in jewelry making, but it wasn’t until I discovered the art of chainmaille and weaving together hundreds of tiny rings that I knew I had found my craft.

My process of creating jewelry varies, but it always includes a pile of jump rings. Often times it begins in a local bead shop, where I can spend hours perusing the trays upon trays of beads, letting my mind wander and imagining how I could incorporate them into my chainmaille. When I get home, I put the beads into little glass jars so that they are easily visible and ready for when inspiration hits.

Sometimes I have a design already in my head and I know exactly what I want to create. More often, I choose some beads from my collection and start to from a sense of what I might want to do with them.  Usually it is a vague idea that comes to fruition as I start to work, somewhat like a word on the tip of your tongue that you finally pops into your head.

The inspiration for this piece came from these sparkling faceted beads and a pair of earrings I had already made with them. I wanted to create a bracelet that would make a beautiful complimentary piece, something that was feminine and fun and a little different.

I took a design from another bracelet I had already created and played around with it, experimenting to see how the beads would look interspersed between the chainmaille links.

My process sometimes involves taking designs apart and putting them back together, repositioning pieces if need be. Sometimes a design comes out exactly as I had imagined it, and other times the end result is nothing what I pictured in my head. Occasionally a design just will not work. But that is part of the process, and I will either fiddle around with it until I get it just right, or I move on to the next design idea.

As I work, I often try on what I am making, whether it be a necklace or a bracelet, to test to see if it is wearable, or if I need to make any adjustments. I only make things I would wear myself (and often times I want to keep what I made all for myself!).

If I am happy with the results, I will put on the finishing touches and try it on one last time (and sometimes model it for my husband, he’s such a good sport). It’s time to go make some more chainmaille!

Bev Feldman is the designer/maker/all-around mastermind behind Linkouture, modern and elegant handcrafted chainmaille jewelry. Her jewelry can be found on Etsy, as well as craft shows and select shops in the Boston area. You can read more about Bev’s musings on life and being a creative business owner on her blog.  She would love to hear from you on Twitter or Facebook (and she also is a compulsive e-mail checker, though she is working on that).

Erin Giles — Business Philanthropy Coach is bringing a straight up resounding call to action with a message, that hits straight to the core and I’m honored to be a part.

Buy a copy of End Sex Trafficking for $20 — a collection of 60 essays on love, knowledge + freedom by trailblazers like Seth Godin, Danielle La Porte, Jonathan Fields and yours truly— and all of the authors proceeds goes to the Not For Sale Campaign an organization fighting to abolish slavery every single day.

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Before I met and married my husband, I was a serial dater.

I dated six guys–each for a year to a year and a half–before my husband. I usually only stayed single for a month or two before jumping into another relationship.

When I look back on those relationships, I knew way before the relationships ended that they weren’t the guys for me.

There was one guy in particular who was this amazingly nice guy. The kind of guy who would wash my car as a surprise, bring my roommate lunch when she was sick while I was working, and clean my apartment for me when I was swamped with work. He did anything he could to make me happy.

We dated for well over a year, but by the time we reached one year, I knew he wasn’t the one. I think he knew that I wasn’t the one, too. So, why didn’t we end it sooner? Well, I didn’t, because he was such a nice guy. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But, I also didn’t want to LOSE such a good guy.

I was terrified of the loss even though I wasn’t happy in the relationship.

When I finally broke it off, I felt overwhelming relief, because it was the right thing to do.

There have been many other times in my business and in my personal life where I’ve been scared to let something go even though it was the right thing to do. And, once I finally let it go, new opportunities opened up and I was so much happier.

If you don’t let go of the stuff that isn’t working, you don’t have room for the stuff that will work.

That’s what I’m talking about in today’s video:

Is there something you need to let go of? Is there something you need to stop doing? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.