Reader,
It's been a minute.
If you noticed my emails went dark through May, you weren't imagining it. We ran our AI Unlocked Summit and it ate the entire month.
Worth it though. Fourth year, and it was our most successful summit ever. Over 6,000 registrants. Highest-grossing one we've ever pulled off (just over $200k from all revenue angles). I'm still a little stunned looking at the numbers.
We're breaking the whole thing down in a Summit Debrief call tomorrow (June 3 at 1pm ET), where I'll walk through the full promotion strategy, the revenue numbers, the speaker strategy, our sponsorship model, and exactly what drove the results this year. I'm hosting it with my CMO, Ashley.
We positioned this call as a bonus for people who joined AIAS during the summit (and our membership folks). If you're not in either camp but you want a seat, you can grab a ticket for right here: Click for a Ticket to the $200K Summit Live Launch Debrief.
Last month wasn't just about the summit though.
I also disappeared to Vancouver for a bit. Personal trip. I went for a celebration of life for my aunt, and while I was there I got to see my best girlfriends and crash my friend's daughter's first birthday party.
I also snuck in coffee dates with some business friends. Do you know Courtney Chaal and Danielle Connor? They're the sweetest.
And I met up for coffee with Alex Cottoni for the first time (we have so many mutual friends... it was about time!)
One of my goals this year was to pour more into relationships, and I'm out at more coffee dates and events now than I've ever been. Which is funny, because for years that was completely off the table.
When my kids were little, flying off to conferences or retreats wasn't happening. It wasn't feasible at that time in our lives. I couldn't promise I'd show up to a live call, never mind a three-day event across the country.
I talked about this with Courtney, who is in the thick of young kid chaos right now. For years I watched other entrepreneurs around me race ahead. Most of them didn't have kids and they could pour all their focus and hours into growing fast. I felt like I was crawling by comparison.
But I had to build my business inside the boundaries of life with little kids. Slower growth was the trade.
Here's what nobody tells you about the slow lane: I built a business I have never once burned out from. One I still genuinely love. Because I built it around boundaries from day one.
My kids are older now, so I get to say yes to more events, which is fun. But I keep myself in check. It's so easy as an ambitious person to just work all the time.
So I very intentionally protect the other stuff. Low-key days with my family. Time with friends. Reading. Exercise. Travel. Re-decorating a room in my house. The stuff that makes a life instead of just a calendar full of work.
That's really the ethos of my entire brand and the philosophy underneath everything I teach. Build the business around the life. Most people get it backwards and wonder why the freedom they were promised never shows up.
And here's the part I think about a lot now: A lot of those entrepreneurs who raced past me in the early days have since quit, scaled way back down, or had to take long sabbaticals because they burned out.
Meanwhile I'm over here still running my business, still loving it, hitting revenue goals that blow my mind, and happy as a clam. Not a brag. Just proof that fast isn't the same as sustainable.
Okay. That's my "I'm back" email. More good stuff coming your way this month!