Raise the stakes
NYC Gatherings and a new podcast episode too!
Aren’t you often surprised by what you can accomplish, after you do so?
When you take on a challenge, the satisfaction afterwards makes it worthwhile, right?
As I reflect on 2024, I am amazed by what I accomplished.
When I think I about it in more detail, 2024 was a series of “this might be hard, but it’s worth doing, let’s go for it” decisions.
I raised the stakes for myself often.
Here is a mental model you can apply to raise the stakes:
increase the frequency of what you are doing
make it harder; and /or
increase your investment
Here’s how this mental model may look for you:
Increase frequency of what you are doing. Let’s say you are hosting an event every month. If you then decide to host twice per month, this may seem initially hard to do. However, in the process of marketing more events, you may figure out better marketing operations. Or you just notice and realize that you could work harder, work more, and /or work more efficiently.
Make it harder. You could consider working for or with someone you really respect, causing you to want to look good for them.
Increase your investment. If you have more skin in the game, you will likely take it more seriously. Some people, like me, hate losing money and will find a way to work harder so they don’t have to lose a bet. You could also spend a meaningful amount of money to take a course, attend a conference, hire a coach, etc. The more you put in, the more likely you will stick it out until the end.
Three examples of me raising the stakes in 2024:
1.A Podcast Mixer with Tori Dunlap. She was in town from the west coast and fortunately she agreed to do a Podcast Mixer with me. Usually I try to market an event with at least 7 days notice, if not more. But this time I only had 5 days, and I had to make it happen. So I pushed hard on inviting people to this event. This constraint encouraged me to look for break-throughs. And good news, I ended up finding one with how I could best use Partiful for this situation. This break-through allowed Tori to thankfully market the event too. In the end, the event was well-attended and the conversation was amazing!
2.Sprinting in Jan and Feb 2024: I hosted 7 Podcast Mixers during those two months. It was intense, especially since I traveled to SF in February and I hosted 4 Podcast Mixers in December. I didn’t set out to host this much, but it emerged. I made commitments (like the Podcast Mixer with Tori) and I wanted to keep them.
This frenetic and likely long-term unsustainable pace caused me to explore other ideas and formats. It became one of the reasons that I decided to host my first C3 mini-conference on March 30th, which ended up being the most meaningful project I worked on in 2024. Picking up the pace helped lead to this breakthrough!
3.100 pushups a day with money on the line: Some times, when I am in a fitness rut or just looking for something to do with friends, I commit to doing 100 push-ups a day for a month with them. It gets me in better in shape and it’s a fun shared experience too. This summer though, I committed to doing 100 push-ups with a friend AND if I didn’t complete this daily activity, I owed that friend $100.
Let’s just say… I did the 100 push-ups every day that month :)
When you raise the stakes in one area of your life, there are benefits in other areas. You start to think differently, more confidently and develop a growth mindset. Each of these projects and decisions, and related learnings can help you down the road too!
Are you looking to raise the stakes in 2025?
NYC Gatherings: check out my NYC Gatherings calendar for fun gatherings to attend!
🎧 Podcast Episode
In this week’s podcast episode, I chatted with Jess Lowenstein, the Head of Community and Events at Hampton!
You will learn about:
how the community professional field has become more widely known over the years
what she looks like for when hiring community professionals, and how important personality fit is for the role
how the community role is different at every company
how she thinks about surveys as a way to measure impact
how Jess is using AI to help with event descriptions and to better connect with community members on topics she or her team may not know as well
To raising the stakes,
I love this! I found myself recently asking if “I am giving myself the best chance” but I love the way you’ve worded and positioned “raising the stakes”. Totally resonates with me.