244: Why success feels like failure

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Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Connie Crystals, the podcast. I hope that you're all well. We fucking did it! I'm back in the room. Manifest is over. Well, for another year at least. But oh my God, I want to talk about Manifest in this episode. But don't worry, it's not going to be all just about Manifest, not just the event itself, because the event was incredible, don't get us wrong. Like, the energy, the people, the stories, the conversations that were being had, the atmosphere, the speakers. Everything. Everything that was happening in the corridors, in the toilets, the coffee queues. It was one of the most surreal weekends of my entire life. And so I wanted to talk today about what happened inside of me own head during it, because if you'd have plugged a camera directly into me nervous system during that first hour of the Saturday morning, you'd have thought the entire thing was collapsing in real time. So basically, I went down to the venue on the Friday along with a few other little volunteers and helpers just to set everything up. The stage was to put up, the sound equipment was all to test out and all get wired up, the cameras that were doing the livestream and the videographer and everything, they needed to set up. The majority of the exhibitors came on the Friday afternoon as well because they had to set up. And we just had this little idea that some of the exhibitors were actually offering a service rather than selling things. So for example, Jo Webster, she was doing hypnotherapy. Then we had the Cosmic Tattooist doing tattoos. We had Tropic Skincare doing a hand and arm massages and stuff like that. So I just had this little idea with Julie that we create this little activation room. And so we put them in a separate room so people could go and actually have little experiences. Thought that was a great idea. And so everyone came, everyone set up, we had things ready to go, and it got to about 8 PM at night and I thought, I need to go home, I need an early night because I'm gonna have to be back down here again at 6 o'clock in the morning to just go through one final run-through, make sure everything is before we open those doors. So of course it gets to about 8 o'clock and Francesca Amber randomly turns up just as we're about to leave and close down. And I'd said to her, obviously you can drop your stuff, but we do need to get out of the building. She didn't tell me, and she says that she did, but she didn't, she didn't tell me that she was bringing her 80-year-old mother with her. So I booked her a one-bed apartment thinking that her and Bo could share the double bed. Obviously her and her mam can't share a double bed and have Borge sleep on the couch. So I had to run, and I mean run like Challenge Annika, around Newcastle going into hotel after hotel after hotel to try and find a family room. This was about 8 o'clock at night as I'm doing this in real time. And Fran was obviously setting up her stall. I'm running around all these hotels and it was so funny because every hotel I ran into There was people going to manifest in the bar or the restaurant, screaming and running over for pictures and wanting to talk to us. I felt like Tom Cruise. I actually felt like Tom Cruise. And then eventually I found Fran a hotel to stay in, so carted her off around there. And suddenly I thought, oh my God, Costco has now closed. I need some snacks for the speaker's room, you know, like the green room that all the speakers are going to be sat in all weekend, because they're going to need water, juice, teas, coffees. Few little snacky bits. So I had to go to Tesco. I was in Tesco until 10 PM that night, and then I thought to myself, well, actually, I've got that room now opposite the venue that Fran doesn't need any longer, so fuck it, I'm gonna stay in there all weekend. And so I got into bed maybe about half 10, 11 o'clock. I was just running through that I'd got everything, that I had my hair products, that I had my moisturizers, that I had clean clothes. Clean boxes, clean socks, like everything. And I was just texting Johnny backwards and forwards, and I said good night to him at about 11 o'clock. I was still up at 3 AM. You know when you just can't sleep and you're just so, so excited? It was like Christmas morning as a kid, that's how it felt. And so I didn't get to bed until 3 o'clock in the morning. My alarm went off at 5 to 6. I'd had just over 2 and a half hours sleep. Honestly, I was exhausted. So anyway, I went over to the venue, we did our last minute, like, soundcheck, last minute making sure the presentation was working. And I just went into the exhibitor hall and I said, right, is everyone ready? And they all shouted yes. Went through it in the activation room, is everyone ready? Yes. So I ran down the stairs, I opened those doors. I am not joking you, the queue was out the car park. I couldn't believe it. It was out the car park and down the street, in fact. And without even thinking about it, I just went, come on then, let's get everyone inside. Didn't realize the VIPs were obviously supposed to have been let in there, but I just let everyone in. Stupid me, that's my fault. If you were a VIP, I apologize. I was spinning so many plates, I just wanted to get everyone into the building. I'm sorry. So anyway, everyone walked into the building, everyone was looking around at all the stalls and the exhibitors and the activations. They were taking a seat in the main hall, they were getting teas and coffees from the bar area, and then someone just came up to us and went, Mart, is there a Wi-Fi code in here? And I was like, oh, I'm not entirely sure. So I went up to the bar staff, is there a Wi-Fi code? Yes, but it's not working at the moment. I was like, oh, will it be working later in the day? We don't know because 4G and 5G are off across all of Newcastle. All of Newcastle, not just this building. And I was like, oh, that's why my phone's been funny this morning. I got a new SIM card earlier in the week and I was just blaming that. So, basically, it even knocked the Wi-Fi off in certain parts of Newcastle. And this building was in that part of Newcastle. So, none of the exhibitors for, I'm going to say it was probably the best part of the first hour, could take a single payment. So, they were all sending people bank details to transfer money. They were saying, "Come back later." Oh my God, it was a catastrophe. Or at least I thought it was. It was in my head. And then it gets to 5 to 10, and I said, right, I think we're about ready to go. So I'm stood at the back at mixing desk and everything, everyone's in the main hall, and I just said to Sarah Pike, who was next to me, I said, would you mind taking the microphone and just when this video finishes, uh, just introduce me to the crowd just so I can walk down and it's not me introducing myself? Like, it's a bit weird, isn't it? Please welcome to the stage Mart Tweedy when it's actually me. And so I give Sarah the mic, the video stopped, and I mean stopped dead in its tracks and started buffering. And I was like, no, this is our big introduction video, how can it possibly do this? And so everyone was kind of turning around and looking at us, so Sarah just decided to walk down the aisle and introduce me. Apart from her mic stopped working, so you know, like it was like cutting in and out, so all you can hear is Sarah going, "Welcome to the stage." It was like, oh my God, it was awful. It was so robotic, so awful. Everyone started cheering, got up on their feet, and I start walking down the aisle. My microphone's not working either. It was all to do with the internet. And you know when you just want the world to swallow you up? I kind of felt like saying to people by the time I got to the stage, fuck it, let's just go home, the event's cancelled. And the funniest part is that most people in the audience, they probably had no idea that half of that stuff was even happening. But internally I was absolutely spiraling. So I'm stood on stage, I'm trying to welcome everyone to this huge event that's taken 12 months to pull together, and every few seconds the mic's just disappearing into another dimension while I'm staring absolute daggers at the sound desk at the back of the room, blaming them. So inside my head I'm just thinking, well, this is it, the event's a disaster before we've even started, we might as well all just go home now. And I caught myself in that moment because that's absolutely insane when you say that out loud, isn't it? Because nobody had died, the roof hadn't collapsed, the audience hadn't walked out. A microphone cut out, the Wi-Fi was off. But our brains are quite fascinating because they don't react to reality, they react to a perceived threat. And I think this is where perfectionism quietly ruins so many people's lives as well because Perfectionism isn't just like, "Oh, I want things to be all perfect and, you know, everything to go right." Most of the time, perfectionism sounds like, "If one thing goes wrong, every other single thing is ruined." And you know what it got us thinking? Like, it made us realize something really interesting, that when you care deeply about something and you're passionate about it, your nervous system often interprets imperfection as danger. Not as like a mild inconvenience, like actual danger. And my body was genuinely reacting to it as if I was unsafe. So my heart was racing, I got tunnel vision, I thought I was going to pass out. It was like catastrophic thinking, you know, fight or flight, and that's exactly what was happening to us. So that one technical issue became the event's failing, this was a mistake, everyone stood judging us, and it proves that I'm not capable of doing this. All that from a dodgy microphone and a weird Wi-Fi signal. And what's interesting is I sat with Estelle Bingham, who was one of the speakers, um, huge author, and, um, we sat in the green room and she actually asked me what star sign I was. And when I told her I'm triple Aries, she laughed and she said, well, that explains why everything went wrong at the start. Now, whether you believe in astrology or not, there's something really interesting about the symbolism of Aries energy because Aries are fast, they're reactive, They're passionate, but ultimately they're a fire energy, so they want movement immediately, and they want action immediately, and they want everything solved yesterday. And I realized I carry that energy into so much of my life. Like, if something goes wrong, something mildly inconvenient, I don't calmly think, okay, let's step back and assess this. And my brain just immediately goes to, oh my God, this is the end, we're all gonna die, the world has come to an end. And I think that so many people live like this without even realizing it as well. Like, one awkward conversation, suddenly the relationship is doomed. Or one bad month in business, and suddenly you think that your whole entire career is over. We all catastrophize because our brains are prediction machines. Your brain's job isn't to make you happy, it's just to keep you alive. So it scans constantly for problems or danger or rejection, failure, embarrassment. Which means that if you don't consciously regulate your perspective, your mind is going to happily convince you that a microphone cutting out is the beginning of your downfall. And that whole weekend just really learned me not to believe every single dramatic thought that me brain was throwing at us during the middle of a stressful moment. So anyway, day 1 was an absolute success. People were loving it, people were buzzing. Every single person that I was speaking to or getting photos with or signing books for They were all saying, what a level up from last year. Like, what a level up. Someone even said to me, it was almost like you've took last year and you've given it steroids. That's exactly how it felt. Someone said to me she gave last year 5 stars, this year she would give at least 10. And I was like, oh my God, finally it feels like, you know, I've listened to everyone's feedback from last year and I've improved on it. And so we had a little after-party planned on the Saturday night. Matt Cook wasn't even speaking until the Sunday, but he turned up for the after-party, so that That was absolutely incredible. People could talk to him. And Francesca Amber stuck around. Tamu Thomas stuck around. I was there. There was some incredible other speakers like Kate Harrison, for example. It was absolutely amazing. And at one point, I was just stood at the top of the stairs. I was checking the VIP list for the Sunday morning just to make sure that we had everything ready to rock so that when we locked down the building on Saturday night, we were just ready to come over 15 minutes before the doors opened on the Sunday morning. And everything will be ready to go. And as I'm flicking through all these papers, just talking to one of my volunteers, I hear a voice down the corridor shouting, Mart! Mart!

Mart!

And it was getting louder and louder. And I look over to my right, and Kate Harrison, who was speaking on the Sunday on the main stage, is running towards me with a phone in her hand saying, you need to come quick, there's somebody in the girls' toilet, you need to come as quickly as you can. And so I was like, well, well, what they doing? What, what do you mean there's someone in the toilet? And she went, she's unconscious, she's laying on the floor, ring 999. And just as she said that, I looked down, right, and Kate had her phone in her hand. And I thought to myself, well, surely if you needed to ring 999, you wouldn't just come running out of the toilets and run down the corridor. Like, you've got your own phone in your hand, surely you would just ring 999. So immediately, like, little red flags were going off, and I was thinking, this is a prank. I'm gonna walk in, they're gonna squirt with water or something. So I walk into the girls' toilet, and sure enough, there's a girl collapsed in a heap on the floor. And I said to Kate, well, who is it? And she went, I don't know, but you need to ring 999. And again, she had a phone in her hand, and I went, you ring 999. And she went, Mart, I'm serious, I just found her, she's collapsed on the floor. I don't know what made me do this, and I'm so sorry, Katie, um, but I kicked this girl's foot. Up because I thought it was someone playing a prank, and I thought she was going to jump up and try and scare us. But no, she actually made a moaning noise. She had literally passed out on the toilet floor. And so I called for help. We got the security guards in, and lovely little listener Sally Alabishi, she came in as well. It was lucky that she was there because she's an A&E nurse. So we're on the phone at 999, and we figured out this girl was called Katie. Hi Katie, if you're listening, this is embarrassing, isn't it? Um, basically her blood sugar had come right down. So we got her a big slab of cake, we propped her up on a chair until she felt all right, and everything was good. Jesus Christ, thank you, Katie. And, um, then after that, I was walking around, I was just talking away to people, and I'd been running around with this tin of Smints in my pocket all day. And if you're from the UK and you know what Smints are, they're in a tin, aren't they? So they constantly make like a rattling noise. And so I thought to myself, here's a good idea, why don't I just empty those mints straight into my trouser pocket? So I did that. I'm talking away to this woman, and I was very conscious that I'd not ate anything that day. And so I reached into my pocket because I thought my breath must stink, and I pulled out a mint, in inverted commas, and I chucked it in my mouth. And I was rolling it around my tongue thinking, this is a weird shape. And it doesn't have any flavour. What is this? And so I just went, excuse me, madam, and I turned my head to one side, spat it into my hand. I'd put my moldavite in my mouth, and the woman just looked at me. I think her name was Karen, apologies if I've got that name wrong, and she just went, are you supposed to do that? Are you supposed to put moldavite in your mouth? And I was like, no, it was meant to have been a smint. So anyway, we closed up the venue, we all went back to our hotels and apartments, we came back, we did it all again on day 2, Day 2 ran a hell of a lot smoother, but honestly, right, we had 12 workshops because last year at Manifest we had one workshop over the lunch break. And obviously it's hard, isn't it, because you've got to try and stagger the talks and the workshops. So I just thought, we'll put them all on at the same time, but the queues were a nightmare. And obviously you can't just have one talk and one workshop because then you would have 400 people turning up to a workshop, wouldn't you? So I thought, I'll stagger them around a little bit, and this workshop room could hold a maximum of 50 people. We had 12 workshops on. We also had fire walking and glass walking and arrow breaking. And I thought to myself, surely that's enough. Like, not many people are going to go to the workshops. I've been to workshops at Happy Place Festival, for example, that's attended by thousands and thousands of people, and sometimes they're not even full. I kid you not, some of the queues were down the stairs. We had 87 people in the room at one point. That was before I told Johnny that he needs to cap it at 50. I slapped his wrists on that one. And honestly, we're going to have to look into this because we need a bloody bigger boat, basically. Next year we definitely need a bigger boat. We need a bigger main hall. We need maybe 2 or 3 stages at the same time with different talks going on, all recorded. We need different workshops going on at the same time, but even different workshops repeated. Different workshops repeated because some of them were so popular and people couldn't even get into them. But it's all money, isn't it? Because we turned over, and I'll be honest with you here, we turned over £65,000 in ticket sales this year. So we made £65,000. And out of that £65,000, the event cost us £65,850 to run. So I had to put £850 of my own money in that. To make sure that the event actually went ahead. I didn't take a wage out of that. I think if anything, I maybe topped me car up twice with diesel while I was out and about, and I just had that business card with us and not me wallet. But I never actually even took a wage from that. So 12 months of planning, it was incredible, don't get us wrong. And I know it'll grow year on year, and money's not the reason that I'm doing it. It's more the connection and, you know, getting people's names out there and stuff that I'm doing it. But at the same time, I need people to understand that we worked with the space that we had. We filled every nook and cranny of that venue, didn't we? We had an amazing time, but it was just unfortunately too small. It was too small for what they'd said because they said we could get about 400 people in there. I don't think we could have got any more than that in there. I honestly don't. So we're already looking at new venues for 2027 because it needs to be bigger. There needs to be more breakout rooms for other things to be going on. But it's increasingly hard because you'll find somewhere that you think is the perfect venue, but then they don't have an outdoor space. Or you'll find somewhere that has an incredible main hall, but then they don't have any little breakout rooms or workshop spaces or exhibitor spaces. So it is incredibly hard to try and maneuver around, but I'm doing my best. I'm taking everyone's feedback into account. But anyway, after Manifest finished on day 2, I did what every emotionally stable business owner absolutely should not do, and I opened the feedback forms. Now, first of all, the feedback overall was unbelievable, and I mean unbelievable. Someone said it changed their lives. Someone else said they'd never experienced energy like it. Someone else said that they were planning to bring their friends and family next year. People were crying during workshops. People were saying they finally felt understood. People were saying it was the best weekend that they'd had in years. And yet when I was going through them, there was one bad review. One. And the second I saw it, me entire brain latched onto it like it was a bloody murder investigation. And I genuinely sat there thinking, right, that's it, we're never running Manifest ever again. Which is ridiculous, isn't it? Like genuinely ridiculous. Like imagine going to a restaurant where 400 people loved the food and one person had said, "Ah, the chips were a bit cold," and the chef responded with, "Well, I'm shutting the business forever. Shut down the ovens. We're closing the restaurant." That's what the human brain does. We are biologically wired to focus more heavily on the negative experiences than the positive ones. There's actually a psychological term for this as well. It's called negativity bias. So, your brain gives more emotional weight to criticism, danger, embarrassment, rejection, and any problems as well because historically, Noticing threats is what keeps humans alive. So, thousands of years ago, if we ignored danger, that could literally kill you. We'd have a tiger or something in our face. Maybe not a tiger. I don't know what they call— woolly mammoth? I don't know. So, your brain evolved to remember negative experiences more strongly than positive ones. And that means that 10 compliments can genuinely be emotionally outweighed by just 1 criticism if you're not careful. And I think social media has made this even worse as well, hasn't it? Because now we live in a world where people can receive hundreds of lovely comments and still spend their entire evening spiraling over the one person who said, "Hmm, not sure about this." It's like we almost become addicted to searching for evidence that we're failing. And what's wild is that sometimes success itself can feel uncomfortable to the nervous system because success brings about visibility. And that visibility then brings about judgment, and judgment feels unsafe to the brain. So the mind starts scanning, like, who didn't like it? What went wrong? What could have been better? What if people secretly hated it and they're all just saying that they loved it, Mark? And suddenly you stop experiencing your own life because you're too busy giving yourself a life audit. I caught myself doing this massively after Manifest. Like, instead of sitting there thinking, wow, 'Oh my God, we actually pulled this off.' I was just zooming in emotionally at that tiny percentage of criticism. And when I've looked at it, like, we've had over 155 feedback forms so far. Today, as I record this, it's Wednesday. We're 3 days from when I sent the feedback forms out. We've had 155 back, and 1 person said that they wouldn't return next year. 1 person. Less than 1%. And don't get us wrong, like, feedback matters. Constructive criticism is important. And improvement is important and listening is important. But there's a huge difference between learning from feedback and emotionally, like, personally attaching your entire self-worth to it, because that's where people suffer. Because if your identity becomes dependent on universal approval, you'll never feel safe ever. There will never be a point in your life where everybody likes you or everybody agrees with you or understands you or validates you. Doesn't exist. And weirdly, trying to achieve universal approval, that's what often makes people less authentic anyway, because you start editing yourself, or you start trying to do things to keep up with the Joneses, or you soften yourself constantly, or you over-explain yourself constantly. So by doing that, you stop creating from truth and you start performing for safety. And I think that's one of the biggest lessons from Manifest for me, because it was something that someone said— I can't remember who it was, it might have even been Julie— she said something like, "You should be able to hold both things at once." And I said, "What do you mean?" And she said, "Like, this went incredibly well, and there are things that we can improve." Those two sentences can coexist because emotionally immature thinking tends to live in extremes, doesn't it? It was either the best thing ever or it was a complete disaster. But real growth lives somewhere in the middle where you can celebrate yourself without becoming complacent, and you can improve yourself without destroying your confidence., and that balance changes everything. So one thing that I've realized, like, afterwards, now I'm reflecting on the event, is how distorted your perspective becomes when you're emotionally inside something. Because when, like, for me, when you're the person organizing the event and you're handling the problems, you're carrying all the responsibility. You're worrying about timings, you're checking on speakers, you're trying to keep thousands of moving parts together. You are not experiencing the event the same way that everyone else is. I saw things that nobody else will see. I was watching it through a lens of pressure. And I think this happens in all areas of life, not just with event management. Like, we assume that everyone sees us the way that we see ourselves internally, when actually most people are experiencing us completely different. When I've watched back the livestream of my performance and my talk first thing on Saturday morning, I kept thinking to myself like, oh my God, my talk was so shit, I was so nervous, when actually I've watched it and I look really confident delivering my message and it really hits as well. I remember speaking to people afterwards who were saying things like, oh my God, Mark, your talk was unbelievable, you handled everything so well, it felt so professional, it flowed amazingly. But meanwhile in my head I'm still replaying every tiny thing that didn't go to plan. I'm thinking about the microphone, the Wi-Fi, whether I introduced someone properly, whether I spoke too quickly, whether I looked stressed, whether I was smiling, whether I should have done something differently. It's honestly mad when you think about it, like two completely different realities were happening at the exact same time. And this is such an important thing for people to understand because so many of us move through life assuming that our internal panic is externally visible. We think that everyone can tell that we're anxious or that we're struggling or that we feel insecure, but most of the time they can't. People are far too busy thinking about themselves. That's all it comes down to. People will only really even think about themselves. There's actually something in psychology called the spotlight effect, and that's basically the tendency to believe people notice us far more than they actually do. We massively overestimate how much attention other people are paying to our mistakes or our awkward moments, or our appearance, or our imperfections. And honestly, understanding that changes everything because if you constantly believe that every single eye on the planet is on you, you'll start shrinking yourself to avoid judgment, and you'll become hyper-aware of every tiny flaw or every single mistake, and then you'll stop taking risks altogether. And what I mean by that is you'll stop posting online, or you'll stop speaking up when something happens, or you'll stop creating things, you'll stop trying new opportunities, you'll stop putting yourself in rooms that could actually change your life. Not because you're incapable, but because your nervous system associates visibility with danger. And I think that's why events like Manifest are actually so important to me beyond spirituality or manifestation or mindset, because what I love seeing is people physically watching other human beings show up imperfectly and still be loved. Like Francesca Amber, she came on, she did a whole talk in 40 minutes. I told her it would be about an hour slot, and she literally looked down at the screen, went, "It's saying on here 20 minutes, is that right?" And so we just went into an impromptu Q&A. But everyone laughed at that, and everyone thought it was hilarious. Whereas if that was me, I would have been panicking, thinking, "Oh my God, I've totally fucked up my talk now." because I think healing often happens through evidence, doesn't it? Like, we'll hear someone forget the words on stage and the audience still claps, or you'll watch a speaker get emotional but nobody judges them, or you'll see people dancing badly but nobody even freaking cares. And then suddenly your brain starts to realize, maybe I don't need to be perfect to belong. I honestly think that's one of the most exhausting things about modern life. It's that it how much energy people spend trying to appear as polished as they are, especially online. Everyone wants to appear unbothered or successful or healed or productive, confident and thriving, but most of us are just figuring it out as we go along while occasionally having a breakdown in a Tesco car park like me last week. There's something incredibly freeing about admitting that because confidence isn't the absence of mess. Confidence is the willingness to keep moving whilst things are still messy. And that's what Manifest reminded me of. Not that successful people have it all together, but that successful people just continue on anyway, even when things go wrong, or when they feel exposed, or when they doubt themselves halfway through. And I honestly think that that's a far more realistic and compassionate definition of growth than the one that we usually get sold online. So now that I've given myself a little bit of time to digest and absorb what actually happened at the weekend. When I look back at it now, the things I remember most aren't the technical issues or the moments that when I was like internally panicking. What I remember are the conversations, the emotions, the people crying during the talks, all those strangers becoming friends, the audience clapping for people that they'd never even heard of before, the feeling in the room when everyone was collectively present in something bigger than themselves. That's what actually mattered the most to me. I think sometimes we become so obsessed with optimizing life that we forget to experience it while it's happening. We're constantly giving ourselves that life audit, like, was that good enough? Did I say the right thing? What if people judge us? What if this isn't successful enough? What if I fail? But meanwhile, life is literally unfolding in front of us whilst we're mentally standing outside of it analyzing everything. Okay, that's something I really became aware of after the event because there were moments that I wish I'd really allowed myself to enjoy it more instead of mentally racing ahead to the next problem that needed solving. So this whole experience changed my relationship with feedback. I think before I unconsciously viewed criticism as evidence that something had gone wrong, but now I'm thinking that feedback is just evidence that something reached people enough for them to respond to it. So if you've ever created anything meaningful in life, there will always be a mixed perspective over it, won't there? That's unavoidable. You could create the most beautiful experience in the world and somebody would still complain about the parking. That doesn't mean that the thing that you gave lacked value. And so at the end of the event, I flashed up on the screen the new artwork for Manifest 2027, and I said, I'm just going to leave this link here with a QR code bearing in mind we sold like just under 400 tickets for this year, for 2026. I put the link out and I said it's available until midnight tonight, go on and grab your tickets, that's the lowest price that they'll ever be. And guess what? We sold out of 50% of the tickets that we sold in 2026 in just 24 hours. In just 24 hours we sold over 200 tickets. Now that for me was evidence and testament to how 2026 actually went. Because last year after 2025's event, I put— I did the exact same thing. I put the link out and I said, here's the link to next year, to 2026. And I think 40 or 50 people purchased. This time, over 200 of you are choosing to come back next year. And this is before I've arranged a venue. Before I've arranged a date, before I've arranged any of the lineup. People are choosing to come back regardless of all that. I find that absolutely wild. But thank you if you've got a ticket. We are going to need a bigger boat, basically, aren't we? We need a bigger boat to house everyone. So next week I am going to be spending my entire week looking at different venues, making sure that we can house all of this for the right price, because the price does need to be right, obviously. This year, the venue that we had was £20,000. Then we had to pay £8,000 for the food. We had to pay about £9,000 for the staging, the lights, the microphone, the AV. Then there was £12,000 to the videographers for recording and livestreaming it. And then we also had to pay the speakers and the workshop hosts as well. So events cost a lot. They really, really do cost a lot. And what's funny is someone actually sent us a DM the other night on the Manifest Instagram profile and she said something like, do you know, I actually hoot and hawed about how much this was actually going to cost me to attend. And she was like, now I've attended, I think it's worth more. I really think it's worth more. Now that to me is all the feedback I need. I loved hearing that. So thank you so much if that was you. And if you want to grab your tickets for Manifest 2027, just head to the website. The link is in my bio across all of my social media handles, uh, but you can also go to www. Money-fest.uk. I'll pop it in the show notes underneath this episode as well. You can sign up for the early bird VIP tickets. Um, they are not available just yet until we find a venue and find some dates, and then I will launch those. And they will be obviously a lot cheaper than when it goes out for general admission. So if you want to be the first to be in the know, just pop your name and your email address in the website at money-fest.uk. Right, I hope that this episode has been insightful and it's given you something to think about and not just me rambling for the last half hour. If you have enjoyed this episode, please do me a solid, leave me a rating or a review or follow or subscribe this podcast, whatever it is that you kids do these days. And I will see you all next Friday for another episode. Speak soon, guys. Bye!

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