#231 How to Stay Motivated After the Conference
30 Sept 2024 · 12 min
Dr. Peter Kim shares how to maintain momentum after attending a conference. The key steps: expect the energy dip, distill your notes into one to three takeaways, set action steps with timelines before you leave, follow up with contacts, and plan your next event.
Chapters
Hey everyone. Hope you've had another amazing week. If it hasn't been amazing, that's okay too. Wherever you're at, I hope we can bring you some value this week. Thanks for tuning in as always. Whether you're in your car, in between cases, walking your dogs, whatever it is, we appreciate you and want to do everything we can to support you. Now, this week we're diving into a topic that's probably familiar to all of you, anyone who's ever been to a conference or event. And today we're going to be talking about how to keep the momentum going once you're back in the real world. After all, you spent your time, energy and money to go to this conference. You've gotten great insights, and then afterwards, what do you do next? We talk about all those things, so stay tuned. Welcome to the Passive Income MD Podcast.
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Now, let's get on with the show. For anyone who knows me, you know I'm a bit of a conference junkie. I love going to these events and I'll let you know why. Mainly because you get to interact with people face to face. As you can imagine, the pandemic time was horrible for me. I'm a face to face type person, so it was really difficult during that time. Even things like going out to coffee, meeting and connecting with people, networking, I get a lot of energy from that. I know everyone's not the same. My wife is definitely not like that. She finds that she needs to do whatever she needs to do at these events, but the it drains her energy quite a bit and she needs time to recharge. That's not me at all. I like to connect with people, share information, share what I know, and at the end of it, I just want to keep going. So for me, going to in person conferences, they're like the greatest things in the world. But whether you're going because you want to, or whether you feel like you.
Have to, or you're trying to get.
CME or whatever it is, the question always becomes you've gotten all these insights, you made new connections, but when you get back to reality, how can you keep that momentum going and actually make it a ton of value for you, but actually make it useful for you when you're back? Let's be honest, for physicians, attending conference is a big investment. You don't just turn off your time, you got to give up your time. You got to give Your energy, you got to get on a plane and then you got to put aside your clinical work. We're paid by the the hour for the most part. So when you don't put time in, you don't get paid. So sometimes it can feel like a double whammy where you're paying and putting in the time to go to this conference and you're not getting paid during that time. So it becomes a bigger cost to you. So you have to do everything you can to make sure it was worth that investment that you made. So again, I go to a ton of conferences. I don't go to as many now as I did maybe even a few years ago or even before the pandemic, honestly, because I've been spending a lot more time with my family, my kids are growing up, there's more activity, so it's harder to get there. However, however, on a given year, I probably go to one at least every other month. And I hate spending time away from family. So I know that if I'm going to do that, I need to make the most of it. So I've gone into these conferences with a goal, with objectives, and I make sure I extract every ounce of juice out of it that I can. Then when I come back, I make sure it wasn't a waste of my time. So I want to share with you a few key steps to make sure that your conference insights, they lead to real results for you and help move the ball forward. Number one, expect the post conference energy dip. We all know that it's normal to feel excitement when you are at the conference and when you leave you feel amazing, like you're going to take over the world and do all these things. But we all know that energy will change. Monday hits, your clinic hits, reality sets in. Your family activities are back, so your energy drops when you get back and all of a sudden you're missing the good times you had at this conference or summit. So first thing you should do is expect this. So I usually set up something to look forward to immediately after the conference to keep that energy up. These mini goals, these tasks, these meetings with people afterwards to connect, to continue to share what I've learned and help with it when I'm at the conference. I usually set up meetings for the week or two after. Just being around these people, just connecting with them, even over zoom or whatever it is, helps remind me what I committed to, what I wanted to do, where I was at at that time, what I was thinking and it keeps that momentum going. Number two, when I get back, and usually on the plane ride back, I go over my notes, and yes, I take notes, furious at these events, sometimes during the meetings, sometimes during the actual talks, but a lot of times it's when I'm talking to somebody, learning from them. And then I go back and I want to write these notes because I don't want to lose what I heard. And I think I mentioned it before, sometimes I get more insight out of a conversation or two over coffee out in the hallway than I do sometimes listening to lectures inside. And since I know this, even with our conference, I make sure that everyone has access to the talks afterwards, just in case. But I go through my notes, I make sure I hit the 1, 2, or 3 key takeaways that I have from it. And then I really reflect on it, try to understand, what were those key takeaways? Why did they hit me hard, and how might they impact my life? I also make sure I circle or underline some of the key strategies that I wanted to look into more. And now once I've done that, I set some immediate action steps. We all know that when we're at a conference, everything seems possible. We have all the opportunities available to us. We seem ready to go. We're going to take over the world, we're going to do this, this or that with our health, with our time, with our money, our energy, energy. And then things come back and we just seem to forget it all, or it just seems so hard when we come back, like, I don't have the time, I don't have the energy. So as early as possible, I set those action steps. If you can set those action steps before you actually leave the conference, that's the best case scenario. But if you're in the plane, you're looking over your takeaways, we spend a little bit of time afterwards even talking to someone else about what you learned. Set those action steps right there. Create a timeline, schedule it, put it on your calendar. If you want to meet with somebody, put it right there. Find somebody else who can keep you accountable.
But whether those action steps are small.
Or big, it actually doesn't matter. The smaller they are, sometimes the easier they are to do. And that really helps build momentum for you to get those bigger tasks done. I remember early on I went to a conference, a summit, and I started learning about finding investment deals online, that there are opportunities to learn about different real estate deals. And I remember hearing about it at the summit and conference. These were all new things that were coming about you. The whole area of Crowdfunding was brand new. And so what I did as an immediate action step, I said that when I get back home, I'm just going to sign up for one of these platforms just to get in there and explore. I was going to give myself the next day to do it. It was a simple step. Just log in and then see what deals there are. And that's what I did. The very next day I got to get in there.
I didn't understand anything that was on.
There, but I started exploring, questioning, learning, asking people. Pretty soon after that, I made my very first investment in real estate. Of course that led to the second and third and then within that year I creating passive income already. All from making that small commitment to just go in and log into one of those platforms.
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You want to stay connected with the people you met at the conference. I know you receive cards or you exchange information and you say, I'll reach out to you. Yeah, let's connect after this. But many times 90% of those just drop off. I know at the conference we create this culture where it's cool to talk to people and you're open and honest, but then when you get back home you're like, oh, I don't know if I should reach out to them. Maybe they don't remember me or it'd be a little strange, maybe I'm bothering them. But that's absolutely not the case. Everybody is there because they want to connect with people. They want to connect with people outside too to keep the momentum going. And so I would say reach out to the people Send them a quick text, set up a follow up appointment, a call, a zoom call if you're there. If this person happens to be in person, set up a coffee. If you're lucky, you're able to find an accountability group there that could help you take those actions and move forward. The other thing that's nice about meeting with these people is once you share what you learned, your takeaways, you add value to other people and that feels good too. It also cements what you learned in your own mind and brain. And it helps you to take action, it helps you stay motivated, helps you stay inspired. And then the last step to keep the momentum going, take action, help you get there, is to plan for the next event. If you don't already have one, maybe it's that same conference that you want to go to next year. You just put it in your calendar. Oftentimes when you go to a lot of these conferences, they give you an opportunity to perhaps even join or pay for the next one at discounted cost. If it's something that brings a ton of value. I end up doing it every single time because I want to keep the momentum going. It's the next milestone, I set goals and that by the next time I get to that event, I'm going to have done this. Having something to look forward to, all these milestones, it helps you keep that momentum going and excitement going. We all need something to look forward to. My kids are like this all the time. They have so much fun. They do all this and then when they get home, oh, they're so tired, I'm so bored. Or but what I've learned is to say, we had a great time. What do we learn from it? What do we take away from this? And guess what? There's another thing in the future and that gives them something to look forward to. And I think that's not just for kids, it's for all of us. We always need something to look forward to, something that's compelling in the future to keep us moving forward. And if there's no event or anything that you can plan in the near future that you can commit to, make your own. Get together with two of your friends and just say, hey, I want to get it together over coffee. I want to talk about some of the stuff I've learned. I want to find out what you know. It's kind of having a little mini meetup or event on your own, even in your local area. We do this all the time for pimd. There are people in our community that are setting up local meetups. Wherever you are, whether you're in a big city or a small one, there are people in the our community that are meeting up all the time. So for me, I've learned that keeping the momentum going after the conference, that is the key that will help you take what you learn there and not just swallow it, waste your time and money, but it will take that and help you translate that into real action. By reflecting, by planning, by setting up concrete steps, it's going to make sure you follow through. The other thing that's going to help to do that is find other people that will help keep you accountable, that you will learn from and that will make sure you stay on that path and to follow through on that commitment. When you said I'm gonna do something, they're gonna help you to make sure you do that. They're gonna help keep you motivated. By following these steps, you can turn what's normally the post conference blues into something that's long lasting progress into momentum. Try these things out next time you go to an event. When this podcast being released, this is just happening right after pimdcon. So this is for you, especially for those who are there or for those who are gonna be there in the future. Stay focused, stay excited, keep pushing forward to make the most of all the information that you learn. And if you can't find anyone in terms of a community to help you out with this, we have so many different communities that are set up just for this. Free ones, paid ones, more committed ones, whatever it is, we have that to help you out. You can just go to our website, passiveincomemd.com and explore some of those communities. We'd love to figure out how to support you and meet you where you're at. I really appreciate you. Have an awesome week and let's talk again soon.
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