Draw in a lot of live rooms, and you’ll start noticing things from the front that are hard to unsee.

Things like smart and very accomplished people sitting through hour after hour of content. Maybe, taking notes, maybe. Definitely nodding along. And then walking right out the door with a head full of ideas they’ll probably never do anything with.

Usually, it doesn’t have anything to do with the content; instead, it’s more because no one gave them a minute at the outset of the meeting or event to figure out what to do with it all.

I’m seeing it more and more.

Stop everything 10 minutes early?

A couple of years ago, I was drawing at a multi-day coaching conference. Long days. Back-to-back sessions.

It was the kind of schedule that looks very impressive on a program brochure and has the potential to absolutely exhaust anyone sitting through it.

I was thinking about what it would look like if each talk stopped ten minutes early. Just as a pause. Enough time for everyone to open the journal in the back of their program and answer three questions regarding the content:

What do I want to change about myself?

What do I want to apply in my business?

What do I want to teach my clients?

Change. Apply. Teach. CAT, if you need something to remember it by.

By the end of the second day, everybody in that room would have their own personally-built strategy for the rest of the year. From their own words, written down while the ideas were still fresh.

Two rooms, same building

I’ve seen this play out on both sides.

I was drawing for two different groups within the same organization. Same yard, same day, and essentially the same work. When the sessions ended, one group converted a conference room into a war room.

They hung the sheets on the walls, kept coming back to them, built their next steps around what they’d captured.

The other group rolled up the sheets, placing them neatly and politely in the corner next to the recycling bin.

Depending on people to notice the drawings were there, open them up, reread, and take insights home and apply them on their own means, leaving a lot to chance. But when reflection (even 10 minutes' worth) is built into the event itself, then the likelihood of something actually changing is much, much higher.

That’s what that time, even just 10 minutes at the end, is for. What could your group/organization or event do with a 10 minute C-A-T?

Where I’m taking this

I have a few events coming up this spring, and I’ll be making the CAT case directly to the people planning the agendas.

Some of these are conferences where the stakes are genuinely high, and the content is serious enough that walking away without a plan isn’t really an option.

Another event has been seeing attendance drop and wondering why people aren’t coming back.

My read in both cases is the same. Give people a great enough experience that something actually changes when they go home, and the event takes care of itself.

These are the rooms worth being in.

Running events and any of this sounds familiar? I’d love to talk.

Just a conversation about what it might look like to build some of this into what you’re already doing.

Taking time to C-A-T means making everything that came first worth it.

Grateful you are here,

Wade

P.S. Change. Apply. Teach. It works just as well for a book you just finished, a podcast you heard on a drive, or a conversation that stuck with you. Romeo would agree. Want to talk more about this? Get in touch with me here​