Rise & Flourish Series: What I Learned About Event Planning (and How to Co-Create a Kick Ass Gathering)

Thinking about planning a women's circle or conscious motherhood meetup? Today I'm sharing what I learned from co-hosting and planning my first live event in South Florida for moms and women. 

✨Have something you want to host, make or create? Join me for Do The Thing, my free three-part mini-series on happiness, courage, and creativity.

It was a transformative and powerful personal growth experience— from the event planning nitty gritty to the actual dream-come-to-life moment— it was a lesson in how to stay calm, what soulful self care for women actually looks and feels like (in real life) and so much more. 

Our Rise & Flourish gathering, held in South Florida, taught me lessons that went far beyond the event itself: how to surrender to support, how to let work feel easy, and how to redefine success from the inside out.

In this solo episode, I’m sharing what I learned from my first women’s event planning experience—both the soulful moments and the behind-the-scenes lessons that shaped me most.

You’ll hear about:
✨ The power of surrendering to support and letting yourself be held
✨ How to rewrite the belief that “work must be hard to be worthy”
✨ The small logistical touches that made a big energetic difference
✨ Why being yourself is the most magnetic event strategy of all

If you’ve ever dreamed of hosting your own women’s event, stepping into leadership, or simply bringing more ease and authenticity into your creative work—this episode is for you.

🎶 Get the Spotify playlist from Rise and Flourish 🎶

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello, welcome back to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast. So I just planned my first ever in-person event. And I've been a speaker, I've hosted workshops, I've facilitated master classes, but this was a larger gathering, had 40 women ultimately show up. I'm smiling. I still get goosebumps when I think about it. And the event was Rise and Flourish. It was on October 25th, 2025. So we're just kind of riding the wave down, my co-host Ashley and I, from this event. The feedback we got, to be completely honest with you, completely exceeded anything we even thought. I really want to share with you some of the things we did that made it an amazing event. So I'm gonna start with square one. And that was I found a book at the library. I was at the library one night with my daughters, and we were just kind of browsing around and I'm walking up and down the nonfiction aisles. I had a summer of fiction, but I have ended my summer of fiction and I'm back into the nonfiction realm. Anyway, this book jumps out at me and it's the non-obvious guide to event planning for kick-ass gatherings that inspire people. This book was tremendously helpful in helping me craft out the vision of the event. It gave lots and lots of amazing tips. So if you're thinking about doing an event, if that's something that's on your heart, get that book. And then everything else that I'm gonna talk about can be event specific, but this is also like life stuff. So the next thing that really made this event amazing was support. So from the beginning, Ashley and I knew we needed to call in support. I told my sister I was co-hosting an event and she did not hesitate and was like, I'm coming. She flew down from Maryland to help. And she said, I'll volunteer, put me to work. And so, and then we knew we needed another volunteer. And so we we recruited our people. And the willingness for these women to show up for us was so cool. And it completely surprised me because the day of the event, Ashley and I are there. Everything is just done. Like anything I would have needed to do was already done. And yeah, there were like a couple questions, like, where should we put this and where should we put that? And I'm like, okay, I don't know. Let's let's like make the decision. And we did. My point is that it felt like ease. In order for us to receive the support the day of from Danielle and Carrie and my sister Rory, in order for us to actually receive that, we had to surrender and allow ourselves to receive. So it wasn't asking for help and then completely controlling the entire day anyway. It was actually asking for help and receiving said help. So stepping aside, really being able to regulate our nervous systems, because as we got closer to coming up and speaking, Ashley and I were speaking first thing. And uh I looked at Ashley and I said, I need to go hide in a corner and breathe. And she's like, Me too. So we went and sat down and we did some breathing and we did some humming, which is really good for your vagus nerve and your central nervous system, to give you a reset and to give you an internal feeling of calm. So Ashley and I went over and we sat in a corner. Nobody needed us, no, nothing was going on. It just we went there and sat and did breathing. And I'm talking five minutes at the most, but it really brought us to our centers to be prepared to go up and speak and welcome everybody into this container that we created. So keep in mind if you are planning an event, if you are planning a workshop, even something virtual, even having people over for dinner or play date, keep in mind that you are creating a container. And within that container, how do you want the energy to feel? How do you want the day to go? One of the things that this book told us is capture your audience immediately. And so for us, it was like, okay, we want to emotionally capture our audience and bring them with us on a journey. And so we did. We started off the day with our background stories, and it was really powerful. So, support and the book were just amazing. One of our speakers that we had at the event is Stasia Haramijo. Her episode on the Raising Wild Hearts podcast, How to Shatter Your Glass Ceiling and Let Go of Limiting Beliefs, is one of is the most popular episode I've ever done in two plus years. So she was a speaker at the event and she did a subconscious reprogramming theta healing session. During that session, we did a collective healing. And so all 40 something-ish of us, we laid down, which was impromptu, which was amazing because everyone was like, oh my God, this space is so safe. It's so cozy here. We're all gonna get our mats and we're gonna lay down. So we did. And I didn't really know, I wasn't conscious of any limiting beliefs that I really wanted to clear. As she walked us through, it what came to me was being able as a woman, as an ambitious woman, as an ambitious woman who's also a mother, as an ambitious woman who's also a mother who wants to be a nurturer and a safe place for my children. It felt like a challenge to hold, I am a soulful, soft nurturer for my children. And I am an ambitious, organized go-getter in my podcast and in my work outside of the home in my business. And for a long time, for a while, I was trying to figure out how do I hold both. One day I opened up my sourdough starter, and I mean, and this sourdough starter, you guys, like she was old. I opened it up last week and I was like, oh my God, my starter died. And it wasn't just that she died. We had a couple near-death experiences where I was able to bring her back to life, but this was a whole different ball game. I looked at my husband and I was like, Can you smell this? And I, you know, I put his nose up to it and he was like, oh my God, that's bad. So it wasn't like sour, like, oh, that's really sour. It was like, that is funky, like some bacteria or something got in there. And I don't know how, but it was such a physical symbol, like such a physical metaphor for, oh my gosh. I just spent the last two weeks before the event where all the energy, all the attention was going to making this event amazing, right? And so I went, oh my gosh, can I do both? Because making sourdough and cooking in the kitchen is one of my big things I do to nurture my family and this home. And, you know, it's one of the traditions we have here is that mom bakes bread and everybody loves it, fresh out of the oven with a shit ton of butter. So my sourdough starter dies, and I'm like, how do I hold both? And so during our event, when Stassi is walking us through, what's something that's that you're that you're feeling blocked in? What's something you're feeling stuck in? And the thing that I brought to my mind was, can I hold both? Why sometimes does it feel like when business is thriving and things are amazing and I'm planning the event that the home is getting a little lower and it's a little harder for me to stay patient and my freaking sourdough starter dies, and I'm so excited about work that actually I want to spend more time working now. And so there was this imbalance. And I am somebody who believes in balance. You can hear people on social media saying there's no such thing as balance or balance is a myth, and from where they're standing, that's true for them. For me, what's true is I believe in balance. I believe that we can call in all the things we want into our lives. And so if I believe that consciously, but yet this subconscious belief of can I hold both the business and this really strong, nurturing, sacred motherhood thing I've got going on at home because on the outside, things are looking like no. So later that night, we're at dinner with my mom and a few of the women in attendance. Thanks, mom. She took us out to dinner and it was really sweet, and it was such a savory celebration of the day and just like the perfect pinnacle of the day. And we're at dinner and we're chatting about some of the aha's and this really cool subconscious reprogramming session that we had with Stasia. And I said, you know what I think came up for me? Because I was hearing my mom talk. I was hearing my mom talk about her side of the family and their work ethic and her father, um, and you know, the way that he persevered and the way that her, him and my grandmother stayed married for 69 years. Um, and the like the ways that the family culture kind of evolved, passed down to her, and then passed down to me. And in my family, there was an unspoken rule that work has to be hard. And that if it's not hard, and if it's not pushing through, and if it's not gritty, then it's not really worthy. And it was an in real time realization, which was really cool because I was like, mom, oh my God, what you just said made me think before I was feeling like things had to be really hard. And, you know, if I was doing great here, then something's gotta give, right? And I was and it was something that was really limiting me. And to piggyback off this, another thing that I was believing is that doing defines me. What I do defines me. Even at this event, I pointed out numerous times how successful and ambitious and wonderful and devoted and creative and wildly successful all these women in this room were. Because it's true. We had a group of phenomenal women doing big, big things in the world and doing small things in the world, but nonetheless, mission-driven, amazing work in the world at home and outside of the home. And for a really long time, I believed that doing is what defines me. And when you peel back the roles and you peel back the layers and you peel back what you do, and all you're left with is your soul has a mission. Doing does not define me and it does not define you. Because below our hopes and dreams and our work and our roles, we are souls who have soul assignments to play out here. And if you're listening to this, I want you to know that you are needed. Your work, your art, your voice, your mission is needed here. We are the light workers. We need to bring the light. We are the teachers, we are the healers, we are the devoted mothers, the nurturers, the community leaders. We need you now. So if you're doing your soul's mission here, amazing. Because that's exactly what I'm uncovering as I keep taking steps in my work, both inside and outside the home, right? Steps in my relationship with my husband, steps in my connections with my kids, and the podcast, the event, right? Steps outside of the home. So if you are doing that thing, if you feel really close to the soul's work that you came here to do, like, yes, I'm with you. It's still unfolding and I'm with you. And if you know that there is something more, if you know you've heard your heart whispering that there is more to life than whatever situation you are in right now. And if you need to make a big decision, whether that's a conversation with your leadership team at work, whether it's creating and selling your art and putting it out into the world, whether it's using your voice and your words to make a difference, whatever the thing is for you, you need to jump in to do the thing. It's really bite-sized. I made three 15-ish minute videos for you. And it's tiny, but it packs a punch. So you can go to raisingwildhearts.com slash do the thing if you want to join. You get instant access to video one right when you sign up. And then the other videos will come in the consecutive days following. And if you're in the middle of something and you're like, ooh, I just need to peel back the layers a little bit more, like, why am I doing what I'm doing? What might be my purpose here? What is my mission? Why do I want to do the thing I want to do? What is success to me? If you've been asking yourself those questions, like this thing is totally for you. So go to do the thing, raisingwildhearts.com slash do the thing. I can't wait to see you there because it's a video series. So it's super fun. So, more things we did at the event that made a difference. The tiny logistical stuff did make a difference. I scripted the entire day from 7 a.m. when the doors opened to 4 59 p.m. when the doors were closing. The entire thing had a timed transcript. And that did make a difference. The flow of the day, the fact that we could just hand that paper to our volunteers and they knew exactly what to do. Not once did any of the volunteers come up to me and be like, what do I need to do at this time? Or like, what could I do right now? Everybody knew what needed to be done and how it needed to be done. I put even scripted the welcome. Like, here are the bullet points of what you want to make sure you tell people right when they walk in the door. I brought lemon lavender room spray and I sprayed the room because I wanted people to feel that bright, airy energy. We had the most amazing music. I spent hours curating a Spotify playlist. It was such a cool way to set the vibe. If you want to get my playlist, it's on Spotify. I'll link it down in the description. So if you want to uh jam out to what we jammed out to at Rise and Flourish, you'll see the arcs of the day just as you listen to the playlist. It's like eight plus hours of music. So it's amazing. And then the last thing that I'm gonna share with you on how we pulled off this event so seamlessly and how we got such amazing feedback is that we were completely ourselves through the whole process. And so one of the things that we both said multiple times during this was, oh my God, we just make the best team because your strength is this and my strength is that. And we just made a kick-ass team. So if you're considering partnering with someone, collaborating with someone, really discern this opportunity for yourself. Is this somebody who I'm gonna work really well with? Does this person make up for the things that I'm not great at? Right. And so we really had the flow of that. So really just like be yourself, like be true to you. And that's one of the things I had on my radar from step one. Like, is this true to me? Does this feel right? And I would like kind of run it through my filters and my values. And then I would ask Ashley, how does that land for you? So I would say, like, I feel this, this, and this. How does that land for you? And she would say, I feel this, this, and this. And that helped us make decisions so much. So be you. So that is what we did to plan a kick-ass gathering that inspired people and inspire people it did, motivate people, it did. The feedback we got was insanely beautiful. Women reached out and said how nourished they felt, how cared for they felt, um, how their nervous systems felt so regulated. Somebody got a 98% recovery rate on her whoop score. And she said, like, I've never gotten this high before. Like yesterday completely did something to me. The space was beautiful, the speakers were beautiful, the vendors were just amazing. And so, yeah, it was really fun to hear that feedback. So I really wanted to share this with you guys. If you have an event on your heart, if this episode made you feel something, if it felt like your knowing started to kind of stir, jump into do the thing. It's raisingwildhearts.com/slash do the thing. If you know somebody who's planning an event, text this episode to them. It will be super helpful. And if you feel really called to give back some love to the Raising Wild Hearts podcast, you can leave a review. Scroll down to where it says write a review on my podcast page on Apple Podcast and leave a few words of why you love the podcast. I so appreciate your reviews and I really do feel the love when someone takes time to write a review. If you're listening on Spotify, go to the show page and submit five stars if you loved it. And until next time, y'all, go love someone well.