Last week, I went to the EntreLeadership 1-Day event. It was a great opportunity for me to be able to enhance my personal growth, expand my business and leadership knowledge, and build a little to my network.

Tomorrow, I’ll share some of the takeaways I had, but I want to first take the opportunity to share the importance of attending different events and conferences. When I started sharing some things in preparation for this event a month ago, I failed to talk about the “why” of attending an event and went into some preparation strategies.

Enhance your personal growth and development

One of the top reasons for attending different events and conferences is so you can grow personally. If you fail to grow personally, you’ll never be able to grow in other areas of life. Chris LoCurto mentioned this when I interviewed him on episode #007 of the podcast.

I absolutely agree that we should have a focus on serving others and trying to help them. But, if we are going to be effective in this, we are going to have to first develop ourselves.

Rabbi Daniel Lappin teaches a principle based on a Jewish tradition: they put a cup on a saucer and then fill the cup. They don’t stop when the cup gets full – they continue to pour and allow the excess to overflow onto the saucer below. This teaches us that we need to take the time to fill our own cup, and then let it overflow to those around us.

“My job is not to fill your cup; my job is to empty my cup into yours.” (I think I heard Dave Ramsey say this)

Expand your knowledge and expertise

Another reason for attending events is so you can get more knowledge and information. It may be directly related to your field, or it could be something that you are trying to learn to fill a gap.

Every industry is changing, and you need to keep learning so you can keep up-to-date with everything. The advancement of computers, mobile devices, and the internet are making drastic changes all over the place. Social media is becoming more than a personal tool, it is a vital part of marketing strategy. Other advancements are being made in different fields as well, such as new tools, machines, or processes to make the job easier and more efficient.

EntreLeadership was a great event for me because it helps to develop you personally, but it also teaches a lot of important business and leadership fundamentals. I’m just getting started in my business and I’ve never taken any business classes, so I can use all the help I can get! I plan to try to go to some other events as well in the future.

Build your network

Networking is more than just trying to find prospective clients. It’s building relationships with people – a give and take relationship. You work on giving, first. Try to build the other person up. Try to help them made some advances. Find some way that can improve their life or business.

Your network includes several different groups, and you’ll interact a little differently with each one:

• Family
• Close friends
• Professional friends and acquaintances
• Mentees (people you help)
• Mentors (people to help you)
• Prospective clients and customers

At the EntreLeadership event, I was able to make a couple connections. My focus was more on diving deeper instead of spreading wider.

I was able to meet one gentleman that owned and operated a property management company. I talked with him for about half an hour. He wasn’t a prospective client, but I was just working on developing a relationship.

I was also able to meet and interact with several people of Dave Ramsey’s team. I was able to go for several hours the day before and help set things up. I even got to make a trip to the store to get something for a famous person. I’ll share more about this later.

Questions: Have you attended events before? Do you plan to attend some in the future? What other benefits do you see?