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How to Actually Use What You Learn at a Summit or Course | Episode 76

Apr 10, 2025
6 min read

Updated: Jul 30

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


If you are anything like me, you have been to a conference or signed up for an online summit, filled a notebook with pages and pages of notes, felt wildly inspired for about three days, and then never opened that notebook again.


That is not a you problem. That is what happens when you walk into a room full of good ideas without a filter. Everything sounds important, so nothing actually gets done.


I have run a two day virtual summit for microbakery owners, and I have sat on the other side of plenty of them. So I want to give you the method I use, whether you are heading into an event, a course, a workshop, or a stack of podcast episodes you have been saving. Four steps, and they work on your schedule instead of the other way around.


Step one: decide what you want before you show up

Before the first session, pause and ask yourself one question. What is the one area of my business I want to improve this quarter?


I do not mean this year, and I do not mean your five year plan. I mean the next three months.


Here are the kinds of answers I hear from bakers:

  • I want more repeat customers instead of hunting for new ones every week.

  • I want to streamline my process so I am not wrecked after every bake day.

  • I want to feel confident in my pricing.

  • I want to sell out consistently without posting on Instagram every single day.

  • I want systems that live somewhere other than my own head.

Write yours down. One or two focus areas, no more than that.


Now that becomes your filter. If a session is about wholesale and your state does not allow you to sell wholesale from a home kitchen, you can skip it with a clear conscience. You are not missing out on anything. You are aiming at the part of your business that needs you most right now.


Bakers who try to absorb everything come away feeling like they drank from a fire hose and change nothing. Bakers who pick two areas come away with something they actually do differently on Monday.


Step two: plan how you will engage

A good event is packed on purpose, and the schedule is usually back to back with a few sessions that overlap. Deciding in the moment is how you end up watching whatever happens to be playing.


So do this ahead of time:

  • Print the schedule or bookmark it where you will see it.

  • Highlight the sessions that speak to the focus area you wrote down.

  • Put the live sessions you truly want in your calendar like an appointment.

  • Decide which ones you will catch on replay so you are not fighting your own bake schedule.

I sort my own teaching into six areas, and they make a useful filter for any schedule you are looking at: marketing, sales, product optimization, process optimization, cash flow, and lifestyle optimization. Look at the session list and mark which of those six each one belongs to. The ones that match your quarterly focus are your must-watch list, and everything else is optional.


One more thing worth prioritizing: live Q&As and any session with a live chat running next to it. That is where people say out loud what they are stuck on, and it is often more useful than the talk itself. If you can only be present for two things, make it those.


Step three: take notes you will actually reopen

Here is the tip that changed this for me. Stop trying to capture every good quote. Ask one question per session instead: what is one thing I could try this week or this month?


Organize what you write into three short sections.

  1. Quick wins. Things you could put in place in the next seven to fourteen days.

  2. Long-term ideas. Things that need more planning or money or headspace, that you want to come back to later.

  3. Follow-up questions. Things you want to ask a speaker, ask the group, or go research.

One or two lines under each heading. That is genuinely it! You want to come away with clarity you can act on, instead of a giant stack of paper that makes you feel behind every time you look at it.


Step four: build in accountability, because the high fades

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the one that decides whether any of it sticks.


Every event, virtual or in person, comes with an event high. You feel optimistic and full of ideas for a day or two, and then real life comes back and it all fizzles. The people you connected with drift off, the notes go in a drawer, and nothing changes.


So find one person to buddy up with. Someone in the same season of business as you, or near you, or just someone who gets why you would set an alarm for three in the morning to bake bread.


Check in with them once during the event and once after, and ask each other three questions:

  • What stood out to you?

  • What is the one thing you are going to apply?

  • Where are you stuck?

You can do this alone too. The solo version is: what did I learn, what can I apply, and what do I still need help with? Then put a calendar reminder one week out to reread your notes, and email yourself your top three takeaways so they are sitting in your inbox instead of a notebook.


If you cannot be there live

Please do not talk yourself out of learning something because your week is full. Most events keep the sessions available for a window afterward, and a lot of them let you listen instead of watch.


Pick one or two sessions that line up with your top priority and let the rest go. Listen while you shape, while you drive, while you clean up the kitchen. And if something is not relevant to you right now, put a pin in it and come back in six months. It might be exactly what you need then.


If you are one to three years in

At this stage, the risk is rarely that you are learning too little. The risk is that you keep collecting strategy while your actual business still runs on the habits you set in year one.


Try this rhythm. Pick one of the six areas per quarter, marketing, sales, product optimization, process optimization, cash flow, or lifestyle optimization, and make it the only thing you study and change for those three months. Every event, book, episode, or course you take in gets filtered through that one area.


At the end of the quarter, write down what actually changed in the business, not simply what you learned about. If the answer is nothing, you have plenty of good input already and nobody holding you to the follow-through. That part is very fixable.


Final thoughts

None of this is about adding more to your plate. It is about walking away from a good event holding your next right step, rather than a pile of ideas you feel guilty about.


Small steps matter so much more than perfect execution. One strategy, put into practice, will do more for your confidence and your income than a hundred strategies swimming around in your head.


You do not have to do it all. You just have to show up in a way that fits the life you are actually living, and then do one thing with what you heard.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If you are in a learning season, these three are good next listens.


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