Hey, hey, welcome to the Summit Host Hangout Podcast where you'll learn how to host a high converting virtual summit that leads to your biggest signature offer launch yet. I'm your host, Krista from Summit in a Box, and we are wrapping up our series that started as one thing and totally morphed into a series about values making a difference, and just being a good human when it comes to hosting summits, and I just want to say, I love that transformation. I think it turned out very, very well. It's not at all what I had planned.
In the last episode, though, I told you that in this episode, we were going to round out this series and recap everything in this episode. But I lied. Today's guest reached out to me about something totally different at a perfect time, and I just knew we had to fit this topic into this series. Other episodes are already recorded. So I'm sorry, I lied in the last episode. Here we are, this one's going to be better anyways.
So today in Episode 219, I'm really excited to bring in a special guest to talk about neurodivergence and virtual summits. We're going to cover both running a summit for neurodivergent people and hosting a summit as a neurodivergent business owner. So we're going to have both sides kind of of the story here.
And to give you some background information on our guest, Megan Griffith is a neurodivergent life and business coach. She's autistic and ADHD and runs two successful businesses neurodivergent magic and the autistic entrepreneur. And her goal is to help neurodivergent folks of all kinds feel validated, supported, and celebrated. And I'm so excited for this episode and the opportunity to bring up this topic. So without further ado, let's dive in and talk with Megan Griffith. Welcome, Megan.
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to talk to you. And I was thinking the reason you originally reached out is just because of how helpful this podcast has been. And as I was reading the intro, I was thinking I should have had you just say it along with me because I would bet if you've listened to most of our podcast episodes, you have that down, but "missed opportunity". Today we are talking about neuro divergence and virtual summits. But I know there's a disclaimer we need to give here in that I am not neurodivergent so I won't be speaking from any experience. You have specifically autism and ADHD, but there are... we just want to recognize there are other forms of neuro divergence. So we just want to put that disclaimer out. Megan, is there anything else you want to speak to on that?
No, I think you covered it. That's exactly what I would want people to know when they're listening.
Okay, perfect. So with that being said, and tell us a little bit about you and your businesses.
Okay, so my businesses are my "work babies". I used to call them my "babies", and then I had a live baby, and that felt wrong, so they're my "work babies", I love them very much. So Neurodivergent Magic is all about, it's my life-coaching business, it's all about helping neurodivergent people, especially people with autism and ADHD, because that's what I have, that's what I have the most experience with, but I have experience with other tendencies of other neurodivergencies. And I also do a lot of research. So still very qualified to work with other neurodivergent folks. But basically, helping people deal with executive dysfunction, which is kind of like that horrible feeling when you desperately want to get something done, and you just can't. Neurotypicals experience this too, by the way. It's just a lot of neurodivergent folks experience it all the time. So helping people with that, helping people with emotional dysregulation, those are some of the big things. And then we've got the autistic entrepreneur, which I really focus on helping people get their businesses off the ground. If you're looking to scale, there are amazing neurodivergent coaches out there. I am more there if you're like, "Okay, I want to start, but I'm not sure where to go about that."
I love how specific that is and that like you know who you're helping. I love that. And you hosted an incredible summit, and I want to hear about that too. So give us an overview.
I did! It was the best. Oh my gosh, it was so fun. I was listening, actually, I don't think I had found your podcast yet. I think I had heard of you from a different business coach. And I was like, "Oh, summits sounds like a lot of work, especially because I'm neurodivergent. It sounds like a lot of organization, which is not my strong suit." So I kind of avoided it. And I was driving one day I think I was just driving to get out of the house. (Anytime you have toddlers, just put them in a car, then drive around.)
And all of a sudden it hit me. There are some incredible people in my space who I can't connect with because they aren't necessarily business owners. They're content creators more. So when I've tried to do like bundles and stuff in the past, they've been like this sounds great, but I have nothing to contribute. And I was like, if I want to work with these people, these big names in the world of neuro divergence, I have to host a summit. So I binged the entire Summit Host Hangout Podcast, the entire thing! I didn't miss a single episode. There are hundreds of episodes you guys you need an award.
I'm, for real, sending you something. We're gonna make some kind of award.
This is partially because of my autism. I think I get hooked on things like this. I sink my hooks in and I just, it's like depth of processing is one of one autistic trait that I think it gets overlooked a lot because it's not in the DSM. So it's not like technically official, but most of us recognize it. So anyway, yes, getting very hooked on stuff is one of my autistic traits. So I've enjoyed the whole podcast, and I started reaching out to speakers and creating the speaker information page like that day and just went all in. And it went so well, Krista, it was so good. So it was called The Neurodivergent Lived Experience Summit. And the whole focus was to talk to neurodivergent people about their lived experiences beyond the DSM beyond doctors beyond not that those things aren't useful, because they are. But there's so much more when you get into the lived experience of things. So we had 18 speakers, I believe, and I grossed about $12,000 in my very first summit. It was great for me. Yeah.
Oh my gosh, I love that. Okay. Gotta reign in my questions and ask one at a time and narrowed them down. So let's see if I can do all of those things at once. $12k first summit, and like you just dove right in and went for it. That is wonderful. So congratulations. It also sounds like just such a needed and transformative event event. And with the way you just lit up when you started talking about it, I would guess that you had like an ON FIRE community who just loved loved being there and loved that you created that for them. So that's amazing. Do you think you're going to do it again?
Oh, well, I'm already planning the next one. I started planning the next one before the first one was even done.
I love that. Let's see. Do you happen to know what your all-access pass conversion rate was?
I do. Let me pull that up. I pulled it up before this just so that I would know.
You would probably consider that a B2C audience?
Yes, yes, for sure.
Okay. And I have to point that out just because so many people think that B2C summits are harder to do or they don't work and all this stuff, but I don't know that. I've been talking to more and more people recently with just wonderful B2C summits because they're so unique.
So I only have the conversion rate for that 15 minute original fast-action goodie bag. And that was 15.5%.
Okay, that's awesome. And so that means the rest of your conversion rate will be higher than that. Holy smokes. That that is wonderful.
I made the vast majority of that money from the passes, and not so much from the launch I did afterwards. That's what I'm working to improve in the next summit.
Yeah, that's amazing. Oh, my gosh, well, congratulations. That is wonderful. I'm excited to see your next one happen. And like, I know, there's just so many ways you can make things bigger and better once that first one is out of the way. Once you have all that groundwork laid out, people now know of your event, and things like that. So that is awesome. All right. So let's get into some of our more specific questions about our topic today. How do you think your process of hosting this summit and putting putting it all together looked different as someone with autism and with ADHD?
I think it was much more obsessive and much more stop-and-start than a lot of people. And I could be wrong about that. I know a lot of people struggle with organization, regardless of whether or not they're neurodivergent. Some it's a big task to take on. But I think for me, it was very much like I'm going to do everything today. And then I did. And I think that's a little different than how a lot of neurotypical summit hosts operate. I think, especially I think, listening to the podcast, you're like, you know, do things give yourself three months, and I did. I listened. But I probably could have done it in about three weeks based on the operating speed I was going at it because I was so amped.
You just like dropped everything and like this is your life right now kind of situation.
My kiddo was playing with chalk and I was working on the speaker information page. I was on a zoom call with somebody and I was like kind of in the back of my head planning like the speaker gifts and all this stuff, so yeah.
Oh my gosh, so you... I feel like you kind of leveraged the way your brain works and that way to get it done faster and you know, obviously was still an amazing event. Was there anything else you feel like you were able you were able to do to leverage the way your brain works differently?
I think that was the main thing was just the passion and like, go go go, you know? That's one of the DSM criteria for ADHD, the appearance of being driven by a motor. That's literally in the DSM. And that is me to a tee.
Do you feel like you still had like an emotional roller coaster ups and downs and doubting things, or were you moving so fast you didn't even have time for that, kind of those kinds of thoughts?
So, the problem was, I worked so fast and so hard that then there would be times where all I had to do was wait for speakers to respond for speakers to fill stuff out. And that left a lot of room for not even doubt so much more just like, "This is so slow. Can everyone please hurry?" Which is not fair at all. Because my speeds not sustainable. I know that, it leads to burnout. I know that this is not something I need to be doing all the time. So...
Yeah, that's cool. I just love hearing this perspective. What tips do you or do you have any tips for someone with autism or ADHD, when it comes to hosting a summit?
I think definitely, like you said, leverage your brain where you can. So I am not personally a big like "neuro divergence is a superpower" person like that. It rubs me the wrong way. I think we have some very, very real limitations. And those should be honored and respected. And so I always honor and respect your own limitations, but don't assume them if there's no evidence that they're there. You know, like, that's sort of what I recommend. And if you have, like, this tendency to be very obsessive, like I do, leverage that use it.
Yeah, that's really interesting. So like, just taking some time to kind of sit and reflect on the way you know your brain works, and making sure your timeline and the process you're planning and the expectations you have for yourself just kind of fit into what you know, to be true about yourself. But not all, but not letting what other people say kind of decide how you you yourself, either. I love that. Oh, cool. Thank you for sharing that. That's really cool to hear. And I love hearing how you just you just went for it.
And I want to flip things here a little bit now to talk about keeping neurodivergent people in mind when hosting your summit and giving them a great experience. So most of our listeners here, you know, don't necessarily host on it for neurodiverse business owners. But I always I don't know, I always try to keep as many people in mind when I'm planning my summits as I can like people with different abilities and things like that. I want to keep that in mind. So I want to kind of talk about that, that side of things. So before on this podcast, we've talked about like, diverse, inclusive and equitable events. But we never talked about this specific topic. So what kinds of things can we do or keep in mind from this standpoint? Or is there anything that Summit hosted do in summits you've attended that have been helpful for you anything that comes up around that?
I think a big thing is giving space in between presentations, especially if you're doing them live like I did. I really recommend giving people some breathing room in between because yes, we tend to be obsessive and we get our hooks into things. But at the same time, like, we don't want to walk away from four hours of your Summit. And then like, oh, I have to make dinner I have to like be a person right now. And I just can't you know. So building in breaks in between presentations, I think is really beneficial for everyone, but especially for neurodivergent brains. Yeah, I also recommend closed captioning and transcripts, because a lot of people with ADHD especially have something called auditory processing disorder, which is where there's nothing wrong with your ears. But something about where it translates in the brain gets all mushy. And we don't always understand what people are saying. And so this is where one area where I'm determined to do better moving forward, because I was like, oh, like we're doing it all on a Facebook group. Facebook has captions, you just turn them on, but it was a whole mess. People struggled with it. So we're doing something different moving forward, because I want to make sure Captions are available, always, to everybody in as many languages as possible, because it's just such a problem for so many of us.
Yeah. Have you like identified any solutions you think you're gonna explore for that?
Yes. So I found that Facebook's closed captioning is super unreliable. And Facebook in general was not my favorite hosting platform. So what we're going to do is we're gonna switch everything to zoom next time. And we're going to have the community aspect in a Discord server. So we'll see how that works. I'm really excited for it.
Yeah, that's awesome. I never use Discord, but when we hosted our live conference last August, we used Zoom for everything, even though lall the live event girls are like, "Zoom is the worst. Don't use Zoom." Like I'm sorry, that worked wonderfully. And it was easy. And everyone knew how to use it. And there were no issues. So that sounds like a cool solution. So you hosted that, your whole event, in Facebook, like videos, were all streamed in there and everything? Cool, nice and simple. That first time that also kind of makes sense. Like for the faster timeline. You didn't have all this extra tech and stuff to worry about piecing together.
Exactly, yeah. Cool.
Wow, those are all of my main questions. So if you have anything else to add, like feel free to but otherwise, I just love to know what you feel like, is one takeaway you'd like people to walk away with today.
I think the biggest thing I want people listening to know is that autism and ADHD don't always look the way you think they do. There's these very strong stereotypes out there, which are fine. There's nothing wrong with the stereotypes. Many people meet that image and that's okay, but there's also a lot of people who don't. And that's also okay. So I guess if you're a summit host, I really recommend looking into neuro divergence and how you can make your summit neurodivergent friendly through the breaks and the closed captioning and stuff like that. And if you're listening to this, and you're like, "Oh, shit, I might be a little neurodivergent." Come hang out with me. I would love too. I can't diagnose or anything, but I'm super happy to give you the resources you need.
Yeah, and I know you have a freebie to help us kind of get an understanding of different types of neuro divergence. And then I'd also love for you to share your website. So tell us a little bit about those things?
Oh, absolutely. Yes. So I have a freebie. It's just called 11 Types Of Neurodivergent. It's very straightforward. There's actually way more than 11 represented in there because there's subtypes and whatnot, but I basically introduce you to 11 types of neurodivergent with links to really helpful and reputable resources so that you can learn more. And then my website is just neurodivergentmagic.com.
Wonderful. I will link to all of that in the show notes. Everyone, go check those things out. Megan, thank you so much for being here. It was so wonderful to have you. And everybody. Thank you for tuning in for shownotes. And resources mentioned head to summithosthangout.com/ 219.
Like I said earlier, we are skipping the wrap up episode from the series. So just pretend that we did it and it's all good. And we're going to be moving right into our next one where I am bringing in online course experts to talk about things like finding what works for selling your course balancing live launches with Evergreen, building excitement and anticipation for your launches and more. For now go out and take action to plan, strategize and launch your high converting virtual summit.
