How to Build a Tight Knit, Lasting Community in Today's World. Reflections on my First LIVE Show.

What happens when you actually do the thing that scares you?

In this solocast, I’m recapping the very first In Her Badass Era IRL event—and honestly, I’m still processing it. What started as an idea in my head turned into a room full of powerful, honest, wildly inspiring humans who showed up ready to connect, share, and step into their own version of badassery.

This episode is part reflection, part behind-the-scenes, and part reminder that the things calling you forward usually come with a little fear attached.

We talk about:

Why doing the uncomfortable thing is almost always the right move
What happens when you create real connection (not surface-level networking)
The power of Mental Athleticism and collective energy
How this event validated what I already knew in my bones

If you’ve been sitting on an idea, waiting until you feel “ready”…take a listen—

You don’t need more time.
You don’t need permission.
You just need to believe. Then move.

✨ Want to be part of the next IRL experience?
Subscribe to The B Word (my weekly email) to be the first to know what’s coming next. https://tr.ee/2y1WlCEDs3


📲 Let’s connect:
DM me on Instagram or share this episode if it hit for you—I want to hear what you’re taking away.

🎙️ Share this episode of The Keri Croft Show  with a friend who might need more real conversations, mindset shifts, and actionable insights.

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there, you beautiful badass. Welcome to the Carrie Croft Show. Here we are again, yet another solo cast, just you and me tucked away nice and cozy. Welcome. Um

Doing The Thing That Scares You

SPEAKER_00 0:24

so today I feel like I it's very you know timely to talk about this IRL experience that we had last week. I'm still reeling over it. I'm still fascinated, so grateful, so humbled by all the incredible women and a few good men who came to support and connect and be a part of this first culmination of a lot of the things that have been happening in my head over the last couple of years. And the first thing I will say, I was just I want to come right out of the gate swinging with do the thing that scares you, do the thing that you look at and you feel so called to do, but you feel so out of your depth and nervous and uncomfy, but you're like, God, if I could just get to the other side and experience what this is like, you know, that's the next step. And that's how I felt about this IRL. And I, and I was talking to my one of my best friends, Shannon, on the phone. It was like, I don't know, maybe a week and a half ago. It was before the event. And I was like, what am I doing? Who do I think I am? I'm way in over my head. And I was inundated. I was so dialed in the matrix and so focused. And as you know, any event planner who's listening to this is like, yes, of course. Like that last week and a half leading up to the event, event week or whatever, all of a sudden, everybody starts to, you know, come alive and their action items and things that are happening. It's like I just did not, it was like electric, but it was scary. And I'm like, I did a lot of it on my own for this first one. You know, first of all, from a budget perspective. But that secondly, it's like I knew what I wanted, and I I had to bring it, I had to figure it out myself. I had to bring this sort of experience slash experiment that I had lived in my head so many different times. And that was a scary part too, is like sometimes what we dream in our head doesn't necessarily come out. You know, it's like, oh what this was a little bit different the way that I the way that I teed it up in my mind's eye. So to be on the other side of it right now and to be sitting here reflecting on what happened last week, it was very reassuring. It was very special. The feedback that I am continuing to get from people from that night is a testimony, a testimony to the need, the need that is out there for not only women in business, that's that's you know, that's a very specific lane. But what I'm creating is about more than women in business. So think of it as, you know, with mental athleticism, mental athleticism is the core. It's your your values, your the way you operate in life. And I feel like when everyone's marching to that drum of, you know, mental athleticism, which is looking ahead to your big goals and and being able to be disciplined enough to relentlessly execute them daily and to be very much dialed into your internal world and your external environment. That mentality cultivates badassery. Period. End of story. And I am so convinced after last Thursday that this community is, I mean, the women who were walking in, they understood the assignment. You know, so I had breadcrumbed a little bit with email and just kind of let everyone know, you know, this is not your typical crusty vanilla box networking event. There will be no name tags, there will be no, you know, asynchronous panel uh that regurgitates the same information. You know, I just I get I that doesn't inspire me. And I know there's a need for it, I know there's a place and time for it, but that's not what what we're creating here. And watching everybody come into their own unique essence in such a confident way, and then walking in with this sort of you know, puffy chest, if you will, and in and meeting other people, I mean, and connecting and really feeling that thing that I was truly trying to create. And I just I don't even really think there's words for what that

Sponsors Who Made The Night

SPEAKER_00 5:16

was. And I have to give a special thanks to all of the sponsors, everybody who chipped in to make that first event happen. You know, you didn't have to do that. This was my first in real life, so nobody knew, nobody had an idea or a template of what that was gonna look like. So for those first adopters, thank you so much. Avena Women's Care and Aiden and Grace, I mean, they transformed the spot. It was so incredible. And the and the small details that they put into everything, the surprise and delight was so special, and I really, really appreciate it. Um, and I would say, you know, if you have any events coming in the future, please consider MMJ and Aiden and Grace. They were just a class act. Avena Women's Care, you know, the doctors who showed up, and Dr. Shepard, who is of course such a special person to me, and then I met, had the opportunity to meet uh Dr. Guinness and just several people from Avena and Katie. Um, they just are, they they truly do care about all of their patients. And I would say, like I said that night, if you feel meh about your OB Gyne, I would definitely just like run and call Avena Women's Care now, today, make an appointment. Like that's way too important of a relationship to sort of sleep on. Panacea Luxury Spa Boutique with like the generous, generous giveaway. And all of the people that helped to make that happen, from the Pearl Creative Agency to Buckeye Vodka to the Fluff, um, all the people who gave uh Annie came in from Bite This. I mean, that if you haven't been to her bakery in Clintonville, please put make it a point to go. Her desserts that she brought were incredible, and she's such a cool entrepreneur. Um, she's somebody that you want to get behind and support. And last but not least, to Donato's Pizza. And the, you know, last Thursday I made the official announcement that I am now partnering with Donato's Pizza. And I'm really excited about that relationship. I feel like Donato's Pizza is very much ingrained in the Columbus community. They are a people company who happens to make pizza. And they so far have been extremely open and flexible to some of the ideas, the creative ideas that we have. And I look forward to what we're gonna do together for Columbus. Um, so thank you, Donato's Pizza, for showing up and showing out. And uh, we had a ton of fun with that. And they were so generous and brought in. I mean, people left with like large boxes of Donato's Pizzas to take home to their families. So thank you, Donato's Pizza, um, so much. And I'm so looking forward to this partnership.

Rethinking Networking And Badassery

SPEAKER_00 8:01

And let's let's talk a little bit about, you know, another part of my nervousness was I didn't want this format to be like the same as you get everywhere else, where it's like you walk in, you get your name tag, you know, you go to the table, you get your name tag, you sit down. That it just it that wasn't going to fly. And I'm like, okay, but like the format that I did want in my head, I'm like, this could be great, or it could just be a shit show. And it was really important to me that it wasn't just like bringing in one person to just like kind of talk at people. I'm like, that's not it. And so in my mind, I wanted several women, several women that represented different flavors of bad assery. Because as we talked about last Thursday, badassy exists in everyone. It has a, it gets a, it gets a very interesting rap when you look up badass. Like, okay, it can be this intimidating, forceful, strong person, but there's a broader definition of badass, which can also be someone who is awesome, worthy of admiration. And I feel like everybody is that. You know, we're all that. And so that's the definition of badass that we want to lean into. And so having the different, the different personalities and flavors was very important to me to represent what badassy can look like across the board. And then knowing that like I had seven women who have so, you know, such rich stories and so much to say, but I wanted to keep that within like a specific time frame. So I had like an hour and 20 minutes in my mind. And the way that I wanted to do it was to say, okay, well, you know, we watch Instagram reels, we watch TikToks every day, and they're like very quick hits, right? So that's sort of the the media we're consuming is this short, quick hit, highly concentrated on a specific topic. So why not do that in real life uh with these interesting women? And then another thing in my in my mind that I was visualizing was having these like shout-outs from the crowd. And I was thinking, you know, people aren't gonna do it. They're gonna get too nervous, they're not gonna do it. And then the other part of me was like, you know what, if you create the environment, if you set the tone and create it, maybe they will. Let's just, I mean, and so I just had to let go and let God and just do the thing and learn from it and trust. And you know what? I am like, I am freaking, I am leaning so hard into that format next time. The BizBites, which is what I was calling it originally, you know, having a specific number of like new business owners and like I'm like, you know, shout it out. What do you do? Tell us all about it. And they get about, you know, 90 seconds or whatever. Then we give them the gong. Uh, there were women who were just kind of shouting out. There was one woman that got emotional and cried, and that was like a big, I think that was Bridget. That was a big moment for me where I was like, people are comfortable enough right now in this environment. Like we have, we have literally created this cocoon in this space where people are comfortable enough to just shout out and talk to each other and get emotional. It was like, it just was, it was everything. And then some we we actually were experimenting with live streaming, which did not work. And I'm really glad that I didn't promote it more than I did. That's a kink that we that we will learn from and have to figure out. But, you know, the big takeaway, I mean, I just I'm so, so blown away by all of the women.

Content Studio Experiments And Media Vision

SPEAKER_00 11:44

I I've spent the last, you know, two days going through the content studio. You know, we had a live content studio upstairs, and we were drawing women in to sit here in this exact um studio just to have conversations, right? I'm like, why wouldn't we do that? And so that was another experiment where I was like, this could either be brilliant or this could be a shit show, but if we don't do it, we'll never know. And so I needed to sit with it myself and go through every single second, which I did for the last two days. And it was incredible. You know, it's like we were asking questions like, what does being badass mean to you? And what are you no longer apologizing for? What is your business? You know, we had some freestyling happening and just organic um conversation from all of these women, it was such a good idea. And I'm gonna be leaning into that even more. And that also sort of sprouts this whole, you know, brainchild in my mind of what we're doing with Maneater Media and a couple of these test shows we're running, like Ask Amy and now Sew Sarah with Sarah Ortlip. There's, I believe, when I see these women who were in here in the studio who have so much to say, but they don't necessarily want or need to invest in like an entire podcast on their own, having a network like Maneater Media that they can sort of jump on and connect with their community in a deeper way. So for example, I'm getting, you know, just from that event, um, if you I'm looking on YouTube and I'm seeing Pebby Forevi, you know, she's got a huge fan base and people were replying and saying Pebby needs a podcast. We would love to hear more from Pebby. Yeah. Liz Hazelup uh was is fantastic and was fantastic. Does she have time or interest to sit here and do an entire podcast on her own? Or does it make sense for her to hop on something like Maneater Media and you know, have a very cultivated, curated amount of time where she can give them, give her her community more without having to prop up an entire infrastructure. So that that's a a whole other kind of thing that is brewing and taking shape along with all of this. So,

Next IRL Plans And How To Join

SPEAKER_00 14:01

you know, and then the the questions around when's the next IRL? You know, this was so much fun. When can we do it again? After last week, I'm like, oh, we we're definitely gonna be doing this again. This feels like you should lean into this and really cultivate this specific community and and run with a ball. So the next IRL will be within the next three months, likely a lot of the same format, just leaning in even heavier. So if you missed it and you're, you know, wanting to get involved, you can always subscribe to the B-Word. That's where we put everything first, is the weekly email that drops on Fridays. You can also learn a lot here on the solo casts, where I just sort of let you know real time what's happening. But you definitely, if you didn't make this one, I really think you should make it a priority to make the next one because it was really special. So thank you to everybody who believed in it, who came out and all of my seven women and Magda and all the sponsors and everybody who chipped in, Dom and my brother who surprised me and ended up running the content studio. Uh, Jackie, who's like my ride or die and always just like up for anything. Thank you to all of you. I just can't even tell you how how incredible that was. So again, um, follow your dreams, do the shit that scares you, because until you do that, you're never gonna know what's on the other side. And you know what? I'm always looking for feedback. So if you were at the event and you want to send me an email, if you want to send me a DM, I would love to hear your feedback on how we can make it better. If you want to be a sponsor, if you want to be involved, if you're a local business and you're like, hey, I'm out here, um, all of the things, bring it to me. I love it. This is this is my this is where I'm, you know, my happiest. So that's it. That's a wrap on the IRL. I would say 12 out of 10, huge success. Looking forward to doing it again, even better. And uh until next time, keep moving, baby.