164 I Thought I Couldn't Afford It, but I spent £20k On Fertility Treatment! Atomicon 2025 Reflections.

Sumantha: [: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the podcast. Now, today is a very different kind of episode and the title will make sense very, very shortly. This is actually some reflections, my own reflections on attending Atomic on, uh, 2025. So I attended just early this month and, but I'm coming at it from a slightly different angle because I think.

Sumantha: [: 00:00:18

We need to talk about it. This angle, this, it's a real mindset angle and I will be explaining what atomic on actually is for anyone who's thinking about going, wondering whether it's worth the hype. I'll be very, very honest, and if you want to buy tickets, I'll also give you my link in the show notes. It doesn't cost you any more than the normal.

Sumantha: [: 00:00:36

Tickets. It just means that I get a little thank you from the organizers for promoting it, but you can use any link you want. That's not the important part. The important part is I really want you to take this journey with me, a side mindset and how we feel about these kinds of events and so on. So let's dive in.

Sumantha: [: 00:00:54

Welcome to the Upgrade Your Education Business podcast. I'm your host, Sumantha, and I'm so pleased you are here. As an education business owner, myself and a former teacher, I understand the nuances that only apply to us. So in this podcast, I share fluff free, tailored, and actionable ideas. That you can mold to suit your needs.

Sumantha: [: 00:01:12

If you'd like to take this conversation further, please do reach out. I would love to meet you. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review. That way you'll be helping me help more people. Thank you for tuning in. Enjoy.

Sumantha: [: 00:01:30

So I promised that the title of this episode would make sense very shortly, and it's about to make sense now. This was the first time I attended Atomic Con. However, it should have actually been my third time because actually I've been wanting to go for the last three years, and I would go to buy the tickets and then the cost of it would put me off.

Sumantha: [: 00:01:48

I would think about the ticket price. I would think about the hotel, the travel, all of it, and it would put me off. But this year was very different last year I went through fertility treatment and it wasn't just that it didn't work, that was very kind of difficult, but also quite an important point in my life.

Sumantha: [: 00:02:06

It was also the fact that me and my husband reached the end of a 10 year journey where we were trying to start a family. And so this year when I looked at Atomic KH and I had the same thoughts, dunno if I can afford it. I realized, hang on a second here I am worrying about a few hundred, when last year I spent 20,000 pounds on fertility treatment I didn't take a loan for it.

Sumantha: [: 00:02:24

I paid an installment. Because of the way the treatment works, you, you kind of pay as you go to move to the next stage. So it wasn't like a payment plan as such, but I spent 20,000 pounds. In fact, it might have been a little bit more because there were a couple of emergency things we had to pay for. I. I just thought, hang on, if I can spend 20,000 pounds, why am I worrying about a few hundred?

Sumantha: [: 00:02:42

And I realized that it all had to do with my mindset and it was because I just wasn't seeing the value in it. Whereas, you know, obviously I could see the potential value in spending that kind of money on fertility treatment. Very emotive and. You know, I've been that person who only went for things that were free or cheap things, and it took me a while to learn, but I realized it was a complete false economy because I've, I always know who I want to work with next, always, and they're usually quite expensive.

Sumantha: [: 00:03:00

And nowadays I go for it because I can see the value. But before I would go for the cheap things, still knowing who I ideally want to work with. But thinking, oh, no, no. If I can achieve the same thing with cheaper things, then why it doesn't make sense to spend that money. But you never can. You just can't.

Sumantha: [: 00:03:18

I couldn't achieve that, and it was a false economy because I actually ended up spending more in the long run. When I think about all the money and time that I spent on the cheaper things or the free things. I could have actually learned it in one go by spending a little bit more, and it would've happened faster, easier, and all of that.

Sumantha: [: 00:03:36

And so this year it really made me reflect on my journey with money, with mindset, with investing in myself, with investing in my business. And it's, I think it will always be an ongoing journey for me because. My money mindset has been really, really poor. I definitely come from a background where you just save, save, save.

Sumantha: [: 00:03:54

But no one ever talks about spending those savings. No one ever talks about why you're saving in the first place. You just keep saving. And so I've had to make a lot of shifts. I've had to do a lot of unlearning, but I'm starting on this because. As you know, I work in the education space and, but I haven't always worked in the education space.

Sumantha: [: 00:04:12

Before I was a teacher, I was a corporate business trainer, and in the corporate world, things cost a lot more than they do in our world, and it's not because they're wildly different or the standard is suddenly higher, it's because of the culture. People will pay it and. When I thought about the value of Atomic Con, I actually thought the biggest value of it is stepping outside of my bubble.

Sumantha: [: 00:04:30

It's so important to learn from other industries, to be exposed to other industries, to see how other people are doing things, because whether you're employed, whether you are self-employed, it's really easy to kind of get stuck in a niche and to kind of be in an echo chamber. And you know, I re realized when I was hesitating to buy these tickets that I hadn't done that for a long time.

Sumantha: [: 00:04:48

I used to be really good at doing that, learning from other industries, bringing it back to my clients, really thinking about how to mold it for our industry. But somewhere along the lines. I had stopped doing that and I stayed in the bubble. And so I spent the money and I mean, it was brilliant. I really enjoyed it and I'll talk about it shortly.

Sumantha: [: 00:05:06

Um, and actually I've already booked my tickets for next year. I booked it on the day, actually at the end of the day. I just booked my tickets for the following year because I knew how much value I got out of it. And so. This feels like a real milestone for me and I wonder whether you can resonate. I wonder where you are on that journey because actually when you look at other industries, you realize actually stuff in our industry is a lot cheaper.

Sumantha: [: 00:05:24

I. It is, you know, you'd be spending triple that if when you go to another industry. And I think that has a lot to do with our mindset. I think it really reflects our mindset. And so, you know, I've learned so much. I've had so much growth from investing in myself in my business. I. I wanted to share that with you, not because I want you to suddenly go around splurging money, but I do want us to start thinking differently if we're not already there about how we make those decisions, because I think we often see them as expenses rather than investments.

Sumantha: [: 00:05:42

If I think about the 20,000 that I spent on fertility, well that was an investment. If I had fallen pregnant, if I had a child. Then I can't even put a monetary value on the return that I got from that 20 grand. And in some ways I still got a return because it didn't work, because I now do actually feel quite liberated.

Sumantha: [: 00:06:00

You know, it's not nice feeling like you're in limbo for so long because you don't actually know. I. How your life's gonna go. So either way, it was, it was a good thing. And actually this year what was really warming was so many people from our industry went. And that really shows me that that money mindset, that investment mindset, that concept of us valuing ourselves, it's, it's changing.

Sumantha: [: 00:06:18

We're evolving in our space, you know, as a collective, things are shifting and that's great. So some reflections directly from Atomic on, and I'm, if you are watching on video, you can see my eyes darting around because I'm actually just looking at my notes. In fact, I'm gonna quickly scroll. I normally edit these bits out, but today I just, it's too hot for me to worry about it.

Sumantha: [: 00:06:36

So. The thing that I found the most powerful, as I mentioned earlier, was stepping outside of my bubble. And so, you know, being exposed to other industries, hearing from other people who are running different kinds of businesses and just seeing kind of the kind of things other people are doing and how they're doing, it really opens your eyes, you know, for a while I've been feeling like I'm on the verge of something, like something else is coming.

Sumantha: [: 00:06:54

I've got another idea in my mind. But I just couldn't pinpoint what it was. And going to Atomic Con and kind of being exposed to lots of different people, but also stepping away from home. All of that made such a difference. The first day I arrived, I remember thinking, right. That's it. I'm sat next to the river.

Sumantha: [: 00:07:12

I'm in Newcastle. I'm away from home. Come on. Clarity. Where are you? And it just takes a little bit of time to decompress and, you know, just to unwind really. But by day three I got clarity. Um, on the plane journey home, which was only about an hour, I wrote out an entire talk that I'm delivering soon at a conference.

Sumantha: [: 00:07:30

And yet I'd been mulling over it for so long, but all the ideas were just flowing. It was really, really good. And you know, from a business perspective, this is actually really crucial because. There is a real risk when you stay in a bubble. When you stay in a niche, there's a real risk of doing things a certain way because that's how they've always been done.

Sumantha: [: 00:07:48

And typically when you have people helping you with your business, like business coaches, they come from that niche, often they come from the same pool of people. And so the same advice, the same mindsets, they just kind of circle around. And while I think it's really important to tailor advice and strategies for our niche, I mean, that's exactly what I do with my clients.

Sumantha: [: 00:08:06

I think it's also really important to learn from other industries and do things a bit differently and try new things out, and this is something that really helps me create robust strategies, not just for myself, but for my clients as well. For example, my three phased approach to selling visibility and marketing, which I teach all my clients, I teach it in the Mastermind, is training that I took from my formal sales.

Sumantha: [: 00:08:24

Qualification that I then molded and shaped to something that I knew would work for small business owners for people in our industry. And you know, I've picked up stuff from my days as a project manager in the training space, and I never would've thought of certain elements that I now include in my business or that I teach if I hadn't had that exposure.

Sumantha: [: 00:08:42

So it really is such a huge part of our development. It's really important as business owners, I think.

Sumantha: [: 00:09:00

I'm dipping into this episode for a quick mastermind of moments where I just spend a couple of minutes sharing a real challenge that came up in my membership and we'll solve it together. We'll break it down together. One of the masterminds minders have been really struggling with getting ghosted, so she, you know, someone will contact her.

Sumantha: [: 00:09:18

This is typically the journey. Someone will contact her. She'll reply. They seem really enthusiastic and maybe there'll be one more exchange and then that's it. When it comes to making a decision, she just doesn't hear from them. Now she knows all about following up, right? You may know about following up, but here are the two mindset blocks she was experiencing.

Sumantha: [: 00:09:36

The first was that she was really worried about being a nuisance. She was just couldn't get past that, and the second was she was actually scared of them saying no. Rationally she knew. Well, so what if they say no? At least I know now, but she just couldn't get past that. So here's what we did to turn that around.

Sumantha: [: 00:09:54

I gave her some ideas of follow up messages that she could just keep in her back pocket where she didn't feel like she was being a nuisance. Because what does come very naturally to anyone who educates other people is. To help. So to give you a bit of context, she actually teaches adult learners and she teaches them how to teach.

Sumantha: [: 00:10:12

She teaches a particular kind of exam, but she teaches them how to teach and they often come to her saying that they don't feel comfortable trying new teaching strategies in a live lesson. Because you know what? If it doesn't work, what if the lesson then collapses? And because of that, she has actually created a one page cheat sheet on some strategies and techniques on how to try something new, how to embed something new in a live lesson without compromising the overall quality.

Sumantha: [: 00:10:30

Even if it doesn't work. And so I said to her, you know, if most people are saying this to you and that's what drove you to create this, this lead magnet, this PDF, then one of your follow-up emails could be something like to ask them if they would like to receive it. So something like, it was really lovely speaking to you recently, haven't heard from you, but don't worry, I know how busy life can get.

Sumantha: [: 00:10:48

I remember you mentioning that you really struggle with the problem I just mentioned and um. I wondered whether you wanted me to send you this one page cheat sheet that I have, um, that you know, that really helps you embed new strategies into live lessons. Let me know and I'll send it over to you now.

Sumantha: [: 00:11:06

Something like that, you know, you are helping people, you're not being pushy, but also something like that generally elicits a response as well. And, you know, the result of this was really incredible because it was just a small change, but the result. I saw in her confidence just to start with was brilliant.

Sumantha: [: 00:11:24

She suddenly was like, something clicked and she was like, right, I can do this, it's fine. But also her realization was that people are busy, you know, she learned that from them, basically saying, oh, thank you so much for reminding me. That would be great. And she actually got so many more bookings from it because she just kind of found a way to get past those mindset blocks.

Sumantha: [: 00:11:42

And the reason I'm sharing this in particular is twofold. The first reason is because I'm recording this. Mid, mid ish, towards the end of June and next month in the Cheetahs Mastermind. I'm teaching the Attract Method, which is a method I've coined that really puts together a strategy of sales, marketing, and visibility that's non-pushy.

Sumantha: [: 00:12:00

So it's really relevant if you have just joined and you are thinking, okay, what's this about? This mastermind moment is a small part of it. It's all about not being pushy. Also, I wanted to share this because I think that when we come up with mindset blocks, we often think we just have to get over them, and that's easier said than done.

Sumantha: [: 00:12:18

Sometimes you can work with them and find a workaround.

Sumantha: [: 00:12:36

All right, so now time for what Atomic Con is. In case you just want the A perspective that isn't on a landing page or on a promo thing, just something that's from someone who's just gone to it, especially as a first timer. So it's basically a pretty big marketing sales, and I would say mindset as well.

Sumantha: [: 00:12:54

Event for small business owners. That's their tagline, and I would say it's. Pretty accurate. I think I may have added mindset in there. I'm not sure, but that's basically what it is. Now, when you buy a ticket, and this is important because I didn't know this, you are not just buying a ticket for the event in the entire runup.

Sumantha: [: 00:13:12

Almost every week there is some form of CPD. So it could be like a hive mind where you get to network, where you get to discuss things with other people. Again, from all different industries. There might be training and in the actual kind of, when you get closer to the event, there are what's called fringe events.

Sumantha: [: 00:13:30

So there was the big networking meet, meet, uh, week, sorry. And there were these, you know, some really big hitters answering questions and all of this. So there is, it's not just the, . Event that you're buying a ticket for, and I didn't make the most of that. You know, I found it quite overwhelming because I add them to my calendar.

Sumantha: [: 00:13:48

I've joined their calendar so it shows up and there's a lot going on now. I think this year I'm looking at it a bit differently. I'm seeing it as almost like I've enrolled onto a course. That doesn't mean I have to go to everything. By taking that view means I'm paying a bit more attention to what's going on beforehand so that I'm really getting the full value out of it.

Sumantha: [: 00:14:06

Another thing is that all the talks on the day are recorded and it's really good quality recording. Now, I, you can't go to everything anyway because you've got multiple speakers in each. In each spot, but you may also just want to take a little break halfway through the day. And so I selected talks where I wanted to physically be present because I know the speakers and I love them, or because it's a topic I really wanted to listen to live.

Sumantha: [: 00:14:24

But I did save quite a few to watch on replay, and I'm really pleased to say I've watched them and what I did, because a lot of people warned me, look, you know, I thought I'd do that last year, but I never end up watching them. What I did. Was I, so the event was on a Tuesday. I blocked out Monday to Wednesday 'cause I had to travel to Newcastle, come back from Newcastle.

Sumantha: [: 00:14:42

That left me with Thursday and Fridays. Now Friday I don't take clients anyway, so that was a free day for me. But Thursday I, it's a flexible day. So I do take clients. I don't generally teach. Um, but what I did is I actually blocked that day out. So essentially I took the whole week off and I'm so pleased I did because I was really tired coming back from it.

Sumantha: [: 00:15:00

You know, it's a, it's a lot. You are networking, you're traveling, you know, all of it is a lot. You're learning. I. But also it meant that I had distraction free days for me to watch those replays. And I, I, seriously, I'm so glad I did because some of them were so actionable and I was pausing them and I was taking action.

Sumantha: [: 00:15:18

And, you know, some, the thing that I really liked actually was that all the talks that I have seen. While some of them were very practical, like how to optimize your YouTube channel, and some of them are a bit more conceptual, like how to give, you know, your prospective clients a celebrity, A VIP type experience.

Sumantha: [: 00:15:36

Regardless of what style they were, there was always a really big action you could take and it was doable. And so I really got benefit from, from actually just taking that action. So. There's a lot included in it, and I really like the style of it, and it's a really inclusive event. Now what's the event actually like?

Sumantha: [: 00:15:54

It's, and, and also I'll share some tips if you're planning to go and you've never been before. So when I say it's quite a big event, it is big. It's not the biggest event I've been to, but for small business owners, it's big. It is big and. The schedule, the event, everything that's going on can feel quite overwhelming.

Sumantha: [: 00:16:12

Even if you're someone who doesn't generally find these kinds of things overwhelming. 'cause there's a lot going on. There's a lot of kind of planning and you know what time things are happening and where you need to go and stuff like that. Because there are fringe events the day before as well.

Sumantha: [: 00:16:30

Something that was recommended to me. That I think was really good advice was to check the speaker list beforehand, mark the ones you want to go, but actually build some breaks into the day. Now, I did plan some breaks, but it turned out, you know, I was just going with the flow. It turned out I was quite happy to jump from one workshop to another, so I didn't actually end up having a break.

Sumantha: [: 00:16:48

But I think it's really good advice to build that in so that you are like. Okay. I'm not missing out on anything major. I can watch this on replay. I'm just gonna stop for an hour, or whatever it might be. Another thing I did, which was a bit of an experiment, but it worked really well, was instead of taking copious notes, I really wanted to be more present.

Sumantha: [: 00:17:06

So apparently there's an app called Letterly, which I haven't looked at to do this. But what I did was on my iPhone, I recorded voice memos. So I sat in a talk. Press record, and that meant I could really pay attention. I wasn't stressing out about, oh God, I just missed something and I haven't written it down.

Sumantha: [: 00:17:24

And instead I was making notes of ideas that were popping into my mind. And then I came home and I uploaded those videos, those voice notes, sorry, onto tra, onto Script, which is the app I use anyway to edit my podcast that produces a transcript. And I popped that into chat GPT and asked it to summarize and put an action plan together for me.

Sumantha: [: 00:17:42

And that worked really well. It's the first time I've done something like that, and it was just such a great way of streamlining that kind of note taking. And I think that probably is what made the difference between me feeling like I didn't need a break. Then in the past where I've taken loads and loads of notes and I've just thought, oh gosh, I'm exhausted.

Sumantha: [: 00:18:00

Like I feel frazzled by the end of the day. I didn't feel, I felt tired, but I wasn't as exhausted as I normally am now. I'll finish up this episode on a few key takeaways. Um, there's a guy who I heard called Rory Sutherland and he was a real highlight for me. I have since bought his audiobook because I wanna hear him narrate it, and I've watched him on YouTube and he basically is really good.

Sumantha: [: 00:18:18

At getting you to think differently. He's a clever, clever guy. He's very famous marketing executive, uh, advertising executive I should say, but he's really good at making you think differently. Also a couple of takeaways. Uh, Jeff Ram, you may have heard his name, float Around. He's a fantastic speaker and he really talked about, um, adding that extra touch when you are speaking to a prospective client or even a client to give them that treatment that they'll never forget.

Sumantha: [: 00:18:36

And that was really nice. It was a really nice reminder, I think. To do that. We all know to do that, but we sometimes struggle for ideas of what it means. And then I went to some really practical ones. I went to a couple that were related to email marketing, and a really good takeaway was to make your emails really conversational.

Sumantha: [: 00:18:54

And if you use software for your email marketing, which I hope you do, if you do it, um, purely because it's. You can't get the right kind of data and traction without using an app that's designed for email marketing. But he was talking about the importance of segmenting and a really lovely analogy he used that I actually mentioned to one of my one-to-one clients today is that if you imagine there's a source span of popcorn.

Sumantha: [: 00:19:12

Colonels, they all pop at different times, and that's how your audience is. You don't know when people are ready to buy from you. And so when he talks about segmenting with your emails and all of that, and you can apply this to anything. By the way, anything marketing and sales related, he was saying that look for those signals.

Sumantha: [: 00:19:30

That indicate they may be ready to buy. Look for those kernels that might be ready to pop essentially, and treat them differently to the people who clearly aren't ready to buy yet. And I thought that was a really good insight and actually I'm going to be talking about that a little bit in the Mastermind at the end of this month, and I'll slip some of it into my training next week.

Sumantha: [: 00:19:48

Bec next. Months, sorry, because I think it's really, really useful. So anyway, I hope you've enjoyed my little rundown of Atomic On, it's a different style of episode to normal. Um, next week, um, I've got the lovely Huvane as a guest on the podcast. It's a really good episode. I have to say. I've been dying to release this one.

Sumantha: [: 00:20:06

He really goes through how to scale a business in a really, he breaks it down just really, really clearly, where you're just like, right, I get it. I get how to do this. Um, so it's a fantastic episode that I'll be sharing with you next week. In the meantime, thank you so much for giving me your time, and you'll hear from me on Wednesday.

Sumantha: [: 00:20:24

Would you like to take this discussion further? Perhaps you have some questions or you'd like more ideas on tailoring your business. If so, book a free discovery call through the link in the show notes.