It’s four beautiful days. Four days in a tempurpedic bed with other people thinking about things like laundry, food and dishes. Four days meeting new friends and being introduced to ideas and possibilities. And things start to click. Click click click click click. You’re excited. You’re hopeful. You’re emotionally exhausted.

And then you’re home. Back to Keurig coffee and an inbox that looks like it’s grown man hair in the past week. You want to look away; to go back to bed. Don’t do that. Let yourself feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed is where we learn and grow. Overwhelmed is uncomfortable – and uncomfortable is good.

Now it’s time to act. You can be poured into and poured into and poured into until you are overflowing, but if you don’t find a funnel or vessel for that juice, you lose it – it’s gone. I know this because I’ve seen it over and over again. I know this because I’ve lost the juice… over and over again.

Let’s start with three things. Things that you can do today. Things that I really, really hope you will do today. Because I want to see what amazing change can happen when you decide to funnel the juice.

1. Carve out two hours in this day to go through all of the notes you made. I know there are a lot of them. I made a lot of notes, too. Retype them. Re-experience them. Re-examine how they might fit into your day-to-day.
2. Pick three actionable items. Do those three things. No-one can come away from a conference, experience all the feels, and then take action on every thing that they want to be able to do. We all have limited resources. But you can do three things. And those three things will be enough to create meaningful, lasting change.
3. Hold yourself accountable. Put those three things on the calendar. Set alerts. Ask a friend to hound you. (heck, I’ll hound you – shoot me an e-mail)

Mountaintop experiences are intoxicating; they’re uplifting and recharging and infinitely more fun than the day to day grind. They’re important, but they’re fleeting. And we’re all left with the choice to wish away time until next year rolls around; to roll down the mountain and hit the ground with a painful thud – or to do something different this go around; to dig in and do the work of climbing down – so that the experience can hit us in a different place the next time around – make us a different kind of uncomfortable and create a different kind of growth.

I believe in the work that you’re doing. And I believe that you should believe in it, too. Especially when it gets hard. Because just past that, I promise you, you’ll find another Mountain Top Experience.