What Happens When You Show Up With an Open Heart

The returns you can't predict are often the ones that matter most.

Last fall, I walked into a room full of women I didn't know.

I was there as a sponsor. I had my materials, my elevator pitch, my professional game face. I was ready to show up and do the work. What I wasn't ready for was how much that one day would change the next twelve months of my life.

The event was Called to Lead, hosted by the remarkable Kelly Roach and Sandi Glandt.

If you're not familiar with Called to Lead, let me paint you a picture. It is a gathering of women leaders, entrepreneurs, and change-makers who are building businesses and lives with purpose. At its core, Called to Lead is rooted in the belief that faith and family come first. Everything else, the strategy, the growth, the ambition, is built on that foundation. Kelly and Sandi created a space where that value isn't just stated, it's felt. Where the conversations are real, the connections run deep, and every woman in the room is genuinely rooting for every other woman in the room. That combination is rarer than it should be, and when you find it, you feel it immediately.

I'll be honest with you, because that's the only way I know how to be. The event wasn't perfect. There were some venue hiccups. The flow of the day felt a little off in places. If you were grading it on execution, it might not have earned a ten.

But the energy in that room? The women? That was a ten. That was more than a ten.

And in all honesty, that was all any of us actually needed.

Within days of the event, I had new clients. Real business, from real connections, with women who had looked me in the eye and decided they trusted me. That alone would have made the investment worthwhile but something bigger was already in motion.

In the weeks that followed Called to Lead, a handful of us gathered for a weekend business retreat. The conversations went deeper. The clarity came faster. Something shifted in me that weekend, the kind of shift you feel before you fully understand it.

It was in that space that the seeds of my book, Intentional Money: The Modern Woman's Guide to Building Wealth, Purpose & Peace, were planted. The vision crystallized. The work became inevitable.

I didn't know that when I walked into Called to Lead. I just showed up.

I also met women last fall who I wanted to collaborate with professionally. Women building things that aligned with my work, my values, my vision. We didn't just exchange cards. We started building together.

And I met women I simply wanted in my life. Not for what we could create together professionally, but because they were the kind of humans who make you better just by being in your orbit.

One of those women, Tara Antler invited me to a retreat that just ended today.

I almost said no. Not because I didn't want to go, but because saying yes to beautiful things sometimes feels indulgent when your calendar is full and your to-do list is longer than your arm. But I went. And it was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it.

Sitting in that space, I kept thinking about butterflies.

You've heard of the butterfly effect. Most people think about it in terms of chaos. Things spiraling in unpredictable directions, beyond our control.

But I think about a butterfly landing gently on the surface of still water. The ripples that move outward from that single point of contact. Quiet at first. Then expanding. Touching the edges of things you never imagined they would reach.

That's what one aligned event can do when you let it.

When you don't just show up for the agenda, but for the people. When you stay curious about who is in the room and why. When you follow up, follow through, and stay open to what a connection might become, not just what it is right now.

One event became a retreat. That retreat became a book. Those connections are still compounding, in ways I couldn't have mapped out if I had tried.

I think a lot of us approach events transactionally. We go hoping to get something. A lead, a referral, a speaking opportunity. And sometimes we get exactly that, which is wonderful.

But the deepest returns I have ever received from being in a room have come from the relationships I didn't see coming. The woman I wasn't sure I had anything in common with. The conversation that started over coffee and turned into a collaboration. The retreat invitation that arrived months later from someone I met when I was simply present, doing my work, being myself.

You can't engineer that. You can only make yourself available to it.

This is something I talk about with my clients when it comes to wealth-building. The most powerful investments are rarely the flashiest ones. They are the ones that compound quietly over time, in directions you never expected.

Relationships work exactly the same way.

Called to Lead is back this year, and I am sponsoring again. Not because last year was flawless, but because of everything it set in motion. Because I believe in what Kelly and Sandi have built and the intention they pour into every detail of that experience. Because I have lived the ripple effect firsthand and I want that for you too.

If you've been waiting for a sign to invest in a room that could change your next twelve months, consider this it.

Register for Called to Lead here.

Come find me when you arrive. We have some ripples to make.

Has a single event or connection ever changed the trajectory of your life or business? I'd love to hear your story in the comments.