Everyone can achieve success through the Summit Conference.

They just need to follow one rule:

There’s no escape.

 

What inspired you to write this book?

I used to go to a lot of conferences for work, and I didn’t like it. While I don’t mind traveling for vacation, I realized I don’t like traveling for work. Also, I heard some stupid stuff at these conferences. Usually, 90% of the conference was focused on professional development, but 10% of the conference was a circle jerk. The exact ratio varies, depending on the conference, but there’s always a chunk of time devoted to people patting themselves on the back and saying how smart they are. Eventually, I started to imagine being trapped at a never-ending conference as a type of torture. And of course, the conference in Surviving the Summit Conference is 99% circle jerk. I’m the kind of person who has an overactive mind, but that doesn’t mean I’m naturally productive. When I let my mind wander, I tend to overthink every aspect of my life and make myself miserable. But it can be fun to focus my attention on imaginary problems. Like, how can I draw from my own life and experiences to make an awful conference that will make fictional characters miserable? Writing Surviving the Summit Conference was a fun way to externalize my anxiety. It was strangely cathartic to write about fictional characters getting brutally murdered. I spent a lot of time writing while on business trips. I wrote on airplanes. I’d go to a conference during the day, and then in the evening, when other people are at a reception, I’d sit in my hotel room and write my book. Parts of the book are inspired by stupid things I heard people say at conferences. Parts of the scenery were inspired by my surroundings. There’s at least one description of a carpet that was simply me describing the carpet in my hotel room as I typed.