On October 3-4, 2024, we hosted our very first in-person Second Brain Summit in Los Angeles, and honestly, it was a dream come true. 

This event felt like a “bucket list” moment in every way. I’d count it among my top five life milestones, right up there with getting married, witnessing my children’s births, and signing my first book deal.

Looking back, I’m still in awe of the warmth, love, and generosity everyone displayed—from attendees to volunteers to our lineup of speakers.

One of my biggest takeaways from the Summit was personal: I learned the incredible growth that comes from letting go. 

For much of this project, I had to place my trust in others to handle details big and small. For someone who’s used to doing everything himself (or at least attempting to), this was transformative. For the first time, I felt fully carried by a team of talented individuals working right alongside me, taking collective ownership of a vision we all believed in.

A special shoutout goes to Simply Storied, our event organizer. They made it all possible, guiding us through each stage with finesse and care. And of course, none of this would have happened without the energy and dedication of our team and volunteers.

Now that I’ve had a month to process everything that happened, I’m ready to share my reflections with you, including some painful realizations and lessons learned.

Who joined the Second Brain Summit 

We welcomed 212 total attendees from 16 countries! Only 57% came from the U.S., with some traveling from faraway places such as Bali, Taiwan, and Australia to join us. 

59% were male and 41% female. A third of attendees identified as business owners and entrepreneurs, followed by employees and freelancers. 

I loved to see such a wide distribution of different ages at the Summit, as I think it’s super important for different generations to learn from each other:

Only 44% of attendees had ever purchased one of our courses or cohorts. So for many, it was the first time joining one of our experiences. 

I can confidently say that everyone who attended was a 10/10 in interest and passion. Each person followed such a unique and personal path to get there that we can’t identify a “typical” attendee profile. 

The highlights: What attendees loved the most  

Our highlights video will express this better than words ever could:

I was honestly taken aback by the positive things people said about the experience, starting about two hours in. They spoke about it being “life-changing” and “healing”; as the best conference they’d ever been to. 

My favorite quotes I overheard:

• “You created the world you wanted to live in.” (from my dad)
• “This is a conference for high-functioning autistic people.” (this one made me laugh)
• “I finally found my people.” 
• “This was a spiritual experience.” (from a speaker)

Here are the things attendees said they loved most: 

• The incredible lineup of 39 speakers, their diversity along multiple dimensions, and how most stuck around and participated for the full two days of the conference. 
• High-quality, warm and friendly, and interesting fellow attendees, whom many people noted were unlike any group they’d encountered elsewhere.
• The positive energy of the event, noting that people were genuinely excited to be there. 
• The opportunity to meet people in real life whom they had known online for a while and to have informal yet deep conversations in person.  
• The size of the event (~200 people) was ideal for connecting with others and getting to know them beyond superficial “networking.”
• The seamless, frictionless, classy event design and management (kudos to Simply Storied team)
• The sponsors added a lot of value by offering relevant products and education about how to use them. 
• The “Digital Swag Bag” full of courses, memberships, and tools, allowing attendees to go deeper into what they learned. 

Here’s how attendees reported feeling at the end of the summit (“inspiring connection” jumps out as perhaps the overarching theme of the entire summit):

By the end of the event, 98% of attendees said the Summit met or exceeded their expectations. Our Net Promoter Score (NPS) hit 80, a rare and impressive outcome that shows how likely they are to recommend it to others.

This shows how hungry people are for such communal experiences in our digital-centric world and that there’s huge potential in this area.

The financial snapshot

In the interest of transparency, I’d like to share what it took financially to bring this event to life.

Ticket sales brought in $120,604, and sponsorships contributed an additional $60,000, for a total of $180,604 in revenue. However, our total expenses came to $349,771, resulting in a net loss of $169,166. This essentially meant we subsidized each attendee by about $798 on top of the ticket price, which ranged from $999 (early-bird) to $1,200.

The primary challenge? We only sold about half as many tickets as I had originally envisioned, leaving us with the cost profile of a much larger event than we actually hosted. Although we made adjustments along the way, I was so committed to delivering a high-quality experience that I chose to eat the additional cost rather than cut essential aspects of the event.

Moving forward, it’s clear we’ll need a more sustainable financial model to make future Summits viable.

What we’d do differently next time

After reviewing the attendee feedback and our own reflections as a team, here are the things we’d change if we were to host the Second Brain Summit again:

• Increase the focus on the B2B and professional aspects of our niche, making it easier for people and their employers to justify the cost and time to attend.
• Prioritize interactive workshops and hands-on practical sessions, which can only be delivered live and in person. 
• Cut non-essentials such as games, a reserved hotel block, and catered food. A smaller venue would also reduce costs for AV, rented furniture, on-site event staff, security, signage, etc.
• Pick a location different from downtown LA, as the surrounding neighborhood was pretty sketchy. 
• Cap the attendance at an even lower number, so we are guaranteed to sell out and can spend more time on the event design rather than marketing/sales. 
• Schedule fewer sessions concurrently. We had as many as 6 sessions happening at the same time, which was too many for people to choose from and created FOMO. 
• Start conversations with sponsors earlier (9-12 months before the event, when budgets are being committed), seeking deeper, more strategic partnerships that would allow for higher sponsor revenue. 
• Offer a recorded or live-streamed version of the Summit sessions, as so much value was on offer it would have been nice to capture it.
• Add a third day with an unstructured agenda, allowing for informal meals, walking around town, and follow-up meetups to process all the new information and deepen new relationships. 
• Sell a “high-ticket program” on the backend of the summit, such as a group coaching program or mastermind, to support the financial side. 

With these changes, I believe we could make future Summits a financially viable and deeply impactful addition to the Second Brain community. I know of no better way to build true community and connection in our increasingly fragmented, distracted, isolated modern world.

I’m deeply grateful to everyone who joined, participated, and made this Summit possible. It’s an experience I’ll never forget, and I owe a huge “thank you” to every single one of you who helped make it real.

A personal note

There was something about this summit that moved me at a very deep level. I felt myself changing, transforming into someone new. 

Diving into the emotions and insights afterward with my coach, I realized that gathering together all these wonderful people in a warm, welcoming environment had touched a nerve inside me: a longstanding feeling I’ve had that I didn’t belong anywhere.

I traced that feeling back to my school years when I attended 5 different schools in 5 years from 5th grade to 9th grade, which made me highly resilient and adaptable but also made me feel isolated and alone like I didn’t have real friends. I traced it further back, to being the child of immigrant parents from two separate countries, a true third culture kid.

That narrative – that I didn’t belong in any group and no one could understand me – simply couldn’t withstand the outpouring of acceptance and love of 200 people, all united together in one common purpose. It was just so obvious that everyone there had felt alone or misunderstood, but that we could, in the words of my father, “Create the world we wanted to live in” anyway.

Many people have asked me whether we plan on hosting another summit in the future. I honestly can’t say, but what I do know is that in the coming years community is going to be one of the last and most meaningful differentiators in a world transformed by AI. It’s one of the only things that can’t be generated algorithmically, no matter what “social” media tells you.

I honestly don’t know how the financial side makes sense, but I do know two things: that every time I’ve doubled down on community it’s always worked out; and that every time I’ve doubled down on what has aliveness and energy it’s worked out, even if I couldn’t envision how in the beginning.

So in one way or another, I’m going to keep seeking ways to build true, meaningful community, to bring people together whether virtually or in person, and to help forge relationships that transcend any particular app, trend, or niche, so that everyone in my community has the chance to feel that sense of shared purpose and belonging that has been so transformative for me.

The best snapshots from the Second Brain Summit

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This is a proposal I wrote for a television show based on my bestselling book Building a Second Brain.

If it resonates with you and you’re in a position to make a TV show happen, please let me know by emailing hello@fortelabs.com. I’m open to a variety of formats, funding sources, routes to production, and distribution platforms for this project.

Introduction

Have you ever felt drowned in a sea of ideas, struggling to recall that one crucial piece of information when you most needed it? Have you ever spent hours scrolling social media, or consuming content online, only to find yourself unable to remember even one useful takeaway?

Imagine a world where your mind is freed from everything you’re trying to remember and keep track of, while every important detail and inspired thought remains safely tucked away and easily accessible within seconds. Welcome to the possibility of building a Second Brain – a digital extension of your mind that remembers everything, so you can accomplish anything. 

This isn’t just about storing information; it’s about reshaping the way you approach life. You are offloading your thoughts to technology so you can think more clearly and calmly. By organizing the digital realm where you likely spend hours every day you enhance your focus instead of splintering your attention. Aligning your online habits with your values and goals transforms the time you spend consuming content – from merely passing the time to compounding your learning and growth over time.

By creating a Second Brain, you’ll have a dedicated, digital space you can step into anytime you want to focus your energy on what truly matters to you. Rather than relying on your scarce self-discipline or willpower, you’ll have a cognitive exoskeleton designed to propel you forward into taking action on the goals and projects that could transform your life.

Inspired by the revolutionary concepts from my books Building a Second Brain and The PARA Method, which have sold over 300,000 copies worldwide, and the transformative experiences of thousands of my students, readers, and followers, I’m excited to bring the power of the Second Brain to television. Let’s dive deep into the world of digital organization, redefining the way we engage with information and using it to unlock the best version of ourselves.

The Show

I propose an intervention/makeover/personal transformation style unscripted show revolving around people’s digital organizational habits and creative projects. 

This genre typically shows an expert or “guru” who comes into a person’s environment, and shines a light on an aspect of their lives that they are ashamed about, in pain from, or that is holding them back in some way. 

For example:

• Marie Kondo and people’s closets
• Ramit Sethi and people’s bank accounts
• Queer Eye and people’s wardrobes
• The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and people’s possessions
• The Biggest Loser and people’s waistlines
• Dream Home Makeover and people’s homes

These are all domains that are crucial to our well-being and thriving, but that many of us feel disempowered or embarrassed by. 

There have been many such shows, but I’ve never seen one that deals with people’s digital life – their notes and documents, emails and text messages, web favorites and bookmarks, photos and videos, books and reading, YouTube videos and social media posts, etc. In my experience, most people would rather open up their homes or their bank accounts than show you what’s on their smartphones or computers, and that’s why we will find so many touching, hilarious, and ultimately meaningful stories there.

Why now?

Over the past decade we’ve become a digital-centric culture. 10 years ago, as of 2013, Americans spent more time on digital devices than watching TV. We consume digital media over 7 hours per day, with 44% of 18- to 49-year-olds saying that they go online “almost constantly.” Millennials (currently aged 24-41) are now the dominant economic, political, and cultural force in our society, and their experience of life is fundamentally shaped by the digital world. 

The Internet isn’t a thing anymore, it’s a place – the primary place we go to for education, entertainment, community, connection, and so many other needs and wants. Our digital lives are rich, fruitful landscapes where our hopes, dreams, and creative visions can come to life before our very eyes, as long as we have the will (and the tech-savvy skills) to see them through. 

Yet where is the authentic portrayal of that digital realm that has become such an important part of our experiences? At most, we’ll see a character in a TV show briefly sending a text message on a 5-year-old phone. Where is the self-discovery, the stories, the drama, and the life-changing inspiration that we find online every day?

The Stories

A starting point could be my story of struggling with a debilitating neurological condition that plunged me into a world of pain and shut down my ability to speak, ultimately leading to the realization of how crucial self-expression is to life (and inspiring my writing and teaching on this subject). 

Here are some of the other (real) stories we’ve heard from the graduates of our course, viewers of our YouTube videos, and readers of my books:

• The Colorado pastor who interviews the families of the recently deceased in order to write their eulogies found himself overwhelmed by the quantity of information he was collecting and taking weeks to distill it. He began using a voice transcription app to record the interviews and summarize the key points in minutes, freeing up his time to spend with the bereaved. 
• The UK single mom trying to juggle homeschooling and work, whose depression had advanced to the point that showering and brushing her teeth was a struggle. She adopted digital habits that led to her learning to manage her life and even enjoy reading again.
• The Florida education professor who felt frazzled managing her job while taking care of the kids, before she started using digital notes apps to capture ideas and insights on the fly, which made prepping for speeches something she can do in little batches during the small windows of her busy day.
• A college student who realized he was addicted to video games and watching his life pass him by. Upon discovering the power of a Second Brain, he began using it as a way to learn and grow while activating the same parts of his brain that video games once did.
• The Managing Director for an automaker in Mexico, who after treating her depression with medication, found that she also needed to change her routines around managing emails, her schedule, and her to-do list to put her life and career back on track. Now she’s teaching her team the same techniques and seeing it lift the performance of the whole department.
• The oncologist at a world-renowned cancer clinic who uses my techniques to condense his reading about new clinical trials and patient notes so he can quickly reference the information he needs while spending more time listening to and being present with his patients.
• The manager, whose company was being acquired and position made redundant, decided to utilize digital platforms to document and systematize his company’s knowledge. This led to him being named the General Manager of the new combined business, a position with far more responsibility and compensation.

And these are some of the topics and issues we can touch on:

• The tension between personal productivity for succeeding in your career, and creativity as a means to personal fulfillment
• The epidemic of Information Overload and the crushing stress of all the information we consume and have to pay attention to every day
• Social media’s impact on our attention span, mental health, and ability to focus
• The explosion in freelancing, the creator economy, and remote work as powerful possibilities that require fluency in using digital tools to manage our work and lives to take advantage of
• ADHD and other neurodivergent conditions’ effect on how we think, and how to use technology to consume and interact with information in more effective ways
• Content consumption on online platforms as a major influencer of our thinking, while requiring more intentional habits to glean the most helpful ideas and insights from the noise
• Our digital habits and the platforms on which they take place as important avenues for self-expression, self-determination, and creative agency

Potential challenges

Here are some of the main challenges we’d face in creating such a show, which also represent opportunities if we succeed:

• How to represent digital spaces and virtual interactions in a visual, engaging, relatable way
• What to call this subject (common terms include second brains, digital organization/hygiene/fluency, personal knowledge management, tools for thought, and others)
• How to frame the “promise” of watching the show (commiserate with others struggling with information overwhelm, gain inspiration from others overcoming relatable challenges, get new ideas for how to approach the digital world, be moved by the stories of courage and vulnerability as people confront their fears, etc.)
• How to make the stories relatable, grounded, and easy to understand, since this topic can easily become convoluted and abstract

Ideas for portraying Second Brains on TV

Here are my initial ideas and notes on how we could portray digital environments and habits on the small screen:

• Feature digital notes that are more visual rather than purely textual, including graphics, photos, drawings, diagrams, screenshots, etc.
• Project computer environments onto walls or 3D spaces that we can point to, talk about, and walk around in (like Hans Rosling did on the BBC)
• In Ramit Sethi’s show How to Get Rich there are some good examples of using a combination of zooming in, on-screen animations, and over-the-shoulder shots to make the screen feel less two-dimensional
• Go out into the field and interview real people (architects, sex workers, casino owners, professional athletes, musicians, etc.) on how they use digital notes/second brains “in the wild” as part of their professions (a good example of this is the 1997 documentary Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, which profiled an animal trainer, topiary gardener, robot scientist, and biologist studying mole rats)
• Borrow ideas from Sherlock on how to film thoughts and subjective experiences
• Use virtual or augmented reality environments to make the digital realm more tangible; for example, using the Apple Vision Pro to provide a new interface for interacting with digital content on our devices
• Create in-scene animated objects that I can interact with and move around (such as Bradley Cooper’s character in Limitless), or immersive, full-screen animations that illustrate concepts and ideas, such as Steven Johnson does in How We Got to Now on PBS
• Create a “studio” or “lab” with tangible materials and tools that are used to “think outside the brain,” like Stanford does in their design school
• Here’s a short video highlighting some interesting recent experiments in depicting digital/online behavior on screen

If this resonates with you and you’re in a position to make a TV show happen, please let me know by emailing hello@fortelabs.com. I’m open to a variety of formats and distribution platforms for this project.

Follow us for the latest updates and insights around productivity and Building a Second Brain on X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. And if you’re ready to start building your Second Brain, get the book and learn the proven method to organize your digital life and unlock your creative potential.