By Don Keenan
You'd think we'd all be getting a little tired of going to Costa Rica after the fifth year, but that couldn't be further from the truth. This year, we had our base of operations at the five-star Four Seasons at Peninsula Papagayo. One of the finest resorts this southern Bubba has ever been to! And we had 52 attendees participate.
As far as age range; on one end, we had Walter Floyd from St. Louis – age 82, practicing 56 years – and on the other extreme we had Ashley Taylor from Louisiana who had been practicing 7 months, along with Liz Labrin from Kansas who’d been practicing less than a year as well.
The following are some of the comments from the attendees:
“I attend every year and love the topics and keeping on the cutting edge at the same time hanging out with new and old friends.” -Sean Claggett, Nevada.
“No. 1, I love the Reptile© and No. 2, I love the small group. No. 3, I love Costa Rica.” -Maureen Manning, New Hampshire
“The instruction was fantastic. Love it.” -Gary Boutwell, Louisiana
“I come to get the most recent, important information on the Reptile© and boy, I get it.” -Augustus Brown, Maryland
“Best seminar ever. It was the greatest value for my clients.” -Matt Powell, Florida
“Everything was great. The accommodations were spectacular and the seminar even better.” -Adam Dougherty, Florida
Group shot of some of the Costa Rica participants.
Mindy Bish conducted a five-person panel discussion on all of the problems and solutions to openings and closings. That was a high energy, two-hour long panel. The next day, Shawn Claggett conducted a panel discussion of all of the Black Hat attacks, both practical and legal, and covered all of the solutions. I spoke of the evolution of harms and losses, more on Bubba words and announced the “16 Power Words for 2016,” which you just read about this month here on the blog.
For the first time in a long time, I delivered an actual closing argument. It was from my most recent trial; everyone closely listened and then we opened up the floor for comments regarding what everybody saw and heard and how the dots were connected.
David and Artemis expanded on last year’s charisma and storytelling, taking it to a new height. I can always tell when folks are interested when they take notes like they were in grade school and nobody leaves.
For those who have not been to the Costa Rica December Convention, please understand it is a one-of-a-kind. Because of the smaller group, we are able to discuss secret sauce without boundaries, as well as announce areas that are under research and development.
Many come to Costa Rica as strangers to one another, but I can guarantee you they leave as friends.
Like every year, the demographics were perfectly balanced. New Hampshire, Oregon, Florida, California, New York, Alabama were all represented, it was very demographic. We are currently negotiating for 2016, but understand that we only set aside a block of 50 rooms. Last year we exceeded that and had well over 25 people we had to turn away. Obviously in order to prevent being turned away, you must register early!
Note: Because of a staff error last year, the registration fee for the convention did not include all the costs and we had a $38,000 loss. Before we book this year’s convention, we asked all the attendees if they would rather go somewhere else at a lower cost, or pay an increased registration of $700 over the last year registration fee – 80 percent of the attendees responded and voted to return to the Four Seasons.
