Once upon a time, a girl took a huge leap of faith and it was worth every penny.
It’s been a week since I first sat down to attend #socialvention with Cindy Morrison. It was the close of the first day of Tory Johnson‘s Spark and Hustle Conference in Los Angeles. There are 200 women in Tulsa right now running around a room discussing hash-tags and I so wish I was there with them.
This part of my Rodan + Fields journey happened on a total whim. It went something like this: I was playing on Facebook and a top leader in my company posts a link to a blog. I follow the leader, so I read it. It was a great article by Tory Johnson that I will have to try to find and link. Well, I’m a researcher, so I’m all over the website learning about who Tory Johnson is. I don’t know about you, but living with a little princess, I don’t often get to watch shows like Good Morning America. Mickey Mouse yes, GMA no. Then I see that she is hosting a conference series and it’s kicking off near me. Oh, and I can do a vendor table at one of the evening events. But — it’s not cheap, at least not for someone just starting her business while her husband is finishing school in an economy that has hit our savings pretty hard. So I wait and I resign myself to following Tory on Facebook because it’s all I could do.
Then I see it. A “black Friday” offer for a discount plus a free vendor table. I excitedly call my husband and tell him that we need to talk about it when he gets home because it’s a big investment. I start emailing with Tory’s staff, find out that my company is not already represented, etc. About 45 minutes later, there I am with my credit card paying for the conference. Hours later my hubby comes home and asks about it. “Oh, yeah, um, I couldn’t pass it up and I already registered.” I knew in my gut that I needed to go, and I couldn’t have been more right.
Focusing on women entrepreneurs, I had the obvious goals — learn more about owning and building my businesses. I got that, but I left with so much more. I left with new supports, new mastermind partners, and what I believe will be some life-long friendships. We laughed, we cried, and we ate too many sweets. I can’t even begin to describe the experience. I’m still in awe of the speaker line-up as it was phenomenal. When I got the topics list prior to the conference, I thought “how am I going to choose which sessions to attend?” I’m used to having break-outs, but this was different. We all sat together and had the privilege of listening to each and every speaker with plenty of time to build relationships and networks with the women (and men) who attended and presented. I can’t tell you how inspired I am each day as posts from these amazing people come across my Facebook and my Twitter. You can’t have a bad day when you know these incredible people because they pick you right back up and remind you of where you are going.
I could go on and on (and on) about this experience and still not capture it all.
Were you there? I’d love to highlight you in a blog post and add you to my links. Contact me to work on the details.
Are you wanting to be there? Contact me for a special discount code. If you make one large investment in learning about growing your business in 2011, make sure Spark and Hustle is at the top of that list. You will not regret it for a second!
Castle Jones 