At the end of October I had the pleasure of attending Marie Forleo‘s Rich Happy & Hot Live in New York. (I designed and built the WordPress website back in August.) The conference delivered a plethora of smart and sexy business advice from a knock-out line-up of speakers, including Danielle Laporte, Julie Cottineau, Laura Roeder, Josh Pais, Regena Thomashauer, Russel Simmons, Kris Carr, Simon Sinek, Derek Halpern, and Ramit Sethi! (that’s me on the right, after a much needed new haircut 🙂
What surprised me most about the conference was the amount of content devoted to personal development. This was actually quite a pleasant surprise, and I found this type of content to be almost more relevant than the specific business tools provided.
It all comes down to: if you are a business owner and you don’t have your own shit together (aka emotionally strength and stability), how can you expect your business to stand a chance?
Marie provided tons of practical business advice, along with a ton of super sexy dance moves (there was a Wheel of Dance).
Each speaker was outstanding and brought something completely different to the table.
Danielle Laporte gave an inspiring talk on finding your creative edge. It was fantastic to see her energy on stage, as I have followed her website, whitehottruth.com for a while now, but I have never had the pleasure of seeing her in person before. Her no-BS approach is really down to earth and inspiring. I highly recommend her Spark Kit if you need an entrepreneurial kick in the ass.
Simon Sinek was one of the crowd highlights, clearly! An optimist at heart, he discussed the importance of knowing the “WHY” behind yourself, and your business. It’s not about WHAT you do, or HOW you do it, it’s about WHY you do it. People don’t buy the WHAT, they buy the WHY. Check out his inspiring Ted Talk.
Ramit Sethi of I will teach you to be rich was another GEM. He gives straightforward, no B.S. financial and business advice, and has no problems saying no to customers that don’t fit his target audience. He’s a bestselling author, and uses his background in psychology to understand customer purchasing behaviour.
Regena Thomashauer. OH Regena. I had never heard of her before this conference, and she ended up being on the highlights for me. She was carried onto the stage unapologetically by two shirtless men. I have never seen a woman ooze such confidence before in my life. She has made a multi-million dollar business through helping women build confidence and learn how to experience pleasure via her School of Womanly Arts. My favourite line from Regena was “If I can make millions of dollars talking about pussy, YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!!” It was a reminder that literally anything is possible if you are authentic, creative and true to your strengths.
I was especially impressed with Josh Pais’ Committed Impulse session on the first night of the conference. It was exactly what I needed. I still use the tools he shared with us on a daily basis. It was a good reminder about really being “present,” not worrying about things that haven’t happened yet (or might happen), and learning to channel your fear into something productive.
The whole line-up was exceptional, and I might follow up with some more notes after I have had time to process everything further. I highly recommend the conference for anyone trying to get their business going, self-employed or not!
It was such a pleasure to work with Marie Forleo and her team, and the conference was a brilliant success! I met some incredible people, including Margaret Reffel, Tina Su, and Suzanne Hawkins, to name a few. I was also able to coordinate with fellow twitterer Prescott Perez-Fox while in New York! Also, a huge thank you to the girls at Blushing Bloomer Boutique for hosting me while I was there. I cannot express my gratitude enough.
xo
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