Get inspired at a business conference – I highly recommend it! 

There’s nothing like a business conference to get you inspired about taking your side gig or your business to the next level!
I’ve been fortunate enough to this week to attend etsy’s first ever business conference for makers and my head is exploding with ideas and inspiration.

It’s funny because I’d don’t necessarily consider myself a maker anymore, at least in my business. but I admire etsy as a company so much and have love spending the last two days surrounded by other (mostly)women who are self made.
I think the highlight of my conference experience was hearing the keynote speaker, Nelly Gelan. She’s a ny times best selling author of the book Self Made and she’s on a mission to inspire other women to unleash their spark and hustle.

I loved hearing her story and finding so much relate-ability to how she became the rocking entrepreneur she is today. She told us the story about how the first company she worked her butt off for suddenly got sold and her boss was just like, sorry. Finding herself without the job she loved and worked so hard for created a fire in her to never work for anyone again. Oh how I can relate to that 100 percent.

Around the year 2000 I found myself being laid off from the online marketing team of the dot com I worked for.
One day I was worked my tail off creating banner ads and optimizing search engine results. The next minute I was packing up my desk (along with the rest of my department) and vowing to NEVER work for someone else again. That was the day my entrepreneurial flame was lit and that ember has been going ever since.

So when Nelly took the stage at the conference and began speaking I was immediately relating to all the things she was saying and could just feel my excitement starting to simmer.

There were all sorts of great speakers and panels throughout the conference. But I’ll be honest I think a lot of the inspiration just came from being surrounded by so many creative, smart people who’ve started their own businesses. I don’t hang out with other small business owners nearly enough and that became really clear over the course of the conference.
So if you’re stuck in a creative rut and not feeling all that inspired (or even if you’re not stuck!) i highly recommend doing some research to see what conferences are nearby that you can attend. It’s money that is truly well spent and and you can even write off the expense of the conference when doing your business expenses.