My Journey of Alt Summit 2019

I am going to try to do my hardest to put pen to paper right now with my thoughts about Alt Summit 2019. It was a pretty life-changing experience and trying to find the right words to convey how this summit left me the feeling is hard. How do you express a sense of belonging, inspiration, gratitude, and fire in your belly all in on blog post? I will do my absolute best!

I had seen some news about Alt Summit the year before and made a mental note to revisit it this year. It wasn’t something I was seriously considering but thought one day it would be fun to go. I have never really considered taking a trip alone by myself or spend that much money on myself either.

Through this first year of starting my business, I tried to soak up as many motivating podcasts and books as I could. One of them being a podcast, The Alison Show by Alison Faulkner. This girl is my soul sister, she is hilarious, she loves to dance, and brings so much light into the world. But she also gives damn good advice on how to make your personal life and business a success. When I heard wind she would be partnering with Alt Summit and doing her Build an Awesome Brand Workshop one day during the week, I knew it was meant to be. I bought my ticket within the week of finding out.

Prior to buying my ticket, I had some serious guilt and questions if I was making the right decision. It was a large sum of money to just be spending on myself. Usually, if we are dropping cash as a family, it is because we are taking a vacation somewhere all together. But this was a week-long away for me and I had to buy a hotel room for myself and somehow get to Palm Springs too. Who was I to think I can spend all this money and be away from my daughter for a week. But my truly amazing Husband was way encouraging and supported me.

When I told him that I wanted to go by myself and asked him if that was weird, he said “kinda”. I just had never done something alone in my life before and I think he was baffled that I wanted to go a week away alone. But the more I thought about doing it alone, the more I wanted to go. Let me tell you, going ALONE made all the difference. I am a pretty social and like to meet people, I can walk into any room knowing no one and come out with a friend or two. Taking this trip by myself, for myself, allowed me to focus on myself! I wasn’t having to appeal to whoever to be somewhere and do something that everyone else wanted to do. I got to decide my schedule and do things I WANTED to do, be self-fish in a way I haven’t quite experienced.

I couldn’t afford a hotel room on my own so I looked to the Alt Summit Facebook group page and posted a little about myself and that I was looking for roommates for the week. Charmaine message me right away about how she another gal name Callie was searching for 2 more roommates too. And then I ended up finding Mackenzie to join us. The four of us were all in the same boat, going on this new adventure alone. We called each other the “stag ladies”. I got so so lucky when rooming with these 3 other amazing women! They each are incredible people and doing amazing things like blogging, social media management, and being business owners too.

We chose to stay at the Saguaro Hotel. The Alt Summit was spread across 4 different hotel in Palm Springs. They had buses bussing people back and forth to the different hotels, to make it convenient for those who didn’t have a car to get around. I did choose to drive myself to Palm Springs since it is only a 4-hour drive away, so sometimes I would just hop in my car and jet off to the next class session.

Before arriving I had this nervous energy. That feeling before you are about to go on stage and kill your performance. The excited nervous feeling when you are the cusp of something magically wonderful. I had planned all my outfits in advanced and bought some new pieces that I felt were me. I don’t get to really were cute clothes anymore, to be honest, the most day I look homeless, so I was excited to dress up and feel confident in myself.

The Alt Summit is a week long and hosted in beautiful Palm Springs. They provide classes everyday to attend. I had signed up for more classes than there were hours in the day. I was just so interested in all the class topics that it was hard to just choose one. The only day I didn’t need to worry about was Alison Brand School, which was Tuesday and going to be all day long.

ALSO, the KEYNOTE was Joanna Gaines. Yup, you read that correctly. Her keynote was the first thing Monday morning. I sat about 6 rows backed and soaked in all her goodness. She is just as genuine in person as she is on TV. It was a Q&A format, but the audience didn’t get ask any questions. I only wish she maybe could have spoken about a topic for the first 30 minutes, and then had the Q&A. But, it was a magical moment and was great to hear her insight about her brand and being a business owner.

Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday they were providing lunch at the four various hotels. Honestly, lunch was maybe one of my favorite parts. Every time I sat down for lunch I would sit at a table and converse with people about their life and business. I met some really kick-ass people during lunch. One thing was certain, everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone I met, was amazingly friendly and nice. Usually, I am the person that has to initiate conversation but really people were genuinely interested in getting to know me and talk to me. I felt like I belonged, I felt like they were my people.

I can’t speak highly enough of the people and friends that I met over the week. Here are just SOME of the amazing women I was able to connect with:

Laura Bolamperti – a Social Media Manager to Martina Liana Bridal

Aviva Atri – a badass Graphic Designer

Lauren Hansen – a photographer and owner of Be Peachie

Amanda Park – the amazingly awesome CEO of Park and Buzz

Aubrey – the founder of The Mamahood

Meagan Allers – Operations Manager of Marco Polo

I attended my first class session for the week, to kick it off, I signed up for “Audience Targeting” and right after was an “Organic Keywords” session. Both of these are topics I am always looking to learn more about. I felt soooo energized and positive after my first session. I thought it was exactly where I was meant to be.

Each session you were learning from leaders in the industry. You don’t find it often enough where successful business owners are willing to share what worked for them. It was incredible that these influencers, bloggers, and business owners were not only ready to share but willing to help you grow. The only suggestion I would make personally to the set up of classes is that I wanted a deep dive and longer sessions. Each session was only 45 to 30 minutes which sometimes left us all wanting more and just barely scratching the surface of a topic. I wanted more depth at the time, which is why I loved the Allison Brand School Day. Each day I attended around three classes per day, that spread across topics of Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and being a boss babe business owner.

As you would walk around each hotel, you would see ALTers posting IG stories or having photoshoot sessions. These amazing people were ready for the insta-worthy moments just like me. Even though I went alone, I never once felt lonely. I connected with some people on such a deep level about life and being a business owner that most people don’t understand. I have to attribute this to the type of people that joined Alt Summit. It was so inspirational to see how many other badass women there are that are creating their destiny.

I felt more myself than I had any in a while. I felt proud of what I built so far in business. It also made me take a look at the goals I have and where I see Social Graces going. This Summit helped to solidify my fears and doubts and turn them into goals and aspirations.

As the days went on I set my intentions and goals for after Alt. Here are the goals and steps I am looking forward to growing Social Graces:

• VIDEO – I want to provide the world easy, informative, tidbits of social media help
• MORE BLOGS – My love is writing, I want to write even more blog posts for you all.
• TEACHING – I want to share my knowledge with small business owners and how to get started on social media.
• CONNECTING – I want to connect with more like-minded people and grow my tribe.

I needed to get uncomfortable to grow. I needed to take my journey alone. Alt Summit helped me do just that. I left feeling like I had a community of women business owners behind me and helped me to feel really anything was possible for my business and myself. If you are thinking about doing something for yourself, for your business, to help you grow…. DO IT. The money is worth the experience and the growth that will be given to you.

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