I am just coming back from the RISE Conference and I am on FIRE and ready to take on the world. I feel like this after I come home from any conference I go to.

When I came back I had so much energy and excitement that I could actually sense that the people around me were like “what the ….” But that’s just what conferences do.

Conferences arm you with information and tools that help motivate you and help you improve any aspect of your life.   

Now I won’t go into the nitty-gritty details of the conference, but to give you a quick overview so you know what the heck I am even talking about. The RISE Conference is held by the Hollis Co., which is lead by Dave and Rachel Hollis. The conference is essentially 3 full days of personal development work. Aka the sh** I am obsessed with.

It took me a while to officially pull the trigger and buy a ticket to go because conferences are not cheap. This particular one is the most cost-friendly one I have gone too, but you still have to take time off from work to go, pay for travel, stay and food. It’s an investment, but always worth it in the end.

On the plane ride home my friend Caroline and I were still on our “conference high” and were listing off the “highlights, lowlights, and weirdos” of the conference. Once that was over we wanted to keep the fun going and then started listing the things we could take away from the conference. Then I thought, what can we also giveaway? We made the investment to go to the conference to learn all the things and improve our own lives, but what can we also share with our friends and family at home to help them improve their lives as well?

This blog is dedicated to that. Sharing with you my takeaways in what I learned, but also, messages I wanted to give away to you to hopefully help you feel excited, inspired and motivated to take charge of your life and to make a change.

Now I present to you, The Takeaways and Giveaways of the RISE Conference.

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Let’s start with the Takeaways. 

My takeaways were parts in the conference that really resonated with me and just seemed to click at that moment, an “aha” moment.

1. Own your story, own your past. This seems simple, but I think so many times, so many of us are ashamed, embarrassed, or pained when thinking about things you have done or things that have happened to you in the past. We hold onto these old negative limiting beliefs that stop us from taking a risk or allowing ourselves to let our hair down and live our life fully and freely. LET THAT SHIT GO. Don’t let those old stories hold you back. You aren’t that person anymore, whatever it was, it just happened. It doesn’t define who you are today and it sure as hell doesn’t define where you are headed. Take ownership of your story and decide what your past means about your future. Don’t let your past take ownership of you.

2. You can’t hate yourself better. This one cut me to my CORE. Growing up I was always insecure. I can remember the times I would look at myself in the mirror and truly hated something about myself. Not disliked, not embarrassed, but hated. It’s awful and it hurts to even think about it. But I don’t think this was uncommon. This happens to many teenagers and then they carry that thought through adulthood.

Looking back now I realize just how stupid it was because it did NOTHING except made me feel even worse about myself. You can’t hate yourself better. I can’t hate myself better. When you go down the path of “nothing is enough”, everything actually gets worse. What we can all do, is to love ourselves better. We can change our perspective about ourselves and our situation, and once we do that, our whole world will change. So I can’t HATE myself better, but I can LOVE myself better.

Now the Giveaways.

The giveaways are things that I want to share with you.

1. Lead by example, live fully and boldly into the person you are today and by doing that you will inspire others to do the same. I think this is one of the best things that you can do to lead and inspire the people around you. It’s to be your authentic self. To love yourself as you are. To go after your dream. To try. To fail. To try again. To fail again. To sing at karaoke, loudly. To ask him or her on the date. To let yourself eat the pasta on date night. To be truly happy for others. To be appreciative and grateful for what you have and the people in your life. To share your story. To swallow down the fear and possible embarrassment and do it anyways. The more you love, live, and share, the more you allow others to do the same. They are watching you and they will follow your lead, so lead them well. This is your opportunity to make a positive impact on your world.

2.The elephant story. Jen Hatmaker is a blogger that went to the conference and she had a great talk, but she told this elephant story at the end that everyone should know about. So here it is.   When there is a pack of elephants and one of the women in the pack is about to give birth to her child, or if they are injured, the other female elephants make a circle around the hurting or birthing elephant. They make a circle around her with their backs to her, facing outside of the circle. The elephants will stomp their feet and kick up dust to hide the injured female in the middle and to warn anyone who might be close, “if you want to get to her, you have to get through us first”.  I cried when she told the story because that doesn’t happen in life. Many times women don’t stick up for one another but they tear each other down, make fun of each other or talk behind each other’s backs.

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Together, let’s change that and act like the elephants. Stand up for your sister or brother. Stand up for your friends when they are down. Build each other up, support each other, be genuinely happy and excited for each other when something great happens and then be there to pick them up or stand guard when something bad happens.

My dad has always said: “The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself to improve yourself.”

Conferences are one of those things I do for me.

What are you going to do for you?

Until next time!

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