It’s Saturday; the first day without the expo hall and as great as the booth, was we are both happy not to have the booth today.  I don’t believe my feet could have taken another day and now we can focus on the classes and soak it all in.  So glad because the day was amazing!

Our morning got started with a bang attending the session “How We Make Our Lifestyle Businesses Work” with Debbie Gilster and Dorothy Breininger.  Everyone knows about these two ladies and they are outstanding.  They are always so honest and forthcoming with their information and it was truly packed solid.  I loved every minute of this session; it was worth the entire trip!  Angela and I consider ourselves lifestyle entrepreneurs and what that means is our businesses fit our lifestyle.  Angela is a Mom with two kids and I love to spend time with my husband and hope to be a Mom.  Neither one of us wants to work evening or weekends, we want to work smarter, not harder, we want to earn passive income and not be controlled by our businesses.  Many business owners are working all the time, checking email 50 times per day, answering the phone or a text in the middle of the night and are at the beckon call to their business.  That is not a lifestyle entrepreneur.  But when you say these things out loud, some people really shun this concept.  I hear all the time, “how you could not check email more than once per day.  I will do a separate post on being a lifestyle entrepreneur, but here are few things I learned which I found so validating. 

• Be clear on what you want
• Create me time.
• Create very clear niche for yourself.
• Limit the amount of information you allow in. 
• Create boundaries

More to come on this topic, but I was so appreciative of the information shared.  Sometimes I feel because I don’t want to work around the clock that I am not a good business owner.  I just want to have balance in my life and enjoy everyday.  Like my Dad always says, “On your death, you won’t want to spend one more day at the office.”

My second session of the day was the panel with two A Red Bench experts on; Krista Green and Carson Tate.  The panel was called “The Many Different Ways Of Doing Business.” Now, I don’t do much hands-on organizing so a great deal of the information did not necessary apply to me, but I did love hearing about the different models; I had so ideas some of them existed and I feel more knowledgeable about them.  I especially loved hearing from Krista about the expansion vs. leverage model.  That is where we are; leverage the work you’ve already done and I am always excited to hear more on this topic. 

My final session of the day was with another A Red Bench speaker and it was also fantastic.  It was called Balance or Burnout with the Pam McCutcheon.  I have been known to have burn out from time to time so I really wanted to hear some solutions for both me and my clients.  The class was very informative and interactive.  I learned I need to face and deal with what stresses me out before it can be addressed. 
 
Also on Friday was the Awards luncheon and the closing keynote with author Micheal Port (the keynote was very disappointing so we’ll just skip that altogether.) Congrats to A Red Bench member Lauren Halagarda for winning an award for the website committee and to Denslow Brown for winning the Founder’s Awards. 

The day ended with dinner in the lobby with colleagues and friends.  Overall, a great end to the day.