Viva la Vision.

Live your vision.

In the middle of January, I found myself in Scottsdale, AZ, for a conference called “Vision is Victory”, placed by coach and speaker, Carey Conley. Since I was coaching with her at this time, I upgraded my ticket to VIP so I can attend the extra day on Thursday to hear speaker and coach, Jane Powers, talk about Overcoming Fear (yes, this has been a theme in my life).

I started my day on Thursday, January 14, at the bright and early hour of 4am where I was driven down to Denver International Airport by my awesome husband and rode the plane down to Phoenix with my friend Amy.

We just landed in Phoenix. I was so happy!

Thursday I listen to Jane Powers talk about overcoming fear and as I am going on a journey of discovering myself and participating in personal development, I found her statement of, “Give your fears a voice” inspiring. Many of us, myself included, love bottling up our fears or not even thinking about them much. We never allow our fears to have a voice in order to bring it to the light and then deal with it. I am learning that if I don”t deal with my fears, I will always remain stuck, unmoving, and unproductive.

Jane asked us to mastermind at our tables and we performed various exercises. One of them was writing our fears on paper and then sticking that inside of a hat. The hat went around the table with each person taking a piece of paper out, reading it, and the encouraging the writer (we didn”t write names on these papers). The rest of the table would also join in and encourage with feedback.

We also worked on our 30 second pitch where we identify who we serve, why we serve them and mention 2-3 pain points that we help with. I came up with a new one with mine and I felt that it sounded more powerful; I believe we all learned a great deal that day.

That night we had networking and eating where I got to know Angela Cody-Rouget, Chief Professional Organizer and Certified Organizer of Major Mom. She”s so funny and great to hang around! She also found out that I lived in Cheyenne and she has a client in Cheyenne that loves the Major Mom brand and so I might be doing small work for her as my empire builds.

View from the hotel entrance

The pool!

The sunset our first day

That night, Amy and I was the first to jump in the hot tub, next to the pool. We were so excited at being able to “swim” in January! Then Eric and Angel and her husband (Experience Pros Radio Show), Penny (Connecting Experts), Nick (Carpet Direct), and Tony Raburn (ERM) came and joined us. We had a great time talking and laughing!

Friday morning came bright and early as we were all in awe at the balloons that we got to pass under!

Before Carey Conley spoke, we watched this amazing, heart to heart video that I would like to share with you (If this doesn”t bring you to tear because it speaks to your heart, I don”t know how we can be friends!):

Angel and Eric from the Experience Pros welcomed us in and introduced Carey.

Carey spoke about our vision and how when we don”t have a vision, we”re wandering around, lost and confused. She helped us see that when we have a vision, we can then take that vision and begin breaking it down so we can begin doing daily tasks to get to that vision.

We wrote our 3 year vision to ourselves or someone else where we talked about what we have been doing, what we are currently doing, and what”s coming up in the future. I found that my vision was bigger and grander than when I wrote it just 9 months ago. I was more detailed about the future house we will be living in, what we were about to do, and how I was going about in my business.

That evening we had a DANCE PARTY called Viva la Vision and we ate great food and danced the night away with awesome music! We had balloon partners that was there to dance with us. We named them Mr. and Mrs. Viva la Vision.

  

  

Saturday morning brought us to watch an awesome clip from Steve Harvey to inspire us to take the jump.

Our first speaker was Rita Davenport, who is a speaker, author, coach, and has been on TV (she had her own cooking show called Cooking with Rita). She was my coaches mentor and my coach was able to pay her to come and speak. Rita was so inspirational! She was so funny and kind on stage! You could tell she was in her element as she spoke to us. She talked to us about her life and how she went from poverty in Tennessee to riches by taking herself out of her mindset and setting bigger goals in front of her.

Sorry for the not so good quality picture. Speakers do not stay still long enough for a good picture lol

Did you know that Rita had a speech impediment? Did you know that when she was in 1st grade, she was about be placed in the disabilities classroom? But then she left with her mom to go to California to help take care of her mom”s sister for a while. Rita was placed in the school there and weeks later, Rita”s mom received a call saying that her daughter, who was told in Tennessee that she had a disability, that she was gifted and they bumped Rita up to the 3rd grade.

As many of you know – and if you don”t know, then you will know now – I have a speech impediment as well. Hearing Rita talk was inspirational because I want to be where she is (monetary and on stage) and if she made it, then so can I. I am going to talk a little bit more about this below when I mention my biggest take aways from the weekend.

After hearing Rita speech, we broke for lunch where she sat at my table (yay!), so I asked if I could have a picture taken with her. Here we are with my coach, Carey, down below.

 
We came back and listened to Phylecia Jones talk about budgeting and money and then Angela Sticca-Synder talk about taxes for small business owners. Then came on Angela Cody from Major Mom where she had the entire room rolling with her wit and humor! The last speaker was Nikki Rausch, who talked to us about how to sale to people without being salesy.

Phyleica Jones, CEO and CFO of Keeping Up with Mrs. Jones

Vision is Victory was a success and I gleaned so much information from all the speakers. I really enjoyed my time and I loved being around my people – entrepreneurs. So I want to share a few take aways I had while I was at the retreat. I hope my take aways will inspire you to continue in on your journey, whatever that may be.

– I have been learning, but I felt like the weekend, it finally clicked, that not everyone is invited on my journey. That includes my family and even my spouse. The people in my “front row” are the people who believe in me and encourage me to continue to move forward, even when it”s risky. I am going to start placing boundaries when I speak to the people who are not in my front row about my business. I will have to keep my sharing limited with them because they do not understand my journey. That”s okay, but I cannot have people telling me to play it safe when I know that will stall my empire.

– I also learn that I am not “broken” because I have a speech impediment. I have had people tell me, “Monica, why don”t you do this or that to improve your speech.” I have came to the conclusion that NO ONE can tell me that I”m “broken” because I may talk different or can”t pronounce certain words right. If Rita can make it to riches and fame and still have a speech impediment, who are you (who isn”t wearing a $30K watch just because you can like Rita) to tell me otherwise? I cannot have poopey heads like this in my life and I will NOT allow these people to be in my front row.

– I WILL leave people behind on my journey. And that”s okay.

– I have been telling stories to myself and one of them is “I live in Cheyenne where I can”t network; they don”t get me or understand my vision. I have to drive 45+ minutes south to get that!” I have used that to make excuses. I learned that weekend that if I don”t like my situation and if I can”t CHANGE my situation (since my husband likes the gun laws here, it”s cheaper and his job is here as well), then how can I IMPROVE it? I met a director from eWomen Network, which is a International Women”s Networking Organization who TRAINS women to bring a Chapter to their city. We will be talking about how I can bring an eWomen Networking group to Cheyenne in the very near future.

– I realized that I have been isolating myself and that might have played a factor for not growing in 2015. One thing that was mentioned in November at a conference I went to was that every business owner needs an accountability partner due to the isolation and loneliness that comes with being an entrepreneur. I knew I had to have one and had a gal in mind for it. I asked her in December if she would be willing to pray about being accountability partners and during the weekend, we talked about day and times to call one another. I am SO excited about this new partnership/relationship we are about to uncover. I don”t want to be isolated anymore and I want a partner to hold me accountable to what I say I”m going to do.

I”m going through some big changes and personal growth and I know I have a long ways to go, but I”m so happy that I have come to these realizations at the beginning of 2016 rather than then at the end of 2016. I hope this has inspired you to move forward on your journey and that it”ll teach you how to place people in your front row and who to leave behind.