No matter how much coffee you have at a conference, it’s never really enough. Conferences require so much energy. As I write this, I’ll admit that I’m TOTALLY zapped, and there is a full day left to go. But it’s been awesome. Truly awesome.
The kick off event on Wednesday night was sponsored dinners. I snagged a ride with Sarah from Ringo’s Girl and Laura from Hollywood Housewife, and we headed to Cucina Toscana to meet the folks from Minted. Sarah and Laura were both darling. The three of instantly connected, and I felt like this was going to be a GOOD trip. As nervous as I still was, it was looking like these people were MY people. We laughed at the same jokes, got excited about the same ideas, and all pulled out our iPhones to instagram everything. Without apology. Something that’s ONLY appropriate in surreal IRL-blog world.
It’s hard to be able to summarize Alt Summit in one post. There were so many amazing moments, and so many wonderful things that happened, so I’m going to break those moments apart into separate posts to share them with you.
Starstruck (Moment #1)
I was in the elevator Thursday morning, headed downstairs to the morning breakout sessions. I may or may not have been photographing my outfit in the elevator mirror. I put some serious effort into styling for this event, and documenting was paramount. Halfway down, the doors open, and two girls step in. One is dark haired, with almond-shaped eyes, and one is tall, with even taller hair. They said hi, and I looked up, probably from my iPhone. In front of me were Jasmine Star and Promise Tangeman.
Cue the butterflies, cold sweats, palmy hands, and me stumbling over my words to make an extremely nerdy, star-struck introduction. “I know you!” I said. “You’re Jasmine Star, and you’re Promise, right?” Yes, dork, they know their names, but nice of you to remind them, just in case. Ever so graciously, they nodded. I then proceeded to babble on about how I saw Jasmine speak at Engage! (another conference I love to attend), and that I’d seen her at The Fix (an evening seminar she hosted in Dallas once), and that I loved them both and Promise was so talented, and Jasmine was so inspiring, and, well, just trust me when I say that I’m pretty sure I sounded like a school girl meeting Justin Beiber.
But you know what? As we walked towards the meeting rooms (they didn’t ditch me right outside the elevator, and they could have), Promise turned to me and asked, “What do you do?” I was beyond flattered that she’d even ask. What a beautiful, kind, soul. Here were two people that in my opinion, have every reason in the world to have major egos, and could have given me the mega brush-off, or, worse yet, tried to humiliate me for my bumbling introduction. I was so grateful for their kind responses.
The Takeaway
Let’s be honest: there are some big egos at Alt. I think they’re usually just covering up some minor inferiority issues. I prefer to see through the big egos (even when it’s challenging), and hope that the person behind the ego might actually be just as scared as I am. The takeaway? You may be a big deal. However, beware that acting like you don’t care about others can be detrimental to follower count (and follower count is currency in blog world). If you really just don’t care, and somehow you’ve managed to become a big deal despite the fact, I’d guess it’s probably pretty lonely at the top.
It was such a treat to me Promise and Jasmine. I’m so grateful to them for not being those big egos, and for helping me kick off my Alt experience with a little joy and delight.
Sounds like an awesome time! I hope to be able to go to one in the future.
What a great moment Whitney! I have to say that as much as I was disappointed with some big egos (and what you say about it is just like I feel about them too) there were so many great people who were so nice and open! It was really great meeting you, like I said to you, I’m big fan of your work 😉