This past weekend I had the privilege to not only celebrate my Second year with this awesome company but to go to National Conference. What a blast! For those of you that don’t know , Thirty-One Gifts is a great company that provides Bags, totes, home décor and jewelry solutions. I was a customer for 5 years before I took the leap to become a consultant and I can honestly say its one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Before I get carried away with my weekend adventures I’d like to share my “why” . Why I joined, took the leap, whatever you want to call it.
My why is this: I’ve always wanted to be seen as a contributor in some way. Whether it be to society and my community as a giving person, or to my family by contributing to our way of life by teaching our kids to give back where we can, and by teaching Illa that you can go for your dreams AND be a kick butt mom. I just want to set the world on fire (in a good way) I love meeting new people and I love to light them up as well. By partying with new people I get to meet them,spread a little joy and have a lot of fun. I also wanted one outlet/area of my life I could control.
You see at the time when I decided to join, we as a family were elbow deep in trying to figure out what was wrong with Greg. We had been to SO MANY doctors. No one could tell us why he was in pain, where it was coming from and how to make it stop. I felt so helpless and frustrated. I mean there are only so many times you can call insurance and doctors before they start wanting to put YOU on a ” Do not call” list. I figured if I could just focus on one area where I got to be myself and throw my whole self into it I could focus on that and not what was scaring me to death with Greg.
So in many ways joining this AWESOME sisterhood has set me free! I have loved it.
Ok moving onto last weekends adventures .. SO to make matters even better.. my awesome friend joined with me on the same day and we get to go together. My sponsor is my great friend of 10 years as well. So this really is lots of friendships coming together when we meet up!
We flew out Thursday afternoon and with the 2 hour time difference it was 10:30 by the time we got to Columbus, OH. Some of our friends were kind enough to come pick us up from the airport and go back to the hotel. A lot of us were staying at the same hotel which made it fun!
Columbus was experiencing a heat wave and I don’t do HEAT very well anymore… especially combined with humidity. To say I was hot was a GROSS understatement.. here’s a look at my lovely sweat beaded face…
I sent this to Greg after walking outside for 10 minutes. Good grief. On a side note : I’d like to give a shout out to my Maskcara makeup. Y’all my eyeliner was the only thing that budged. Even with me sweating like a blacksmith my face stayed on. So props to them!
That first day was filled with sweating (jk) registration, picking up our amenity and shopping!
The line was long but thirty-one knows how to keep things moving so we had a blast. I got everything I wanted from the conference store and a dash extra. After all that we were tired and went back to the hotel for approximately 30 seconds before headed back out to meet up with our friend and sponsor.
That first night was filled with people getting recognized for achievements and a few tips for us to take away.
The next day we had an amazing speaker named Kindra Hall. It was on Strategic Storytelling . I didn’t even know that was a thing! She was amazing and I learned SO much from her! I also sensed a kindred spirit. She is a tiny blonde ball of energy and I instantly loved her!
I’m a big quote person (pun intended here) I feel like surrounding yourself with positive messages can TOTALLY affect your outlook and attitude. So I jumped at the chance to snap a pic with these. Both of them I loved for different reasons. I’m not sure if you’re aware but Thirty-one has what they call the Gives campaign. or Be the Give. They partner with different organizations throughout the year to help give back ( something very close to my heart) They have partnerships with Ronald Mcdonald house , Girls on the Run, National Network to end Domestic Violence just to name a few. The Domestic Violence Campaign Slogan this year is “Actually, I Can” This quote has just the right amount of sass and strong will in it and I’m 100% here for it! I have family members who have been affected by domestic violence, it’s a large reason of why I did the Zipper pouch Mothers Day fundraiser. I want to help in anyway I can.
Our last General session had another amazing speaker, Michelle Pohler. She talked about facing our fears and getting out of our comfort zone in a way I hadn’t really heard before. One of the best take aways from her speech for me was a story she told about facing her final fear . When about to face it someone asked her ” What’s the worst that could happen?” Now if you’re like me I’m sure you’ve asked yourself that question MANY times. Who hasn’t?! But my favorite part was when she said she changed one word that made it ALL different . ” What’s the BEST that could happen?”
After that Conference was technically over so we had lunch with some more amazing friends and had lots of laughs . Y’all I can’t emphasize enough how fulfilling, fun and rewarding it is to go to conference. You should just come with me and find out for yourself!
I’m so excited for Conference next year ! It’s gonna be blast as well! I’m already counting down the days.
Till next time
~Laura
Life, Party of 4 