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When an idea shows up twice in the same week I know it’s a message I need to hear. I’m reading Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott with my Mastermind group. Scott teaches how to have powerful conversations with yourself, those you work with, live with and love. She lays out a process to have one conversation at a time about topics you’ve been unable or unwilling to have. This includes showing appreciation. Scott writes, “Who needs to hear from you? Who needs to know what you appreciate about him? If there is any possibility that people don’t know how much you value them, there’s a conversation that needs to occur.” 
Mike Bernard posts why he carves out time to write handwritten notes to his team instead of a text message or a Facebook wall note.
I write a lot of notes and send them snail mail. I’ve blogged about my handwritten notes of congratulations, thanks, to mark a change of life and notes of comfort and yet I wonder who needs to hear how much I value them. I’m off to go grab my pen and notecards. Anita Reach Partners
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May the Irish hills caress you; may her lakes and rivers bless you; may the luck of the Irish enfold you; may the blessings of St Patrick behold you 
When you sell out a day or two before an event you get one option: congratulate yourself on good budgeting and keep plugging away at the last minute details you need to complete to pull it off. 
To our extreme pleasure, we sold out an event, twice. Once three weeks before the event and again eleven days before.
When you sell out weeks before an event, you get options: 1. Open a bottle of champagne celebrate that your event will go as planned knowing you have a strong plan of action, or 2. Pour a cup of coffee, grab a pencil, sit down and consider how to make adjustments to accommodate more people. Adjustments can mean a variety of considerations from the extreme: secure a new venue or add another day to the less drastic change of furniture or room layout. Each carries additional questions that relates to settings, seating, menu, budget, staffing, and materials. Don’t Sell Out Strategy. To make the important decisions to change an event, circle back to the strategy. What’s the simplest reason to host the thing in the first place? To make money? Connect people? Educate? Go through your strategy and think through how all, not just the additional, people will be served. Do the math. All of it. How many additional tickets you have to sell to make financial sense of the added work to reconfigure the setting for new seating and additional menu items, the material and staff time? Will everyone get what they paid for? Consider the time. Do you have enough time and energy to pull it off? Do you have enough staff to manage the day with additional people? Can you order and ship more give-its for the swag bag? Print more materials for the packet? Make additional custom birch-bark name badges? Consider the place. Sure, maybe you CAN fit 75 more people in the back of the room, but really, SHOULD you make them stand? Carry the torch. Don’t forget about messages! Can you quickly create a new plan to clearly communicate the new world order? Do you need to create additional signs or activities to maximize your space or guide people to the new meeting place? Congratulations you sold out! Rachel Reach Partners
I know working an event is not the same as being fully present as an attendee. I may be in the room and able to hear but my concentration is focused on a myriad of details: how is the sound and light levels, does the speaker need water, does catering need a prompt to set the snack, are bathrooms clean, is the new signage posted, do exhibitors have what they were promised, what are the set-up needs for the next transition, are the volunteers in place, did the attendee get her receipt, and other details, all at once.
Rebecca Undem, event-day emcee and creator of How Mommy Got Her Groove Back, hit it home for me in her recap of the event: self-care is not selfish. While I am honored to have played a part in taking care of all those Moms that had the courage to acknowledge, “I need this for me” for now, I’ll relive the day through Rebecca’s lessons learned and let her remind me again that self-care is not selfish. Read Rebecca’s event recap of otmomLIVE! Learn more about Rebecca and How Mommy Got Her Groove Back Anita Reach Partners |
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January 2019
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