Earlier this month, I took my first trip away from my (not-so) baby (anymore) to attend Yellow Conference. It was part personal, part professional, and fully experiential.
(Psst: Get to know Joanna, the Founder of Yellow Co and the visionary behind the event, via my interview with her on the podcast.)
And while most of the magic was in the IRL conversations I was finally able to have conversations with some of the amazing women I’ve shared space with online, I also really enjoyed the speakers.
I’m sure each person took away something different from each session, but I wanted to share MY takeaways with you in case this wisdom or insight is something you can apply to your life and your business.
Arielle Astoria
Arielle shared the concept of leaning into and trusting kairos (aka divine timing) vs chronos (traditional time). What I took from this is the idea that we can plan every minute of every day and life is still going to happen. We will never be able to schedule in and account for all the unexpected amazing opportunities and horrible roadblocks that come our way. So when it feels like a right place, right time situation, jump on it.
She also talked about believing that “I’m deserving of all the good waiting for me.” Oof, powerful. And “believing in who I am and who I can be.” Double oof.
So often we’re our own biggest critic, pumping our own brakes before we even allow our efforts to really take off. Imagine how much better the world would be if everyone sought out good and aimed to be their truest and best selves…
Abiolla Ballah — Phern Education
Abiolla actually worked with the Yellow team to create the event’s community guidelines, which is an awesome, values-aligned practice to get into if you host events, facilitate workshops, or create community in any way—even working 1:1 with clients. I always appreciate (and yet rarely do it myself) when leaders set the tone with a unified understanding and culture.
In these guidelines and in her talk, she talked about creating safer, brave spaces—not passive ones, but ones of action. And “safer,” but not necessarily “safe spaces” since that’s subjective. And because positive intent does NOT always equal positive impact. (We’ve all been on the receiving end of “It wasn’t my intention to make you feel that way.” And yet they did…)
She also talked about listening to understand, not just to respond. And that changing someone’s mind isn’t the goal when it comes to DEI work. Instead, it’s to understand and put your stake in the ground for what you believe in. (Aka why values are such useful tool to communicate these big ideas in a really concrete and actionable way!)
And she recommended that we don’t try to “change the world” in one fell swoop, but to start with our own orbit and sphere of influence. She cited Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Dr. Sonya Anderson — Embark Strategies
Dr. Anderson was unexpectedly my favorite speaker from the conference. She was understated, internationally-minded, had a wide range of interests, and seemed deeply committed to the question “What do you want to be known for?”. (Which as you hopefully have noticed, is one of the central themes of my business.)
She shared that when you’re always strong, you can’t be soft or let your guard down. Which then limits your ability to experience and explore the curiosity of what’s possible for you and yours. So all those walls we’ve been building are blocking US from lots of things too, not just keeping all the “bad stuff” out. This extra resonated with me because I’ve recently been watching some videos about femininity, feminine power, and soft life—ideas I’ve often judged or rejected for myself.
Curiosity was one of her core values. She said she has a “spirit of insatiable curiosity,” believes in pursuing curiosity, courage, and conviction, and calls herself a polymath — aka a multi-passionate, a “scanner”, or a Renaissance person. She often asks herself how to take experiences and leverage them for “the next right step.” Not a life goal, not a career plan, just the next thing that feels aligned. This jumped out at me because both curiosity and courage, as well as simply figuring out the next right step have been huge recurring themes amongst my podcast guests. It seems the more mature and sophisticated the founder and brand, the more these values shine through.
She gave us a toolkit of questions she frequently asks herself that I’d like to pose to you too:
1️⃣ “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Fear of failure (aka perfectionism), fear of judgement or rejection (aka people please), fear in general hold us back SO often. What a powerful way to flip the script and remove fear as a factor with this simple question.
2️⃣ “What’s the worst that could happen?” And my favorite variation of this is “What’s the BEST that could happen?” Because I’ve found that more often than not, the potential is worth so much more than the risk.
3️⃣ What am I good at? What do I want to be known for?
I wrote: asking questions, anticipating needs, empathy, resource gathering and sharing, connecting dots, being a cause champion, my enthusiasm, being “the values person”, giving advice, creative problem solving.
Super interesting to see the overlap and differences between these 2 questions. I’d love to hear what you have to say for this one!
4️⃣ What am I learning?
She kindly reminded us that you have survived 100% of your worst days. (Which I’ve definitely seen as a meme or inspirational mug, but it felt comforting to hear it again because it’s so true.)
And similar to Arielle (see above), she said “If it’s yours, let it be yours. If you don’t believe in your greatness, how will anyone else?” She’s learned over the years (with great difficulty, which she shared through some compelling stories) that “I don’t have to pick up what other are putting down for me. And sometimes what they’re putting down have nothing to do with me.”
Even more inspo from her (I told you—something about her session just struck a chord with me!):
1️⃣ You are both a masterpiece and a work in progress. Both can be true at the same time.
2️⃣ Invisible doors may be opening to where you want to be, where you’re destined to be. Keep an eye out for them.
3️⃣ “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” — John Dewey
She read Our Deepest Fear by Marianna Williams. These are the verses that stuck out to me most:
1️⃣ “We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
2️⃣ “Your playing small does not serve the World. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you.”
3️⃣ “As we let our own Light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Sustainability Panel
This panel had 3 experts and a moderator, but I especially wanted to shoutout my friend Olena Mytruk. She’s a podcaster, community mentor & coach, mom & wife, and all-around go-getter.
Some of my favorite mic drop moments from her included this idea of knowing when it’s time to sprint, but also learning to recover while still moving because often can’t stop entirely. (She’s a runner, if you can’t tell.)
She also reminded us to focus on what you’re good at—to tune into when you feel most aligned and most alive and energized. Bring more of THAT into your life. This doesn’t mean you can’t explore and be multi-passionate, it just means to follow what feels good and your life and work will build and evolve from there.
Finally, she said that the quality of our lives depends on what we choose and the people we allow in our lives. So often we feel we don’t have choices in life, but when we really think about it, we choose the life we lead every moment of every day. (Caveat: many factors of privilege DO play outside of our control and outside of our sense of agency. But many big and small parts of our life could change if we took the bold, brave action toward that shift.)
Flodesk
This session on better-converting lead magnets is probably the most applicable business-y insight from any of the sessions.
First, she set the tone by sharing that email is more democratic than social media. I didn’t understand what she meant until she gave this example: You could have 100 people on your mailing list and you’d still sit on top of an email from Anthropologie or any big-name brand with millions of subscribers and dollars behind their campaigns. Love that perspective shift.
She also said email converts 40x compared to social. I haven’t crunched the numbers to that degree, but I absolutely know I “make more sales” from email than all the social content I put out in the world.
And now to the main part: the lead magnets. These were some of my favorite ideas she shared for how to create a lead magnet (opt-in, freebie, whatever you wanna call it) that people actually want:
- share your top tips
- create teaser content, then upsell to the full content
- create a discount code (like every single retailer on the internet)
- share video/audio/ebook
- give away a free product
- create a waitlist (I’m actually going to try this out for Momentum Meetups in December! I might also offer a discount for people who join the waitlist)
- design a quiz (This is obviously the most in-depth, but I’ve heard it’s also one of the best for finding really well-aligned audience members. Because it takes them more effort up front, they’re more investing in getting into and staying in your orbit.)
Alok
The theme of the conference was “wonder” and Alok shared some really poignant insight on the concept: for them, “Wonder doesn’t have to be childlike — it can be the most mature relationship to connect us with our creativity.” (Wonder and curiosity are like 2 sides of the same coin, so we’re seeing this theme pop up again!)
I actually found their entire talk to be full of nuggets of wisdom:
1️⃣ Other people’s projections aren’t your reality or responsibility. (This one hit REALLY hard for me.)
2️⃣ Getting lost is how we get found, getting it wrong is how we get corrected. 😳
3️⃣ They are reallocating their time and energy away from proving their worth to others and putting it toward claiming their worth for themself.
4️⃣ Kindness is rigor, compassion is sophisticated. (Yet another reason I LOVE working with conscious and caring leaders.)
5️⃣ Hiding yourself takes so much energy and work. Instead, you could be pouring that into living your best life. ✨
Grief Ceremony
A grief ceremony is NOT my normal cup of tea, but I was trying to get the absolute most out of my time there (and away from baby girl), so I went to the early-morning add-on. And it was one of the most powerful experiences from the whole weekend. Most of my breakthroughs are too personal to share here, but I’ll leave you with these 2 ideas:
1️⃣ The leader, Jasmine, said, “Intention is the arrow that drives us.” Intentionality is one of my core values and the one I find most difficult to act on. So this really stood out to me.
2️⃣ She had us all write some reflections on a paper, then put them all into the middle of the circle, select someone else’s sheet, and read it out loud. It was stunning to hear my own words out of someone else’s mouth. I want to re-create something like this (but slightly less heavy and not around grief) in my own version of a co-creation circle, where people share their hopes, goals, and/or values, then we swap and read someone else’s out loud. I think it’ll be really validating and empathy building.
I want to re-create something like this (but slightly less heavy and not around grief) in my own version of a co-creation circle, where people share their hopes, goals, and/or values, and then we swap and read someone else’s out loud. I think it’ll be really validating and empathy-building.
Mandy Teefey — Wondermind
I had never heard of Mandy or Wondermind, but once I found out she’s Selena Gomez’s mother, I couldn’t unsee it…they look and sound IDENTICAL. Her focus is on mental health resources, especially through media. But some of my favorite takeaways were more like “mom advice” than CEO wisdom:
1️⃣ Takes the strength, focus, love, and drive that you pour into everyone else and invest it in yourself.
2️⃣ If you give space to people to speak their truth, the floodgates open. (This was specifically in reference to how to manage a team/people, but I think it’s applicable to other relationships too.)
Steph Gallante
This was more of a working session than a talk. She set the scene by saying that perfectionism and productivity are a result of white supremacy and patriarchy. (Let that sink in for a bit…lots of big systemic ideas at play there.)
Her framework for sustainable self-care included:
1️⃣ Release the pressure
2️⃣ Identify your patterns
3️⃣ Interrupt the cycle
4️⃣ Nurture your daily life
Basically, it’s the idea of replacing the “shoulds” in your life with what would be supportive.
And we reflected on these questions, but I’d love for you to do too:
1️⃣ How are you experiencing life? How do you want to feel?
2️⃣ How can you create space for wonder?
3️⃣ What’s 1 small self-care practice to support you?
4️⃣ How much bandwidth/time do you have for your self-care practices? (Another way she framed it: What’s your capacity—what can you do with the time and energy you have?) She suggested you map out 3 actions to take when you have high, medium, and low capacity. (Like an hour massage, a 5 minute stretch break, and 1 deep breath.)
5️⃣ What support do you need? What steps can you take to get that support?
Wrapping Up
I know this post was a bit of a doozy, but I hope these exercises and insights sparked something in you.
My intention for the weekend was to give myself permission to feel, be, do in a way that’s present, full of life, and fully myself. I’m not sure I embodied this fully, but I am so glad I took this time for myself and with others.
And what better place than a conference full of like-minded people to practice your Elevator Pitch? Seriously—if you had a conference today, how would you introduce yourself?
If you haven’t already, download my free Visionary’s Guide To Elevator Pitches so you can talk about what you do and why it matters with real humans who are eager to connect.
Let me know what YOUR elevator pitch is and which of all the bits of wisdom from above stood out to you most!
Toward purpose and progress,
Ashlee
This is an excerpt from Toward Purpose & Progress, my newsletter where I share business tips, good news, shoutouts to Founder Friends, and other juicy snippets. Subscribe here for more rants, reflections, and resources.