We’re crazy excited for the ProBlogger 2014 conference. Like butterflies in our tummies excited. Like Christmas Eve when we were 10 excited. The reason why we’re this excited is because ProBlogger 2013 seriously changed our lives.
We were complete blogger newbies at the 2013 event. Maybe not complete newbies… we were past the stage of googling ‘what is a blog’ (yes, we really googled that) and had been blogging for about 6 months.
There sure were some moments of pure inspiration and merry-ments. These come to mind…
Merrymaker moment one…
We met Trey Ratcliff the morning of Day 1 at the conference and had a lovely chat. He’s kind of a big deal in the blogging world (we didn’t realise).
Emma: “They’re odd glasses…?”
Trey: “These are called the Google Glass”
Carla + Emma: “Oooooooo” (in unison, #confused)
Trey: “You guys should listen to my talk, I’ll probably talk about these”
Emma “Oh, you’re a speaker… awesome!”
Carla “Definitely, we’ve already picked our sessions… but we can probably change”
Trey *Points out he is one of the key note speakers*
Carla + Emma *doh!*
Merrymaker moment two…
When we attended the SEO (search engine optimisation) session and Emma kept referring to SEO as CEO. Seriously, like 5 times. SEO is not the CEO of your blog.
Merrymaker moment three…
When we spoke to Shayne Tilly at the cocktail event, we told him how much we enjoyed his ‘selling stuff’ session. We explained our grand plans for a recipe eBook and he told us “it’s going to be tough, market saturation, etc etc”. Well thank you Shayne for fuelling the fire in our tummies.
Merrymaker moment four…
We met Amanda from Pulse PR, there were some hilarious and deep and meaningful conversations. We’ve renamed Amanda the Merrymaker Fairy Godmother. From this meeting, Amanda has come on board the merrymaker train. She has coordinated our merrymaker hub redesign and oh so much more. We love her.
Merrymaker moment five…
When we heard the amazing Sam Johnson speak about Love Your Sister, balled our eyes out and later had fun chatting to him and massaging his buns of steel from all that uni-cycling (true story). Read about Sam and Connie’s amazing story.
Merrymaker moment six…
When we heard Clare Bowditch talk, sing, inspire. Balled our eyes out again. Just wow. We felt like there was a stream of white energy between us and her up on the stage. We spoke to her at the cocktail event, it was like we were engulfed in a warm hug for those couple of minutes. Something in our guts tells us we’ll be seeing her again one day (gotta love intuition).
Merrymaker moment seven…
When we spoke to Darren Rowse and thanked him for his creation, dedication and general amazing-ness. We were pretty enthusiastic to speak to Darren and at this point we’d had about three cocktails (this is A LOT for people who never drink alcohol… eeek) apologies for any merrymaker madness. We can be a little full on at times… but hey, this is us.
ProBlogger 2013 was 2 days of full on inspiration and learning. It was like cannon balls of inspiration were flown at us from all angles. From speakers, other delegates, the super cute QT hotel and the stunning Gold Coast beaches. These 2 days were the shift for us. The turning point. ProBlogger was a gigantic sign saying ‘Merrymakers, it’s time to Follow Your Bliss. THIS. IS. IT!’
We’ll be forever grateful and all we can say is bring on ProBlogger 2014! We’ve got an epic merrymaker journey planned and it goes a little something like this…
ProBlogger 2014 Gold Coast > Whitsundays Problogger famil (OMG, yes, we’re learning how to sail on a million dollar yacht #isthisreal) > Blogging around New York City for 3 weeks > the PrimalCon conference in California > Paleo Cave Camp Brisbane where we’ll be the official Paleo foodies. Phew!
As you can all imagine there was no way we could’ve gone back to the daily grind of 9-5, no way. So on the 30 July 2014 at 11:55am we’re excited to say that we both hit send on our resignation emails! Good bye corporate jobs and hello to LIFE! Thank you ProBlogger for being the catalyst.
To wrap it all up, here are our top merrymaker tips for when you attend any conference or networking event…
- Network your butt off. Don’t be afraid to talk to anyone, afterall we are all people! Shine your light bright.
- Have fun. Nothing is a chore when you do what you love. Find joy in every aspect.
- Bring snacks. This is a big one for us health/paleo nuts.
- Learn, soak it all up and don’t become overwhelmed. Be prepared to learn a lot and go home with motivation. Your to do list (or as we like to call it, to be list) will be a mile long and be excited about that!
- Have no fear. After all it is just False Evidence Appearing Real! You’ve got this!
Ahhh. #excited. Bring. It. On. Do you have a shift moment you’d like to share? Or maybe you’ve got a top networking tip? Leave us a comment below and we’ll share our favourites!
Always merrymaking,
Emma + Carla