Brave in Business with Bec McFarland

Bec McFarland

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If you're here, I'm guessing that you're interested in straight-to-the-point, actionable business advice that won't cost you time or money! Hi I’m Rebecca McFarland, but you can call me Bec, in this podcast I'll be speaking with entrepreneurs who have overcome adversity, made difficult decisions, challenged the status quo and achieved amazing things in their businesses. Welcome to Brave in Business!If you want help to easily navigate all aspects of the business “stuff” so you can focus on the work that really lights you up, you're in the right place. As a self-confessed nerd I love everything about business and have fallen down many-a-rabbit-hole learning everything there is to know about running a successful venture. Whether you’re starting out, a few years into your business journey or are a seasoned entrepreneur - I'm thrilled to be sharing incredible guest speakers and knowledge that will help you shine online and be Brave in Business.

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Jan 5, 2023

18. Being Brave and Hosting a Conference

_18. Being Brave and Hosting a Conference - Transcript_ Hi, I'm back McFarland from popular business and popular career. In this podcast, I'll be speaking to entrepreneurs who have overcome adversity, made difficult decisions, challenged the status quo and achieved amazing things in their businesses. Welcome to brave in business. Hello, Hello, It's back, McFarlane tear helping you do better and be better in your careers and businesses. Today is a podcast episode that has been on my list for a little while. So as I'm recording this, it is just over a month since I hosted the inaugural Popular Business Conference, and I've been wanting to do a little bit of a download to talk to you about what it was like. But I just felt like I needed to sit with it for a little while. You know, there was this part of me that kind of felt like I wanted to jump in and talk to you straight away afterwards, like, you know, while I was still in the energy and while I was still in the vibe. But then I was also exhausted. It really took it out of me, and it's taken me a little bit of time to kind of get back into I don't know, like being human being myself and feeling like I was in the space to kind of sit down and unpack a lot of the lessons and the learnings and the things that I loved and the things that I didn't love about hosting a conference and more specifically, hosting the first annual popular business conference here in Canberra. So today I'm here. I'm ready. I've got a few dot points. I've got a few ideas of things that I want to talk to you about. But overall, I guess I just want to share with you a little bit about the experience. And I know that if you were there at the conference, then this will be a good reminder to you to think back to some of the great things that we learned during the conference, but also the amazing fun that we had. And if you weren't there, then hopefully this will give you a little bit of an idea about what the experience was like, and I am going to be sharing with you. Some little sneak peeks into next year's pop your business conference. So the first thing that I want to tell you is. Overall, the conference was amazing. I'm sure that you can imagine that since the conference, the question on everybody's lips has been How was it? How did it go? Did it go to plan? And honestly, I can tell you that it was perfect. It was just simply perfect, and I could not have wished for it to go any better. Now those of you who know me and who know like the ins and outs of everything will know that putting on this conference was not an easy feat. I made the decision to hold the popular business conference a couple of years ago. And then, of course, we had the whole covid situation. I had some team issues. There were some issues with the data, like with the finances and overall, it created a hell of a lot of stress. So I've said to you guys before that there was a lot of blood, sweat and tears that went into this thing, and I can confirm that there was, in fact, blood, sweat and tears. And, uh, yeah, I didn't love the whole process. There were a lot of moments where I really felt like I just couldn't do it or that it wasn't working out to plan in the closer lead up to the event. I did find that things started to get easier and I think that part of that was that I started using my team more effectively and really, I guess being a little bit more transparent with them about the help that I needed and the way that I needed them to help me. And I can tell you, like 110% even though that's not a thing. I couldn't have done this without my team. Every single member of my team contributed to this event in a way that I'm so ever so grateful for and I don't know whether they've realised it. But I really think that actually running this conference has brought us all a little bit closer together. It has helped us to get to know each other a little better and to understand each other's little quirks and the things that make us tick. And that in itself has been a really powerful team building exercise. But also it's really reiterated to me that my team are all highly capable individuals and that I really need to trust them more and I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in this episode in terms of my own energy. I found that like, I'd probably anticipated that I was going to be a lot more stressed in the lead up. So because of the fact that I'd had a lot of stress in the earlier stages of the planning and the postponements and all of that, I think I kind of thought that in the weeks before the conference that I was going to be pulling my hair out and like being super duper stressed about all of the things that are going on and there was like an element of being aware that I had a lot on my to do list. But one of the things that I really noticed was that for the most part I was really quite chill and I think that surprised me because I tend to be quite an anxious and high strong person. But I think it also really surprised the people around me and one of the things that you know, I really a tribute to the success that I experienced in terms of my energy was that I sought the help from the experts that I needed in the lead up and also at the time. So I'm really open about the fact that I am in Thera. I've been in therapy for years and I am a huge advocate for therapy. I pretty much think that everyone should just get themselves a therapist. It is so valuable, you know, not just for the times when things are going wrong, but also for the times when things are going right, it's, you know, it can really, really help. And I found that in the lead up, you know, having sessions with my therapist Steph, that was really helpful because we were able to talk through some of those things that I was anticipating and even to some of the stuff around the emotions that I was feeling, because at times, you know, my emotions were a little bit up and down. I think that in one way I kind of underestimated how much actually, like in emotional situation, this was for me, working on what is the biggest project that I've ever worked on in my career and working on it for such a long period of time, like seriously two years having a be postponed multiple times. You know, having the issues that I had. There was so much emotion that was actually tied up in this conference. And I think I really probably underestimated until those last few weeks how that was actually going to feel for me and what kind of experience I was going to have in, You know, what somebody said to me was like birthing a baby had been growing for two years, so I think that was really, really important. I also get physical tune ups. So I have a physiotherapist that I see religiously every fortnight rail from entire physio in Queen Bee in really made sure that I kept up with those appointments to make sure that everything in my body was where it needed to be. In order to support me, I also get a fortunately remedial massage with Sarah Badger from entire physio and really leaned on that. I think that sometimes in the lead up to the conference, I kept telling myself these stories of like I don't have time. I don't have time to go to physio. I don't have time to go for a massage, and I found myself really like on those days when those appointments were booked in. I was thinking like I wish I didn't have to go like I've got other things that I need to be doing. But I kind of recognised that. And I knew that even though I did have a lot of tasks on my to do list that in the long run, I wasn't going to be effective if I didn't make sure that I took care of my physical body and also my mental state as well. And that is a really big thing for me. I think I've mentioned on this podcast before about the fact that I'm not particularly great at prioritising my health and well being and that, you know, I'm so used to like living in my head that sometimes it feels like my body is like, just this thing that I'm dragging around b…